WIP partial tech tree for new @lastkeep.com faction. Showing the fine code that displays the name of the techs if we don't have icons yet. Very useful during dev. We've got new PLAYTEST/DEMO (not with this faction ofc) out: store.steampowered.com/app/2929040/... #indiegames #strategygame #indiedev

Check out the latest trailer for the new sci-fo RTS title Fleetbreakers as the game will have a free demo available during Steam Next Fest. #indiedev #indiegame

We have a NEW TRAILER and PLAYTEST/DEMO for FLEETBREAKERS. @ign.com posted the trailer www.ign.com/videos/fleet.... Give it a look. Give us a wishlist😀 #strategygame #RTS #indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com

Had a REALLY good day cranking out content and bugfixes. Fixed 18 items. Several of the "how did we not see this giant issue?" variety. Unfortunately we also played the game, which generated another 21 bugs and tasks. -3 net today. Doh. #indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com #roguelite #strategygame

Welp. This was a LONG day of data wrangling to completely replace all our unit enhancements (rolled buffs on each squadron instance). This was after 4 days of building techs and relics😂 I'm am officially gassed on buffs for this week. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #indiegame #strategy #roguelite

So many little numbers to fit in such a small space. Still trying to get it all in 😆. Rollover (not shown) does make it a lot more parseable obv. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #indiegame #roguelite #strategygame

Q: Why is that Scout ship not buffed by +20 like the text says? ...2 hours later... A: Because I let us try a "new way" when I should have just said no. My fault 100%. Now rebuilding all health data in @lastkeep.com ahead of key milestone. What can go wrong? #indiedev #roguelite #strategygame

Slogging through giant text pass on our game @lastkeep.com. There is a LOT. More than I want, but still not as much as we need. I am certainly no fulltime text-person😀Doing it in bursts but it's still a bear. How do you all approach these kinds of tasks? #indiedev #roguelite #strategygame

Demoed @lastkeep.com at the SIX demo day. 10 hours on my feet hits different than 28 years ago when we did it for Age of Empires at Ensemble's first E3. But we learned a lot about how our game today. How it appeals to folks and how it doesn't. Improvements to make! #indiedev #strategygame #roguelite

We got a chance to hang out with the great folks from @seattleoba.org last night in Seattle. Thanks to everyone who stopped by. If you're in town this weekend, swing by our table at SIX on Sunday @seattleindies.bsky.social. #six2025 #indiegames

We've been pushing hard the last couple of weeks for some live demos of @lastkeep.com at six.seattleindies.org/about/ this weekend. I won't lie, my in-person demo skills are probably a bit rusty 😅 #indiedev #strategygame #roguelite

Always cool to meet new folks on here!

Nothing quite like spending hours rigging up new UI (new code, data, refactoring old code to pump the new calls, etc.) and then having it compile first time. Awesome😀 NARRATOR: It was, in fact, not awesome. Many extra hours were required for it to actually work. #indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com

Finally changed some XML parsing on @lastkeep.com today. Relics are comprised of techs, but refs were by name to tech instances in other XML file. Gross, but we put up with it forever. Now the techs can be inlined. So much nicer to have the data in one spot. Easier to edit. Less bugs. #indiegames

Been chasing this bug on @lastkeep.com for several days. AI units intermittently attack. Can't repro locally. I think I found my uninitialized variable (doh). Testing fix now. Shouldn't have taken this long to find, but some optimization make it trickier to find. Nevertheless, fingers crossed.

I'm doing a reddit AMA later today. Drop by for excellent questions and mediocre answers 😀 #indiedev #ageofempires #roguelite #strategygame @lastkeep.com www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeSt...

Been on a bit of a break posting various updates on @lastkeep.com Will probably get back to that soon. We've been cranking away on feedback from the demo. Fired up the side project recently. Kinda effing around with a complete restart to fix/redo some large things. That's going to be a lot of work

Rough week at work last week. Weekend was a nice break. Got some todos done around the house. Superman was better than we expected. Dinner with son and his GF. Had the first good ice cream in Seattle (Husky Deli).

Check-In Explainer Day 19: We made the PDCs and Drones inherit the buffs their employer received. While awesome overall, this caused a bunch of invalid/unintended buffs for said PDCs and Drones. Now fixed. #roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike @lastkeep.com

#roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike @lastkeep.com Check-In Explainer Day 18: Adding better explanation text so folks know tradeoffs if they "accidentally" blast through preface dialogue. Story or not, it's critical for folks to know what their choices will do. And, um, ignore the typo😀

Check-In Explainer Day 17: Another long awaited UI fix: Showing the delta values when a squadron has cost buffs/debuffs. This immediately makes the econ relics pop as so much more valuable. Don't get credit for buffs you can't see! @lastkeep.com #roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike

@lastkeep.com Check-In Explainer Day 16: MOAR FPS. Some simple removal of needless calls for things that can't ever move and a redo of how some distances are calculated. Now minefields run much faster. Oh, yeah, now we have minefields turned on again😀 #roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike

#roguelike #strategygame #indiedev Check-In Explainer Day 15: Adding a new station to build: Bombard Turret (though it will get a fancier name at some point). Good for shooting the stuff in the back of an enemy attack and taking out bunches of little ships with its AOE damage. @lastkeep.com

Check-In Explainer Day 14: Adding a new relic: Mirror Finish. Chance to reflect damage back to attacker based on the amount of armor. Works great, but not too jazzy yet with just the programmer VFX and text flyoff 🤣 @lastkeep.com #roguelike #strategygame #indiedev

Check-In Explainer Day 13: #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame Finally getting some cleanup on a few options settings. This one is good for SteamDeck battery usage as it throttles down framerate when we're on main menu. Woot. @lastkeep.com

Check-in Explainer Day 12: After some extended play on @lastkeep.com, we decided to make some perf fixes for Next Fest build. We haven't needed many specific perf fixes yet (due to some decent tech planning perhaps?), so there was some easy low-hanging stuff #roguelike #indiedev #strategygame

Fired up Unity6 for some side project musings. Didn't get very far. Out of practice for sure, but man, I still do like C# plenty.

Still getting settled in the new place. Not everything fits in the garage yet, but getting closer once we do another round of selling some cabinets I don't need after paring down the tools. Saw Ballerina with K today. Way better than I expect. Wick-worthy certainly.

Our big Next Fest demo update is out. Loads of new content, all new tech upgrades, new difficulty ramp, and tons of polish. #indiegame #roguelike #strategygame

Check-in Explainer Day 11: Final build notes for Next Fest build. We'd made our prelude easier to help noobs get through it, but it turned out it was TOO easy. The enemies died too fast to see how combat worked. Fixed a little crate frustration, too. #roguelike #indiedev #strategygame @lastkeep.com

Check-in Explainer Day 10: @lastkeep.com This was almost a terribly embarrassing bug. More than a week ago, a bad XML merge got pushed that deleted some important text data. Even with all the testing we do, just randomly found as we were 2 bugs from ZBR. Whew! #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame

Check-in Explainer Day 9: More polish on the attack facing stuff. Here's an early version that shows that attacking over the asteroids will raise the figure 8 pattern for the scouts (the faint upward lines). Obv not enough yet, but we'll get there. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame

Check-in Explainer Day 8: MOAR NextFest polish! A much needed Nexus (ship inventory) improvement: Sorting things by rarity within the various buckets (ships, mothership abilities, relics). #roguelike #strategygame @lastkeep.com

Check-in Explainer Day 7: #roguelike #strategygame We are starting the last week of polish changes for Next Fest!!! @lastkeep.com We have a 'Victory Mode' after each mission so you can mop up resources, collect any crates you missed, etc. Jason (cofounder/AD) riffing on how FX look in that mode.

Check-in Explainer Day 6: @lastkeep.com #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame We have perm upgrades in our roguelike. We were hiding it to streamline start of game. After some feedback of "where are the perm upgrades?", we're turning the button back on from the start. Feature still locked at start tho.

Check-in Explainer Day 5: Polishing up our attack facing. The scout squadron attacks in a figure 8, but you can spin it around the target to control the direction. Timothy's been at this new feature for a while. Coming online just in time for Next Fest! @lastkeep.com #indiedev #roguelike

#indiedev #roguelike Check-in Explainer Day 4: Jazzed up sector map with a few extra zones on top & bottom. These usually get colonies (investment/unlocks for the run), which helps differentiate the rush vs. boom choices during a run. Obv needs re-layout for "You Are Here" text. @lastkeep.com

@lastkeep.com Check-in Explainer Day 3: We don't unlock resource extractors for a bit, so we added some 'compensatory' resource crates until extractors are unlocked. But that broke a very cool econ relic. Added a couple of extra effects to fix that. #indiedev #gamedev #roguelike #strategygame

@lastkeep.com Check-in Explanation Day 2: Going through the game adding rarity colors on all the places they should be. With our roguelike base, it's very useful to know which relics are better than others, though obv you still need to pick smartly for your current run #indiedev #gamedev #roguelike

@lastkeep.com check-in explanation Day 1/1 This is a change to our Scout unit special ability... We're changing how their attack pattern works, so knocking ships back with their special is actually detrimental (QA's word not mine). #indiedev #gamedev #roguelike

Here are some key dates in our Steam NextFest plan: May 19–23: Play our Alpha demo on Steam May 30: Press preview June 9: Exclusive Steam Next Fest demo Wishlist & follow @fleetbreakers on Steam now! #steamnextfest #indiegame #strategygame

Cranking away on updates to our demo for Fleetbreakers @lastkeep.com We've gotten a lot of good feedback, excited to share another version here soon. Side project remains sidelined given the focus on Fleetbreakers and our move to Seattle (which has been great overall).

This is the big news. We have a demo (alpha really) up on Steam. We're looking for feedback and starting to get the buzz rolling. Give it a go and let us know what you think!

New name for our game! Some other exciting news coming *very* soon, too.

Been a while since I've updated... Kristen and I have completed our move to Seattle (minus unpacking ofc). Continuing to crank on our game for @lastkeep.com. Some exciting stuff coming there "soon".

Kristen and I got caught up on a bunch of season finales... * Severance. Yup. Great. Excited to see where S3 goes. * Mythic Quest. Good. We need more comedies. * Reacher. Okay. Very stoked for White Lotus finale. We keep going around about who is gonna get axed vs. who should/deserves it.

Busy weekend. Started hitting various "last local places to visit" before we move in a few weeks. Added some good ole King of the Hill gameplay into @lastkeep.com's game. Should be a slamdunk, but many 'obvious' decisions have not always landed on this game. We'll see what playtest says.

Still heads down on @lastkeep.com work stuff. Game getting better every day! Kristen and I are taking a last minute weekend trip up to Seattle this weekend. We may have finally found the new house. Exciting. At least for us 😃

I have not been posting much lately. But that's because we're cranking on this! Excited to finally start sharing more about the game.

Haven't done side project in last couple weeks (given push on @lastkeep.com game). Getting back to it for a few hours today. Amazing how much I forgot. Doing some obv minor tasks to get back in the groove. Kinda like practicing dovetails in woodworking before cutting the real deals, really.