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Simon A

@eponymoose.bsky.social

120 followers 120 following 170 posts

🎮 Indie Gamedev 🎮 🚀 Making Sol Mates, a co-op space game for you and your friends!🚀 🪐Learn more at https://www.solmatesgame.com/ 🪐

www.solmatesgame.com

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Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 22h

Thanks so much for checking out our game! Glad you enjoyed it!

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 1d

🫡 Roger. You will be missed.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 2d

0_o

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 2d

Yesss!

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 2d

The secret nobody tells you is that gamedev is 90% waiting for progress bars to fill.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 3d

Took a wrong turn and found myself on a street blocked by a gaggle of Canadian Geese. They would not move. I had to turn around and go back. What else could I do? You can't honk at a goose. Honking only makes the goose stronger.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 5d

3 more reasons to play our game, Sol Mates

#CompanionBall #TheBallIsMyFriend

A Sol Mates screenshot of an orange astronaut in tall top hat holding a beach ball.

A Sol Mates screenshot of a pink astronaut with a bow holding a beach ball.

A Sol Mates screenshot of a teal astronaut with an excellent mustache holding a beach ball.

Reposted by Simon A

TayaSigerson @tayasigerson.bsky.social · 7d

Four ways to avoid taking damage in FF6

Shield: Terra

Sword: Cyan

Cape: Locke

Dog: Shadow and Interceptor

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 6d

Simon: This is a co-op game. It is about working together, and not about yelling at your friends.

Also Simon: But what if you could retract the ramp whenever you wanted?

Daruma Games 🚀🧑‍🚀 making Sol Mates @darumagames.bsky.social · 6d

you know what else recently dropped?
our game demo.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 6d

This is honestly one of my favourite changes we've made recently.

Bye bye!

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 7d

If you see this, quote with your first anime.

Reposted by Simon A

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

Some #indiedev advice: Add a watermark and track your build versions! It doesn't take a lot of work, and can save a ton of headache, tracking down and repro-ing issues. You'll see it in any screenshots or stream clips you get sent. I've found it super helpful!

Here is how ours works... 🧵
#gamedev

A zoomed in screenshot from the bottom right of the game Sol Mates featuring a watermark which reads "do:0bd40", and an orange happy astronaut floating through space in the background.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

Anyway, Sol Mates is a chaotic co-op game about operating a spaceship. It makes for a great game night game. Upgrade your ship, vote on events, fight some space pirates!

We also have watermarks if that's what you're into.

Come play our demo: www.solmatesgame.com

Thanks for reading!

Sol Mates on Steam

Blast and laugh your way through space with up to 4 friends in this chaotic roguelike co-op. Every run is a new adventure so steer, shield, and work together to take on unpredictable challenges - or a...

www.solmatesgame.com

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

This has come in handy a number of time for making sure people are playing an up to date, or making sure that the correct build is going to the correct place. It's super easy to set up and run, event a fairly manual version is pretty light weight. I highly recommend you do something similar.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

Whenever we make a build, it is recorded to a discord channel. This way we maintain a history we can reference. It includes the exact configuration of the build, both the hash and branch it was built from, and where it is used. I have a little tool which auto-generates this message.

A screenshot of a discord message from develop Simon. It reads:
App: Demo
Type: Demo
Env: demo
Platform: Steam_Win64
Version: 0bd40275d0b8f2b02d7588d1b56b5617d27cd887
Steam Build: 19987376
Built from: release/demo_1

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

The remainder is a git hash for the revision in version control this was built from. This could also be a version number, but the hash is easy for us. Seeing an issue you thought was fixed? Easy to tell if this is from an old build. Also helpful when Steam is being slow to update after a deploy.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

This is the anatomy of our watermark:
The 1st character is the build type. 'v' for the full game, 'd' for the demo.
The 2nd character is the network mode. 'o' for offline, 'h' for host, 'c' for client. We include this because the game runs pretty differently if you are the host or a client.

A zoomed in screenshot from the bottom right of the game Sol Mates featuring a watermark which reads "vo:064cb". Each section of the watermark is labeled. 'v' - Build type. 'o' - Network Mode. '064cb'- Git Hash

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

Some #indiedev advice: Add a watermark and track your build versions! It doesn't take a lot of work, and can save a ton of headache, tracking down and repro-ing issues. You'll see it in any screenshots or stream clips you get sent. I've found it super helpful!

Here is how ours works... 🧵
#gamedev

A zoomed in screenshot from the bottom right of the game Sol Mates featuring a watermark which reads "do:0bd40", and an orange happy astronaut floating through space in the background.

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 8d

Me when I see the messenger:

a man in a suit and tie is making a gun gesture .

ALT: a man in a suit and tie is making a gun gesture .

media.tenor.com

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 10d

I'd love to suggest store.steampowered.com/app/2420800/...

But I may be biased.

Sol Mates on Steam

Blast and laugh your way through space with up to 4 friends in this chaotic roguelike co-op. Every run is a new adventure so steer, shield, and work together to take on unpredictable challenges - or a...

store.steampowered.com

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 10d

Also potentially true for multiplayer games that are strictly cooperative!

Eternal Skies @eternalskiestcg.bsky.social · 10d

Dear fellow indie game devs,

If your game is single player and someone discovers some broken strat that is against the way you intended the game to be played, you don't need to patch it.

You can just leave it. It's okay if people want to use the broken strat to make it easy.

Reposted by Simon A

Daruma Games 🚀🧑‍🚀 making Sol Mates @darumagames.bsky.social · 14d

it costs $0.00 to support an indie dev team (and to play their demo!) 🥹

#indiegame #gamedev #solmates

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 16d

Was I the astronaut with the fire extinguisher? Nope, I was face down in the fire!

Daruma Games 🚀🧑‍🚀 making Sol Mates @darumagames.bsky.social · 16d

behind-the-scenes footage of the Sol Mates dev team in action prepping for our public demo launch last week 🔥🧯

Reposted by Simon A

Daruma Games 🚀🧑‍🚀 making Sol Mates @darumagames.bsky.social · 20d

Our doggo wants you to play our game 🐾🎮

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is how you market an #indiegame right?

Come for the corg, stay for chaotic 4-player co-op fun on a spaceship!

#indiedev #PlaySolMates

A very cute corgi, sits in front of a poster for the indie game Sol Mates!

Simon A @eponymoose.bsky.social · 21d

I think Taylor might be more of a AAA games gal. She wants her benefits and belly rubs.