Author: Pickled Sea Cat

Legend of Iya and the Importance of Communication.

A pixel art platformer that had a successful $75,000 Kickstarter over a year and a half ago.  It was supposed to launch at the end of 2014, but the delivery has slipped by a bit due to personal issues that the developer ran into.

Updates on the Kickstarter page had been few and far between for most of the last year, and fans/backers seemed to be getting a bit worried about whether Legend of Iya was still in development.

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Why are you talking about this?

While this is normally a website for showcasing indie games/art, as some of you know I source most of my games from reddit.  A couple of months ago I came across an interesting game called Mystik Belle.  I started researching it a bit to dig up screenshots/videos to make a post, and I noticed that the developer had also been making another game, Legend of Iya.

To make an extremely long story short; LoI ran into legal troubles and the developer was making Mystik Belle (a smaller game) in order to fund the completion of LoI.  At the time, he wasn’t communicating any of this to his backers (not even that backers over $10 would be getting Mystik Belle) out of fear of the backlash due to the disappointment caused by a further delay in LoI.

When he did announce all of this information to his Kickstarter backers, along with the fact that the Legend of Iya date would be pushed, they were…actually mostly OK with it.  Some of them even happy they were getting an extra game.  All of the stress of the last few months over a backlash seem mostly unwarranted.

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I bring all this up because I know a lot of game devs follow my blog, and I think it’s important to note how crucial it is to communicate with people supporting your development (especially when it’s monetary).  A lot of people will be OK with you not delivering on time, or below par, or even completely failing, once you’ve kept them updated and been honest.

In this case, much of the initial confusion of the the backers of Legend of Iya (along with worry that it was still in development), and stressful hand-wringing by the developer, could have been avoided with an open line of communication.

The developer has promised to be better at communicating in the future, and I really hope that’s true.  Everyone makes mistakes; hopefully we can all learn from them.

Happy devving. :)

Mystik Belle 

by Andrew Bado.  

A quirky metroidvania adventure, that just released on Steam yesterday, with plans for Android, OUYA, and iOS.

“The game is about a young witch-in-training – Belle attempting to prevent an impending unpleasant situation at the witches’ summit by recreating a potion she is wrongfully accused of ruining.“

Mystik Belle was developed by the same person behind Legend of Iya, which had a successful 75k Kickstarter almost two years ago, but hasn’t yet been released after running into a little trouble.  You can read more about that here.

I’ve been playing it for a little bit, and it’s quite fun, with lovely art and quirky dialogue (though admittedly I’m only a couple of hours in, making gifs sucks time >.<).  

The dev was nice enough to give me a few Steam keys to give away, so if you’d like one, just tweet me @screenshotdaily.  All gone!!

[Purchase Mystik Belle on Steam] 

via /r/gamedev

Cogmind

developed with ASCII art by Grid Sage Games, pixel art by Kacper Woźniak.

[gfycat data_id="BlueAmazingAfricanwildcat"][gfycat data_id="UnsightlyUncomfortableArizonaalligatorlizard"][gfycat data_id="MistyMellowBoutu"][gfycat data_id="ForthrightUnderstatedEidolonhelvum"][gfycat data_id="BestDecentCanary"]

A sci-fi roguelike with both ASCII and pixel art.  Play as the Cogmind and explore an expansive living world (inhabitants have their own routines and reactions to your presence), building yourself up through parts you find and those taken from robots that you destroy.  There are various ways to play other than all out destruction (such as hacking and stealth), depending on what parts you discover and decisions you make.

This has been in development for about 3 years, and the alpha has just come out along with a nifty trailer.  I made a post about Cogmind around 5 months ago when it was purely ASCII, but still sexy. ;)

[Purchase the alpha here]

Lemma 

developed by Evan Todd.  

“Immersive first-person parkour in a surreal, physics-driven voxel world. 

Lemma enables creative building through movement. Spawn structures just by moving through space. Extend platforms, smash through walls, and build new ones, all through parkour moves.”

The game came out on Steam last week, but was actually in the batch of ten games that I posted on the first day of this blog’s existence, which was about 6 months ago.  You can see it here, though I feel a bit embarrassed to bring it up.  I still hate writing, but maybe a bit less than I did back then.  Feels like forever ago. >.<

[Purchase on Steam]

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Plato: Platonic Play Toy 

developed by Stef Stivala.  

“Think of it as a trippy whack-a-mole reimagined for touch devices.“

Manipulate and turn the ball while touching the right spots which correspond to the colours at the top.  The goal is to finish as fast as you can so as to earn more points, and then challenge yourself on a harder level.

Coming to Android, iOS, PC, and possibly VR.

via /r/gamedev

Portalnauts 

developed by GamesPlusJames.  

“A 2D platforming action adventure game featuring multiple characters, each with unique abilities, using their skills to fight an evil invading force all across the multiverse. Players will travel through the game recruiting and unlocking characters to help tackle the increasingly challenging worlds and unique bosses that lie within.”

[Back on Kickstarter]  |  [Vote on Greenlight]

via /r/gamedev

Lullaby for an Electric Toaster 

developed by Andrew Wang.

“Guide a flaming-toast-launching electric toaster across a dark and surrealistic kitchen dreamscape in this 3D horror/action game.” 

Made in one week for the

#LetsCookJam.  You can see more of Andrew Wang’s games on his website here.  I also made a post about Lord of the Aisle previously (a game about an angry old man in a supermarket aisle).

[Download on Game Jolt]

via /r/gamedev

The gifs were made using a Let’s Play video by SnoutUp.