youtu.be/o3_8bIFjOpc?...

Absolutely incredible.

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone.

Watch with sound on.

I have finally put my Antiquities collection up for display.

Still there, still utterly unchanged.

Two ancestors of deer talk to each other, "Indohyus, my brother. I've decided to search for more food in the waters." "You will regret this Pakicetus. The environment will force you to adapt." "I just need some shrimps lol I will be perfectly fine." 35 million years later, a huge blue whale floats over a tiny deer, "AAAOOOOOOOOAAAAHHH MRUUUUUHHHH BWOOOOEEEEE" and the deer says "WTF"

for anybody who doesn't know about the deer whale thing here ya go

*soon*

🎵turn it out, bright eyes 🎵

This made me go look up what’s actually in Towson Commons now and apparently it’s a shitty chain gym and a Chipotle. How the (not) mighty have fallen.

Camp Keepalive: Endless Summer on Steam Camp Keepalive: Endless Summer is a turn-based strategy game set in a camp straight out of an 80's horror movie. Save the helpless and dull-witted campers from an onslaught of monsters with a team of ...

Ironically, I realized I failed to do the important thing which is - if you got this far - tell you where you can find my games 😅

store.steampowered.com/app/3637630/...

store.steampowered.com/app/2950320/...

I want to make games that make people feel the same joy I feel when I play amazing games. I'll keep working towards that every way I can, through all the marketing fails and crappy placeholder art and unfathomable bugs along the way.

This is still the start of my journey - the best is yet to come!

Ultimately, the important thing for me is I'm doing something I've dreamed about since I was a little kid. It's an insane thing to do, it's a hard thing to do, but it's an adventure and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Learn, apply, grow, and keep trying. It's not a particularly thrilling mantra, but I think it's an important one. As for the shouting into emptiness part, that's harder one to deal with. But it's the nature of the game, and I know I am certainly not alone in feeling that way sometimes.

It's hard to justify spending money when you've got the pain of low sales already behind you, but if bringing on an artist who can make my middling battle backgrounds look 1000x better means suddenly people might take a second look? I think that's worth it

Again, that's all on me. I need to take the lessons from my previous games and put them into action. I need to face the fact that as a #solodev, there are things I'm just not as good at as I would like to be, and could honestly use some help on.

So, what's next?

Like I said, Tyrants Must Fall is already in private playtesting, with a public demo to come soon. From my previous two attempts, I know I need to put a lot more effort into marketing ahead of launch to try and build up the wishlists and up the odds someone with clout takes notice

It can be hard because they cost time or money or both, and frankly none of them have really done much in terms of actual marketing benefit (for me), but the other benefits can be really invaluable.

But the other big thing is just being able to *see people play your game and enjoy it* When you feel like you are shouting into that abyss, having someone finish trying out your game and say "hey, that was really fun!" will do wonders for you.

Something that has helped immensely is exhibitions and cons - first of all, they are incredible playtest opportunities. Peeking over people's shoulders while they play will teach you way more than anybody's bug reports.

I will be honest, the hardest thing is the feeling of shouting into the void - of putting your heart into a game and having barely anyone bat an eye. That said, nobody *owes* me any attention - it's on me to find ways to *make* them interested. That's on me to figure out.

Other issues are harder - I don't have a big social media following, I'm not a content creator, I don't have a publisher, and I don't have a big marketing budget. I am one voice among a chorus of thousands of voices, and that's just the nature of being an indie right now.

The big issues, of course, is getting noticed, and honestly I don't have a lot going in my favor there. My games are pixel art - already a strike to many people, and I will be the first to admit they don't have nearly the juice a lot of other indies do. That's something I need to focus on

From a selling games standpoint? Not so great! Combined, across the two titles, I've barely broken triple-digit copies sold. I knew going in sales would be the hardest part, but I am still surprised at how hard its been. I wasn't looking for indie mega-hit success, but I had hoped to find a niche

So how's it gone so far? From a making games standpoint, really well! In the past two years I've released two full games - Station Zeta and Camp Keepalive: Endless Summer - and my current project (Tyrants Must Fall) is moving steadily forward (and will be in the Next Fest later this spring)!

But to me, the most important thing was I knew I'd regret it if I didn't try, and if I didn't do it now I'd probably never do it. I was fortunate enough to be in a position to be able to do it, and my family supported my decision, so I knew I had to be brave and take the plunge.

I didn't jump into this blind - I'd been making games for over 10 years as a hobby. I just always felt I wasn't really able to make the games I wanted because it was always secondary to everything else. I also knew the odds of success were *extremely* low.

So yesterday was the 2-year anniversary of when I walked away from my 20+ year career and set off to become a full-time #indiedev #solodev. This was, by most normal evaluations, an insane thing to do! But at this 2-year mark, I thought I'd look back at how it's gone so far.

🧵

Big update to Tyrants Must Fall today after a lot of great playtest feedback - now battles come with a handy-dandy initiative bar to show exactly when units will go, as well as how the phases of each round play out! #indiedev #gamedev #turnbased

He-Moon and the Masters of the Excitingly Different

Minecraft succeeds because it is a fantasy where you dig and find cool things, unlike real life where I dig and find nothing but rock-hard clay and decades-old garbage.