Those are some fantastic dragons! I love the expressions!

After my big push for the Digging in the Dark open alpha, it has been nice to take a little break and play a different sort of digging game: Space Engineers!

Yes, it's a digging game. It has drills in it, it counts.

I am always amazed by the impact that sound effects have when added to my games. They really bring a game to life.

Pro marketing tip. Before announcing your game to the world, check the news and make sure you won't be competing with any breaking stories gripping the world's attention. For example, the abduction of the de facto leader of a nation by your nation's military. 😔

Let's just call it a soft launch.

It’s time. Digging in the Dark is finally ready to be released to the world. I am pleased to announce that we are moving into the experimental open alpha phase of development! Play the demo now for free at flashguardian13.itch.io/digging-in-t...!

youtu.be/FdV4CBwER6Q

Digging in the Dark: progress! The first round of closed alpha tasks have been completed. Playtesting revealed a few minor issues that will need to be ironed out. Shouldn't take long. Open alpha is so close, I can smell it.

Localization framework is mostly working. Just a few UI elements that aren't yet cooperating. Once those issues are ironed out, all of the game text can easily be translated into other languages. French will be first, then maybe Spanish.

Translating keyboard and controller bindings will be tricky.

The holiday singing season is finally behind me, and I have the entire week off between Christmas and New Years. Ya'll know what that means: back to work on Digging in the Dark!

My initial goal was to have localization ready to go by the end of my break, but I only have four more screens to go!

I THINK I found it. One of the engine upgrade images. I'm pretty sure, anyway. Hopefully I can find a good replacement image.

Just found a mysterious image credit in my game's credits. Web domain, abbreviated CC license. No title, filename, or URL.

Even better, when I look up the CC license, it's non-commercial.

So there's a mystery image somewhere (maybe?) in my game that must be found and replaced. Uuuuugh.

On this note, guess what I'm plowing through right now for Digging in the Dark. I'll give you three guesses and good lord am I tired of hunting down and exporting all of the game text into a spreadsheet for later internationalization. 😵‍💫

It is one of the universe's greatest injustices that the lifespans of dogs are so short. All my sympathy. I'm glad you were able to be there for him at the end.

I humbly advise you to take a break from the social media for a while. Self care is important. Mourning and remembrance are self care.

Creativity isn't always fun. Sometimes it's boring, uninteresting, or tedious. It's 100% okay to step away for a while. Enjoy what others have created. Humans can do amazing things. You are human (allegedly). You can do this. Find a way around or push through. Remember how awesome it's going to be!

I love listening to video game music remixes while I gamedev because they demonstrate the love people have for their favorite games and remind me that I'm building Digging in the Dark not just for me but for a larger community. Thank you, artists of ocremix.org! #GameDev #IndieDev #OCRemix

Can relate.

As a fan of near-future tech in roleplays, I just have to say how cool it is to see one of my PC's "super-science" abilities in action. I want to see more of my setting's tech come to life. Scientists, get on those hydrogen thrusters and quantum internet for my giant mecha! #MutantsAndMasterminds

Digging in the Dark version 0.4.1 has been released. Mostly just polishing out rough edges. This will be the last closed alpha release. Next time, ya'll can join in the fun, too!

It's been a minute, so quick update. My new job is fantastic, but it has cut into my DitD dev hours significantly. Basically, it's a weekend project now. Sorry for the radio silence, all!

As for what I'm working on? New, improved, animated title screen with social media linkage. Fun with shaders!

I'll be in their bioscience division working with Python and APIs. As I understand it, I'll be facilitating all kinds of awesome research and sharing of knowledge.

After nine months of job hunting, today I accepted an offer of work with the University of Chicago! I am stoked!

Don't fret about Digging in the Dark. Development will continue, even if only slowly. We're in too deep to back out now!

RIP Ozzy. Your legacy lives on.

Also, if you're unfamiliar with this "love letter to metal" adventure game, it is well worth trying or buying. Go get it!

Not sure if you work with Godot at all, but there are some excellent Godot folks at Godot Café on Discord.
discord.com/invite/zH7NUgz

It may also be worthwhile to look for game jams on Itch.io. That's a great way to meet other indie devs and play some fun games!

So easy, right? :) New goal: install Docker and get Godot to build in a Mac OS container! That's my current goal, anyway.

That's a mood, that is. A good beginning.

So true. In my experience, #Godot does pretty well determining focus neighbors programmatically ... as long as you're letting your containers do the work. Do anything special and the default neighbors go off the rails fast. Example: I made an item selection WHEEL. It spins. Godot can't even.

Might you be in some sort of indie dev starter pack?

It's only fair. I mean, he's trying to erase trans folk.

Yesterday's game release was hugely focused on the UX and styling. So glad that's overwith! Now my project roadmap says I get to move on and work on ... marketing and social media! 😅 😮‍💨

That's a neat idea!

Today's #godot tip: Instead of visible, use TabContainers to hide/show content while still occupying the same UI area.

1) Put content inside a TabContainer with:
- Tabs Visible: false
- Use Hidden Tabs for Min Size: true
2) Add empty Control as a sibling
3) Switch between tabs to hide/show content.