Milkmaid Of The Milky Way devblog

WARNING: Might contain minor spoilers

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Found some sketches in a folder from when I was designing the house on Ruths farm. You can see the process from sketch through some (very saturated) tests and how I went back to something simpler and muted in the end. This ended up setting the tone for the whole game, and I’m happy I spent time on this part of the process.

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Is there a plan to put this game to the Windows Store?

Hi, not at the moment, no. It's available on Steam for Windows and Mac, and iOS and Google Play Store.

[milkmaidgame]

Translations

So, it’s been a while. The game has been out for three months and it has been really well received. Almost 50 reviews from game blogs and media, and lots of personal reviews on the App Store and Steam. It’s been so fulfilling to read people’s reactions and that people have been enjoying their time with Ruth and the others.

Since launch I’ve been busy fixing a few bugs, releasing the soundtrack and translating the whole game back to my native language, Norwegian. It’s a big task translating 1300 lines of text, making it rhyme and basically say the same thing. Also, a French translation is also in the works! I’m hoping this paves way for other languages as well. I’d love to get a German, Chinese and Spanish version done, but it takes money and time. Let’s hope the French version does well!

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It’s out!

Close to two years ago I did the first drawing that would start this crazy project, it was a simple sketch from my sketch every day project:

The idea back then was loose - maybe I should make a game about a milkmaid deep in a Norwegian fjord? And shortly thereafter I went all in and started working on the game. And now it’s done, and yesterday night I pressed a big, green button on Steam that said PUBLISH! 

It feels a bit like the end of a long journey, or marathon maybe, but I also know this is just the beginning. It’s now Ruth’s time to meet the world, to let players explore the fjord and visit the stars. I’m so, so happy that I was able to see this project through - now go play it!

iOS version

https://itunes.apple.com/app/milkmaid-of-the-milky-way/id1163483480?mt=8

PC/Mac version

http://store.steampowered.com/app/544970

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Vis, the mechanic from Milkmaid. Testing out my Surface Pro 4, really like painting on it.

In other news, this week Milkmaid is releasing! Finally! Getting ready for January 5th, hoping that someone out there wants to play this game I’ve been working so hard on. Did I just say hardon? Pardon.

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Needed to take a break from marketing and e-mail and managing review copies et cetera. My new Surface Pro 4 arrived, and I took the app “Sketchable” for a spin. This is Queen Amrita from the game, drawing on a bigger screen feels pretty nice!

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A little preview poster I painted. Been a while since I did any brushwork, so fun to do a little piece.

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Submitted to App Store!

It’s done! I think. Uh, it’s hard making games, and finishing them is another story. There’s always something that bugs you, or there are some weird bugs or glitches that you know you won’t be able to fix. Some pixels that look off. A cow animation that’s a little stiff. A rhyme that makes you groan.

But at some point you just have to draw the line. This is good enough. It won’t break the game, who’s really gonna notice those pixels, cow’s in 1920′s Norway moved differently, y’know. You just have to accept you can’t make everything perfect if you want something done. But I have to admit, the game looks and feels better now than it did a month ago when I said it was finished. Pushing the release to January made it possible to fix some things that will make the experience better.

The game has been submitted and is waiting for a review from the App Store. If everything goes as planned, the release date will be set to 5th of January 2017. Over the next two months I’ll focus on telling people about the game. If you are a game reviewer, let me know if you want a review copy for the game!

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Milkmaid of the Milky Way poster!

I’m a big fan of illustrator Natalie Foss, and when she agreed to do the poster for my game I knew it was going to be awesome! I’m proud to present this splendid take on Ruth, the character of Milkmaid:

I just love everything about this, and so cool to have beautiful, hand drawn artwork to accompany the pixel aesthetic of the game.

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Steaming ahead!

I’ve reached content lock for Milkmaid, that means that no more new stuff goes into the game. The iOS version is basically finished, I just need to fix a couple of missing audio files and get a nice start screen for the the game. I’ve been working on the Mac and PC branch the past week, adding a nice CRT old-school effect on the desktop versions. 

I’ve also started implementing the Steam SDK which is totally new to me and quite a big task. There will be achievements in the Steam versions, and testing yesterday seemed to be going well. I’ve managed to build both versions and tested them briefly through Steam, yay!

Launch date is still not set, I need to make sure the game is stable and also find the system requirements for both the Mac and PC. I also need to create a lot of artwork and assets for the App Store and Steam store, and also make a new trailer.

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Got the Green Light!

Thanks to everyone who voted for Milkmaid on Steam Greenlight. Today I got an e-mail from the Steam Team congratulating me on getting Greenlit!

That means the game will be available to play through Steam on both PC and Mac. Right now I’m concentrating on bug squashing and polishing the game, and the plan is to get it released before the end of the year. Stay tuned. And thanks!

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Milkmaid on Steam Greenlight!

Wanna play Milkmaid of the Milky Way? Then please vote for it on Steam Greenlight. If it gets enough votes, it will be released on Steam for Mac and PC. Vote here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=761844401

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Milkmaid trailer 2016

The game is getting closer to finished, and I’ve got a playable build with sound and effects done. I’m shifting gears now and will try to get the game greenlit on Steam pretty soon. Meanwhile you can check out the trailer I did this weekend!

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The past weeks I’ve been composing the music for Milkmaid. Here’s a track from the Oracle scene. Done in my home studio in Logic X on my Virus TI2.

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Screenshot Saturday!

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Alpha!

Wow! It’s strange, but I’ve managed to complete the major gameplay elements of Milkmaid! Can someone please pat my back?

https://gfycat.com/UncomfortableWearyKinglet

It’s a major milestone for me, meaning that most of the game has actually been created, painted, animated and coded. I can now play the game from the intro titles all the way to the credits. It feels pretty awesome! Of course there are lots of work left. There are bugs. There are strange things happening to the cameras when you save. There are dialogue lines in rhyme that will make you groan. But it also means that I’m entering another phase where everything I do from now will only make Milkmaid better. 

Almost all game and story design questions have been discussed (I’m quite good at arguing with myself) and decided on. From now on, there won’t be many changes. Right now we’re moving houses, so I won’t get to do much work on Milkmaid until late July, probably. Then it’s sound and music work, I’m really looking forward to that. 

After that I’m going to do some playtesting and discover bugs and annoyances, and spend the last part of development on fixing these. I’m doing the iOS version first, and hoping there won’t be too much extra work in compiling and fixing the OSX and Win versions. I’m still shooting for a autumn 2016 release if things go smoothly.

And if you want something fresh this summer, try Ruth’s cheese receipe!

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Screenshot Saturday

Working on cutscenes. Animating with actions is a constant “how can I get around those damn limitations?”, but with a little parallax and separating objects it’s possible to do stuff that looks ok.

Working on the ending now, really trying to shift into gears to get as much done as possible before moving houses in July.