Screenshot of Jailbird Nocturne
It’s been a year and a half since I last wrote a general update. Here’s where I'm at!
The Morphine Western Revenge at Game[in]g Problems
The Morphine Western Revenge, my top-down shooter game from 2016, was featured as part of the Game[in]g Problems: Drugstore exhibition last month at the Cigarreras Cultural Center in Alicante, Spain! All of the games featured touched on themes of drug use in some form or another, and I feel honored to have been asked to contribute footage of Revenge for the exhibition.
Aaaaaah! There it is! Aaaaaaaaaah!
Roughly eight (!) years ago, a friend had asked me to adapt his novella about a vengeful morphine-addicted indigenous woman into a video game. Adapting the story into a shooter was a no-brainer, but I wanted the protagonist's drug use to be a core part of the gameplay and not just part of the narrative. So, I decided that the player character would use morphine as a way to recover her health, literally relieving their pain as she got shot countless times. Given that I don’t have any firsthand experience with hard drugs, I do find it a little funny that my game was chosen for an exhibit about them, but when I decided how to depict the drug usage, I think I was inspired by other life experiences of coping with pain in unhealthy ways. Maybe that’s why the depiction works. (This isn't a cry for help! I made this game a long time ago and I'm good now! Really!)
As I mention in the disclaimer at the bottom of the game’s page, I still have some conflicting feelings about the way in which I adapted the story, but replaying the game before the exhibition has caused me to reconsider it in a more favorable light. In many ways, The Morphine Western Revenge remains one of the most visually polished games I ever made. The minimalist art style enabled me to animate things more fluidly than normal – I’m happy with the way that dust rises into the air, bullet casings fly to the ground, and raindrops bounce off surfaces. Showing close-ups of actions in the HUD that were otherwise difficult to show from such a distant camera angle – namely, reloading weapons and using morphine – was a stylish trick I picked up from one of Nathalie Lawhead’s games (thank you for the inspiration!). Revenge is also probably the best-designed action game I’ve made. I’m proud of the deliberately imperfect enemy behavior and tactical, decisive nature of the gunplay. I’ve warmed back up to it.
Thanks again to Francisco Mateu and the folks from the Massiva Research Group for inviting me to be part of the exhibition!
Jailbird Nocturne
When I last wrote about Jailbird Nocturne in September of 2022, I was still working on my initial “draft” of the sixth of what would become eight chapters. In the summer of the following year, I finally got the game to a state where it was playable from start to finish, which was a huge milestone! My time since then has mostly been spent polishing that initial draft, composing the game’s final tracks, and watching my partner playtest the entire game.
Other folks have been playtesting the penultimate build of the game since the end of April and should be completing their runs this weekend. This means that, barring any crises, Jailbird Nocturne will be released this summer after nearly 4 years of development! Aaaaaay!
The final game seems to take players anywhere from 10-20 hours to complete, which is more than I aimed for and way more than any hobbyist dev should aim for. I’ve thought a lot about scale, scope, and hobbyist game dev over the course of the project – specifically, I keep thinking about these two blog posts by John Thyer and Narf on the merits of short game dev and perils of long game dev respectively. I am glad to have made this game – it’s special! - but I have been ready to move on for a long time, and I want to caution people against following in my footsteps.
I’ve primarily been posting screenshots and dev updates over at Bluesky, so that is the best place to keep up with progress, but I also tweet updates on occasion.
Stuff I liked #4
Although I’m taking an indefinite break from writing in-depth reviews for the blog , I’ve been treated to enough good media over the past four months that I can’t not share them. Here’s what I’ve been enjoying the past few months:
- Titanic. I was too young to watch it when it came out, but just old enough to dismiss it as a teen and young adult. Turns out it’s a good movie!
- The Girl who Leapt through Time. Anime film about time travel and romance. I am a sucker for dumb tomboyish girl protagonists who play baseball. I’m slowly working through Mamoru Hosoda’s work, and this may be my favorite of his films so far (his Digimon work excluded, of course).
- Weathering with You. Anime film about weather control and romance. It's a trip. Between the three anime movies in this list, I recommend this the most.
- The Lonely Castle in the Mirror. Anime film about bullying, abuse, and NOT romance. It felt generic at first, but it cooks at the end!
- Beserk. The infamous overuse of sexual violence as edgy window dressing in Beserk makes it hard to universally recommend it, but if you’re able to eye-roll your way through those parts, what’s left is the greatest fantasy manga I’ve ever read. For better and for worse, Beserk lives up to the reputation it's built over the past three decades. The 1997 anime dub’s blooper reel is legendary.
- Apocalipstick by Cherry Glazerr. Rock/pop that is catchy and raucous in equal measure. Every track on the album is just super good!