Hey everyone!

It's update time! I have to say, in the last two months, I believe development has made the most progress ever since it first started! We got so much stuff done! I'm happy to say that Sandlyn (the 2nd area) is nearing completion! There's still a bunch of stuff left to do, but we are approaching the final parts. (minus polishing and testing). This area just has A LOT of content.
Okay, here are the devlog's sneak peeks! (All art and sneak peeks are a work in progress and are subject to change.)
These boulders are fun to play with! I wonder what you'll do with them...

• What is this place?

• What a majestic looking bacteria...

The Astromeda demo also got an update this month which added this new animation for Per!

• "Huh?"

A lot of development time was used for planning, coding, animating story scenes, and designing the game's world. We can't finish off a dev update about Sandlyn without some more SAND--- ... Wait... What is this?
I don't know what that was... Well, look at these mini versions of some characters!
Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I will see you on the next development update!

[ 2024-11-25 20:44:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone!

It is that time again! This month a lot of time and effort went into making a bunch of scenes, as well as creating NPC interactions with multiple animations that really bring them to life. One of the new scenes created this month was more atmospheric, and I really enjoyed working on it. I'm very much looking forward to letting you all experience it yourselves! Sandlyn has some rooms that are larger compared to the Basement and are a bit more exploration centered. Following that, is the introduction of LADDERS to Sandlyn!
Some time also went into improving and polishing a few enemy attacks in the code. Last month I showcased some animations of a new wild bacteria enemy, and explained some of the development aspects of enemies in Astromeda. You can check out last month's devlog if you haven't here:

The reception to this new enemy has been very good-- I've gotten many DMs across social media asking me for more, and as someone who is also a gamer ( )-- I understand your desires from the bottom of my heart, so here's one final attack sneak peek of Botanny I'll show! (At least for now)

(All art and sneak peeks are a work in progress and are subject to change.)

*The attack patterns of this wild bacteria are more complex than the basement wild bacteria you're familiar with from the demo, and the attack difficulty is appropriate to this current stage of the game. You can expect the difficulty to increase as the game progresses to keep it balanced. Botanny has more attacks, but I would like you to experience it yourselves when playing the game. Now, here are some new sneak peeks!

• Memories.

• "Where is the captain?!" Nano my beloved, calm down.

• "It's emitting something..."

We can't finish off a monthly devlog about Sandlyn without some more SAND!!!
Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I will see you on the next development update!

[ 2024-09-25 19:00:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone!

The Astromeda full game is progressing nicely, and this month a lot of work went into making many of the gameplay elements. Rooms, exploration, NPCs, wild bacteria battles, new items, etc! I've been getting a lot of requests asking me to talk more about the process of actually making the game, so why not! As I said, a lot of work went into the new line of wild Bacteria battles you'll encounter in Sandlyn. In Astromeda, creating an enemy battle is a very fun part of development, but it can more much more complex to make compared to a typical turn-based RPG. A bacteria enemy needs to have what we like to call a "Big sprite", like Forgi right here:
Then, it needs an idle animation, a hurt animation, and an animated expression for actions like this one:
And then, when the camera view changes to the dodge phase, the enemy bacteria needs a "Small sprite" along with multiple animations for each attack the enemy performs. For this example, I'm going to use the opportunity and reveal another new wild bacteria you'll meet in the game! *All art and sneak peeks are a work in progress and are subject to change.* Meet Opun (green) and Milla! (Purple) Their names are based on Opuntia and Mammillaria which are cactus species. Their unique names were the idea of Astromeda's artist, Ocelot33! In this specific enemy encounter you battle Opun, with Milla cheering on the side! Their species name is called Botanny which is also the name that appears when you fight Opun in-game.
A lot of thought goes into making a good attack pattern for an enemy in Astromeda because it needs to work well with the room size and the player size while being fun and interesting! Botanny has multiple attack patterns like every enemy bacteria. Here's a first-time sneak peek of one of them! After the Bacteria Queen's sudden change, her harsh changes in policies made fewer and fewer bacteria visit Sandlyn which resulted in a lot of trash being left around. This attack is based on the story.
Opun helps Milla clean the garden! ... But with a destructive force that you must avoid.
If you survive the pattern without dying, the garden is clean and Opun and Milla celebrate!
This attack pattern is really cute, and very fun to play! *Keep in mind that this isn't a boss. If you played the demo already, note that for now, in the full game, the DASH will have its travel distance decreased a bit mainly because it allowed you to move through the entire screen in a single dash which was unbalanced and didn't allow for the creation of unique enemy patterns. The dash distance values will stay the same for now in the demo itself and will be updated at a later date but you can expect it to change in the full game. I've played and tested the demo thousands of times by now, and from testing the dash value changes, you don't feel too much of a difference and get used to it very, very quickly. The shorter travel distance also feels smoother and allows you to cancel your dash quicker than before, when if you dashed in the wrong direction then you'd very likely get hit. I usually don't show too much full game footage in dev updates, especially not characters due to spoilers but I wanted to show a bit more for this one, so I hope you liked it! To finish off this month's devlog, here's some SAND!!!
As always, Astromeda is being worked on every day with all of our love and passion poured into it! We're really looking forward to seeing you experience the full game once it's ready. (There's still a lot of work left though ;D) Please make sure to join the game's Discord server if you haven't yet! Also, to be notified of the next dev update, make sure to follow and wishlist the game! Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I will see you on the next development update!

[ 2024-08-25 20:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! This month, a lot of work went into making multiple wild bacteria battles and adding new exploration elements to Sandlyn! The enemies in battles are a lot more animated than the demo ones and their attacks are more complex. You can expect to see a lot of Sandlyn for a while since it's quite a large area in the game. (More areas other than Sandlyn will also be in the game of course, but Sandlyn is certainly demanding quite a lot of work!) Showing you all the new wild bacteria will be spoilers, but I'll try to show as much as I can. Without further ado, here are this month's sneak peeks! (As usual, keeping spoilers at a minimum!)

• Welcome!

• "Enemy attacks!"

• Hide.

• "Dodge!"

Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I will see you on the next developement update!

[ 2024-07-28 21:00:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I just wanted to thank you all very much for all the support and recognition Astromeda has been getting recently! It means the world! I know a lot of you want to get updates on the full game and see some new stuff beyond the demo, so I'm going to be posting regular development updates with sneak peeks here on the Steam page! You can expect to get a development update once every month or two on the 25th! I'm going to show some screenshot & animation sneak peeks, and no story spoilers! Enjoy!

• Welcome Nano! Nano will accompany you on your journey! Now, who exactly is Nano? How/When do you meet Nano? What is Nano? You'll have to wait and find out ;)

• Nano will prove to be very helpful! Uhh, Nano what are you doing?

• "THEIR GLORIOUS CIVILIZATION!"

• A little peek of a WILD BACTERIA from the 2nd area of the game, Sandlyn!

• "Help us keep the environment clean, that way you'll satisfy the Queen!"

Sandlyn is filled with really unique bacteria that I can't to show you and see you explore! I'm gonna keep the updates brief to try and avoid spoilers as much as possible but still give you some cool stuff to see! Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I will see you on the next developement update!

[ 2024-07-13 18:00:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I've been working very hard on a big update to the Astromeda Demo! The update includes many changes and additions thanks to all of the incredible feedback the game received over the past few months!

Note: The following contains spoilers to the Astromeda Demo.

The new update includes:

• The dying animation that appears in the running scene at the start or when you get hit by the acid has been adjusted and is 2.5x faster.
• In the running scene at the start, if you fall or get hit by the boulders, part of the scene gets skipped so that it wouldn't get annoying if you die multiple times.
• A brand new animation now appears at the end of the running scene, when you fall and Per catches you.
• You can now properly close the game through the game's UI! There are 2 ways to do so. You can hold escape, or go to the menu options and press on Quit game.
• Per now runs after you in shock if you walk off the bridge before his dialogue starts.
• The overall dying part of the running scene is more fluid and quicker.
• I wanted to make the first running scene a little more engaging, but since my goal is to make the demo, AKA the first area of the game rather simple so that everyone at all skill levels could learn the basics-- In order of making it a little more engaging I made the big boulders that fall behind you start falling faster and faster, so if you flinch or stop moving you'll likely not make it. It makes the scene a little more intense but keeps in mind that it's the second-ever scene of the entire game, haha.
• New sound effects were added.
• A secret character got a new sprite.
• A few new name easter eggs were added.
• If you perform an attack but deal 0 damage (by not pressing anything), it will show "Miss" instead of "0"!
• A new talkable scientist was added to the Basement labs. The scientist helps explain the reason for the toxic waste being there.
• Forgi's lightning attack animation has received a few new frames. The lightning has new frames. The attack was adjusted.
• Per's 3D perspective idle animation has been improved! It has double the frames to make it smoother, and Per now blinks.
• Per's 3D perspective sprite now has a new addition of the floating cubes he uses in his attacks, to further make his visual stand out and fit his character.
• You no longer get more defense when leveling up as it proved to make enemies too weak, but now it is balanced. HP does increase as usual. Defense will be increased by obtaining armor items. (After testing this myself, this synergizes very well with the full game's items and enemy damage.)
• In the first battle against Actobacter, the battle background's bridge ended abruptly. It doesn't anymore.
• Maria has special dialogue if you ask for fortune telling and you actually have 45 Electros.
• The Residential Area has been optimized and should be less laggy for lower-end PCs. (The residential area was laggy for some players, so I made sure to optimize it more. Please let me know if the lag is gone for you if you experienced it.)
• When you enter the Dark Switches room the music now stops and a sound plays to add to the scene.
• Actobacter's shield in his final battle was reduced. Thus, the fight is a little shorter. Some of his dialogue also moved around slightly to ensure non of his existing dialogue is overlooked.
• You now have a chance of escaping wild bacteria battles without having to take out the shield. (Beforehand you had to take out the shield of every Bacteria enemy you encounter.)
• When Actobacter gets revealed, a scary musical cue plays.
• In the final Per shuttle scene, he had a few incorrect facial expressions which are now fixed.
• New expressions were made for the Per pre-battle scene.
• New expressions were made for the Per post-battle scene.
• Per's cube throw animation in battle was remade.
• Per's teleport animation in battle was remade.
• The electricity explosion visual effect from Per's cube was polished.
• The purple rain attack's visual effect was polished.
• Per has new animations for each attack.
• Okay pretty much everything in the boss has new animations and Per has new expressions for everything!
• Per has new animated expressions in the hallway/small talk scene.
• The 3D player in the menu was updated!
• The 2 queen scenes at the start and end were slightly remade. The coding behind the scenes is now improved and the components of it communicate better!
• Other minor changes.
• A few bug fixes.

[ 2024-05-27 17:29:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I've made some pretty big changes and improvements to the Astromeda Demo! Including:

• A brand new attack was added to Actobacter's Boss battle!
• Actobacter's first attack was shortened and adjusted as it was too long and slow.
• Actobacter's end of battle dialogue was changed with additional information about the Queen's story added to it to set up the lore for the rest of the game more appropriately.
• Various dialogue changes in a few cutscenes.
• The Queen's hand design and color were changed. (More changes to it will come in the future.)
• The DASH tutorial which shows you how to dash was slightly changed to be more clear.

Here's a sneak peek of stuff from the FULL GAME! Small, resilient plants burst forth from the sandy ground, their leaves painted in vivid greens and blues. These plants add a touch of life to the serene environment, swaying gently in the soft breeze.
It's a cactus. Why is it here? What's the meaning behind it? What's the purpose of its existence? And what about the background behind the cactus?
The designs of the next few main characters are also fully done! Showing you how they look would be wayy too much of a spoiler, but here's a very tiny bit of one of them! Haha!
Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I hope to see you in the next update!

[ 2023-12-26 18:45:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for playing the Astromeda Demo! I figured I'd start using the Steam event option more now as it's useful for communicating with you all! Here's a list of the recent bug fixes and changes to the Astromeda Demo that you might be interested to know about!

• The hidden room door was visually upgraded.
• The hidden room entry bug was fixed.
• You can Pet a bacteria and get a new cute interaction of saving its life.
• A bug where an enemy might freeze in battle was fixed.
• When obtaining the DASH, there are new instructions that pop up on screen that explain how to use the dash properly.
• Remake of the elevator pod - with a combo system that gives you more speed! (It's pretty fun!)
• New sound effects for the elevator pod.
• New sound effects for the magnet puzzle switches.
• In the second magnet puzzle room, Actobacter no longer disappears abruptly after completing the puzzle.
• When Per is holding you after you fall, the time until he picks you up is reduced.
• There was a split-second delay when opening the menu. The delay is now removed.

Thank you for all the positive feedback on the Demo. I really appreciate it! I'm working hard on the full game right now, but I'm still fixing and adding stuff to the demo every day. Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I'll see you in the next update!

[ 2023-12-03 19:18:50 CET ] [ Original post ]