As I'm working on that, though, my daughter had an idea for a videogame that sounded pretty cool. Here's a screenshot showcasing how far we got on her game idea. I think it'll be a pretty cool little project, but I don't have enough knowledge yet to help her make the whole thing. It'll be a learning challenge for us both! She drew the visuals herself (background and cat in rad crayon). The blue blocks are platforms, and the cat can move around and jump on them currently.

She chose the following mechanics (without prompting, which was really cool):

1. Cat can walk, run, and jump.

2. Cat can get in a boat to go fishing with a fishing pole, catching fish if successful.

3. And here's where it gets fun: 3 pieces of a Day Scepter and 3 pieces of a Night Scepter (which are clearly way magical) are scattered around the world to be collected. What happens after that is not yet known.

So that's it! I still need to learn quite a bit before I can make any progress with either game, but I'm limbering up and getting ready to CODE IT UP.

Peace!

-OCL

Not so much.

There are good reasons for this, though, so don't despair! I know your entire life trajectory hinges on whether I'm developing a new game /sarcasm. Promoting my new metal album has taken more time and energy than I thought, plus I don't have much of either to begin with. So, progress will be made at some point. Too many plates spinning. Too many balls in the air. It's a perennial problem.

Peace!

-OCL

Peace,

-OCL

As always, thanks for the continued interest and support, loyal readers! There will be much, much more content in the coming months. Peace!

-OCL

Peace!

-OCL

Thanks to everyone who voted for Abby's Song, but this one just wasn't meant to get through. Maybe once I figure out marketing stuff I'll have a better chance! Peace!

A few people have downloaded Abby's Song from itch.io, which is pretty cool. I hope they enjoy it!

Here's the breakdown of the Abby's Song Steam Greenlight campaign on day 16. In the past 2 weeks, we've had 150 new visitors to the greenlight page (thanks!) resulting in 21 new yes votes (double thanks!). The yes vote percentage seems locked in at 22%, which I'm still pretty happy about considering that this is the first game I've ever made. The number of followers has almost doubled (triple thanks!), so that's a good sign, too. Comments continue to be positive, and we continue to tackle updating the character animations in anticipation of a new trailer.

It seems that Abby's Song's journey through Steam Greenlight will be a long, slow one, but that is definitely not a problem for me. The game is finished overall, minus the tweaks we plan on making, and I'm happy to keep working to spread the word about the game. I'm also excited to begin my next game. I'm just in the idea stage for that right now, though. Anyway, thanks as always to anyone who believes in this project. Go vote please if you haven't already! Leave a comment! Anything helps. If you want to play the game for free right now, you totally can. It's on itch.io for free and has a Humble Page ($0.99 or Pay What You Want). Peace!

Here are the new numbers on the Abby's Song Steam Greenlight campaign after two days. Abby's Song is no longer being featured on the "recent submissions" page, so views and votes have slowed to a crawl already, and things are not looking super great. The 22% yes vote ratio isn't much better than it was the first few hours despite a very quick revamp of the official trailer, but the game has managed to secure nearly 100 yes votes overall so far. The silver lining here is that comments have been supportive and encouraging, with a few downright positive ones, and very little negativity. So, while voters are not currently willing to push Abby's Song through Steam quite yet, they are not driven to speak poorly about it either. To me, this might mean that Abby's Song is not really causing a strong reaction in people, positive or negative, but it's just negative enough for the average person to click "no" instead of "yes."

The past two days have been illuminating for me, and I am pushing forward despite the lukewarm launch. I plan to address voters' concerns regarding character animations and porting Abby's Song to Linux and Mac as soon as I can. I have also recently launched Abby's Song on itch.io for a very reasonable price to see how things go there as well. If nothing else, this has been a valuable experience that I have learned a lot from, which will better prepare me for next time. Peace!

Check it out! I figure complete transparency is a pretty good policy, so here's the first Greenlight update. First, though, GO VOTE! Ok, now that you're back, let's take a look at these mystical numbers. We may even call them "metrics," but I don't know why we would.

I have to say that the campaign is off to a slow start. There have been some criticisms of the character animation, and at least one person found the trailer confusing so far. So, I will do my best to address those two issues as quickly as possible. Have a 21% yes vote ratio is a little disheartening as well. It seems that Abby's Song either A) has an ineffective trailer or B) does not look appealing or C) has a hard time communicating what makes the game interesting.

It'll be interesting to see if improving the animations and shooting a more communicative trailer helps the vote ratio. I hope it does!