I recently replayed this eccentric 'musical memory game' I actually finished and released in 2019. Despite some fears that I'd cringe over concerns about its content, I ended up feeling mostly impressed and in some cases surprisingly emotional! It's such a shame so few people got to experience the most moving moments though due to the gameplay barrier in the way... READ MORE
I'll finally be seeing someone again about my crippling mental issues! I got a tin whistle! I replayed Memody: Sindrel Song for the first time in years and found it very moving! READ MORE
I said I'd put up more music albums, so here's the first of 2022: the soundtrack to Memody: Sindrel Song, my first Steam/3D/Unity game that broke so many records with how well it sold and was received!! READ MORE
I haven't written a personal post in a while, so here's some rambling about a cold I have, my fruitful efforts to break through my reluctance to use Reddit, friendship and relative loneliness, and buying Lego to rekindle childhood joy! READ MORE
A long one this week! I've been thinking I should trim out some vestigial features to focus more on the monster-skills mechanic, plus some replies to things people said in comments on last week's post (since I can't reply to them all individually!). READ MORE
Another productive week! I'm almost at the point where I can update the game for a new test run; I just need to tidy up a few bugs and things now. I have some questions related to MARDEK and games dev in general that I'd like to hear your thoughts about this time! READ MORE
I'm really close now to the point where I can release a playable demo of Atonal Dreams... which should be exciting, but I've had a lot of days recently - today included - where I struggle to get to work due to worries about the waning interest in this blog and - presumably by extension - the game. READ MORE
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of changing Divine Dreams' protagonist from the old Mardek to a new character, a golden-hearted 'devil' called Dayvha... READ MORE
My site went down, again! Very annoying!! It's back now (obviously), but I don't even know if the issue is fixed, so I still need to do some work there. MARDEK's waiting on review, but that's taking time too! READ MORE
As Old Father Time wraps his Chrono Dagger +4 rather roughly around 2019's frail and withered neck, breathing heavily behind its ear and savouring the sobs as he gets ready to lacerate its bulging jugular, I feel maniacally compelled to look back on how poorly I've managed to Live My Best Life during the preceding dozen months. I've made things! I released a thing even! It was not a success! I've started on something that'll be big, you guys, just you wait and see, for real, you gotta believe me, guys!! READ MORE
I played MARDEK recently, and it was much better than I expected! I'm now a fan of the series again! Here's how my new feelings about it have influenced what I want to do with a remake. READ MORE
Memody: Sindrel Song is out now. The previous post is a quick announcement of that; this is a more in-depth ramble about my feelings related to it. READ MORE
I'm currently working on adding Sindrel Song to Steam, and it's taking ages since there's so much stuff to fill out! I'm currently stuck at having to enter minimum and recommended system requirements, because I know nothing about specs or hardware in general and wouldn't have a clue what to even make up to put in there. If you've tested Sindrel Song on a lower-end computer and it worked, it'd be useful to hear from you! Or if you're tech-savvy and know what kind of stuff I could enter here, that'd be useful too! READ MORE
I need to release Sindrel Song on Steam, and I'll be devoting this week to that exclusively rather than getting distracted with MARDEK or Belief or whatever like I have for the past few weeks. Since I don't have anyone to talk with during the process, but it helps to do so, I'm writing out my thoughts and observations in this post. Specifically, here are some observations and thoughts about a Reddit thread where an indie developer announced the completion of their new game... READ MORE
There's a comment on the previous post which is apparently a negative review left on Sindrel Song on Kartridge. It mentions that the story's take on mental illness is childish, and the rest of the dialogue is 'odd incel talk'. I've been wondering to what extent other people might get a similar impression. READ MORE
I spent a couple of days building a battle system mockup for a potential MARDEK reimagining... though there are many issues and uncertainties with it from a mechanical and conceptual perspective. Should I be returning to MARDEK at all? To what degree? There's a lot to work through. READ MORE
Last week, I talked about how I'm aiming to get Sindrel Song on Steam, but I'm unsure whether to self-publish or get a publisher. I've since read a bit about it, but I'm still not sure! READ MORE
Since the 'release' of Sindrel Song was so quiet due to Kartridge's obscurity, I'll need to do some research that I've mentioned in the past but haven't actually done yet... Maybe you can help, if you're that way inclined? READ MORE
Gasp! I'll be releasing Sindrel Song out into the world tomorrow. I've wondered a lot in previous posts here about how it might go, but I'm going to do that again just because, well, it's actually going to start happening tomorrow, and I'd like to be able to look back in a month or two and see how my predictions/expectations compare with the reality. READ MORE
I've just been naively assuming that Sindrel Song will do okay without too much promotional effort on my part. I very much doubt that it'll make millions!!, but I thought $10k+ would just 'sort of happen somehow'. That if the game were out there, thousands of people would notice and buy it. I've been avoiding actually doing research about promotion and marketing though because it's stressful and unfamiliar to even think about, but now that release is upon me (or delayed, if anything), I've been looking into it and... well, experiencing the anxiety I'd been avoiding it to prevent. I'm planning to do more research and to keep updating this post with everything I learn, even if nobody reads it and it's all for my benefit! It'll be useful to have it all in one place. READ MORE
Today's the day I intended to release Memody: Sindrel Song, but there've been complications which mean I'll need to bump that forward a bit. I'm wondering what the best course forward here is! READ MORE
I've been working on the ∞ alorafane.com ∞ site, with a blog there specifically for games development stuff. There's a post there with a release date for Memody: Sindrel Song! Also, a little bit about where I'm planning to go from here. READ MORE
It's taken way too long, but here's what might be a final version of the trailer, with music. There's still time to tweak it a bit before I upload it to YouTube and make it official, but for the most part I'm finished, finally! READ MORE
Carrying on from the previous post, here's another, improved video draft of the trailer, which has most of the structure in place! Again, I'd very much appreciate feedback; it's been helpful so far! READ MORE
I've made a video trailer thing for Memody: Sindrel Song, and I'm curious to hear some thoughts before using it as the primary way of demonstrating what this thing even is! READ MORE
I'm (still) taking forever to do the promotional stuff for Sindrel Song, due to my various mental illnesses. I've set up a page for the game, on which I talk about my backstory as a developer in some detail, but I wonder if I'm going in the right direction with it. READ MORE
I'm trying to write a bit of text that succinctly summarises Sindrel Song in a way that'd pique the interest of people who've never played it before. I'm interested in your thoughts! READ MORE
I said in the previous post that I'm aiming to release Sindrel Song at the end of next week, which is also the end of the sixth month, which feels right. I've come up with a list of things I need to do between now and then, but I'm somewhat clueless and am very open to the thoughts of more knowledgeable people about how to handle this! READ MORE
Here's another update, which addresses the biggest remaining issue - rewarding the player's performance - in the form of 30 clothing items, and the shrine where you can acquire or equip them. The game is likely in its final form now; I still need to fix a few bugs, but I've now finally finished all the major content! READ MORE
Finally! I've uploaded the latest version of this game for some final testing, to ensure everything works as it should and to resolve some lingering uncertainties. READ MORE
My particular mental illness is defined by an intense fear of being judged by other people, yet I'm aiming to publish my potentially unpopular!! project as publicly as possible. This leads to a lot of anxiety about how that might turn out for me, which takes up too much time and mental energy! Will I just end up being destroyed in some awful spiral of shame??? I've talked about that a lot already, but it's been getting more intense the closer to I get to release, so here's another vent about it so then I can get it out of my system and focus on adding the final touches... READ MORE
It's been a week since I last posted anything! Gasp. I've been very busy finishing off the last bits of Sindrel Song, and I'm almost done now!! READ MORE
Testing for Memody: Sindrel Song has been underway for over two weeks now, and some of the testers have finished the game. Yay! I've been doing a lot to improve the experience based on feedback - most notably adding features to address difficulty concerns - but I still have some big concerns. Most importantly, is the game actually fun? READ MORE
Here's an update to the Sindrel Song testing beta which includes some new mechanics, which emerged after engaging with feedback and discussions, and which I hope will address many of the difficulty concerns! READ MORE
It's been just over a week since testing on Memody: Sindrel Song started, and there's been a whole lot of high-quality feedback to sift through! I've fixed some bugs and added some relatively minor technical things, but I'm concerned about some of the more subjective aspects, as the opinions from different people seem to vary quite drastically. Most notably, the difficulty is still a concern; I feel it'll be difficult to find the right balance there. READ MORE
Feedback's continuing to come in, and a lot of interesting things have been mentioned, many of which I'd like to address at some point before release. Many are thematic or aesthetic, and some are really weird bugs, but the biggest thing I feel I need to address is the difficulty. (I've pinned ∞ the feedback post ∞ just under this one; we should continue to use that for more general feedback for now. I felt this should be a separate post though.) READ MORE
Gasp, Memody: Sindrel Song testing is finally upon us! I've set up this blog post to include a list of issues I'm working on or aware of, and I think it could be useful if you - the testers - could provide your feedback in the comments section here so then it's all in one place. READ MORE
If you're interested in testing Sindrel Song (likely on PC first), let me know! Also some of the usual frantic rantings about this long-dreaded phase in this game's life cycle... EDIT: I think I'll stop accepting testers for now. Perhaps I'll run a 'phase 2' of testing later, once some changes have been made, so then I can know that they've actually fixed what they should have. READ MORE
Memody: Sindrel Song is like 99% done now! I'll be starting testing sometime this week, or the weekend at the latest. As release looms closer than ever, I'm thinking a lot about how much money I could actually earn from this thing. Enough to keep doing it? I have no idea. READ MORE
I've FINALLY almost finished Sindrel Song! For real this time!! I'll probably start testing early next week, if I can get some final tweaks done over the weekend. Here's a video showing the game as it is now, plus some rambling about thoughts and concerns I've had while finishing it off. READ MORE
It bothers me that I'm having to worry about this game's story and characters being too repulsively depressing, when excessive, gory violence pervades media the majority go wild for... READ MORE
ANOTHER POST. I've made the new version of Memody I talked about in the previous post, and I feel like I've come up with a way that I could effectively explore the neurotic themes in a way that's entertaining rather than uncomfortable... but I'm wondering whether this is a bad time to be releasing this, if people are particularly busy! READ MORE
As I mentioned in ∞ the previous post ∞ (which is more worthwhile than this one, so I don't want this to replace it so soon!), I'm wondering whether to rename Sindrel Song. If I do, there are other changes I'd like to make too based on that - like renaming the protagonist - and I'm writing about it now because whether or not I change the title will affect the writing that I still need to do (which is pretty much all I need to do before I can start testing), so I'd like to have a clearer idea before moving forward. READ MORE
For the first time in ages and to my great surprise, I actually had a really productive past few days! I've been using what energy I've had to work on Sindrel Song, and I've got a lot closer to the finish line which has been on the horizon for far too long. Here, I want to show some screenshots of the 3D versions of the stages that I've finally made, while talking in detail about the techniques I've used and the things I've learned along the way. If you're interested in how games are made, that might appeal to you! READ MORE
After posting ∞ the previous entry ∞ mere hours ago, I had a spark of inspiration, and I feel like I'm finally onto something with Sindrel Song's story! READ MORE
Comedians, Hollywood films, and young people making memes on the internet all address mental turmoil in their own ways; dancing with one's demons isn't the territory solely of disturbed pariahs. I've been trying to do a similar thing with Sindrel Song, but I'm stuck in the mud of uncertainty because I know that not everyone would eagerly embrace such a thing in the way I might. READ MORE
Despite constant, irritating fatigue, and woes about my present and my future, I've been slowly working my way through writing dialogue for Sindrel Song... READ MORE
I've done quite a bit of work on Sindrel Song recently, but haven't talked about it properly in a while. So here I'll talk about aspects of the writing, and how I've attempted to make the multiple attempts required to complete each song satisfying rather than off-putting. READ MORE
My friend from university came over yesterday, which was the first time I've had a proper, prolonged social interaction with someone who wasn't a medical professional or my parents since the brain surgery. It was fine, but I was definitely aware of how all the treatment has affected me, and today I feel completely exhausted. READ MORE
I need to work on Sindrel Song, I need to upload my old games to my websites again, and I have plans for something MARDEK-related as well that I need to find the time to properly focus on. And I'm tired, still. Here's a vague plan for where I'm going from here. READ MORE
Some cathartic venting about fatigue, lack of motivation, mental barriers, Alora Fane, and MARDEK 4. And this thing from Sindrel Song, obviously. READ MORE
Here's quite a bit of stuff I've been doing on Sindrel Song, including a couple of videos showing improved gameplay and the sheet music structure of playable songs I've been composing for it. READ MORE
Radiotherapy's almost over, and I'm currently tired and ill. I got a Mac and can test games on my phone now! But I haven't made much progress beyond that due to feeling so lousy. Still, 'not much' progress is not none! READ MORE
Here's a post in which I describe my current project - Sindrel Song - including screenshots, a gameplay video, some music I composed for it, and some rambling about the story, how the main character is tied to MARDEK, in a roundabout way, and how this game will be set in the world of Alora Fane. READ MORE
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