More playtest feedback coming in today, this time with a few bug reports, and already managed to fix them all! At least I *think* I did for one of them, as I couldn't get the bug myself to confirm the fix being effective. 😅

Apparently I'm active enough on github through my Vending Machine game commits that I got targeted by an outsourcing... scam??? Like, "you establish valuable contracts with Swedish dev rates, but we do the work for you for cheap!!" I'm... flattered? Weirded out? I don't know.

Time for the usual heads up that Games Done Quick starts this weekend!

Starting to get some first iterations on the music for the Vending Machine game from our freelance composer, and I'm getting a bit worried.. ...are we really going to be able to make a game that lives up to the quality of these tracks!? 🤣 Still early days, but this might become one heck of an OST.

Xbox could do the funniest thing right now

Getting our first pieces of feedback in from the playtesting! Largely things that were expected; there's not a whole lot of gameplay yet for varying impressions. I did like the (correct) call-out of "[mechanic] seems to be here just to have something to fill a void in the gameplay". 😆🫣

Sending out the playtest prototype today, and immediately got a request for a Linux build. Trying very hard not to hurt myself facepalming, as the only mention in Epic's documentation of building for Linux inside the engine is basically "press the Package button". GEE, THANKS.

Adding a really fun thing to the Vending Machine game as a last touch before finishing up the playtest build 🌠 😁

Starting to get in Emotions for the characters in the Vending Machine game today, and omg it's like watching the last puzzle piece slide in and complete the picture. It's far from the last piece though. 😅 Playtest on discord next week!!

Very happy that my office is in a cool basement these hot summer days. It can still get stuffy down here towards the end of the worst days, but every time I go upstairs I'm reminded of how fortunate I am 🫠

Seconded! Catlike Coding was a huge help for starting to learn Unity back when I was a fledgling gamedev student. Seeing now that they also have a few Godot tutorials these days; I'll have to check back on those later on. catlikecoding.com

*laughs maniacally in years of constrained VR development* It's time for my powers to shine.

I think it's about time to share this widely now: Starting Sept 28th, I'm officially going full-time on the Vending Machine game! 🥳

Going to try to get it to make sure the Vending Machine game runs as well as possible on it.

Unreal Engine 6 incorporating Gen AI tools may give most publishers the ability to void a development contract. Video Game IP lawyer @haleyfax.bsky.social explains the clear issues on the new episode of The MinnMax Show. youtu.be/lOL3vaHTU9U

Godot for the second game that Decaying Games makes is looking more and more likely.

Very fired up today going into spending the evening with Decaying Games dev work for two very different reasons, and I can't talk about either for also very different reasons 😆

Obviously looking forward to the playtest and getting feedback that we can use to make the game better. But I'm REALLY looking forward to the month-or-so after it, where we'll just be focusing on getting in as much visual polish as we reasonably can before the planned announcement.

Really looking forward to see just how big a success Project Mix will be; not only are they trying (and so far succeeding!) in going against the status quo in VR, they're also doing so by tapping in to niches that I'm also trying to explore more of as a dev.

Only one more week left to join the discord if you want to be a part of the first playtest for the Vending Machine game - a tiny business simulator with some anime visual novel elements!

Another dev day sunday, and today I'm mostly fighting with UI, plus the UE classic "find the correct checkbox that you've forgotten exists somewhere but is blocking you accessing basic functionality". But Vending Machine game is progressing. Still looking good for a playtest later this month.

There's only 3 developers left in the world that haven't purchased Kenney Game Assets All-in-1 (facts, trust me), help me reach them. kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-...

Speaking of accessibility (last reskeet), I'll also link this collection of 2D UI fundamentals. It's coming from (and thus informed by) Google's specific design standards, but IMO a lot of the theories still apply and transfer over to 3D and general applications. m3.material.io/foundations

The Game Accessibility Guidelines have been put together by game studios, specialists and academics. While they are not an official set of standards or documents, they are a collection of tips and techniques to help developers make games more inclusive. gameaccessibilityguidelines.com

Tonight we signed with the artist who will be making the logo and cover art for our Vending Machine game! And with that, we basically have every ball rolling that needs to be rolling for the announcement later this year?!? Still a massive amount of work left to do, but progress!!!!!!

WORLD PREMIERE: Create beautiful, lively spaces inhabited by adorable characters in Hokko Spaces. Unlock cute residents and watch them hang out together, do some gardening, and enjoy the spaces that you build for them. #WholesomeDirect2026

Hey #PitchYaGame So I am currently making a game where you are a Vending Machine. But the thing is that we're not fully announcing it until October, so we don't have anything fancy to show you yet. You can however follow along here if you want to see it grow during early development. ❤️🧃🥤☕️🍱🍜

Saturday's getting closer and the reality's starting to set in...!

Signed with our composer today for the Vending Machine game! Which also marks the first contractor Decaying Games is signing with for our own games!! To qoute Dave: "Feels fun that it's become more 'real' lately". And there's still a lot more fun yet to come!

Update, 8 hours later: Still trying to wrangle the damn NPC movement to behave like I want it to.

We've been making steady progress on a bunch of things with the Vending Machine game in the past few weeks and months, but it's been a while since I focused on getting the main gameplay loops set up again with the various new systems. Taking time this weekend to do just that.

If I manage to get around to making a photo mode for the Vending Machine game (no promises), you can bet I'm making those photos save automatically to your local device.

New blog post, this one mostly aimed for other devs and aspiring gamedevs that want insights into what it actually takes to keep a company running, costs-wise. Note: This is a Swedish company, so the associated costs and taxes will be different elsewhere. www.decaying.games/decaying-tho...

If you were a video game character, what would your health pickup be?

I hope we can head out to a bunch of cool festivals next year with the Vending Machine game, but it's definitely not within our planned budget. 😅 (this subskeet brought to you by me looking at a bunch of indies having fun and heading to Bitsummit in Japan)

Updated my profile with a discord link. Both me and Dave are using it more frequently for our mutual dev convos, and starting to post more frequent Vending Machine progress updates in there. Join to see the latest: discord.gg/jAZzcs9yDd Planning for a proper announce later this year!

Researching announce trailers. Already have a pretty firm idea of what ours will showcase, but need to see if I can find good examples to show as reference to the others involved before we have the visuals to make it myself.

Business admin, PC building, and watching the front door like a hawk half the day for a delivery. A busy day, but different kind of busy than I had planned for.

I'm thinking I maybe didn't import the animations between Blender and UE5 correctly. Just a hunch.

Now I haven't exactly been a power user of Blender for a long time, but I've dabbled in it for years and I've always been annoyed with the extra unused "Actions" that somehow I end up creating. Never known how to deal with them. Until today! Stuff like this is why I'm doing the junk character test!

Damnit. Just noticed that they'd opened reservations for the Steam Controller. I wonder how many days that's been a thing, probably very far back in line now. 😅

Started the week looking for a Composer, a Lawyer, and a Capsule Artist. It's Tuesday evening and we now have very promising conversations with people about all three. And here silly me was worried that I was about to spend weeks just looking around, finding nothing...

Like seems to be the case for many others, no Steam Controller for me yet, despite my efforts. Adding the payment step just kept failing to go through. I'll try again next time.

Had my granddad over for lunch, and he got to play a bit of the game. He's usually pretty far removed from games (my mom's parents were the gamers), but seemed to grasp the Vending Machine game mechanics fairly well! Though he was lost when it came to the theming of anime and japan haha

A cool consequence of basing page-flipping on detecting *any* relative motion is that it becomes more than a hand gesture - it's a full physical response! This means I can use *anything* to turn the pages, even by brushing the book against a stationary object. 🐧👄🐟🫗🔄️ #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Speaking of something that might be too early.. We have a Discord! We've had it since Decaying Games started almost 2 years ago, but it's mostly empty at the moment. 😆 If you join you'll find out what we'll actually name the Vending Machine game 👀 discord.gg/adBeTYExhf

Getting "tips" from people on: 1. Don't show the game too early! 2. Why aren't you showing your game more already? I think I'll stick to our current plan, thank you very much 😆 We're doing a first round of proper attempts to solidify a shared vision for a logo and key art next dev Sunday.

Eyes, eyes, eyes... Don't look too closely; still very much at the "Make it exist" part of the character process.

Eyes, eyes, eyes... Don't look too closely; still very much at the "Make it exist" part of the character process.