Hey everyone! It's been a while hasn't it?

With 2022 coming to an end, I'm doing this post to recap what has happened this year, where I've been and what I've got in store for 2023.

2022 Games Recap

• Released A Date with Death 2

This was a big project. While the game itself took a couple of months, I created around 3 other "A Date with Death 2" versions that I was not happy with, trying to find how I could make a good continuation to the story.

When releasing, I was quite nervous if people would like/be interested in the sequel. But with it being my most highly rated game, and the continuous requests for A Date with Death 3, I think it was an absolute success!!

• Collabed in Profile Picture Party!

While I feel the game itself has a bunch of flaws and we could have done it better, for me it's a very important game.

It marked the first time I ever collabed with other game developers, and it was a lot of fun!

Special thanks to the great lead programmer @MigMoog for helping me with Godot, as I am a filthy Unity shill, and also the rest of the Team Max Hog for letting me join in on the fun!

• Collabed in Panpukin Panic

This was also a big project, made for Mobile Jam 22, I was delighted on the warm reception it got!

Made alongside the impeccable @Skoops and with Music and SFX by the amazing @MaldivirDragonwitch, this game is so full of personality that I really love how it turned out!!

Also, we were able to win the 3rd place prize AND we got frontpaged on the NG banner!!!!

Where have I been?

So, ever since Panpukin Panic, I have not been posting anything else here. And if you don't follow me on Twitter, you might not know what I've been doing.

TLDR: I've been preparing for 2023 to be a great year.

Making games takes a lot of time and effort, so I've been working on some tools so I can make games more regularly.

Here are the ones I'm the most proud of:

1. RopesFlashy - A Adobe Flash/Animate importer for Unity.

This tool allows me to quickly import Adobe Animates texture atlas, making it so I can use the animations from flash, but also animate small movements in Unity.

Before, I always had to split textures by hand, and try and place everything in the correct spot, with the correct joints.

1. RopesBigBranchingConvos - A Dialogue Parser/Viewer

As you might have noticed, a lot of my games have characters talking.

However, I always did the dialogue parsers from scratch for each game. They could either be very simple (like GOTH vs DEMONS) or way too complex (like A Date with Death 2).

For way too many months I've been working on a standardised but very customizable tool I can use for any game in the future.

It might not look like much, but this is undoubtedly the hardest game dev thing I've ever done.

What's Next?

I consider this last few months to be the calm before the storm.

I want to make 2023 a year to remember.

While in January, I'll still be quiet, starting February I have a lot of stuff lined up.

And yes, I'll start by making A Date with Death 3!!

Thank you everyone who has supported me so far, and I hope you will continue to follow me on the crazy year that will be 2023.

Rick <3