There is a new demo build out that has some of the changes in there. Still very much a work in progress.
I've been going through hole by hole adjusting things. Adding more interactive elements. Doing Next Fest in February and then releasing as Early Access right after that. Could release now as Early Access and the cash flow would be very helpful, but want it to be better.
Here is an example of a hole that I'm currently working on. Started out with just a few blockers. Added more and also game them bouncy surfaces. Then added Treasure Chests and Skulls that can give bonuses or penalties. Partway through making changes to this hole.
Incredible Puzzle Pack
There is a new puzzle pack on the way for Contraption Maker with 161 new puzzles based upon the original puzzles in The Incredible Machine. Wanted to get it out in September - may be out this month - will be out by Christmas at the latest. My son is working on it. I need to go through it very carefully and verify that everything looks good.
Mighty Knights
I've changed the way the knights interact with each other. This almost needs to be interactive where you can make changes as the levels are running.
Finally... I'm off to UCSF (San Francisco) with my son next week. He had a liver transplant at 4 months. His liver lab numbers are up and so they want to do a ultrasound and then a biopsy. Hopefully just a quick stay and then back home. Driving from Oklahoma to California on Sunday. Not looking forward to the 24 hour drive.
Combined Announcement: Contraption Maker, Minigolf Blast and Sciatica
Contraption Maker
Been working with my son on a new puzzle pack that is close to done. It'll come out sometime is September.
Work on Mighty Knights is going slow - painfully slow. I've seriously considered just releasing it as part of the full game instead of as a DLC, so everyone that has already bought Contraption Maker would get it for free, And then afterwards bumping up the price on Contraption Maker.
Changed the Steam capsule images for the game. Just as an experiment. May change back - may hire an artist to do one that gives more of the Rube Goldberg feel.
Minigolf Blast
I have delayed the release to October. Have a design idea to make it more unique. Not sure if I want to do it or not. Certainly won't be able to get it complete by October.
So... will either not implement the new idea, implement an early first pass of the idea, or delay (again! - sigh) until February to flesh it out some more. I'm leaning towards just releasing as Early Access in the 2nd half of October.
My focus is on fun gameplay rather than amping up the graphical look.
I solved some NAT punch-through problems and online internet play against other players worked without problems. Need to push it in testing to see if we can really get up 40 people playing at the same time.
If you choose the "staging" branch in the Minigolf Blast Demo the internet play should work much better. Warning haven't test much though. Not even sure how visible the Minigolf Blast Demo page is.
Sciatica
Not recommend. 0 out of 5 stars.
So I ended up spending the first week of July bedbound. First time I've ever had anything happen like this. Today I'm almost 100% back to normal, but for more that a week it was amazingly painful to just take a step or put any weight on my right leg.
We had this extended family get together up in the mountains. It is a cabin that my Grandparents got back in 1928. I get up there and see that our friend Trey Tosh is playing - so I think, "that spot in the dirt there looks like a good place to sit down and watch." (x marks the spot)
Well, it turned out that that spot was NOT a good place to sit down and watch. The chair was dangerously tilted and broken.
My brother-in-law crashed down on me and the pain started soon after.
I found a photo of my Mom when she was little with the same chair in the background. It is on the right and looking much more solid.
Changed Release Date
I really didn't want to do this and went back and forth about whether to delay the release or not. On one side the income for cash flow would have been really helpful to release sooner, but there are several things that can be farther along like the online multiplayer and special modes for that.
Minigolf Blast will be released in October right after the Steam Next Fest that happens in the fall.
There will be a new demo build out soon.
And at some point this summer and into the fall there will some beta tests to test some new game modes and see how many people can play at the same time in the online mode. You will be able to find out about getting access to beta builds on my Discord channel. The channel is a work-in-progress right now.
Discord channel: https://discord.gg/bQB7xzQube
Anyway, that is the latest. Been making good tech progress. Really want to get this thing out the door and make sure it is fun.
Kevin
Streaming Playing Against my Kids
Gonna try live streaming playing a Multiplayer Race Mode game. Right now my minigolf game supports 4 players at the same time so there will be room for one other person besides my two kids. So if anyone wants to jump in and play with us, feel free.
I live up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California (Shaver Lake) and my internet upload speed isn't the best so we'll see how it goes. I recently got Starlink which has a much faster upload speed, but the pine trees here cause it to lose signal every so often. Not sure which is better to try, my ISP's slower DSL or Starlink's much much faster one that could disconnect at times.
This will be an experiment. Should be interesting. I'm planning on doing some live streams during the next Next Fest so figure it'd be a good idea to go through the process ahead of time and do all my screw-ups now instead of then.
Kevin
New Demo Build
Just a short update about this new Demo build.
It was possible for the previous demo build to attempt to launch a hole and course that wasn't included in this demo. This would have resulted in a crash when the "Play" button was pressed. This build fixes that bug.
This new build version is: 0.9.2
You can see build version in the lower right corner of the main menu. If it isn't that number then Steam hasn't yet downloaded the update to your computer.
Kevin
PS Planning on a new Broadcast in the next couple of days that'll show off the online multiplayer mode. Watch my kids crush me in the race mode game.
Playable Demo & Sports Fest
Just a couple of things in this short update.:
There is a now a playable demo of Minigolf Blast available. This is the first demo so while it is very solid there is still work to be done.
Minigolf Blast is part of the upcoming Sports Fest.
Okay one other of thing - Wishlist it if you want to be notified when it the full version comes out.
Mighty Knights Progress, Minigolf Blast Release Date/Price, & Home Improvement
Minigolf Blast
Tentative Release Date: July 6, 2023 Tentative Price: $7.99
This will be an Early Access release. Lots of holes and courses are already complete. The minigolf courses that are you done will be completed with input from the community.
Mighty Knights
Progress is being made on Mighty Knights (lol... fixed typo... wrote that as Nighty Knights). The user interface and various other things are being fixed up and puzzles are being made. Mid-March release looks to be tough to achieve - we'll see. The sooner the better.
Home Improvement
I continue to divide my time between working on code and fixing up the house that we just moved into last weekend. Lots of work to do on it.
My current office (this closet):
That's all for now. Onward and upwards!
Kevin
Oklahoma -- Game Dev -- and -- Home Fixer-Upper
Meant to post an update near the start of January when I arrived in Oklahoma, but the time I spend writing these announcements is time away from doing actually gamedev (and house fix-up work - see below). This will be short and a combined post about all three games.
Contraption Maker
I was working on this yesterday:
Going to get the Mighty Knights stuff out before mid March, which is coming up quick.
Been having my youngest son working on fixing various holes that are too difficult or have other problems. We chat over Discord where I give him feedback and sketches of what needs to change:
The online multiplayer is now working. Gonna release this as early access at the same time I put out the Contraption Maker Mighty Knights update - before mid March.
Puzzle Poker
This one is done. No more changes. Probably should just make it free.
The Other Project
Been working full-time (actually more than full-time) with my friend who owned Dynamix with me long ago. I only did some of the tech stuff on the Darkforge Dungeon game - no real design work. We also have a few casual games under development that I did program and design.
After living with us for about 6 years, my daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters (6 and 8) bought a home and moved to Oklahoma - 1,662 miles away (thanks Google Maps for the exact number). A very inexpensive house came up for sale in December a few miles from their home. So my wife and I bought. It needs LOTS OF WORK. After doing quite a bit of electrical work (only shocked myself once) now about to start drywall work.
My current job title: Game Developer Juggler
Kevin
Help!
So, I am no longer a one man band and finally have some HELP on these games from my son, Liam!
Progress is being made.
I'm just gonna write one short announcement about all three of my current games putting them on all their Steam pages. Someday I'll have more free time and less commitments... maybe I can even hire a marketing type person who knows how to do this stuff.
The current plan is to release this as an Early Access game. Online multiplayer is now working. Some of the newer holes are too hard and they need work. Also I want to add some newer design elements for the multiplayer BLAST part of the game.
It'd be nice to get this out in September/October and then adjust the holes based on feedback from that release. What a difference from the old days in the 1980s when there was no connection with the folks that played my games.
I'll update the official Steam release date after sitting down and going over everything thoroughly, I think, last I looked, the release date was set to is something like 1996 or so (kidding).
Here are a few screen shots of current build showing launching an online multiplayer game:
The Mighty Knights stuff still needs more work to be fun. It can't be worked on though until the Early Access version of Minigolf Blast is out the door. There are also some interfaces things that I'd like to get fixed up - just to make editing things smoother and easier.
Tentative release timeline: Before Christmas (this year - really!)
Not much of anything left to do with this very casual game. Most likely will drop the price or just make it free sometime in the future. I think I made one of the achievements for it too hard. Not sure if I can or should change it.
Opus One
This is a possible future game project. In the 1970s I wrote computer games in BASIC on an 8kb Wang computer that my high school had. I may recreate that experience for everyone along with the games and code that I wrote back then.
Here is the computer I worked on back then and also my Star Trek game code:
Fire, Surgery, and Work
So, several things have happened over the last year and a half to bring updates to Contraption Maker to a halt - Fire, some health issues, and mostly work on another future project.
Most of this update is the same as what I posted on the Contraption Maker page.
The Creek Fire
Last year in September we were evacuated from our home for 3 weeks because of the Creek Fire. The Sherriff came by our home around midnight and said it was time to get out. Packed up what we could and left. The fire ended up coming within 1/2 mile of our home. Burned almost 400,000 acres. A lot of game dev history would have gone up in flames if it had taken out our home because I have a lot of old stuff saved here - everything I worked on over the decades - a prototype Amiga dev machine when making Arctic Fox for Electronic Arts, design docs, company docs, lots of stuff.
This is a time lapse of the fire I took from my home office in the afternoon before we have to evacuate later that night. The fire was about 10 miles away at this point: [previewyoutube="HKYLGQRzFcw;full"]
This is one of a large number of air tankers that flew over home to fight the fire: [previewyoutube="qE_FUnUIE-o;full"]
Surgery
In the months before that I hadn't been feeling well. Turns out my gall bladder no longer liked me. All of us from my family were staying at my Mom's house in Fresno because of the fire. This led to emergency gall bladder surgery with this no-fun drainage tube for a couple of weeks and longer than expected recovery. In the end just a bump in the road, but not a fun one.
New Game Project
Up until now it has been getting Minigolf Blast in shape to be release. I'm currently working on a new game with my friend who owned Dynamix with me which has made it impossible to find any time to work on this minigolf game.
It is an early access game and already plays well, but I don't really want to release it until I have online multi-player working. The planned release date show June 10, 2019 - over two years ago! I don't want to update that until I have a firm date which is just up in the air.
