Garden Diary — MageGangsta

A playtester, on an island where a whole year goes by: "Is that falling stars here? Looks like yellow wisps." Fair. Every season came down as the same glowing dot in a new colour. Now each one falls as what it is: blossom, sunflower petals, leaves, snow 👀 #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame

Wednesday, the next island waited in the dark. Then a playtester saw an isle rise mid-level and mentioned it felt much better. Now it isn't there at all. When this island wakes, its light runs into empty sky and the next one rises out of the clouds. #screenshotsaturday #cozygames #indiedev #godot

Next Fest from the other side: no demo of ours in it this time, so I spent the week playing other people's. You sent me some, and I found some. Here are the ones that stayed with me 🧵 #FollowFriday #cozygames #indiedev #SteamNextFest

TsundereSQL by Orphan Rows: SQL questions, marked by someone deeply unimpressed with you. This one got me. It took me back to the years I spent in databases, and now it brings joy X) Thank you all for making them, and good luck for the rest of the fest 🥰 store.steampowered.com/app/5168090/...

Next Fest from the other side: no demo of ours in it this time, so I spent the week playing other people's. You sent me some, and I found some. Here are the ones that stayed with me 🧵 #FollowFriday #cozygames #indiedev #SteamNextFest

Dragon's Brew by @radiccreative.bsky.social : a board game cafe of your own. Brew the drinks, serve the town, fill the shelves with games. Out 18 November. store.steampowered.com/app/3168560/...

Next Fest from the other side: no demo of ours in it this time, so I spent the week playing other people's. You sent me some, and I found some. Here are the ones that stayed with me 🧵 #FollowFriday #cozygames #indiedev #SteamNextFest

ESCAPE: FALSE COLORS by Voss: paint yourself to blend into the map and hope the killer walks past. Two to six players, a new role every round. Out in November. store.steampowered.com/app/4992820/...

Next Fest from the other side: no demo of ours in it this time, so I spent the week playing other people's. You sent me some, and I found some. Here are the ones that stayed with me 🧵 #FollowFriday #cozygames #indiedev #SteamNextFest

A playtester found the best flower in my game. "I just spammed the twins, lol" One seed of a twin blossom fills two places, and each counted double beside its twin. Four flowers for the price of one. Now it's two. Sorry, twins. #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame

This week's playtest: three islands in one scene all grew at once, and their stories arrived at once too. Too much. Now the next island waits in the dark. When this one wakes, the light runs over and it wakes too. #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame

Made a flower that's a bit of a villain. This rose takes all the light of whatever feeds it. Everything else that light was reaching goes grey. Cut its thread and the colour comes back. #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame

A playtester saw my sunflower and said "cant ship with that". Fair. It was three discs on sticks. The new one looks much better imo #godot #indiedev #gamedev

This morning after some finagling i decided - when all isles light up, they should connect with vines all together. So now, when the last one wakes, vines grow across to every island not joined yet, one after another. #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame #wholesome

The biggest scene in the game so far. You dont see it when you make it, but when you try to do a proper playtest, with 2 hours spent on previous levels, that are much smaller - first thing you get there you think - "it looks SO BIG". #screenshotsaturday #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame

On Tuesday I asked which chore you'd turn into an oak. Nobody answered, so here's mine. Emails. In the game a grey tree can't be cut down, only tended until it turns into an oak. If only. #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame #wholesome

900+ tests, all green. Then I played the first part of the full game for 35 minutes and found 7 things they didn't. Like a flower bed with no ground to plant in... How do you see your own game fresh? #gamedev #indiedev #godot

This week: the first six islands of the full game are ready to play start to finish 🤩 One holds the game's first puzzle, a ring where every flower must love both its neighbours. Nothing fails; a wrong try only shows which pairs are cold 😏 #WishlistWednesday #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame

The demo is the full game with its later islands left out. SO - one wrong export and they'd ship to everyone, and noone will tell you. After every export a script opens the built game and reads its file list. Four scenes. Clean.☺️ Basically a test for the export, right?) #godot #indiedev #gamedev

How: a Godot .pck starts with "GDPC" and a table of every file's path, offset and size. In an exe the pack sits at the very end, its size in the last few bytes. About 100 lines of Python read that table and refuse anything from the full game's folder, the tests or the tools.

Each lamp in this garden glows in the colour of the flowers most in bloom beside it. A lantern flower and a willow: gold. One more willow: blue. Who knows why its there? #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame #wholesome

I gave the gardener a salary 😆 One upgrade adds 80 dew to the jar every minute while you play. Seeds and threads don't pay for themselves💸💸💸 Gotta make an effect for it tho #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame #wholesome

Moved a tree so you can see the flowers behind it. The camera never turns, which made hiding flowers behind a trunk a fairly bad idea. Before / after. Coming in the next demo update. #cozygames #indiedev #godot #indiegame #wholesome #demo

You use TDD, right? Playing your game over and over just to test some fix - takes its tall, especially when you have a full-time job too. A bot plays every island, four different ways, and fails if something is wrong. Nobody is holding the mouse in this clip. #godot #indiedev #gamedev