Hi Guys Guess What, This Game I Worked On Has A Demo Coming Out Soon And You Can Finally Wishlist It

Here's a weird optical illusion I found while modelling: the two black lines in the center are completely straight, yet there's this bulge in the middle. :'V

Talking about the level design in ‘Jak & Daxter’ on the PlayStation 2. Source: Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine Demo Disc 51. Support us on Patreon

Hey all! I haven't been making much progress with Bounder Games lately, mostly due to GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT (fill-in college lecturer). But that's no excuse! Here's where we stand:

I've been reading Hideo Kojima's "The Creative Gene", a collection of reflections on the books and media that inspired him to make games like Metal Gear. In "The Moon Over the Mountain", the main character feels he has failed to capitalise on his talent and describes his unwillingness to publish imperfect material as "timid pride" and "disdainful shyness". His following quote hit me pretty hard:

"No, whether the poems are good or bad, I would not rest easy in my grave without passing these poems on to later generations, since the represent my deepest passion in life, even to the point of losing my fortune and my sanity."

It's been almost 10 years since we founded Bounder Games and began work on Armoured Engines, and that decade of shame floods through me like toxic oil. I felt like I'd let everyone down, not working hard enough or focusing on the wrong things. I have so many ideas; to build, to design, to write, to act, to create, that I'm overwhelmed by the cavernous silence of my portfolio. The more I thought upon my neglect, the more I mired myself in doubt.

That quote struck me, and I could feel what Li Zheng could feel. That need to pass on what I make. Shame is the great assassin of creativity. If I could be a fraction as confident as Kojima-san, I might be able to look at myself with pride.

For me, no more excuses. Time to Make!

Most recent character for Stardust Survivors : M.R.! A space-enthusiast who can call down rolling, flaming meteors. From Space™! These meteors can be upgraded to split into shrapnel, cause impact explosions, or leave a burn!

This makes... five characters so far. Once we've got her working in Unity, there'll be only one more to complete our first set of characters. After that, I'll be focusing on level design.

testing particles

Following on from what I said yesterday, I’ll be posting daily on Tumblr (here), Mastadon (https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@RoyMakes), Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/roymakes.bsky.social), and the Bounder Games Discord (https://discord.gg/3DZKj2Ex). I also looked into Instagram, but I’m not entirely sure how that place works for this kind of post.

It doesn’t matter what I talk about: current work, old projects, interesting videos, observations, etc, as long as I’m posting. There’s no real goal; I’d just like to improve myself.

On that note, the ADHD meds shortage is coming to end so I’m hopefully going to get some help for my broken brain and focus more. But I’m not going to rely on that. Sure, ADHD is a massive pain in the ass, BUT I’m the one who chooses to let it control me. I have that power to choose already; medication will just make it easier.

I got this document from an ADHD support group I went to; I have it blu-tacked to the wall behind my monitor. I forget it’s there half the time, but it’s good advice.

Let’s start with what I’m actually working on. Stardust Survivors is a “Survivors” game, a sub-genre made popular by 2022’s Vampire Survivors. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a twin-stick shooter, except you only have the one stick. The goal of the game is to outlast an infinitely-spawning series of enemy waves by destroying them to level up, gaining new abilities and attacks, most of which auto-fire without your direct input.

At this point, we’d barely touched Armoured Engines in over a year, and we figured a new project would be just the thing to get us out of our rut. Stardust Survivors takes that original concept and puts it into a magical space setting reminiscent of Moon Dreamers and Sailor Moon. The Stardust Survivors are a group of magical girls and boys who protect the energy of planets from the insatiable and unending tide of Constellar creatures.

It’s still early days; we’re mostly working on adding playable characters and abilities. However, we intend to streamline the survivors gameplay with short, 5-minute runs that extend down a rogue-like track. You can try out an early demo that we prepared for a local games showcase on our itch.io page here: https://boundergames.itch.io/stardust-survivors. Can YOU beat the boss!??

Now that my indie game has a map and fast travel it is really satisfying to see just how much of the world is finished so far~

DnD today. Running a party of four through Curse of Strahd. Last session: they entered the Amber Temple and faced off against the encounter in the big room. I always feel as if I'm going easy on them, but I did my best to be ruthless. Yet these are seasoned veterans; they still pulled through. Now after that grueling fight, they have to decide if they want to continue exploring. They're technically a level below the minimum for exploring this dungeon, but I feel like they can handle the rest.

I just hope they remember about the Flaming Skulls :'\

Hello GameDevs! I'm Roy from Scotland, an indie dev working as one half of Bounder Games (alongside CodingDino)! You might have seen us at DevCom, Insomnia, and EGX Rezzed.

Currently working on three titles; "Stardust Survivors", a survivors game set in a bizarre space land, "Gobbos, Hunt!", a monster hunting card game, and "Armoured Engines", a wacky side-scrolling tower defense in the wild west!

I'll be posting some of my work here in the future, hope to see all the wonderful things people share here! <3