dillionmcrich

I'm a MAKER! My passion is creating video games. Support me on https://www.patreon.com/dillionmcrich if ya like! Currently, I'm doing two week sprints, producing a microgame every two weeks, which will all eventually be a part of one larger stupid game...

[dillionmcrich]

MY RICK AND MORTY THEORY: THE SECRET OF THE TICKET! This is my new channel. This vid was a huge hit. Check it out!

[dillionmcrich]

Sorry that I’ve fallen silent recently and haven’t been making Patreon posts.

I’m having to switch gears a little in hopes of changing my RL situation for the better. It’s exciting stuff, but it means I’ve had to put my creative forces elsewhere.

I’ll give an update once I’m back to “normal” operations.

[dillionmcrich]

RELEASE 5!

World Map, Integrating FV with OT, and Improvements to the FV UI and Food mechanics.

There has been SOOO much piling up in my backlog for these things, since I sprint through these games and leave a lot of non-crucial things undone.

I may take the next release as well to work on some of these~

WEEEE 10 WEEKS OF THIS STUFF AND IM STILL ALIVE

[dillionmcrich]

SOOOOOOO

I just finished Bloodborne last night,

and when I say finished, I mean that I got the final trophy last night.

My total experience of Bloodborne involved two game files (a strength/balanced playthrough and a skill/bloodtinge playthrough), 135 total hours of playtime, 4 COMPLETED playthroughs, every ending, every trophy, every weapon, a total of only 3 ragequits and a pvp record of 5 wins 2 losses.

WTF SUCH A GOOD GAME

After all the crap that the game industry has been producing lately, I did not expect to be suddenly swept off my feet by a perfect ten.

Sure, there were a couple spots where I felt frustrated because it wasn’t my fault I died, but in the massive perspective of 135 hours of playtime, those were ultimately insignificant.

Graphics and setting, 10. Gameplay 10. Challenge 10. Reward 10. Sense of progression and getting better, 10.

MAYBE one could argue that the story doesn’t deserve a good score because NOTHING is EVER explained to the player...

Until you realize that all the story is told through cryptic hints throughout the game’s item descriptions, meaning that if players aren’t interested, they can just play the game, but if they ARE interested, they can research to their hearts content through all the mysterious background lore and analyze the beautiful environments, choc full of surprising evidence... OR, even better, they can watch all the youtube videos by incredibly clever and fascinated individuals, explaining their interpretation of all the mysterious clues!

In other words, it’s not even trying to do story like most games do story. It let’s itself be a game, and yet a richly built world is ever available for intrigue!

Yaknow what? I think that’s exactly the word: rich!

It’s so rich with content! Gah! So inspiring as a developer!

And on that segway, I’m releasing another thing on horse game tonight, though it’ll be less ground breaking than before. This release is a bunch of integration and cleanup tasks...

(and honestly it’s not even scratching the surface of the integration and cleanup still remaining...)

Hey, it’s a step :3

[dillionmcrich]

Although there were a number of features that had to be ultimately postponed for timing purposes, I'm very pleased how this came out!

Producing this on time was a very frantic experience. I've been doing this for 8 weeks now, and it been getting harder.

For the next 2 week cycle, I will likely step off the gas a little and work on polishing the games I've already released. I hope to wrap up some of the loose ends, as well as my rampantly growing caffeine reliance.

I'd rather commit to a more reasonable goal than fail to reach a commitment.

And given how rapidly I've produced these things, they absolutely could use a bit of polish.

[dillionmcrich]

Fuck x.x

I think I'm pretty much done with this release. It's hard to tell with how chaotic everything felt today, but I think this release was around 30 hours of actual work in unity and c#. For once, I actually feel like, really burnt on this. It's been roughly 32 hours since I got out of work on thursday, and since then, I've spent 7 sleeping, probably around 2 in food breaks, and around 3 in Bloodborne breaks. 20hr / 32hr is a truely insane amount. I'm absolutely considering doing something very scaled back for next release, because for this one, I feel incredibly stressed, and I've developed a concerning dependence level on caffeine and I should step that back. It's worth noting that I haven't even started on this release's video yet. I'd say that for the past two releases, PKMN and OT, I felt destroyed and drained afterwards, but it was kind of in a good way. It was a satisfying feeling, not dissimilar from the feeling of completing an intense and refreshing workout. But, this is the very first time where the destroyed and drained feeling is kind of in a not good way. I guess what I'm saying is, if I have to do this every two weeks, it's not sustainable. I think I'm going to start being more careful with my goals. It would be far better to aim lower than to miss entirely and lose motivation. The good news is that I feel like I've completed the "prove myself" phase. I thought a microgame every two weeks would be brutal, and it was, but I proved to myself that I could do it. In addition, I've built a robust framework for the addition of content. For every half hour I spent developing an event or situation, I spent ten hours developing a framework to create and handle the event. This means that adding battle moves, new farmable resources, new enemies to fight, and new random encounter events will be lightning fast compared to how it originally was. For instance, if I wanted a random event where a window pops up and says a party member suddenly has horse cancer, I could implement that in less than ten minutes. All this is to say, FV Release is coming Saturday as planned, though what I release the next two weeks may be less than a whole minigame, for the sake of my continued existence. Now, I shall unconscious...

[dillionmcrich]

FV Release in progress!

I feel as though I've been gradually disintegrating all week in a sort of lack of high quality sleep gradually compounding into exhaustion and spurred on by a growing dependence on caffeine. It's fun! So naturally, it's time to blow myself to pieces all at once. Before today, I'd say I've put in 10ish hours into the Farmville release, qnd the amount of tasks that weren't even touched in those ten hours was staggering. Like, eight of those hours was just to add an inventory menu to the Oregon Trail release so I could use in the the FV release. But, since I got out of work today, ive put in a solid six hours and made some deal of progress Basically, all I had before today was a simple setup that would read a txt file and load a grid of map tiles with different textures. Now, I have a whole setup where you can click any of these tiles to open a tile data window. If you clicked a tile with rubble in it, it says you can't build anything on the space until you clear it, and there a button to do so. Clicking on a cleared space will allow tell you you can plant something here. Clicking the plant button will open an inventory screen. You can switch between city, reserved, and caravan storage. Clicking an item in any one of these inventories will pull up an info menu for that item, showing all the details about its nutrition and growing stats, as well as an in depth description, though the in depyh descriptions haven't been written for any of the items. So far, nine items can be planted, each with their own yield rates and work requirements, but the work mechanic hasnt been implemented yet, so the plants that absolutely need work to grow anything cant yield harvest yet. Items planted do yield more over time, which are automatically deposited in City storage, completely disregarding storage space. SO That's a lot. That's like, a HUGE chunk off my shoulders. But still so much more to go. I need to make it so you can add workers to the farm via a party menu, have unassigned workers benefit crops by boosting their maintenance levels, and be able to assign workers to certain tasks, removing their passive benefit to crop yields but accomplishing tasks such as clearing a space of rubble or planting a crop. Need to add the ability to destroy and clear a crop so something else can be planted. Need to add wood harvesting. Need to add build option for a storage chest that increases the citys storage. Need to make storage capacity an actual limitation, and thus handle what happens when items are harvested while at max. Need to enable reservation of storage boxes for particular items. Need to have all workers and party members consume food. Need to add a crafts station and enable creation of grelemonades. These are the priorities. Could also do a work tether craftable structure, but we'll see. But now is time for sleep. I am SO. Exhausted.

[dillionmcrich]

Been working on

an Item menu all day.

Making it dynamic is an interesting task. Gotta have it be able to display a complex amount of items and information in as simple and straightforward a way as possible so it’s obvious to the player without needing a tutorial.

NO TUTORIALS

That’s the goal.

WOOSH

[dillionmcrich]

Can’t stop!!

Bloodborne! BLOODBORNE!! HOLY SHIT BLOODBORNE

I was never interested in the Dark Souls series. It just looked dreary and boring to me, and the fact that it was supposedly hard as shit further dampened any interest I had in playing it, no matter how much my hipster friend urged me it was the best thing ever.

Sure, I get that maybe the mechanics were spot on and that sense of incredible fragility and mortality made it a harrowing experience, but the flair simply wasn’t there.

I know of myself that no matter how precise the game mechanics are, if you vibe and atmosphere isn’t right, I’ll simply get little enjoyment out of it. And I didn’t see my self being the kind of person who’d WANT to agonize over getting killed over and over and over just to get it right once.

But then, I saw the Game Grumps playing this, and I was immediately enthralled. THIS is what I’m talking about ladies and gents!

I don’t really seek out grotesque or dark things. Some people do, but that’s not me. BUT, there’s a certain other element I find alluring about this title. It’s got this perfect sense of sleek style to it. Your a fragile thing is this cruel world, but with just the right adrenaline-fueled timing you can quick step nimbly out of a deadly slice, see your coat tails swoosh along with you, and then blast away your would-be assassin with the perfect strokes of a blade.

Perhaps, for me, it’s this: I don’t find myself intrigued by the grotesque, but I adore the sensation of training oneself to meet utter darkness up close, stand up to it, calmly and coolly, and through elegance and laser focus, execute it without a scratch.

So, should you play bloodborne? That’s up to you, but simply know this:

It’s hard because you’re intimidated. It’s hard because you’re angry. It’s hard because you’re impatient. It’s hard because you don’t respect it.

It’s hard because you’re used to video games being more like this...

But this one’s more like this:

BUT, you don’t need to get demolished every five seconds.

I check all my corners, know what’s going on around me at all times, bait enemies to attack me first so I can learn to dodge before committing to being aggressive, and in general respect everything as having the capability to kill me in a second until I know otherwise.

Because of these tactics, most stages I can clear with fewer than 3 deaths, and even with those deaths, it’s fairly easy to retrieve the experience I dropped, so that no harm was done.

You just gotta learn that even WHEN you fail to recollect your experience and all of it fades, it’s alright. Don’t even react. In Bloodborne, farming is exceptionally easy, since you already know where all the creatures are in the level you’re farming, and you can generate a good amount of resources very quickly this way.

That level-or-two’s worth of exp you dropped is easy to come by. Forgive yourself, and get back into having fun.

No worries. Pay the crocodile the respect it deserves, and soon, you’ll be all

[starpyrate]

okay I got a few asks for a lineup so here you go

single images here

[dillionmcrich]

So sorry! That was thoughtless of me xD

Had this picture on my phone and uploaded it without even thinking. I dunno, it’s been a long weekend and I’m not in a coherent state atm

This is the artist of the picture and they’re awesome and totally cool~

So Support them and stuff of course~

Found these designs super inspiring!

[dillionandzephilia]

https://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=2542734

OFFICIAL RELEASE SO OFFICIAL OMG

It feels SO GOOD to create cool things!

This microgame is an Oregon Trail inspired survival game in which you try to gather supplies to support your team’s food needs and keep them alive through random events and battles that happen along the way, in search for a land to begin building your empire!

So far, there’s only a minimal number of random evens implemented, but the structure is completely in place to be able to create any event I can imagine in a fairly short time!

Party members get hungry if not fed enough, limiting their stats and diminishing their experience, and if they continue to not receive nutrition, they will eventually begin starving, losing health over time.

Party members getting extra food will eventually begin to restore health from the extra nutrition.

Team members can get sick, which also limits their stats and experience, and in addition limits how much they can be fed.

Random battles can occur, which use last release’s microgame as a battle system, and rewarding loot in the form of food upon victory.

Food [candy] is used up depending on each character’s ration level.

Players can also forage for food if need be. In the future, this may prove dangerous, as the various foraging parties can be ambushed by wild creatures…

Had a LOT of fun with this one!

Might be hard for people to tell where I’m going with these microgames. Wait and see! :D

[dillionandzephilia]

DONE

With 1.5 hours left on the clock.

I’ve gotta figure out how to properly filter my background noise in the audio. There’s always a deep hum in the background of my narration.

Anyway, the video will be added here and on Patreon tomorrow!

IM GONNA GO SEE MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY WEEEEEEEE

[dillionandzephilia]

Video is exporting

2 HOURS REMAIN

It’s like… it’s like I can feel my whole body just exhaling. Like, like I’ve been holding my breath for 24 hours of pure tension and now everything is just releasing…

This was an INTENSE 24 hour period lemme tell YOU

[dillionandzephilia]

NEW CHALLENGERS APPROACHE

EVERYTHING THAT I ORIGINALLY SET OUT TO DO IS COMPLETE.

Fortunately, I have a BACKUP CHECKLIST OF THINGS

7 HOURS REMAIN

The rest of the time I’ll be spiffing everything up and adding extra features.

Currently I’m aiming to have a sickness system and random encounters while foraging, as well as sickness ad hunger effecting stats and limiting experience gain.

Pause, play, and fast forward buttons. Button to open and close party menu. Create a simple event structure for popping up windows with text and clickable buttons for decisions. Make a simple event for when one party member starts starving. Make an event for a party member dying, and have that member removed from the party. Event for a random encounter, which begins a pokemon style battle. Create forage button that appears when movement is paused, and subsequent events for building foraging parties and them finding random stuff. Add a decision based “tree fell in the way of the path. What do we do?” Event.

[dillionandzephilia]

HOLY SHIT

I just did a super complicated menu-based thing with a whole new gui and CRAZY interactions between windows and it worked oN FIRST TRY

CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP I HAVE A PROBLEM

[dillionandzephilia]

[dillionandzephilia]

But what about

a shot or two of fireball in a Dr Pepper?

#Ballmer Peak