The last thing we want to do with this game is incorporate some visual elements from the September 10th debate.

I'll be getting on that right away and once we've done that the game is launching!

This sequel, focusing on the US elections this time, contains:

• New and improved engine
• Playable on both desktop and phones.
• 11 playable tracks - Each with their own leaderboard.
• 2 Retro LCD minigames.
• Music player with exclusive access to unreleased HS2 tracks.

My new game Bastard Aliens is out now is getting a positive response!

Its a typing game where you must shoot down aliens invading your farm to steal your cows. The game starts out quite simple but quickly progresses into a very hectic time.

I made the game as a bit of a break project between development of Politics. USA and my next big project MÆRE II.

Politics. USA is about finished and we intend to release it following the debate in September. The game includes 11 songs and an updated game engine. It is the biggest game I've ever made and it takes about an hour to do everything even if you're good at rhythm games. Theres also a lot of bonus content included this time including a music player so you can listen to the real tracks the music is based off of and a retro-style mini-game. The game will be playable on both desktop and mobile. Look forward to that in September!

Politics 2 is essentially done I'm just waiting on @HS2Band to hurry it up and fart up the tracks and tell me where to put the notes. We're probably looking at a September release regardless. Either way, its good to have the game in a near completed state so its ready to go when the songs are.

Here are some screenshots of the game. Ignore the debug text...

As you can see the graphics are now HD, do you think this looks better than the pixel art in the orignal game?

There is also extra content such as this retro handheld minigame.

The other week I exhibited my games at Owls Interactive, an eSports event hosted at the Sheffield Wednesday Football ground. Whilst eSports was the focus, they also invited some indie game devs along to showcase their work and chat to the guests about game development in general.

This was my set up for the day. I primarily had Gravoor Infinity set up for people to have a go on but I also had Sunday Drive and a version of Pumpkin's Sky Tea which was just the shooter sections available for whenever I got sick of Gravoor and needed a break from talking about it haha. We'd been told to keep the content family friendly so that took some games off the table, but later in the day I decided to put on Politics anyway which got some huge laughs from people.

Those who follow me on social media might have seen that I posted some images of games I'm working on before the event. This was mostly so I had things to talk about for the future on the day, but I figued I would also share those plans here with you guys and talk a little about each project...

First up is Pumpkin's Sky Blast!!

This game will be a sequel to Pumpkin's Sky Tea which is more of a traditional horizontal shooter than the first. Instead of randomised enemy spawning the stages will be designed and there will be new elements such as weapon upgrades and boss fights. I also intend to implement a 2 player mode.

Politics 2 is due out before the US Presidential Elections. @hs2band have more songs we did not implement into the original title, and with the US elections coming up this year too it seemed like a no-brainer to develop a sequel.

MÆRE II is the project I am most excited about this year. It is a sequel to MÆRE except where the original was a jam game made in a week I'm spending some time to really polish this one. For starters, the game will not be scripted this time and the ghosts will appear at random. This means that no two play throughs will be the same. You can also lose in this one, so its less of a "ride" this time.

One of the things that I think makes this game so scary is that the nights run on a clock, rather than skipping forward when you fall asleep. When you sleep in this game, time still moves forward, just the player's perception of time speeds up. So whilst this is going on you may still be visited by ghosts you don't even see.

I think this has real potential to be my best game over all.

The final game I'm working on this year is Crackhouse of Illusion, the sequel to Mazza. This is half done and has been parked for some time now. I do hope to get back to it at some point soon though.

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This is probably not an exhaustive list of the games I'll be making this year. I intend to participate in ScreamJam again this year and will be making something for that in October provided I'm not burnt out from MÆRE 2. No idea what this will be yet though.

If you haven't played them, check out the original versions of the games talked about above:

and let me know which of these projects you are looking forward to and would like to hear me share more about over the coming months. :)

Sunday Drive was the first game I posted to Newgrounds in about 15 years back in February 2023.

I made it for a couple of reasons;

1. I wanted to make a project I would actually finish. So I decided to make something with a really small scope that I could complete in a couple of weeks max.
2. I wanted to learn my way around GameMaker.
3. I wanted to be able to point to a project that wasn't a decade old when I talked to people about making games.

Because of the learning aspect of this project, it is a little clunky but this morning I spent a little time just fixing the major bugs. There is a lot that can still be improved on here but I didn't want to tweak the whole game and I like this version as it is because it demonstrates my progress as a developer. I just wanted to fix the parts that made it unplayable.

I think the game is still quite fun. It also features what I consider to be a bit of an early version of the comedy later featured in Mazza and Politics although much tamer. I originally was going to call the game Twatmobile but ultimately decided to go with something a bit cleaner haha. I think if I made this game today I would have just gone with the original title and ramped up the comedy aspect. Maybe I will do a Sunday Drive 2 at some point and correct these wrongs. :)

So today is voting day here in the UK. Perfect time to play Politics before the content becomes dated haha. Its amazing to me that this game has had almost 20,000 views so far. So thanks to everyone who has supported it.

But if you've already played that or aren't a fan of political humour, maybe you'll be interested in my newest game Pumpkin's Sky Tea...

This is a simple game I made last week for Black Cat Jam, a new game jam where people have made games focused around black cats. I have my own black cat so figured it'd be a nice pallete cleanse project to make following the crude political humour displayed in Politics.

In the game you are tasked with buying and selling teas from other cat to turn a profit. You can then use your earnings to buy photos of cats. Its basically that old drug dealing game except with cats and family friendly content.

Theres also a horitizontal shooter segment where you fly between locations.

its a simple but chill game and its doing really well currently in the game jam it is competing in. Fingers crossed it might even win!

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In other news I've been invited to show off my work at Owls Interactive's Game Developers Expo in a couple of weeks. So you can expect to see some photos of my stand following the event. I'll be showcasing some of my previous games as well as some things I'm currently working on.

I'm very excited to be a part of the event. I'm told to expect a lot of students and indie game developers looking to make a name for themselves, so I hope that if they do jump on here to check out my work later they'll stick around and share their own projects themselves. I'm of the opinion that Newgrounds is the best platform for indie game devs and hobby developers, simply because the community here legitimately wants to interact with each other and grow together. To me its our greatest strength and a support network like this one is one of the most important things you can have with this hobby.

This morning I released my latest game, Politics. Which is a rhythm game where you play as a farting ass.

I used to have this vague idea for a game where there was just an ass on the screen and when you click it it farts, but I couldn’t really figure out what the game actually was beyond this small visual. The idea of turning into a rhythm game came out of wanting to do another project with my friend Ash who I used to make games with following University. Ash has recently started a new band and was looking for interesting things to do with the music outside of the typical marketing strategies. So making a rhythm game felt like a no-brainer. We decided to make it politically themed to parody the UK general elections which are currently taking place, and as we feel a lot of our current options for leaders talk out of their ass the fart theme just seemed like a good fit. 

One of the first things we did was sit and sift through a fart audio pack trying to pick out ones that sounded like specific instruments. Admittedly I wasn’t quite sure it would work, but when Ash delivered the first track with the vocals removed and the farts inserted I knew we were probably sitting on something special lol. The game contains 6 songs but we have plans to expand on this in a sequel based on the upcoming US elections.

All in all the game took us about 2 weeks of late nights to make, which is a long time to sit listening to fart music lol.

Up next I have a couple of short mini-games I want to make, as well as finishing Mazza 2 which is about 60% complete and I need to get myself back on with.

Check the game out and let us know what you think of it.

This weekend I took a break from making Mazza 2 to participate in a game jam, for which I made a new Gravoor game. Despite only being made in a handful of days, I tried to really re-invent the series with this one.

I decided I wouldn’t make another Gravoor game until I could think of something different to do with the series. Aside from a few improvements to the way the game runs it’s basically been 20 years now (holy shit lol) of solving short labyrinths but I don’t think that this is what makes Gravoor fun. I think Gravoor is at its most fun when you’re moving quickly, not when you’re trying to squeeze through tight tunnels.

Because of this I decided I’d experiment with taking the core gameplay and applying it to an endless runner. In this game there is only one endless stage that is procedurally generated and your goal is to travel as far as possible before your time runs out or you crash into a wall.

I’ve also included some new moves for Gravoor, such as drifting on sharp turns and shooting bullets to take out enemies.

I've just put the new game in the portal, so please check it out and let me know what you think, especially if you have played the old games. Do you prefer this kind of gameplay or the traditional gameplay as seen in the previous games. Would you prefer I just stop making these altogether haha?

Here is a link to the new one:

and here is the previous one to compare:

If enough people like the game I’ll continue to update it with more stage segments and power ups. It’s something fun I can just dip into every now and then when I’m taking a break from my bigger projects.

First of all I’d like to thank everyone for the great response that Mazza has had.

I don’t often talk about projects I’m working on until they’re done, because I like to have the option to drop them without anyone asking questions haha. But this year I’ve decided I’d like to try and change that mindset and open up a little more. So here I am doing just that! People who completed Mazza 1 might have noticed that I announced that Mazza will return in a game called Crackhouse of Illusion. This is what I’m currently working on.

Crackhouse of Illusion sees Mazza’s Mum sending him out on another big adventure. This time he has to bring his brother Lewie G home from the local crackhouse because his tea (thats his dinner if you’re unfamiliar with the term) is nearly done. Things aren’t so simple though as the crackhouse holds portals to a variety of enchanting locations such as a town made entirely out of fruits, Castle Knobferatu and the local industrial estate which Mazza will have to traverse in order to find his brother.

Here are a few work in progress screenshots from the game. These represent an in-development version of the game, so expect them to look a lot more polished and with more detail in the final game:

Where the first game took Mazza through primarily British locations, Crackhouse will not be limited by a basis in reality and the game will see him visit some more fantastical locations and other parts of the world. But don’t worry, as the people of South Yorkshire will be right there along with him chiming in with their opinions and the game will keep its crude sense of humour.

Since the launch of the first game I’ve made a few engine updates based on people’s feedback in the reviews. I’ve tried to address every reasonable criticism thats been thrown my way and a lot of them have already been implemented back into the original game. So thanks to everyone who has fed back! Neither game would be as good without your input.

There are some new systems being introduced into the new game as well which haven’t been back ported, such as a new dialogue system and a few new moves for Mazza.

I’m making great progress on the game, and I would expect to see it in the portal sometime at the end of April or at the start of May. The game is much more ambitious than the original, with more levels, a couple of planned boss fights and at least one mini-game. As such its taking me a bit longer to make than I typically try to spend on one project, even with the original game’s engine and assets to use as a starting point.

After this I have a few ideas I’m kicking around as potential follow up projects. I was considering a third Mazza game where Mazza goes on a British caravan holiday and has to track down a rogue seagull who has stolen his fish and chips but in all honesty I think I'll want a break from making platformers after I'm done with this one.

I’m also experimenting with some GameBoy game development which I thought might be fun to get into. But then I also want to make Mære 2 and a couple of other things haha! As you can tell I’m not short on ideas.

Anyway, hope you’ll play Mazza 2 when it comes out. I’m really looking forward to getting it in front of people. I’ll hopefully keep posting updates and try to build a habit of sharing with the community. So keep an eye on here for further news.