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sam @soulware.us · 9d

check out this game! i helped @grodygrody.bsky.social make this for #fallingblockjam along with @handcrushe.dev - it's an interesting "spin" on tetris where you get to romance your favorite piece.

and keep an eye out, because this game will only get bigger..!

#godot #indiedev #tetris #gamerlife

grody @grodygrody.bsky.social · 14d

finally my dreams of dating a tetris piece can come true

xenozane.itch.io/pieces-of-my...

Pieces of My Heart (Demo) by XenoZane, grody, soulware

stack tetrominoes, date tetrominoes

xenozane.itch.io

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sam @soulware.us · Sep 3

that is - i've been grappling with the concept with some time unsure exactly if it clicks, but it feels like it relates to games in an interesting way, and frictionless movement between states is probably close to that way

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sam @soulware.us · Sep 3

this reminds me a bit of the concept of the rhizome, which i've been thinking about a bunch in relation to games (though, the reading on it is a bit dense - but especially how it's initially established in relation to books, and how the book discussing rhizomes was structured anti-linearly)

a wikipedia screenshot with the following text:

A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing an assemblage that allows connections between any of its constituent elements, regardless of any predefined ordering, structure, or entry point. It is a central concept in the work of French Theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who use the term frequently in their development of schizoanalysis.

Deleuze and Guattari use the terms "rhizome" and "rhizomatic" (from Ancient Greek ῥίζωμα, rhízōma, "mass of roots") to describe a network that "connects any point to any other point". The term is first introduced in Deleuze and Guattari's 1975 book Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature to suggest that Kafka's work is not bound by linear narrative structure, and can be entered into at any point to map out connections with other points.

from "A Thousand Plateaus":

...well, undergoes a metamorphosis. Unlike a structure, which is defined by a set of points and positions, with binary relations between the points and biunivocal relationships between the positions, the rhizome is made only of lines: lines of segmentarity and stratification as its dimensions, and the line of flight or deterritorialization as the maximum dimension after which the multiplicity undergoes metamorphosis, changes in nature.
These lines, or lineaments, should not be confused with lineages of the
arborescent type, which are merely localizable linkages between points and positions. Unlike the tree, the rhizome is not the object of reproduction: neither external reproduction as image-tree nor internal reproduction as tree-structure. The rhizome is an antigenealogy. It is a short-term memory, or antimemory. The rhizome operates by variation, expansion, conquest, capture, offshoots. Unlike the graphic arts, drawing, or photography, unlike tracings, the rhizome pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight. It is tracings that must be put on the map, not the opposite. In contrast to centered (even polycentric) systems with hierarchical modes of communication and preestablished paths, the rhizome is an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automaton, defined solely by a circulation of states. What is at question in the rhizome is a relation to sexuality—but also to the animal, the vegetal, the world, politics, the book, things natural and artificial—that is totally different from the arborescent relation: all manner of "becomings."

from "A Thousand Plateaus"

plane of consistency on the basis of their intrinsic value. For example, a book composed of chapters has culmination and termination points. What takes place in a book composed instead of plateaus that communicate with one another across microfissures, as in a brain? We call a "plateau" any multiplicity connected to other multiplicities by superficial underground stems in such a way as to form or extend a rhizome. We are writing this book as a rhizome. It is composed of plateaus. We have given it a circular form, but only for laughs. Each morning we would wake up, and each of us would ask himself what plateau he was going to tackle, writing five lines here, ten there. We had hallucinatory experiences, we watched lines leave one plateau and proceed to another like columns of tiny ants. We made circles of convergence. Each plateau can be read starting anywhere and can be related to any other plateau. To attain the multiple, one must have a...

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sam @soulware.us · Sep 1

I think some of the nice things from dynamic langs can be achieved in static/gradual ones but it's rarer in certain subsets of statically typed langs. macros and reflection are the two big things here

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sam @soulware.us · Sep 1

i do enjoy working w static type systems but i probably make less use of them in games than for other software i make

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sam @soulware.us · Aug 13

actually in the welcome center now!

sam @soulware.us · Aug 13

i will be at kendall square open space today from 6-9pm showing off 3 games! PLOVERDRIVE, METEMPSYCHOSIS, and the unreleased “grenadier”. if you like weird small twitchy games, or games you can play with friends, or you hate video games, you should stop by.

#bostongamedev #godot #indiedev #gamedev

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sam @soulware.us · Aug 13

i will be at kendall square open space today from 6-9pm showing off 3 games! PLOVERDRIVE, METEMPSYCHOSIS, and the unreleased “grenadier”. if you like weird small twitchy games, or games you can play with friends, or you hate video games, you should stop by.

#bostongamedev #godot #indiedev #gamedev

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sam @soulware.us · Aug 5

check out this game we made for #gmtkjam! can’t say much without spoiling, but it’s a good time… see if you can escape the loop.

#godot #indiedev #gmtk #gamedev #gamerlife #wormlife

Zane @handcrushe.dev · Aug 4

NEW GAME !! -- "METEMPSYCHOSIS"

made for GMTK game jam, where the theme was "loop"

xenozane.itch.io/metempsychosis

🧵

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 24

i've seen that some games have been completely removed from the platform. it seems hard to find games based on tags now.

is there any way of figuring out who was affected by this? archival data? is anyone putting something together?

some urgent preservation is needed it seems

#itchio #gamedev

itch.io @itch.io · Jul 24

itch.io/updates/upda...

Update on NSFW content

We have “deindexed” all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages. We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by...

itch.io

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Reposted by sam

SplitSuns @splitsuns.bsky.social · Jul 20

i made some music for PLOVERDRIVE, a game by @handcrushe.dev, @soulware.us, and bassdrop.club! check out this sampler, and if you like it you can download the whole soundtrack for free! you should play the game too...
splitsuns.bandcamp.com/album/plover...

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

i enjoyed the recommendations on this article a lot, glad to have more games to check out.. and i’ve got to bump up toki tori 2 on my backlog

sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

anyhow- @josephmansfield.uk if you are looking for more metroidbranias (per the end of the article), i'd suggest giving mine a play! it's on the web at soulware.itch.io/broken-keybo...

and i'd also recommend checking out Sylvie Miniature

BROKEN KEYBOARD HERO by soulware

your keyboard is broken... fix it!

soulware.itch.io

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

on that note, the fast death loop also helps engrain that knowledge is your only resource in BKH. the small "progress" you can make in the world is obvious, and otherwise you quickly learn that nothing is saved.

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

Non-linear: the entire world is at once open. Some places will not be accessible without hints, but the mechanism to reach them is always available to you as a player

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

maybe a ciphertext is a a puzzle - i don't really know where that lands. If you understand one word, but not many sentences, you haven't really cracked the cipher. So it's sort of a contained puzzle

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

all that said, where does BKH land as a metroidbrania?
Knowledge: many non-systemic clues, but a few key points which test your systemic knowledge
Gates: The ending is a lock, but it requires environmental setup. Elsewhere, a smattering of locks/interactions/environments but few repeated puzzles

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

it could be that designing for surprise is ultimately unsurprising, which is a tension that puzzle games certainly have but metroidbranias more than most.

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

with metroidbranias, the designer is the orchestrator of discovery. so discovery must happen, but also, the systems are more airtight. the looseness of movement in traditional metroidvanias often lead to solutions that were not designed for ("glitches"). which do i want as a designer? i don't know!

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

this is a bit rambly now, but a last point about this article, is I think it's interesting to consider where the line is for "knowledge based progression"

for ex. Super Metroid is brought up for its super missile doors, but you can actually get Super Missiles early if you can do a certain exploit

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

I think my favorite distillation of some of these ideas is @sylviefluff.bsky.social 's "Sylvie Miniature", which is a different approach in being a platformer, but something I drew a lot of inspiration from in making BKH as small as it is

my game also has a tiny pixel bunny, completely by accident

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

the other games are sort of "unravelling", where it's revealed that there are new layers of puzzle and new ways to interact as you progress. I think with BKH, I was trying to distill this notion into a smaller package, playing specifically with the rules of a top-down game with dialogue

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

when making BKH, I wasn't thinking about the witness (I hadn't even played it yet!) but I feel like these "rule-discovery" games differ from what people often suggest as metroidbranias.

the main aspect here is the "Clear" one, where the Witness is always quite clear about _how_ you can interact

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

another weird thing to reckon with is that BKH loves hidden controls. but since you, as the player, are forced to think about the controls from the start, this feels a little more satisfying.

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

BKH has combination locks (this is the main puzzle) and non-systemic information. but ultimately to reach these pieces of information, you need to engage with the game's systems in a surprising way. i've had people ask if something they do is a glitch- that's satsifying to hear as a designer

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sam @soulware.us · Jul 19

for example, the article mentions TUNIC, which has cryptic puzzles, but many are combination locks you didn't know about. currently I think it's more interesting when you have a combination lock that is obvious, and you have to wade through information to understand how to solve it

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