Salutations!
I hope everybody reading this has had a great week thus far! (I know it’s only Monday, but bear with me here) Let’s get this post going, I feel like I’ve got a lot to unpack here.
First off, have you seen our kickass new dialogue boxes? Prepare to be amazed because here it is!
Jimmy has spent almost too much time playing around with the speech patterns in Cricket. He started with the idea of simply moving the orientation of the faces when speaking so that they felt more organic. Then, he started thinking about other ways to convey emotion, and from there, the boxes kept evolving to their current state.
Windup Audio is back in the studio as well. They’ve been mixing up fresh beats, and maybe even some speech patterns, but I’m not really supposed to be talking about that…
Jimmy has been killing it with our bi-weekly Twitch streams! Last Tuesday, he had supercharged guest, Steven stop by on audio and they had some great banter talking about Dev updates. Then Thursday, he beat his previous record on Super Metroid, shaving off a few minutes and ending at 1:44!
If you want to stop by, we’re live every 6pm PDT / 9pm EST on Tuesdays & Thursdays. We’ll be sticking to this schedule for a bit, if for no other reason than to keep count of the quarantine weeks.
Have you read the Indie MEGABOOTH announcement yet?
We were saddened when we found that they would be on an indefinite hiatus for the rest of the quarantine. PAX East this year was possibly the last time I felt any sort of normalcy before everything hit the fan. Honestly, I felt a little like Cinderella at the ball, it was surreal and amazing to see all the hard work that everybody put into their presentations, while also seeing our game ‘A Sound Plan’ get played by so many people!
How can you support IMB at this time? I think that showing some love and support to the Indie community goes such a long way in times like these. One of the things that I’ve really been impressed with is how the indie dev community really bands together. IMB has mentioned that they’ll be having one final indie sale before hiatus. If you have a chance, you should check it out when it goes live on Cinco De Mayo (WOOOOOOOOOOO). We’re excited to see who will be participating and I’d love to shout out all the Developers out there when we find out!
That brings us to the next question, what are we up to this week?
Irene is on a Stardew Valley kick, can’t blame her; if it weren’t for ACNH, I’d be crawling around the caves myself.
On Irene’s excellent advice, I’ve started playing Journey. She’s right, it’s beautiful, each frame feels like it’s own painting, and the colors are just… wow. Just play it!
I’ve also been really excited to watch this series release from Pixar, aptly named Draw with Pixar. It’s been a blast watching the animators create some really well known Pixar characters!
Anybody out there listen to audiobooks? I like to listen to books when I’m working on other things like drawing, painting, terraforming my village… Either way, Audible has made a collection of their books free to stream during the downtime, you should check it out, I personally recommend ‘Frankenstein’!
Jimmy is probably playing Final Fantasy VII Remake. I’ll let him talk about it in his own words.
[Jimmy: Square-Enix did the impossible, when I first heard that they would remake one of their greatest hits, I thought "this won't end well". I was wrong, terribly wrong. FFVII:R is perhaps the best iteration of FFXIII and FFXV, with combat elements from both, and telling the story in a way that our little kid brains remember. The game is exciting for younger folk too, with gorgeous presentation and incredible sounds. The music is just one hit after another. Quite frankly, I'm jealous.]
Phil from Windup mentioned that he’s been playing a lot of this blast from the past! I’ll be the first to admit that I’d never heard of it, but it sounds super cool. Anybody ever play FOIL? The artwork looks interesting and I’ve always had a soft spot of tabletop games.
Finally, I’ve got another fresh goody for you from the Animal Crossing world! First up in my series that I’ve decided to call “Rep your colors”, we’ve got the Red Herrings available for your wardrobe! Scan and show off that Zombie-baiting pride!
What have you all been up to? I’d love to hear what everybody else is reading, listening, and playing!