Spellblast now available on Steam Early Access

The game I've been working on, 'Spellblast', by Tonal Recall Games and published by Forever Humble PDX, has finally come to Steam Early Access!

Me and the guys at our studio, Talos Studios were contracted to create art assets for the game with our only limitations being that of the game engine; so nearly complete creative control. Its current build is made with Game Maker Studio Pro, but apprently they're currently rebuilding it in Unity3D, so if the game sees enough support, we can continue to update and expand the game.

'Spellblast' is listed at $0.99 US during early access and projected to go up when complete, but from now until the 29th of February, its an additional 20% OFF, bringing it down to $0.79 US.

Darkest Dungeon on Kickstarter

Kickstarter has been the home to many successful games and now a new title has captured my imagination with it's haunting campaign video; Darkest Dungeon.

Pulled directly from the Red Hook Studios press page; 

Factsheet

Developer:
Red Hook Studios Inc.
Based in Vancouver, Canada

Release date:
January 2015

Platforms:
PC, Mac, Linux, plus TBA

Website:
darkestdungeon.com

Regular Price:
TBA TBA

Description

Darkest Dungeon is a gothic roguelike RPG dungeon crawler about the psychological stresses of adventuring. You will lead a band of four heroes on a perilous side-scrolling descent, dealing with a prodigious number of threats to their bodily health, and worse, a relentless assault on their mental fortitude! Five hundred feet below the earth you will not only fight unimaginable foes, but famine, disease, and the stress of the ever-encroaching dark. Darkest Dungeon focuses on the humanity and psychological vulnerability of the heroes and asks: What emotional toll does a life of adventure take?

History

Darkest Dungeon was conceived as an antidote to the loot-piñata RPG experience which focuses solely on a character's numerical capabilities. Squad leaders and sports team managers have to contend with the human factors as they strive to maximize effectiveness--why not in RPGs? Combining this concept with a Lovecraftian-inspired grim setting, the game was born. Full development began in May 2013 after assembling a veteran team which had the artistic ability, system-based game design experience, and technical versatility to deliver a game that would meet the ambitious vision while also being entertaining to play.

Features

• Manage a team of heroes through the physical and mental stresses of adventuring. Try to stop paranoia, greed, anger, depression, and more from crippling the party.
• Affliction System: Make the most of character flaws and strategically construct your party to overcome hardship.
• Innovative turn-based combat with a nostalgic feel
• Striking hand-drawn 2d gothic art style
• Original score by Stuart Chatwood, composer for eight "Prince of Persia" games and founding member of multi-platinum Canadian rock band "The Tea Party."
• Meaningful consequences and permadeath deliver heightened tension and provide for truly heroic moments.
• A Lovecraftian-inspired story of greed, fallen greatness, and redemption.

If you're looking for an adventure in a cruel and unforgiving world and they carry unseen wounds of gruesome battle on their hearts and minds, then consider backing Darkest Dungeon. 

Symbiotes, Robots, and Bears.

A little gift for my lovelies.

Hey everyone out there!

I haven't updated in a while, and I wanted to remedy that! And to do so, here is a lil' sketch I did of Marvel baddie Venom! Enjoy!

Now, if you don't know me, you might not know I have some health issues; namely my heart.
Nothing too bad, but enough to screw with life every so often. This time, it was looking like I had a valve going out. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. The valve is still weak but instead of getting cut open again, I'm just taking a pile of pills and "taking it easy" for a bit. Speaking of Valve and valve-related things...

Though that did slow down my whole "make a game a month" plan.
Which might be a good thing, considering more and more of game ideas that I thought were totes original are coming out as beautifully polished indie games. (See Matador reveal trailer below; its gonna be amazing!)

Matador is an upcoming perma-death-adventure (read: rogue-like) by Stellar Jockeys and gausswerks featuring isometric action and giant gun wielding robots and one life before starting it all over again. What's not to love about this game?! Can't think of anything? Then you must be a bad enough dude to vote for it on Steam Greenlight. They seem like awesome dudes, so give 'em some love!

Now some of the last news from me. 

Even though my "make a game a month" plan has kinda fell through, some of my friends have agreed to help me press forward with a lovely little game I had pitched years ago. Its an action-y, arcade-y little shin-dig where you enforce the law with massive, fuzzy claws of justice! *Cough cough* bearcop *cough*.

Originally I was going to produce and finance this game (completely tapping me out every month), but once these medical issues reared their ugly head again, I got a new pile of debt really fast. My friends agreed to help in their free-time and have already helped so much.

Once we get a good alpha, we might shop it around to get those who worked on it the money and recognition they deserve.

Until next time,

Dave

(Psst, I heard you like making games. If you want to make games with me, send me a message.)

A special gift from me to you...

That's right, I made all of you a happy little zombie game for the holidays!

PLOT: Returning from his one hard day of work every year, Santa notices something isn't right at the north pole... his elves have started wearing hot-pink leggings... and they're ZOMBEHS!!!
Santa must dispatch these holly-jolly undead creatures with his red-hot coal luncher... to the FACE!

Enjoy some bloody holiday cheer on your platform of choice!

Windows!

Mac!

Linux! (32)

Linux! (64)

All you have to do is extract them and play! Woot! 

So, the game isn't very long, but what do you expect for free? It took me about 3-4 days spread out over about a week and a half to make. Its not the most polished game, but I wanted to give you all a fun little gift this holiday season. 

Anywho, happy holidays from me to you and hope you enjoy this game.

Until next time,

Dave

Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un - download!

Oh hey, wanna copy of Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un?

Windows Download!

So yeah, download and enjoy!

Until next time,
-Dave

Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un

Hey there internets, haven't talked to you in a bit!

Wanna know why?

Me and the guys have been working on some games and stuff, one of which is a digital pet/prison game where you have to care for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un!

(Start Screen! Woot!)

I know what you might be saying. "Isn't that in bad taste?" or "Aren't you afraid of back-lash?"

Well, maybe yes, maybe no.

Now, we don't want to offend anyone and certainly aren't trying to stir up any trouble, but we do want to bring some awareness to the treatment of prisoners around he world; not just North Korea, but everywhere.

Mostly, we just want to spark some conversation about some world issues.

If the game is well received, we intend to create other versions with a wide array of world leaders.

Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un will be first released on PC and if Apple lets us, we'll be releasing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices soon!

That's some exciting stuff, huh?

Screen shots and other goodies will be coming within the next couple of days!

Until next time,
-Dave
(Lemme know what you think!)

A little gift for everyone out there!

Hey guys!

Since I haven't updated for a little while, I figured I would share a little game that I made over the course of about 3 hours, including time dicking around and watching YouTube videos...

The download link is just right there below!

Windows Download!

Also, the team and I have been hard at work on a couple of games, all of which are kinda secret at this time, but for one of the projects, we'll be looking for voice actors pretty soon and sending out test scripts for those we want to test out. Totally cray-cray, right?

Here are some hints as to what we're working on...

-A 3rd Person Action Adventure

-A "Pet" Simulator

-A collecting/fighting/cooking RPG game?

So yeah, life is freakin' bananas right now when it comes to game development, but Manscaper 3000 is just a little gift to say sorry for being absent for so long.

Until next time,

-Dave

(Woot.)

Secret Project - Preview

Hey everybody!

As some of you may know from previous posts I've made, the team and I are working on another game that should be leaps and bounds ahead of our last one.

Here is a lil preview image I'm going to share!

Who could it be?!

Here is some info/hints about the game.

• It's built in Unreal Dev Kit
• It's being released for iPhone and iPad
• It'll bring awareness to certain issues around the world
• It's a simulation (of sorts)
• Some of you will love it
• Some of you will hate it (but most of you will love it)

I think that's all I'm willing to share at this point. We've got this thing pretty well under control and should be coming out early this summer. In my opinion, this will be the first game to put us on the radar as a contender in the games world.

Speaking of our games, Jake put up a good post-mortem of Super Monster Dance Party over on his blog that sums things up pretty nicely about some of the issues we faced with it's development as well as some of the persistent bugs that remain in the game. From my perspective, we accomplished our goal for the game which was to release it. It may not be the best game out there, but it has pretty kick-ass music and its safe for kids to play. 

Aside from that, it was a little awkward just like so many other firsts in life. Don't get me wrong, the team did awesome, but like Jake says in his post, we learned a lot from the experience. The best thing we gained from it was game dev cycle knowledge and for me personally, really learning what it takes to complete a project. 

Anywho, what else was there? Oh yeah, I completed (some more) work on a character that I came up with nearly 2 years ago called Donkey Punch... yeah, a bit juvenile for someone whose nearly 30, but hey, who cares?

Check him out!

Donkey Punch WIP

He's still a work in progress right now as I need to skin his revolver, add detail to his hat, add in his teeth, and of course rig him for animation, but I don't really know what I'll use him for...I mean, I didn't touch the model in over a year and haven't really considered what I was making it for, but I guess practice is a thing, so there is that...

If you have an idea for what (PG-ish) thing ol' Donkey Punch here can be used for, let me know in the comments down below.

Until next time,

-Dave

(Been thinking about it more and more and I think I might finally set up a YouTube channel. Maybe with 3D modeling tutorials and first impressions...)

Fisticuff Gentleman - Teaser

Hey there!

So I've been relatively absent from my blog for a bit and as some of you may not know, I love to make video games. And for the last couple of weeks (maybe even months), I've been working on prototypes and little things that make me giggle like an idiot. These things take time to build, ya' know.

One project that I'm lovin' that I literally just started working on was inspired by a little joke in a conversation I was having with a buddy of mine. I call it "Fisticuff Gentleman"!

watermarks aren't part of final design
pretty damn dapper though, right?

"Fisticuff Gentleman" is an old-school beat-em-up/fighting game where your play this dapper chap (see above) and you must protect a young woman's honor by hurling eloquent insults and bone-crushing fists into the faces of your opponents!

I'm making "Fisticuff Gentleman" in the Construct 2 engine since it's a great tool for non-programmers and programmers alike!

I'll be releasing the first level as a stand-alone executable as soon as it's done and if enough people like it, I'll keep going and eventually release it on Android devices and as a complete stand-alone for PC.

I'll update again later this week with a screen-shot of the gentleman in action!

Until next time,
-Dave
If you want me to work on a game with you, let me know in the comments! 

Snowman Builder Game Development

Hey there everyone!

So as some of you know, I'm a full time student and part time social media intern.

Well, my internship was initially slated for "a couple of weeks" before it was stretched to 3 months.
And then 3 months came and went and now I've been an intern for nearly a year!

In that time, I've helped develop and maintain all of their social media outlets, develop and publish contracted author's posts to their blog, completely re-worked their children's site, along with create hundreds of art assets and photo-manipulations for web advertising across all of their sites. It's been a lot of work!

Recently, while being tasked with updating their blog and site regularly, I was also given the task to create a new game for their Kid's Zone site and have a release to go along with the holiday season. Now, as anyone who has tried to make a game knows, this is no small task. And on top of that, it needs to be developed to work with mobile devices as well!

So the game that I came up with that will fit in the tight dead-line and should satisfy the requirements is a simple snowman builder game made with the Construct 2 engine. I've made some progress getting it to work the way that I want, along with creating assets needed for the game.

Check out below! It's a screen-shot of what I have built up so far!

Looks pretty sweet, huh?

Anyway, I just felt like sharing this little guy with my tens of readers! I'm using the Construct 2 engine to build it up and I'm using a personal license that I got until the company I'm interning at can get me one of those fancy business ones! 

Until next time,

-Dave

(Yay for developing simple kids games all by myself while under tight dead-lines! Woo-Hoo!)