In this dev log for Escape From Tag World, I dive back into development to work on the symbols, the logo, and testing with the first printed prototypes. #IndieDev #GameDev

I always like tracking games I've played/beaten, so here are my stats for 2025! I beat 18 games (plus 1 DLC that wasn't tracked here). howlongtobeat.com/user/Sarena/...

I started Escape From Tag World back in December 2024 and have been blogging my process. Check out my first devlog where I talk about my inspirations, initial prototypes, and how I went from game idea to playable prototype within just a few days of initially starting the project. #GameDev #IndieDev

I have lots of private Google Docs/Sheets with info about The Nays that I reference daily, but I've always thought about making a public wiki. So I decided to just turn my Deviant Art NAD drawings into their own kind of Wiki pages. Still working on them, but this is where I'm at so far:

I've been writing all of my eventures for The Nays using mIRC for 17+ years now just because it's what I'm most comfortable using. I convert them to Google Docs for proofreading afterward. But tonight was the first night I wrote the majority of one in Google Docs instead, and it felt really weird.

To kick off 2026, I wrote a blog post to talk about my goals for this year and projects I’m hoping to accomplish. #GameDev #IndieDev #2026Goals

At the end of each year, I like to reflect on my projects and goals for the year. Check out this blog post where I dive deep into 2025 and whether I met the goals I set out for myself. #GameDev #IndieDev #2025Summary

I usually post a summary of my art each year, but this year I’m introducing a new summary to showcase the games I’ve created, both professionally and for personal projects. Here are the 15+ games I developed in 2025! #GameDev #IndieDev #2025ArtSummary

I finished my second physical card game: Escape From Tag World. In this deck-building card game, you'll recruit 3 Linkship Pilots and escape from Tag World. Use Birdians to recruit new crew members who will add more credibility points that you need to recruit Linkship Pilots. #GameDev #IndieDev

I've slowly been populating my HowLongToBeat lists to showcase my top 10 favorite games of each year. So far, I've logged back from 2011 - 2025, but I'm planning to go as far back as I have in my Google Sheets lists eventually. Check them out here: howlongtobeat.com/user/Sarena/...

In this blog post, I talk about the plugin I started working on for my creature collection side project. Check out this post where I detail my process of how I started learning how to make a plugin in RPG Maker MZ: #GameDev #IndieDev #RPGMaker

Because I was playing a lot of creature collection games over the past few months, I was inspired to make my own little test project with creature collection mechanics. Check out this short blog post where I talk about some of the mechanics I set up for this mini-project: #IndieDev #GameDev

I spent a few days in August working on a cutscene in a game engine. I haven't finished it yet, but in this blog post, I talk about my progress so far on this mini animation/game dev project: #GameDev #IndieDev #RPGMaker

The Nays played games with The Gek, who was favoring some of them. During the night, Grenna and the other M Nays were jealous and attacked. After Elftair calmed them down, they went to bed for the night in The Gek's World. 📘 Read The ComplexNet Eventure here: the-nays.weebly.com/complexnet-e...

Earlier this year, @nimbusstev.bsky.social and I made a strategy deck-building card game for GGJ: World Bub. I recorded a video of the game if you haven't played it yet. 💾 Download & play the game here: thegek.itch.io/world-bub 🎥 Or watch the video playthrough here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU02...

I've been figuring out some of the potential character menus for The Note Competition remake. Check out my blog post where I detail my thought process behind some of the party and emblem menus: #GameDev #IndieDev

I made a lot of progress on a new #RPGMaker plugin today! For this plugin, I'm printing a lot of game data to an external txt file that acts as a debug log. This is meant for external playtesting and for storing data on playthroughs. I'm learning more about parameters. #IndieDev #GameDev

#PokemonZASpoilers I beat Pokemon Z-A a couple of weeks ago, but haven't been able to stop playing it post-game even after getting the full Pokedex; it's now one of my favorite Pokemon games! I made it a point to take a new trainer photo every rank, so here's my (slightly spoilerish) compilation!

While it may not look like a lot of visual progress, I made a lot of data progress on my #RPGMaker plugin today! Now, instead of using party members, I store the characters in an array. I had to make two windows for the party and the area below, but they're all selectable now. #IndieDev #GameDev

I decided to finally learn how to make my own #RPGMaker plugin! I'm making a custom party manager plugin, so I'm learning about how windows work. Right now I have it showing the character's name and face in a party menu and a stats window on the side with who you're hovered over. #IndieDev #GameDev

Here's a gameplay video of the digital version of Nay Saga. I adapted 2/6 of the game types from the physical board game to RPG Maker MZ in a few months:

I've been playing a lot of monster collection games lately, and I've always thought it'd be fun to make my own. So I threw together this little test in #RPGMaker using the database, events, and JavaScript! I didn't actually need any plugins to put this concept together either. #GameDev #IndieDev

The Nays met Daniel, who tricked them into participating in his challenges, competing against The Gek for The Nays' admiration. The Gek rescued them, so they're ready to compete in more games of The Gek Point Championship! 📘 Read The Gek's Favorite Eventure here: the-nays.weebly.com/the-geks-fav...

@nimbusstev.bsky.social and I have been thinking about remaking our #GGJ project from 2020, The Note Competition (and probably renaming/retheming it). So I updated the game to RPG Maker MZ and optimized some of the code. In my blog post, I detail what I've done in preparation: #GameDev #IndieDev

I wrote about my process on making the mini-Unity project from the other week, Outlaw Bar Bowling. Check out my blog post here: michellerakar.blogspot.com/2025/10/nay-... #IndieDev #GameDev

I've been playing a lot of Digimon Story Time Stranger these past few weeks and I think I'm close to beating it. I have multiple pages of notes like this on what stats my Digimon need to gain in the Digi Farm so they can digivolve. The digivolving is really my favorite part of these games!

Over the years, I've always enjoyed making lists and tracking data relating to my interests in spreadsheets. My brother and I have been tracking our Pokémon TCG Pocket cards in Google Sheets so we can see which cards to trade, and I'm making a lot of progress with the EX packs.

Last night, I was thinking about clever ways to create the team menu for The Note Competition Remake. I came up with an idea to be like an equipment menu where you equip different characters for different slots in battle. So I made some sketches to brainstorm before implementing. #IndieDev #GameDev

Last year, I made a game called Clove’s Story in Ren'Py for the "Only One of Any Asset" (O2A2) Visual Novel Jam 2024. Here's a video where I play through the game:

I've been brainstorming a lot for our remake of The Note Competition. We're leaning towards completely re-theming it and most likely renaming it. But for now, I've been optimizing the code and fixing some functionality to set us up for an easier time when we dive into it! #GameDev #IndieDev

The Nays went back to The Gek's World for a few days, played more games, met more Nays, and sneaked out to go on missions as "The Night Kids". Now they stay up before bed to go on another mission, but with a bigger group. 📘 Read The Gek's Rival Eventure here: the-nays.weebly.com/the-geks-riv...

Here's a video of Outlaw Bar Bowling, the mini game that @nimbusstev.bsky.social and I made in Unity over the weekend: #IndieDev #GameDev

I decided to take some more time today to look at the code for our Outlaw Bar Bowling Unity game and make updates to turn it into a working game! I updated the bowling mechanics and integrated them into the drink mixing scene. #GameDev #IndieDev

@nimbusstev.bsky.social and I spent another day in Unity on a mini game called Outlaw Bar Bowling! We spent more time on the visuals than the others, but didn't quite get the bowling mechanics working yet. He did the 3D art, and I did the 2D materials/art! #IndieDev #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday

Working on some more Unity projects tonight! I just finished the mechanics for this drink mixing game. It's mixed with a bowling game where you bowl for ingredients, and then can mix the drinks you get to create power-ups. The core mechanics of this scene are there. Next up, art! #GameDev #IndieDev

Last week, my brother and I made a few mini games in Unity. I made a blog post where I walk through the process here: michellerakar.blogspot.com/2025/09/nay-... #IndieDev #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday

I had this idea that there could be a local multiplayer mode where you battle against a friend. So that led me to figure out how to control another event using keyboard inputs and code in RPG Maker! Movement and interactions are working so far. Next up: picking up item spawns! #GameDev #IndieDev

Looking at our #GGJ projects, we were thinking about which one we could expand/remake into a full game. The Note Competition (2020) is looking most likely because it was very bite-sized and has potential. So I converted it to RPG Maker MZ and updated the title with new plugins. #IndieDev #GameDev

Another small Unity game with @nimbusstev.bsky.social! We spent a bit more time on this one, and it was a bit bigger than the previous one. This time, I worked on all of the art assets while he did most of the programming. It's a mini dodgeball game in the desert. #IndieDev #GameDev

I made a little Unity game with @nimbusstev.bsky.social tonight. I programmed the mechanics where you have to type names and phrases to move Chila forward and beat Boney in a race. He made all of the 3D art assets for the game. It was a fun project to make within a few hours! #GameDev #IndieDev

The Nays rescued Mar from Mr Dude World, where she swapped places with Stinky Girl, and joined the group. Now they're back home and meeting up to see where they'll go next. 📘 Read The Night Kids Eventure here: the-nays.weebly.com/the-night-ki...

I spent a lot of time troubleshooting the Set Movement Route in #RPGMaker, but after some help on the forums, and some more research on my own, I found a combination of plugins that mostly works. It required holding some frames, adding more frames, and resetting the step order. #GameDev #IndieDev

I finished all the drawings of Pidgebeetle! I exported them as spritesheets and started to import the animations into RPG Maker. I'm having some frame issues with how Set Movement Route works for displaying longer animations, but I'm making progress and troubleshooting. #IndieDev #GameDev #RPGMaker

I finished the idle animation with the final art for Pidgebeetle! I saved it out as a spritesheet and imported it into the engine with the speed I want him to move at. I also drew some head turns for him that I'll use for later parts of the scene. #GameDev #IndieDev #RPGMaker

I finished the rough animation of poses for my game dev scene today. I learned Aseprite, and it helped with animating on multiple layers. The poses are mostly there, so next will be finishing those drawings before I add the actual timing in the engine. #GameDev #IndieDev

I'm making a mini-game dev project where I'm creating a single scene; it'll all be working in an engine, but I'm focusing more on the visuals. I started with the sketch (on the left) in Photoshop and am slowly adding colors and lights in RPG Maker (the right screenshot). #GameDev #IndieDev

I tried out Pheonix KageDesu's Alpha NET plugin for RPG Maker to see how complicated creating a multiplayer game would be. I was able to get this all functional in a few hours, so not too bad! The hardest part was getting the waiting message to show up properly. #GameDev #IndieDev #RPGMaker

I drew some theoretical level designs for games about The Nays. This was a fun little game design activity! The one on the left is an RPG about Grenna, and the one on the right is an endless runner/2D platformer about Pubby. #GameDev #IndieDev

I created this game dev vlog where I dive into my process and how I designed my 2020 Global Game Jam project: The Note Competition. #GGJ #GlobalGameJam #GameDev #IndieDev #RPGMaker

The Nays are now back home again in North Harbor after another few days of staying in The Gek's World. They spent the last few days earning Gek Points and becoming known as The Nays. 📘 Read the Stinky Girl Eventure here: the-nays.weebly.com/stinky-girl-...