Nintendo Approved!

the estore site is under way...

Wow, what a long journey it was for Candlebook Island to get here. Probably the hardest I’ve ever worked on for a game. It’s odd, because as players you might not even see all the complex things happening in the background, but they’re there. It’s interesting, and fun, and I can’t wait until you all can play my fun little game about taking care of sick monsters and making new friends.

Just another few more days or so, and it will be live on Nintendo’s eshop. And then a month from there, it will have the PC/Windows/OSX/Linux port on itch.io, and then a month after that, it will be on Steam! Exciting times await us.

Now that that’s behind me, of course I’m thinking of next games. I know next year I want to start focusing on that epic RPG idea. I have tested out the system concepts, and have the story underway now. The downside to that one will be that it will be at least a year (or two) before it’s finished. And of course, that’s a long time without any releases, so I plan on having a few smaller games come out first.

I’ve been wanting to do a couch co-op battle royale game for awhile now, since me and my kids love playing these games (first on the Wii, then on the Switch). I did one with them ages ago, for a compo called Death Kart, which was fun! And a learning experience. Anyway, I’ve got a few ideas in my pocket for that, I might end up doing two really small couch co op style games.

Maybe three, depending. One idea is to use the Mode 7 stuff I’m doing for the combat in that JRPG to turn Death Kart into an SNES style Mario Kart game, which would be fun. Though that would be another big project, so I’ll probably save that until after the epic RPG is done.

The other is doing a straight up battle royale style game like Boomerang Fu or Towerfall. That one I’ve been planning out with my kids, it’s very simple, straight forward, run around, kill your friends kind of game.

Another is a variant on that idea- like a combination of gauntlet and a battle royale. I do like this idea because it has a unique game mechanic that’s not complicated. Basically- you’re in a single screen maze with the other players. You all start at random positions. The maze fills with monsters, each monster you kill you get one point. Each time you get hit, you lose a point. If the other player is the one who hits you with a weapon, they steal that point from you.

You get 0 points, you die. The round ends either when the timer runs out or there is only one player left standing. The player with the highest score wins that round. It’s a simple, unique take that wouldn’t be too hard to program. Easy to throw complications into it, too, like traps, that kind of thing.

If you’re too young to have experienced Gauntlet in the arcades, think Vampire Survivors type mobs going after the players. It’s kind of the same idea.

Anyway, that and the sequel to Bad Writer (tentatively called Better Writer). Originally, I was going to do what I did with Catacomb Kitties, and repurpose the Candlebook Island engine for Better Writer, but now I’m thinking naw, probably not. That engine is showing it’s age, since I’ve been working on it for several years now, and I’ve learned so much since then. Better (hah) to start with a different angle.

Anyway, so that’s all that’s going on here. I’ll post again once the Nintendo eshop is live! Exciting times.