A few minor updates (news on the Switch Port, and a fun game I played)

The Switch port is coming along very nicely, I just got to see it run on actual Nintendo hardware, and it rocks. It feels like it comes full circle, to that silly little kid playing games on the NES, and making games of his own out of cardboard and graph paper. That is exciting! It might be a bit yet still, these things take time.

In other news, I also decided next year I will do a game a month for an entire year, just for fun. I'll release them here, about the same price range as Bad Writer (though maybe closer to 4.99, depending?). Like Bad Writer they will be short, 2d pixel art style games with interesting game play that you can play in an hour so at a time, and return to later if you want. These won't be 180 hour+ RPG monoliths. Hah. I'm finding I'm playing more games like that these days anyway...I have very little free time, and when it's there I don't want to be sucked into something that large. I just want to play a bit, and then go do other stuff.

One idea I have is for a combination rogue like and 8bit JRPG game (with improved graphics). I loved that style of RPG, it's the first games I fell in love with. And the NES era games aren't super long either (esp their updates SNES and PSX ports). I was thinking that since these games were light on plot, but heavy on exploration and combat, it would be perfect for a rogue like experience. Wherein, each time you start a new game (there will be saves), it generates a whole new world, new dungeons, and new NPC's and puzzles. It's doable, I'd done some test ideas for similar stuff in the past, and I always wished there were more 8bit era JRPG to play. Now I'll have a game that generates a new one whenever I feel like it! Oh, and if your entire party dies, your save will be a tombstone, and when you load it you'll play as a ghost, and can't interact with anyone (and must start a new game).

Anyway, to facilitate (and make the process easier) I'm going to create a game engine this year specifically made for making the games next year. Done in the way that I know will suit me best, speed wise. This will be Magic Pixel 0.1, so to speak. An engine, mostly, without much of an editor (mostly because I want to be able to do things quickly, and not work around whatever limitations a visual editor creates...and it will always create limitations. Such is the nature of the beast).

Oh, and speaking of chill games that I can play for a little bit and just relax to, check out :
https://candyarcade.itch.io/impossible-marbles

Some of the marbles explode, some eat each other pacman style, and some are black holes. Makes me laugh, and it's super relaxing.