And so, 2024 is over. Another year of game-dev. Here is the story.
For Slashware as a company; this was the year when we finally released NovaMundi; first half of the year didn’t see a lot of coding but from May onward I pushed on to make it a reality and…. it’s out, it’s our second game published on Steam and I’m glad I was finally able to close the cycle with it after so many years.
I ended up investing lots of effort on a “new” project, Yuah-lak, first half of the year but ultimately stalled as I ran out of resources to develop it. Also, Serenade of Chaos was pushed a bit forward in order to be pitched again to publishers, but no extensive work was put on it.
So all in all, the big gain of the year for Slashware was the release of NovaMundi. For Yuah-lak and Serenade it was more of putting them on stand-by, evaluating next steps.
Not a lot of work was put on Emerald Woods, sadly, since I got sidetracked and then had to scramble to get contracting work.
In addition to our indie projects, and the long-running contract with Zynga (now exhausted), I worked in three projects with local gamedev companies / persons, and visited one event abroad (MIGS in Montreal).
As for slashie, I participated in 5 game jams (GameJam+, Global Game Jam (two entries!), 7DRL Challenge, Magical Mirai ProCon, and lowrezjam) and resurrected many old projects just for fun.
See also rewinds for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023
January
The year started with the development of our ill-fated submission for GameJam+, Bottlecap Legends. We pushed thru with improvements but sadly were denied continuing on the jam due to mistaking the deadline time zone (was Brazil, not Colombia).
An old js13k entry, ArcherFire: Duet of Aces, was brought from the dead to give it some justice with the addition of music themes that had been made for it years ago, as well as critical small gameplay changes. It’s definitively more enjoyable.
There was also a small improvements version released for Emerald Woods.
I worked with Stoltverd to set the narrative and design foundations for Yu-halak; I adapted the Stygian Level generator to accommodate a little bit to the designs for the levels (and fixed some bugs in the process).
For NovaMundi, we worked with InkiLuanna to get one of the cutscenes ready. It was a complex scene and it required a lot of iteration to get all the details correct. Work on that alone would still to February.
Finally, I participated in Global Game Jam 2024 with TWO entries, one at a local physical location with some friends (for that one, I just noticed, I didn’t write anything in this blog because I was holding up on the possibility of producing an improved version, which never happened). And another one, at a virtual location, a small fun experimental jRPG called Knights of the Pun where you had to make people laugh.
February
Following January’s trend, this month was all about bringing back old games from the death. CastlevaniaRL got some love after fourteen years (!) with some big improvements, and Stygian Abyss as well (8 years since last update for this one)
More work on Yu-halak, we decided to migrate Stygian Abyss to Unity, and use that as the starting ground for the project; kram did most of the work this month, however I managed to port the “first level” generator, that is the components that determine the basic features of each level, based on the designs.
For NovaMundi, we finished the work in the cutscene illustration, drawing chainmail is apparently very hard (I already knew that, I should have warned the artist :D)
It would be a long time until these scenes got integrated into the game, as I just couldn’t get into the mood to work in NovaMundi.
I also did some consulting work to create procedural levels for Rainak, the game from my friends at IndieLevel Studio. We managed to create the prototype of the generator, although it hasn’t been integrated to the game.
March
As usual, I made a 7DRL this month (it’s been 20 years now), this time it was a very traditional roguelike, an homage to both ADOM, CvRL, Castlevania Universe and Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest. I initially called it CvRL2 tho it’s been renamed to “Relics of the Demon” now. I documented the entire process here.
I also worked in further polishing old 7DRLs, this time it was SpelunkyRL with an improved colors version (an alternative to the previous monochrome, “amber” display), and some internal work made on it, as well as Rainy Day and CvRL2, to get them up to date with the latest webpack + electron tech (used in Emerald Woods, for instance)
For Yuah-lak, after a lot of work and troubleshooting back and forth, kram and I managed to completely port the procedural level generator.
April
Following up on the original, ASCII-only version, I created a GFX version for CvRL2 using mostly tiles from the original CvRL (and some other oryx tilesets).
Gecko joined the efforts for Yuha-lak, adding some concepts for ambient tracks. We also iterated a bit in the design of the combat system, the narrative frame, the player fantasy, and the meta-progression system, trying to figure out what will make it stand out from the rest and be accessible to a large amount of players.
May
NovaMundi development was resumed, with the addition of combat areas, invader camps, and new units.
I started work in my entry for the Magical Mirai Procon, and was selected to stream gameplay for the Early Access launch of The Rogue: Prince of Persia
Kram did more work in Yuah-lak, with monster animations and implementing magic spells, while Gecko implemented some sound effects.
June
I decided to put Yuha’lak on hold until we can devote all the resources and energy into it; we need a pixel artist on board and focus to implement an interesting combat system that can be put into a vertical slice, the reality is we don’t have any of that, for now.
Part of the reason for this is the idea to finally focus on NovaMundi’s full release, which would eat up all of my power.
Well, most of my power, since I still managed to work a little bit on my Magical Mirai entry
July
NovaMundi continues its way towards full release, while Emerald Woords gets the ability to customize the player, if only a little bit, for starters.
We pushed hard to finish our entry for Magical Mirai. I was pretty happy with the results. The entire process was documented in detail here.
August
August saw the creation of Dungeons of Persia, which was documented in-depth here.
There were also two new versions of Emerald Woods, adding rain, starter pets, crafting stations and more.
September
NovaMundi got a release date announcement and lots of work towards it, two new version with mostly visual and UX improvements.
I also finally started working in a procedural level generator for the Vultures: Scavengers of Death project.
October
Finally the date of NovaMundi full release. There was a lot going on around and after the date to try to have as many people as possible notice the game.
Just after we released, I started working with InkiLuanna again, to improve the portraits of the town leaders. The idea is to make them feel more unique and important, something we should have done from the onset but just didn’t have the resources, so we’ll have to do it incrementally. We are starting with Bogotá and Saymoso, two of the main leaders.
I also visited Montreal for MIGS 2024 and attended roguelike celebration 2024 (virtually). On MIGS we met the people of GameRant, who seemed to really like our game including making an interview and followed up with a nice review.
In preparation for MIGS, I worked with a friend to evolve the pitch of Serenade of Chaos into something great; I may share more details later but it’s something Stolverd and I had been working on for months, an entire gothic fantasy universe.
I also continued working in procedural generation for Vultures, however the team decided to halt the progress on it to focus on a more handcrafted experience.
November
Some small work on CvRL2, Relics of the Demon, graphical version (but no release)
I also improved this blog with the reBalance theme, which looks pretty great with the thumbnails and summaries for each post.
Only very small work was done for NovaMundi, I included the new portraits for the town leaders. No release was made tho.
December
December was pretty sad for Indiedev, as I was laser focused in contract work and transitioning out of old clients into new. I tried to kick back some dev for Emerald Woods, addressing the question of improving the title screen.
I played a lot of Slay the Spire, in preparation to some contracting work, and witnessed the full release of CoQ and phenomena around it. Maybe Emerald Woods will someday be interesting for people that enjoys Qud.
Plans for 2025
It’s hard to know. For now I will be content if I manage to stabilize my income while I continue working in Emerald Woods. I’m not shooting for anything else for now.
Slashie's Gamedev Adventures 