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Hey all!
Some exciting news today! First off, I can officially announce that Mudborne will be releasing on March 20th, aka World Frog Day!
In just over a month you'll be able to experience the world of Mudborne and uncover it's secrets - however if that's still too far away, I've also released a new demo for Mudborne that you can play right now!
This demo takes you through the first area of the game - the Spawning Pools, and contains all the lovely feedback and QoL changes that came from the playtest (thanks again for everyone who got involved in that!)
Whether you played the old demo or not, there's plenty of fresh content for you to experience. (Playtesters - this is just the first region of what you already played so you're not missing anything!)
Be sure to wishlist the game if you haven't already to be notified of release - and I'll see you all at the pond in just under 5 weeks! :D
~ Ell
Hey friends!
Excited to say that the playtest for Mudborne is launching now on Steam! You can request access over on the the store page here, just scroll down a bit to the "Join the Mudborne Playtest" section and click the big button!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355150/Mudborne/
The playtest will unlock starting this weekend <3
This will be a playtest of the full game, limited to the first 3 regions - Spawning Pools, Central Junction, and Kindergarten. If you've played the demo this will still be quite different, as the demo has it's own map.
If you can't wait to play Mudborne this is the time to get a froggy fix!
Hey friends, and happy new year <3 I hope you all had a lovely break and are ready for the 2025! Here's a little recap of what I've been up to this past year: [hr][/hr]
Hey friends - IT'S NEW GAME TIME!
Im excited to announce that Mudbornes new demo is out RIGHT NOW on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355150/Mudborne/
Im also excited to announce that the lovely folks at Future Friends will be helping to publish your new fav froggy game with me. Check out the trailer below for a sneak peak of what you're in for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJq7u9hcAUg&ab_channel=TNgineersOfficial
A spiritual successor of sorts to APICO, Mudborne instead focuses on genetic manipulation and generational puzzles to create and discover all sorts of frog species, that act as keys to let you travel between the waking and dreaming worlds - the demo takes you through the main mechanics and creating 8 different species. If you love APICO I think youll love this, theres a lot of stuff Im doing differently but you should still feel right at home.
Whether you played the original gamejam version or not youre in for a treat, as this is a completely new game, new art, new mechanics, new music, new engine - the whole works. Im really looking forward to you all getting your slimy green hands on it, I hop you enjoy!! <3
Dampest regards,
Ell
Hi friends, hope youre doing well!
Its already the beginning of a new month, and you know the drill: its time for a new recap!
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Hi friends!
A new year is upon us, and its been a bit of a manic start with Ell moving house but were back on track now!
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2023 is almost at an end, and its been a busy ol year looking back! Heres a lil ellraiser/TNgineer wrapped
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Started the year off strong dropping a demo for Rift Breach, an experimental lil dungeon crawler.
This was super fun to make, and helped me get better at scoping small as well as got my out of my usual pixel art comfort zone!
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Then FletchMakes hosted a 7 day gamejam + I couldnt resist making the APICO but frogs Id always joked about
Mudborne was born(e) + I was overwhelmed with how much people loved it. It also showed me just how much I can get done with a super strict scope and detailed plan!
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APICO had its 1st birthday! From a silly concept made in HTML to now published on all platforms with over 50,000 beekeepers playing - truly never thought it would go anywhere
Im forever grateful to everyone whos played and shared this funky bee game
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At this point trying to keep up with socials for 3 different games was getting far too much and I needed help - enter @mibyledraws who joined as the first official TNgineer!
Thank you for all your hard work, wonderful videos, and helping me keep on top of everything <3
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I got round to releasing the 2nd free content update for APICO, "What Lies Beeneath, with all sorts of weird and wonderful ocean friends
Its been tough to keep working on this mess of a game, but its worth it to see how much people have been enjoying all the new content
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Decided that I wanted to take the Mudborne concept into a full-game, and started planning out everything along with a new art style and vibe for it (theres only so far a sprite-rip of APICO can go lmao)
Its wild to see how far Ive started to come from tiny rectangle trees!
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Towards the end of the year I left my freelance contract + went full-time gamedev, not quite by choice but it was something I wanted to do for a while
Ill now be able to spend all my time on the games, as well as all the other little concepts Ive had bubbling away...
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I moved from GameMaker to LVE, built a small framework for future games like Snacktorio + Mudborne, and contributed to the engine itself
Was the first time actually helping making a substantial contribution to an open-source project and I learnt a lot!
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After a couple years in + out of development and a last minute engine change to LVE, I finally finished + released the demo for Snacktorio
Weve had some amazing feedback and its been so gratifying to finally get it out and see people enjoy it
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Looking ahead to 2024, itll be my first year as a full-time gamedev (as well as reaching lvl 30!)
Im planning to release the final update for APICO, as well as releasing either Mudborne or Snacktorio - might even have to drop some new demos too, as a treat
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Thanks for everyone who has supported me and TNgineers throughout the year.
Whether that was playing the demos, buying the games, sharing your progress, joining the discord, posting wholesome reviews, sending me cute bee pics - Im truly grateful to you all <3
Hi friends!
Its almost December, which means its time to recap what happened last month!
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Hi friends!
A month passed by since our last newsletter, heres whats been going on!
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Hi friends!
September is already gone and oh boy, what a month! APICOs second major update came out - What Lies Beeneath :D
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Hey friends!
August came and went, my first month technically doing gamedev full-time! Both exciting and terrifying :'D
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Hey friends!
Another month flies by, it feels like I was only just writing the June recap! Here's whats been going on.
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Hey friends!
We're now halfway through the year, which is a scary thought given all the things I still want to get done in 2023... better get to it!
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====MESSAGE_STARTS==== hey researchers! to celebrate NextFest you'll be able to watch a playthrough of the updated demo here! ~ ell ====MESSAGE_ENDS====
Hey friends!
May has flown by, and it's an important anniversary month for both APICO and myself personally, marking the start of me making games 3 years ago. Here's whats been going on:
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Hey friends!
April has been and gone, finally bringing some sunshine and bumblebees to the garden! Here's what we've been up to:
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Hey friends!
March has flown by, and with it the weather has slowly turned from wet and rainy to... well still wet and rainy cos it's the UK baby!!!! Here's what's been going on
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Hey friends!
February has been and gone - I know it's the shortest month but damn that was quick! Here's what's been going on:
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Hello friends,
A new year has begun! Id like to say I eased back into things slowly after having Christmas off but I literally started the month by releasing a new game lol. Heres what weve been up to:
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Hey Researchers! Thanks so much for everyone who's been checking out the demo and giving me their feedback! This is just a small patch to cover a few bugs plus some balance tweaks that should help you with your escape... ~ Ell =[ changed ]= - increased boss grenade throw cooldown slightly - increased total number of health crates in the boss room a bit - decreased boss room enemy spawn rate a smidgen - reduced enemy spawns per room before your first override key - prevented health crates being usable if you're at full health - added little arrows to speech bubbles - signposted that you can/should seal breaches the first time - opened doors in breached rooms will now jam to prevent accidental sealing =[ fixed ]= - fixed the "perform event recursion depth failure" error - fixed exploding enemies glitching out when leaving the room while exploding - fixed exploding enemies not adding some friendly fire - fixed X tier weapons not dropping a yellow card when scrapped
Hey Researchers! So I can't yet get the game to be reviewed by Valve for compatibility with SteamDeck yet, however I have spent a lot of time making it work nicely on deck as it's my preferred console atm! Steam let's you link an event to the SteamDeck's compatibility notes for a game so this is literally just me writing a post to say "yes it works great" lol Any issues, give me a shout!
Hey Researchers! Today, Rift Breach is announced to the world and the playable demo is live for the first time! This project is the culmination of me wanting to try designing a smaller game with a very strict scope - basically a personal gamejam. I always find it difficult to be done with things and spend far too long tweaking stuff no-one notices, so I wanted to use this to practice getting better at letting go. If youre interested in reading more about my thoughts behind doing this I did a full write-up over on Ko-Fi here: https://ko-fi.com/post/Concept-Game--Rift-Breach-O4O8HUFS2 Im super happy with how things turned out, and I hope you enjoy the game! If you like the concept & want to see more, please give it a wishlist to let me know If enough people are interested, Id love to turn it into a full game, with stuff like:
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