COOL TOOLS

(header drawing by Marty)

October has been a very busy month, with a lot going on. We've been hard at work on Springtime Warfare, but unfortunately most of the work has been on the game's engine, so I currently don't have anything fun to share with you guys, sorry!!!!!

However, I'd like to use this post to discuss where your support has been going, and the answer's pretty simple — our budget! Until we have enough ready to venture into the mystical realm of Kickstarter, kukri in hand, our current project is being made out of pocket. While this is alright for most things, there are some assets and tools we have required that do cost more than pocket change, and it's all been sent towards that.

Here's what we've been using, in order of acquisition:

Playmaker — If you want to get into game design but struggle with coding, I can not recommend Playmaker enough. I have been using this since my first project, Undertale Red used it, and so has everything I've worked on since then. It's also great if you can code, as you can create and use custom actions. While we have relied less on it in recent months, it still sees a lot of use in quick prototyping and enemy behavior.

Super Text Mesh — Not only do I love using this this asset, I actually assist its creator, Kai Clavier, with this add-on's Playmaker support. Our team does make extensive use of it, serving excellently for getting that sort of Paper Mario/Katamari Damacy text look we all love.

ShaderForge — While our team has some decent programming knowledge, we know virtually nothing when it comes to coding shaders, so ShaderForge — basically Playmaker but for shaders — is a godsend. Even the canceled Dogfight made extensive use of this.

ProCore Bundle — Back when I worked on the as of now shelved game Antimony, my biggest difficultly was level creation. Not wanting to make the game tile-based, I had to manually model and texture a lot of terrain, something that was incredibly slow and frustrating. While many of the tools offered are fantastic and currently being put to use, ProCore's main attraction is ProBuilder, which has made level creation so much faster and easier I am astounded I haven't been using it before??

Particle Playground — While also sharing animation responsibility with me, we have a dedicated team member in charge of VFX, our virtual pyrotechnics expert ChaoFanatic. Though I do tinker with it myself as needed, it's mostly to allow him to work his wizardry, as you can see on his youtube channel.

I can't recommend the above enough, and I probably would still be stuck with just a trial version of Playmaker and little else if not for your support. It means so much, and we're so excited to share what we've been able to do with it!!