2023 is almost at an end, and its been a busy ol year looking back! Heres a lil ellraiser/TNgineer wrapped [hr][/hr]
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! [hr][/hr]
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! [hr][/hr]
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 [hr][/hr]
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 [hr][/hr]
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 [hr][/hr]
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! [hr][/hr]
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... [hr][/hr]
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! [hr][/hr]
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 [hr][/hr]
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 [hr][/hr] 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