Space Deer: Then & Now! 10th Anniversary PDF!
And thoughts about my next game...
Hallå pals!
Jonas here with another issue of Indie Notebook to get some ideas out of my noggin, and to inspire you to do the same.
Two weeks ago I shared some progress on a small Playdate game where you play as a long dog. I haven’t really touched the project since then, but I’ve been thinking about it.
The Playdate is quite a small console (physically and number of users), so pouring more time into that Long Dog game doesn’t feel like the smartest move right now when I feel the need to make something that could bring me money. A few of you mentioned that, and I had already thought the same thing. So I’m taking a step back from it to think of it as a carefree side project. It will be done whenever it ends up being done.
Instead I’ve spent a lot of last week and this weekend thinking about what game I should be tackling next. I showed some ideas to friends and discussed a lot with my partner.
I’m exploring a couple different ideas at the same time. Through prototyping, drawing and a lot writing. I’m thinking about sharing those ideas with some friends (and faithful readers) to get feedback. But I also really want to make some video or concept art to try and gauge through social media if there’s anything there.
The range is quite wide. One idea is a cozy sorting game, another is a horror game. I have no idea what my next release will be like, lol.
Surprisingly, the horror games seems like the most promising direction so far.
Space Deer: Then & Now
Last week was the 10th anniversary since I made the very first Space Deer comic. I wrote a bit more in depth about it over on the other newsletter.
To celebrate it I put together this PDF!
It’s 40 pages and contains all the Space Deer comics from way back then and a bunch of other bonus content. Here’s what’s inside:
17 pages of Ancient Space Deer comics
5 pages of old artwork, sketches and experiments
6 pages about designing the new Space Deer character
7 more pages comparing the old comics to the new strips
You can buy it on itch for 5 euro!
I hope you will like it! It was so much fun to put it together.
Mini Notes
🔴 Youtube video - The Bizarre World of Fake Video Games
I made a few tweets talking about my new game dev strategy, the idea of testing ideas before pouring a bunch of time into development. Someone sent me a link to this video and it’s quite an eye opener. There are fake-games with huge followings. Some people make fake screenshots of their ideas and get a lot of people excited like that. I don’t know if they realize what a gold mine they are sitting on.
Either way, that video has some great inspiration for ways to fake ideas.
🕹️ Game - Franken RPG
This game cuts out all the slow paced BS that most RPG's have and keeps everything short and fun instead.
The battles are very simple (you can only do a basic swing with your sword) but they still manage to feel varied and surprising. The dialogue is what really makes this shine. So odd and fresh.
It’s free and takes about an hour to play through.
📝 Article - Hot men doing shitty art
I thought the name of this article was so funny, I just had to read it. I expected to just get a list of examples of guys who do this. But it’s a whole phenomenon. Fun and interesting to read.
Panel of the week
(from Space Deer)
Thank you for reading Indie Notebook! The best way to support me right now is by sharing this newsletter with a friend - buying the Space Deer: Then & Now PDF!
Take care and have a creative week.
I bought the Space Deer Anniversary Special this morning :)
Honestly, I've been following your work since back then -- as you know -- so I didn't expect a lot of surprises; I mainly wanted to support what you're doing. With that said, having all those old, weird, cute, surreal and beautifully colorful pages together in one collection created a whole new holistic experience of the series for me. And along with all the rest (and in the light of the sketchbook PDF you did for subscribers) I feel like you have a real knack for putting together publications like this.
Btw, I would love for some version of the Space Deer on page 29 to make an appearance or something in the strip!
Regarding the potential for a horror game, that certainly wasn't something I had expected -- lol. Very interesting.
I hope anyone who reads this will go buy the Space Deer Anniversary Special as well.
I don't know if I'm a good creativity coach; my innate untempered response to the thought of doing a horror game is making a dichotemy, "are you copying other indies, or do you have something unique to bring into the genre?" (But in terms of creativity coaching maybe the best thing is to say "yes, and..." like improv acting rules.) That could be applied to a lot of things, I wonder that with my own game:
In my latest game, the way it is simulation based and each mechanic has depth (like the painting or violin), I haven't played or heard of an MMO like it, but I know that these motifs I'm using are proven successful in other genres and I want to see them in a social MMO.
At the same time, I'm utilizing **cliches** from other indies as tools, like today I'm going to make an NPC dialogue system where text makes boop sounds as it types on the screen (each character having a different "voice"), and there's a headshot picture of the character (the characters are just expressive cubes https://i.imgur.com/clBTfEo.gif ) Going to keep working at it, maybe I'll learn something :)
As a creativity coach, maybe I should encourage that you test ideas as real in-engine prototypes to see if they're fun. Drawings and words are one thing, a game is a whole new medium. I can't play a drawing. I can only pretend I'm playing it with rose tinted glasses.
P.S. steam page https://store.steampowered.com/app/3147260/World_of_Squares/