2023 was a bit of a grind for me, and I ended it with the worst bout of flu in recent memory. But I survived, so I can’t complain too much!
Anyway, last year I put together a little montage of what I worked on throughout the year, so I thought I’d do the same for 2023. Here’s what I worked on over the last 12 months…
It seems that there was a lot of SENTRY stuff this year. There were a couple of smaller projects that didn’t quite make the cut because I didn’t have any footage to hand, but I’ll link them below in full…
The Super 1-1 Challenge
I kicked off the year by enlisting the help of my pal, Hristo Enchev, for a significant quality-of-life update for the The Super 1-1 Challenge. Hristo helped out by cleaning up my rough prototype code and introducing some visually appealing features such as volumetric clouds and some lovely new water. On my end, I dedicated time to rebuild most of the game’s artwork, transitioning from rough, flat textures to hand-painted materials created in Substance, a skill I picked up specifically for this project!
The response from players has been incredibly positive, and I’m genuinely pleased with the game’s visuals. Therefore, moving forward, I anticipate that future updates will primarily focus on bug fixes and performance enhancements.
You can download The Super 1-1 Challenge from my itch.io page.
SENTRY
Looking back over my year with Fireblade Software, 2023 emerged as a pivotal year for SENTRY in terms of news and media coverage.
At the outset of the year, I created an off-the-cuff video in which I discussed the process of level design for SENTRY using Unity’s tools. The positive response and subsequent requests for more content led me to propose an ongoing series of such videos. This initial idea evolved into a full-fledged devlog series. Although they may not have reached the widest audience, they were warmly received and served as informative interludes between major announcements.
- Devlog 1 – New levels, enemies and 50k Wishlists!
- Devlog 2 – New weapon and enemy breakdown! And where did 50K Wishlists come from?!
While my commitment (obsession) in achieving high production quality limited the series to just two episodes (so far), my focus soon shifted to the combat gameplay trailer. And we released that trailer later in the year to coincide with the launch of the SENTRY demo.
We are now working towards our Early Access release coming soon!
Something in the Water
And as the year drew to a close, I provided a glimpse of my upcoming side project, “Something in the Water.” It’s a remake of the game jam game of the same name. While it’s currently in its early stages, it’s become my primary focus during my free time. Expect a devlog series once I’ve made more progress in its development.
Closing thoughts…
You may have noticed that func_podcast was AWOL this year. There are a couple of reasons for that, but that’s a discussion for another time.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my entry into the Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam, “Cargo makes the Car Go“, as well as my ongoing work on a series of PS1-style assets. But if you’d like to see more bite-sized content like this, feel free to grab me on Twitter or join the Discord community.
Here’s to hoping for an exciting and productive 2024!