#indie devlog

[iceztiqarts]

Currently on a Toge Greenhouse 2025 internal gamejam session with the co-workers. A sneak peek on the WIP

[geckmenbloodrush]

Blood Rush - Game Dev Intro - General Game Rules

Hello, I'm geckmen.arts, an independant artist making a party style card game called "Blood Rush." I wanted to showcase my game and its development so far and get some community feedback.

Game rules vvvv

Game Introduction

Welcome to Blood Rush, a fast-paced strategic card game where your path to victory depends on the deals you cut, the choices you make, and your ability to adapt to an ever changing environment. Outwit your opponents, and rush towards victory!

In Blood Rush, players assume the role of different characters, each with a unique set of abilities and supporting strategies. The game is played in turns where players draw cards, play cards, and activate abilities. The central mechanic of the game is the Blood Dial, which influences the use of each character's powerful abilities. The game ends after the Final Feeding phase, and the player with the highest accumulated Value wins!

Card Types

Spells: Instant effects that provide advantages or disruptions. Once resolved, they go to the graveyard. 

Relics: Cards that remain in play and are controlled by a player. Relics are played face down if your character card is hidden and face up if revealed. They have a range of Values and may provide additional actions, rules, or conditions. All Relics that are hidden have a value of 0 and cannot have their abilities activated. 

Events: Cards that massively change how the game is played, often altering a core rule or introducing new one. Only one event can be in play at a time. If an event already is in play when another is played, replace the current one and put it into the graveyard

Characters: A unique hidden card given to each player at the beginning of the game. These cards all have a “Blood ability”, which can be used when the Blood Dial’s number equals the number on the card.

How to Play a Turn

Turn Start: Draw a card.

Take up to 2 Actions from the following. At any point before Turn End, you may, if the central blood dial equals your character card’s number, reveal your character card and use your blood ability. 

(No duplicate actions, unless otherwise stated)

Draw: Draw a card

Reveal: Turn a hidden (Face down) relic you control face up.

Expose: Turn a hidden (Face down) an opponent controls face up, [Trap effects], then Draw 1

Play a Card: Play a card from hand. (Remember relics enter hidden or revealed based on your character card.)

Activate: Activate an action ability on a relic or character card.

Blood: Discard any number of cards to increase the Blood Dial by the number of cards discarded.

Turn End: Increase the Blood Dial by 1

Blood Dial

A D12 die (1-12) that is central to gameplay. 

The Blood Dial increases or decreases based on actions and card effects.

If the Blood Dial would go beyond 12, it resets to 1.

How the Game Ends

Once all character cards in play are revealed (Face up) the game enters Final Feeding. All other players except the current players' turn, get one final turn. If at any point not all character cards are revealed (Face up) the game continues as normal until the Final Feeding conditions are met again. 

If Final Feeding concludes, the game ends and the player with the most Value wins. Certain game expansions include alternative ways of gaining points. In the instance of a tie. Here are a number of ways of determining the winner of the night.

Highest Value Relic

Number of alternative point sources

Whoever is coolest

[geckmenbloodrush]

[clarismakesgames]

Devlog: Aug. 8th, 2023

Hello, gamers! I have several updates since the last devlog, so let's get to it!

1. I attempted applying for Code Coven's Introduction To Game Making With Unity program - and didn't make it in.

This was kind-of crushing to find out, given that it would have been an amazing opportunity to do so. However, I will keep an eye out for future opportunities with Code Coven or similar organizations in the meantime.

2. I ended up dropping the other game course that I started auditing back in June.

This is because the course required me to have beforehand knowledge of a coding system that I had no knowledge of. And sadly, I didn't know that the course required me to have knowledge of such a system until after I signed up.

Things haven't been the smoothest for me on the game development side of things this summer. Meanwhile, developments on other aspects of my life (such as being an author and poet, freelance writing, etc.) have been picking up a bit more, so I've been devoting more focus on those in the meantime.

I hope to participate in a Game Jam sometime in the fall, just so I get some more practice with game writing in at least. In the meantime, I'll be focusing on other aspects of my work life and those developments! If you'd like to check out my author/poet work, check out this Carrd for more info!

Thanks in advance for your support!

You can check out my portfolio here to see samples I created from the Pixelles Game Writing Program (Jan. 2023- March 2023). Samples include cinematics, barks, character design, stage/quest design, and item description. You can also check out my Itch.Io page here to see games that I’ve written and published myself!

[hydralisk98]

Blackhand devlog#3

Blackhand

(my very own cartoon meta-narrative's pitch, devlog #1) Suggestions dump #1 A story of overcoming autistic inner angst and building somethi

Blackhand devlog#2

(my very own cartoon meta-narrative's pitch, devlog #1) Suggestions dump #1 A story of overcoming autistic inner angst and building somethi

Blackhand Inspiration Board on Pinterest

Blackhand Pitch Moodboard in a nutshell: Explore a hand-picked collection of Pins about Blackhand Inspiration Board on Pinterest.

Referenced materials that this post follows up upon are presented above as hyperlinked banners.

Social context values / indications

[WIP]

Where?: They inhabit in the forested suburb town of Masknaw, in the Shoshoni Union, on the Angora planet. It is often set in the 46th century of their calendar (eq. 21st century AD) but has moments across other points in time and space.

Who (sketches / doodles / drawings)?: Not even started just yet.

Why Interested in Characters? Depends on above.

Why Audience interested? Depends on above.

Project Why-s? Depends on above.

Audience's Why-s? Depends on above.

Toybox 'Worldview' and target audience(s)

Millenials, Zillenials & Gen Z folks, mostly young adult women & edutaining manifestation enthusiasts. (Contemporary pagans, witches, Non-Binary people, queers and neuro-diverse folks included)

The 'toybox' has a major emphasis onto variety of languages, technologies and immersion levels, to feel more like a eponymous sandbox of tools and toys a consumer / licensee can reuse to their whims* for manifesting and plain curiosity-driven stories. As such, there should be some breathing space / mysteries that are left ambiguous for most people to interpret specific content sections further than initial expectations, encouraging imagination and creative expression out of the initial material.

Probably will use a either a weak copy-left license or some other open source dual licensing model with possibility to use a fair & libre-like Creative Commons license.

Important world details

This world has a divergent yet familiar enough history backlog to stay hooked into its "fantasy" of manifestation. Mostly diverging in the early 1910s as no figure like Woodrow Wilson got elected, neither in 1912 or in 1916, leading to some delightful changes that impacted the rest of Shoshoni history in a powerful and constructive way by a full century. Not everything is butterflied away though, but many fascinating changes came, from technological progression to ideologies, going across geo-politics, economical matters and local social intrigues ensued. Like synthetic servitor sapience, nuclear weapons' race & MAD coming way later, morphological freedoms chart and a couple of cultural & technical medium changes, even down to the smart devices and musical genres to listen.

For example, the history of music and its mediums is quite intriguing as far as going from 'Blue Ambersol' Wax Cylinders to 45rpm auto-play mini-vinyl records to Laserdiscs to dual magnetic-optical media Mini-Discs, with some cassette tape storage and flash storage yet to hit in the broader community than educational and home video markets. So you can see it is quite heavily inspired by history with tweaks and touches of flavor to really spike curiosity and show how malleable reality is, even without breaking the usual bounds of historical fiction by that much.

That being said, there is abundance of sapient synthetic serfs by the year 4520 and among them is Ava. There many great means to exercice morphological freedom, and so are the means for spiritual folks, that do live in a nuanced yet nicer and closer-knitted community. And the technical & social details under-the-hood are also intricate and worth my storytelling as well. But more onto such in later entries.

Characters / actors / narrative agents [sketches soon]

('Servitor', 'Blackhand' and 'Her Camera' are set in the wider world of Angora, a alternative world to ours with many similarities and some

I do have a special perspective for my story, considering the multimedia interactive and manifestation toy that it represents too... In a nutshell though, a self-insert is a major key agent, with 3-4 characters surrounding her narratively. There may be more characters distributed with great variety, but this structure is thus far the nucleus of the narrative "cell" at play here. 😉

A couple of 'outsider' idea prompts to guide me here as well...

the virgin "neural network scaling hypothesis" vs the chad "a sufficiently smart hacker could write an AGI in Lisp on a 1970s minicomputer", from a @nostalgebraist-autoresponder ask from user moths-in-the-window

[Add more prompts with a additional Tumblr thread of suggestion material right here]

And yes, there is way more information to come as I play, watch, listen, read and curate more content, as to iterate & improve the wider world into the mixture that my canon base lore is.

(I am still figuring ways to get my own music tracks & remixed content going as far as making cooler video curation playlists and inspirational mood-boards but as audio + multimedia)

But the following should give you a good idea of the tone I try to set through my nuanced yet solarpunk-y bright narrative themes. Because whilst I may use dark colors, narrative components and start with a dystopic premise, I still aim to empower, inspire and get positive / constructive messages out there. Because as much as there is much room for complaints in life, I feel like the driving force to get anywhere satisfactory or enjoyable in a nuanced world is often left to the implicit details, which is quite easy to miss nowadays, especially as a autistic, *-divergent or just regular folks at the top of the ladder.

Cya later with another devlog. ^*^//

[hydralisk98]

Blackhand devlog#2

Blackhand

(my very own cartoon meta-narrative's pitch, devlog #1) Suggestions dump #1 A story of overcoming autistic inner angst and building somethi

/[Insert cool updates from Butch Hartman course]?

As far as I imagine the agents are involved, I think mostly of felines, deerfolk, moths, bees, foxes, nagas, hares, bears, humans and androids (instruments, robots, droids, synthetics...)

For the backdrop environements, I feel like emulating my quite forested suburb of a hometown with alot of additional unique flair would suffice plenty, albeit with tweaks over the geography and human geometry, like adding Y2K translucent solarpunk buildings, some edwardian park landmarks and 70s stylish constructions. With much cyan + some magenta neons signage and lights from a bigger coastal city at night, and the warm woodland (browns, amber, olive greens...) tones at day.

Definitely gonna try my best to use much linguistic diversity here, considering the subject matter of several cultures (timely and divine wise too) taking much material from my constructed world project and IRL...

I imagine this cartoon world between a game and a productivity suite, in a place akin to software toys but agnostic of medium. That being said, I play around with the technical parts of my conworld down to the history of data processing, operating systems, and alot of technological matters that are ~80% similar to OTL. There are morphological freedoms, geo-syndicalist political culture (not yet solarpunk but quite closer) and a strong sense of navigating past present and future as one that goes beyond nostalgia.

Library economy and heavily stylized graphics are present. Also, I am inspired by a huge thread of franchises, from Halo 2 to Bionicle, with elements from Helluva Boss, Lackadaisy, Quake 1, Portal 2, Powerpuffs, Wakfu, Alien 1, Wolfenstein The New Order, The Stanley Parable, TIS-100, Quadrilateral Cowboy, The Witness... and overall history & contemporary culture.

Also got some 'Game of Prosperity', Prospero, Landlord's Game, Monopoly, Cluedo, Werewolves of Miller's Hollow Pact, Century A New World, Carcasonne, Hypnospace Outlaw, Senators, print & play games, GURPS, Cyberpunk RED, D20 system, Pathfinder and many many indie TTRPGs.

My mainline story concept rn is pretty much a curiosity-driven addventure where Klara & Nil, assisted by Ava & Constanz get to adapt and overcome trauma as they integrate into my fictional world and empower themselves and others to do the same. A couple of sidearcs are present, one about synthetics' rights and another about accepting oneself to reach their full potential.

It happens in my conworld, initially around my hometown of Maskoch and then extended to the full ranger of the planet

Core target audience are Zillenials, with some Millenials and Gen Z folks included. The actual number of actor characters goes beyond the recommended maximum of 20.

I will disclose the specifics for the main actor agents / characters on a later date... but like I wrote, the main goal of the narrative is to improve the world around us and empower ourselves too. And also better relate to autistic folks like the author that I am.

*The meta-narrative may include heavy use of time travel, some use of mystical magicks, nostalgias, controversial social issues, profound topics, politics, autism, furries and queers, among many other taboos.

[hydralisk98]

Blackhand Devlog#1

(my very own cartoon meta-narrative's pitch, devlog #1)

Suggestions dump #1

A story of overcoming autistic inner angst and building something grander than oneself from several historical analyses. Self-insert (shareware/copyleft) meta-narrative constructed world with a syndie-funkie erudite lady slappin' some 45 rpm vinyls and tinkering with older and older hardware from centuries long past, doing jobs gigs and all for her far far future contractor almost every episode?

Belfilm

Includes some big involvement of both the audience agent, "Nil", and the mediator figure that Ava, the synthetic domestic serf for social context and interactions that serves both Klara & Constanz & Nil, is.

Intrigue

Integration into my fictional planet, with syndicalist and power political dynamics between past, present and future. The world is editable with version control software from the future but it's access is fairly restricted to the far far away future except for a few trusted past agents like 'Olive' is. It is akin to a TTRPG campaign where Klara does jobs & gigs for the far far future and eventually reaches her own goals and story arc as she gets to change history section by section. Constants and variables vibes and some Cyberpunk-ish transcendental leveling campaign. Along the way she has plenty to handle in her daily life too, especially considering her strong bond with Ava, the synthetic domestic serf that mediates between all of the agents at play which also has to fend for herself over sapient rights and societal context matters.

Agents

Olive/Klara Ker, the autistic transfem protagonist;

Constanz, the far far away future contractor giving the gigs and their rewards to Klara. A mostly mysterious force that

Ava, synthetic interpreter serf of Klara, mediates between all of the agents of the story and has a key role over synthetic rights & liberties in Angora...

?

World setting, aka locations and timespans (Angora)

The focus happens in a indefinite far, far away future ~25th (Constanz-timespan) millennia but some happens during the 46th (Olive-timespan) century of my constructed world's calendar (aka 24'000s versus 2020 AD eq.) as well.

Summary

Morale

Encouraging imagination, curiosity & empowering means' use for fuller life ownership; Knowledge-Mystery malleable axis, Progress-Preservation malleable axis, strongly biased over the complexity side of things.;

Aesthetic

Soft warm cartoon-y yet dark & retro "idyllic rustic woodlands" mixed with Banhaus Continental_Brutalism and 70s' plastic homes' type of cassette futurism.;

Purpose

Give means to take ownership of their own reality akin to a contemporary dollhouse / sandbox, with open source state-of-the-art content threadmill trinity yet being resilient enough to outlast competition but not in a hostile manner.;

Target audience

Female creatives & technically-inclined women, including non-binary folks & queers & other enthusiasts. Especially those seeking long history emulation, minimized violence gameplay and powerful fair free libre open source mindset tools to make the social & content experience their very own on a peer-to-peer contribution basis. (aka being scalable to both solo plays & great large groups);

Unique Selling Points

System-agnostic imaginative structural toys to build anything with akin to Universal Turing Machines / Lambda Calculus, retro Soviet-era miniatures & toons look-and-feel, immersive yet open-ended worldbuilding and setting design;

Additional notes

I think of it like a toy product line as far as leaving so much room for interpretative open-ended play goes, but ofc it is wider than that, especially considering the profound lore and manifestation games' shenanigans involved here.

EDIT#1:

Updated article hyperlink, color palette and title