January 31st, 2023
Howdy, fuckers!I usually take the approach of working silently until whatever I'm working on is either done or cancelled, but I'm feeling confident enough at the moment to show my hand slightly and reveal a few of the things I've actually found the energy to work on:
Believe it or not, I've actually been attempting to write video essays for about the last two years, but every topic I approached either ended up being a dead-end (there was a rather promising piece of amateur investigative journalism regarding the Wii that suffered this fate) or I didn't really feel I actually had anything interesting to say. Every time this happened, and I went back to the drawing board to find a new topic, this one idea would always be my first thought, and thanks to a cheap Elgato HD60 S I found during Christmas, I can finally make the dang thing real.
While I find this type of work pretty enjoyable and breezy, that doesn't mean this is going to be quick and easy, at least not with the level of depth I'd like to get into. I'm hoping to begin recording gameplay of the first game in February, but I'll be taking frequent breaks throughout production to get my thoughts in order and to make sure I don't burn out. I've already made my peace with the fact I'll probably end up releasing a "Director's Cut" after I finish this video the first time, but I still want to get it as close to perfect as possible the first time.
Speaking of which, this essay will be one of the first thing I publish that'll actually justify this ridiculous pile of markup. Not only will it be published as a video essay on YouTube, but I'll be publishing a special text version to both Medium and this website, for people like me who prefer text over video. I've been interested in this type of release format for a while, so I'm excited to try it out when I finish this.
A newfound appreciation for the 3DS drove me to pick up a refurbed 2DS XL late last year, and not only have I set up a full 3DS development environment to develop homebrew apps with, but after a near-endless barrage of problems, I've finally managed to set up a Unity install for 3DS games. You can see it in action above, where I've built a 3DS version of an app I originally made to test if the Vita would be capable of loading and displaying levels from Sonic Forces. It can't, by the way. (At least, not all at once.) This means you can look forward to any original homebrew games I make having a potential New 3DS port (hopefully original 3DS as well, but no promises!), along with the possibility of some pretty funky ports of existing games. I already have a project in mind, which you'll learn more about in a moment. Along with games, I'd also like to develop non-game applications for the system, starting with a .cbz reader, so I can read Out-of-Print Archive's NGamer scans the way they were meant to be experienced.
I was hoping to share a more complete version of Special Forever today, but 3DS development woes have already delayed the project, even at this early stage.
Dread it, run from it, I remain cringe, all the same. I'm back on my bullshit yet again with a new project I'm calling Special Forever, a combination of a "Blue Spheres" style mode for Sonic CD's special stages, along with a series of additional stages that offer novel reinterpretations of the core gameplay. It'll be available for New 3DS (I'm interested in providing an original 3DS version as well, but no promises), PS Vita, and of course PC. I'd also like to include in-depth and well documented modding support, although this may unfortunately have to be a PC-only feature, depending on the complexity of loading additional files on either handheld.
That's everything I'm comfortable with sharing right now, although it is by no means everything I've got in the pipeline. Looking at my taskboard right now, I've currently got thirteen projects on there. These projects will drift in and out of production as I see fit, although everything I've talked about here today is the most likely to be worked on at any one moment.
See you next game!
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