You can head over here to check it out. Any systems are welcome, so come on over and have some fun!

Hello there– after many tangential events taking place in my life, I am finally putting my figurative foot back on the metaphorical gas pedal. If you’re here, I want to take a moment to thank you for your time and interest for checking the site out! If you’re new, I’m a guy who designs and produces games.

I’ve been a silent follower of the Ludum Dare event for years, and when LD23 was hinging forward it gave me a renewed motivation. The independent game community is full of people I admire, and several years back, even just as a (young and obnoxious) fringe participant- I liked being involved with it, and I think now I’m ready to try and swing back.

For LD23, I came up with the concept and created the ground-work for my current project, The Pioneer. I tried to meet the deadline for the 48 hour event, but being 24 hours late, I soon discovered I’d have to cave and accept the Jam instead. Nonetheless, I was finally once again engrossed in a visceral, powerful development cycle- I made a short soundtrack for the game in a couple hours, did the graphics quickly and coded just as fast as I could. Even with my fullest commitment, I still fell quite short of what I wanted to include, in light of the heavy time constraint. But that doesn’t matter- I’m going to do it anyway!

Basically, The Pioneer is a screen-based retro platformer that constructs itself randomly via seed generation that you, the player, provides. This means that when you play a game based on the seed “Nautilus”, you will always go through the same levels and face the same challenges, as well as see the same story unfold. This, in essence, makes every game you devote to become yours, in a manner of speaking. If you find a seed you enjoy a lot, you can share it with your friends and they will be able to play through the same game.

Some chief inspirations for The Pioneer are probably roguelikes and Minecraft. I love the potential a game of Nethack has to grip you in unique ways each time you play it- and my favorite thing about Minecraft is stumbling upon and admiring remarkable land formations. I want to integrate that surprise to not just the generated world, but the opponents within it, where in aforementioned games they become predictable and unsurprising after interacting with them the first few times.

The enemies you face in Pioneer level up with you- and each enemy type has a handful of abilities from which it may choose to improve. After extended play, the player will still know what each is capable of, but the possible permutations and the differing context of the environment it’s placed in- the enemies that it appears with and the conditions of the arena- I feel will grant the bestiary some very formidable longevity in keeping you on your toes.

I’ll be keeping a devlog of The Pioneer here, so stay tuned in the coming months!