Koiote, the Koifish Coyote

Indie game dev at koiote.itch.io

[koifishcoyote]

Tumblr sucks and makes me worse so I'm leaving. I'd give more info but I doubt anyone is actually going to read this.

Just in case: I'm going to try posting on GameJolt. @Koiote if you're interested but there's nothing there yet.

[koifishcoyote]

GMTK Jam 2025, Submitted!

Firedance is finished and submitted!

I had to cut some plans, fix some bugs, and make some music, but it's done! I hope you enjoy it: https://koiote.itch.io/firedance

[koifishcoyote]

GMTK Jam 2025, Day 3

Turns out Unity has a polygon collider, making it easy to damage enemies.

Fire animation was a nightmare though. Not the flickering though. I tried using the Animation component to make it grow but it kept resetting the flame positions so I ended up hard-coding it. The end of the jam is coming fast. I might not be able to make all the enemies, but I'll at least make player health and random spawners.

[koifishcoyote]

GMTK Jam 2025, Day 2

Today was kinda rough. I could barely code before noon. I still managed to do what I planned: movement, a fire trail, and closing the loop. Also set up some animations for the player.

Tomorrow I'm planning to animate the fire and make a prototype enemy that knows when it's inside a completed loop.

[koifishcoyote]

GMTK Jam 2025, Day 1

The theme is Loop so I'm making a game I call Firedance. The premise is that monsters are coming out of the ground. You control the Firedancer, who leaves a magical trail of flames behind her that can banish the monsters back to where they came from. But be careful to connect the loop end-to-end, or you will hurt yourself on your own flames. Today I made all of the art, as you can see here.

Tomorrow I'm gonna program player movement and make the trail of fire. I already have an idea so I bet I'll have time to make the loop, but that main mechanic will be deceptively tricky.

[koifishcoyote]

The GMTK Game Jam is almost here (7/30-8/3) and I think I'll make my game on the road. I'll try to post updates every night of the jam so stay tuned!

[koifishcoyote]

Emotions

I started making a game where emotions manifest as monsters, so I'm looking at https://www.thedictionaryofobscuresorrows.com among other things

How many of you feel ironsick in your everyday life?

[koifishcoyote]

Welp, this sucks

Remember that tower defense game I'm making? Poorly Drawn Goblins? The joke got old VERY fast and frankly I'm not as passionate as I thought I was about the genre. It doesn't help that the games in the genre are all so different it's hard to compare them. Just look at the enemies: Gemcraft is relatively normal. Every enemy has health, speed, and an amount of damage it deals if it reaches the end. Bloons throws this out the window by nesting enemies inside enemies with unique properties. Then there's Creeper World which has no enemies, making you fight a pile of alien goo. Other mechanics change just as much. Build towers on the path? Off the path? Fixed locations or use them to make the path? Don't even get me started on resource management. I don't think I want to make this game anymore. It's not even fun to make, though that could be some personal issues I'm working through. Anywho, I need to rehab my creative instincts. Not sure when I'll be back but wish me luck.

[koifishcoyote]

Speedy Game Dev Update

To start I'm making a tower defense game/gacha game parody.

Here's some poorly drawn goblins you'll play with. My favorite's the archer, what about you?

[koifishcoyote]

The GMTK game jam is coming up and I'm struggling to work fast. I'm going to pause working on Metasuper for a while and practice making small games.

No promises about good but I'm at least aiming for interesting.

[koifishcoyote]

Metasuper Sad Dev Update

For the two of you that have been following development, thank you. I want to make Metasuper as good as I can, but I'm still a solo dev and bit off more than I could chew. I was planning on adding an item system, a good amount of maps, and a lot of characters, but I don't think I can do that. The real question is if I should still have character death. I think yes since I'm shrinking the level count but what do you think?

[koifishcoyote]

Metasuper 5/27/25

Finally! I (mostly) figured out the enemy AI. That is to say, I did what any good programmer does and looked it up. Except I didn't copy any code. That isn't a luxury I have since I ran out of tutorial. Instead I took the theory of a heuristic and made my own version. It doesn't do much yet except pick somewhere to move, but that's the hardest part *knock on wood*

I also have a selector panel so you can pick your heroes from a list every level.

[koifishcoyote]

Been a while so here's all the character, enemy, and NPC pixel art I made, ready for color pallets. I tweaked some of them, and even replaced one, but I'm happy with how most of them turned out.

I also started writing dialogue. Not much important, just stuff for civilians to say when giving the player items. That doesn't mean I'm phoning them in. I'm trying to fit microstories into each of them.

[koifishcoyote]

Metasuper Emergent Storytelling

Emergent Storytelling: stories grown as you play. These stories are wonderful, and I'm designing Metasuper around these.

But how? I don't have the resources for Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld, and already locked in a chapter-based structure. That funky definition gives you a clue, "grown."

You can't build an emergent story like a house. You need to plant seeds, give them good soil, and get the player water them.

Stories start small, with motives and backstory. Plenty of room to develop. For example: a doctor that got fired but still wants to help people. Then things die. Or rather, moments fertilize the soil. They add texture and nutrients to grow the seeds. Anything from villains remembering heroes to heroes remembering fallen allies. You can't make the player water the stories, but you can motivate them. Choice is a big motivator, like who they take to the missions or which paths they take, but those are used enough people don't see the stories. I prefer small but special rewards. If you didn't know already, big rewards ironically kill motivation. A unique flower that heals a little HP feels special, but one that heals a lot is just an item. Anyways, what are some seeds, fertilizer, and watering cans that you've seen elsewhere?

[koifishcoyote]

Drew another hero. Meet Psy Gal!

[koifishcoyote]

Happy Easter to the Coyote Pond! I have a dev log for you!

Here's the biggest reason I have superhero theming. Super Pets!

Not as many kinds of pet as kinds of hero (for now) but when I decide on some color schemes these adorable little things will act as flier, combat, speedster, and healer replacements. Or maybe they'll take slots anyways for animal lovers.

You might notice the blue outlines that weren't on the other sprites I made. Turns out there's a reason nobody changes outline color, so I added a halo so there's no problem.

With that out of the way, which super pet is your favorite? Mine is the cat because of how much detail I somehow crammed in.

[askvectorprime]

where did the forge of solus prime come from?

Dear Metalsmith Mystified,

Ah, you've stumbled onto an old Cybertronian thought experiment! It's known as "Hardshell's Paradox", after the philosopher who coined it. The question that Hardshell posited is this: how can it be that all the Artifacts of the Primes were created by the Forge of Solus, if the Forge of Solus is itself an Artifact of a Prime? It's commonly used when teaching basic logic to protoforms.

Of course, while this is a thought-provoking idea, it's ultimately moot. After Solus used her Forge to create itself, I simply altered causality to send the hammer back before its own creation, preserving the continuity of events. As guardian of space and time, this method is how I solve most paradoxes.