What’s Up with Beasties of Greenhollow?
By April we were sure we’d release by the end of that month. Technically we were done with the game then but it needed and deserved a little more time. The next date we set was the end of May. By that time the game was actually really done and ready to go. Unfortunately, there were a few Steam setup technicalities I didn’t know about at the time.
Evidentially, it’s important to setup a release well before you plan on releasing as there is a cool down period after having a page reviewed and approved. So just so everyone is clear, the game is done and we’re just waiting on a technicality. The new official release date is May 13th for the full game on steam. In the meantime, feel free to wishlist the game and check out the demo on steam!
Additionally the full game actually released on Itch.io on track in April. So if owning copies of games is important to you, consider buying over there and skipping the wait.
What’s Next for BoG?
Now that the game is more or less out, what’s the plan going forward? Will we like so many major companies simply turn our backs on our creation? No, of course not! We have quite a lot more planned for BoG in the upcoming months.
First off, we’re excited to see what people think of our core build. Try it while you can and let us know what you think because we’re planning on adding a few tweaks pretty quickly that will scale the difficulty. We consider the game complete in it’s current form, but there’s just a few things we’re planning on changing that are more of quality of life adjustments.
Secondly, we will also be working on ports and translations. Currently our focus is Linux and Android; and Portuguese, Spanish, and German. The types of adjustments we’re planning include a few small changes like making bosses exit-able and increasing text speed; and larger changes like adding a storage box for collecting Beasties.
So stay tuned! We actually have way more than tweaks to offer with this game. Further in the future we hope to add to this IP with fresh game play and deep dives into the lore.
What are We Up to Now?
As one project comes to a close, rest assured the Pandomime team isn’t resting on their laurels! Besides the aforementioned tinkering with Beasties, we’re well underway with our next few projects.
While we were still waist deep with Beasties we started brainstorming on what was to be the next game. It’s a click-to-adventure with a few innovative twists we’re really excited about!
However, by the time completed BoG, we decided a shorter project made more sense. As such, we’ve decided to push the clicky back and bring a different idea off the shelf from before Pandomime was even formed. No hints, but I’m personally very excited about doing this project as it should be short, hit a bunch of app functions I personally want a better solution for, and it is set in my own personal IP I’ve been working on for around four years now.
“Fawn” by DiscoReptile
Currently we’re picking at recreating some of the older art and ideas in high resolution pixels. As you can see from the above pixels (of my favorite character <3), the original art was quite small, albeit adorable! We also had a jarring mixture vector, abstract paintings, and pixel art. The original idea was to look very alien and it did! But we decided to reign it in and go with a consistent pixel style.
Before we dive head first in though, we’re taking advantage of the Spring weather to do some growing ourselves. What’s on the docket right now are two very excited mini projects.
The first is translating an RPG system I wrote in 2018 into code. It’s a medium crunch system that focuses on deep character customization. We hope to do a full fledged classic JRPG style game in the near future. For now though, we’ll be releasing a browser based demo on this site, hopefully very soon.
The other project we’re interested in is pushing the limits of Game Maker Studio to set us up for some really stunning retro style games in the further off future. With the right ingenuity, it’s actually possible to crack the code and turn the otherwise 2d locked system into a 2.5d experience. We would so love to create a faithful new ‘Boomer Shooter’ IP or an old school dungeon crawler like Elder Scrolls: Arena.
We’ll keep you posted on progress on all these projects, so keep an eye on this blog, instagram, and youtube!