Hello Underflowers!

It’s been quite a long time (over a year! Shame on me!) since you’ve gotten an update on the website but the discord is updated almost daily with random ideas, thoughts and challenges I’ve been solving. Of course expect more blog/vlog based updates going forward.

So what has Underflow been up to?

Midnight Ghost Hunt

Midnight Ghost Hunt is a contract we’ve been working on and it’s been great. It’s a prop-hunt style hide-and-seek game with ghosts and ghost hunters. If that sounds interesting then check out their site at https://midnightghosthunt.com/.

Bundles and Dependencies

First and fore-most we had The Away Team in the Itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality which recently raised 8.17 million USD. Overall this went well despite some issues with itch.io builds and dependency issues stemming from people unzipping the game instead of using the itch client. I discovered they unzipped the game because the bundle required you to click on the download page for each game then a few moments later it’d show up in your client library.

To help make things clearer for players who have downloaded without using the Itch client, we’ve added a ReadMe.txt to the Windows version that outlines which dependencies (such as OpenAL and the MSVC++ 2015 runtime) are required. For players using the Itch or Steam client, these dependencies are installed automatically.

Idea Jam

The idea jam is a simple prototype phase for me to run through. As well as a way for me to flex my design muscle so I can return to Hackpoint with a better perspective and to gain more familiarity with Godot. There are no requirements strictly and it will go on until I can find a very small scale game that I can release before Hackpoint in order to help me gain experience and possible help fund Hackpoint.

The idea jam came out of my struggles with Hackpoint. Hackpoint is very much still alive but I’ve been having issues with its design and my skill level at level design. First off Hackpoint is a large project that I’ve taken too much time to develop as it is. I need to learn to scope my features better and in order to do that I am building a game in a week. Although this is been going on for 6 months which means I should have 26 games but I have 3. I’ve not been able to allocate a lot of time to original IP, at least not as much as the scope of my games have demanded. I think I can attribute this to me not understanding the Godot engine. Which for the idea jam I’ve been using Godot exclusively.*

The first update will introduce two early prototypes:

  • Footrope, a 2D space pirate management adventure
  • Tacyon, a 3D time-travel first person journey.

*Lastly, why Godot? That question is answered here in the mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/72afea778717/semiweekly-update-0

Semimonthly Goals

  • Footrope: Finish up the turn-based switch over and start designing and implementing the deception mechanic.
  • Tachyon: Come up with additional routes after you play through once.
  • Finish and release a write up introducing the above two projects, Footrope and Tachyon.

Thanks,
Michael Brune