Happy April folks!

I know it's April 1st but this is not a joke: thanks a lot for the feedback! Since I managed to learn how to do it, I just decided to straight up adding all the features I addressed in the previous post.

Good thing about the menu looking bare and ugly is that it will prevent people from staying inside of it longer than they need to. The subweapon toggle was also quite easy to add as well, thank you me past me for putting everything nicely labeled and divided.

Right now I'm reworking he subweapon booster events that allow the player to spawn more than one projectile at a time (something something Ray's trying to sound like he knows something about making games that is not turning everything into bullets). I'm aiming at finishing the game this year just to prove to myself that I can do it without crunching or adding pointless mechanics or features just for the sake of bloating the game. Baldomero's Ballad was, is and will be a short game. No minigames, no Riddler trophies to collect in order to get the true ending, and no grinding up to rank 35 to unlock a new character that you can also get by paying 10 bucks for it.

Like I said, thanks for sharing your thoughts to everyone who decided to do so, and stay tuned for more as per usual!

-Ray

Hi there folks, me again!

So now that I see more people paying attention to Baldomero's Ballad I'd like to ask some stuff just to see if I should bother implementing these features or not into the game. Feel free to share your answers in the comments!

• Fullscreen toggle
• Subweapon classic/button toggle (classic input being the usual UP + ATTACK)
• Sound and Music toggle OR Sound and Music numeric selector
• Screenshake toggle

Now I know most of those features feel like very basic things to implement, but keep in mind that I'm doing this completely by my own (still looking for a musician though!) and certain toggles may require a while to add and test so they don't break the game. Buuuuut I still want people to enjoy the game as much as they can without being pestered with things that might annoy them so I'm willing to do it if people want those features added.

If you want to support the game you can also donate to my Ko-Fi page, that would help a lot.

And that's it, see you next time and have a good one!

-Ray

Ladies and gentlemen,

Custom keyboard mapping.

Stay awesome,

-Ray

Hi there folks!

I'm back full time with Baldomero's Ballad as promised previously, and things are going very very swell! I have a lot of new small and big things implemented now (screen shaking, damage, enemy death effects, subweapon spawn boosters, Eyecoustic working wonderfully now) buuuuuuuuut I don't want to show it to you because I'm pouring extra effort on one thing I want to add out of making the game as accessible to people as I can: remappable controls!

Now, I don't know if you know how hard it is to implement custom key input in your game. Spoiler: it's a nightmares on Construct 2. But after digging some tutorials and forums I found an """""""""""""easy"""""""""""""""""" method to do so via keycodes and global variables.

This will take me either a couple of days to figure out so as to not make the things that work great go boom or I might just wake up tomorrow and say "ah, of course, just do this" like I've been solving most of the problems I've been facing while making the game so far.

Adding enemies is no longer a challenge unless they require some bit of AI behavior to track the player's movements (remember me this next time I complain about it once I get there), so I'm going to work extra hard on having the custom controls ASAP.

(Couple of screenshots just because I like showing something aside from text in these things, try to guess the new things added since last time)

And that's it for today, next time I'm hoping to share with everyone the custom key input thingy.

Have an awesome weekend!

-Ray

Crypt Stalker came out on Switch a couple of days ago, and I was very happy for it! I enjoyed the game when it came out on Steam a while ago, and the Nintendo handheld is perfect for it (I mean you get the main game, 6 extra levels AND the demake made in the style of a Game Boy title for 2 bucks, just buy it already). Lords of Exile also came out last month, and I'm very happy to see that the classic Castlevania approach is slowly returning.

But I feel Crypt Stalker got it a tad bit better than Lords of Exile?

Now, I do believe both games have strong moments and weak moments, but at the end of the day I have to give it to Crypt Stalker because it doesn't feel like it added things for the sake of adding them. Lords of Exile left me quite meh in the end. Bosses there went from decent to stupid easy quite fast, and that level design was just... Just bland. Not many unfair moments, but so many moments of making me say aloud "what's the point of putting this here if it doesn't serve a purpose?!"

Now Crypt Stalker hooooly hell, I got killed sooo many times by terrible enemy placement, platforming sections that were not tested by humans at all, disgusting and I mean DISGUSTING checkpoints that don't make sense at all except the ones in the last level and some of the most slippery default movement speed I've seen in a huge while. Oh and several autoscrolling sections that are just plain awful.

Aaaaaand I still love Crypt Stalker more than Lords of Exile! WHY?! Well the answer, like I said, it's simple: it understands what it wants to be at all times. Lords of Exile has the same consistency of boiled butter with the weird and pointless unlockable skills, the completely useless """"""secrets"""""" (slots, you find slots that don't give you anything valuable) and the inconsistent time period (so it's medieval times, with ninjas, and robots sometimes I guess?).

Now this rambling was made mostly to reach one important point that links with Baldomero's Ballad and, honestly, all the games I want to do during the rest of my days: I don't want to add stuff for the sake of adding it. Crypt Stalker feels like something the main creator had a fun time making. Lords of Exile feels like something that got unfocused halfway through its development but had to release it regardless because it had a kickstarter behind its rear. My intentions with BsB are just making a Castlevania inspired game with just an extra dumb mode out of respect for a good friend of mine and that's it. No weird currency system, no dull skill unlocking, and no unfocused setting. Will it reach the attention of millions? Not really, it's not my intention, otherwise I would've gone for more trendy stuff than "this game has stairs and knockback". But like Crypt Stalker, as long as the things I create make someone remember them fondly I'll be happy about it.

Next time I'll probably do a showcase of enemy movements and patterns, so stay tuned as always! And go play Crypt Stalker, good game.

-Ray

Heeeeeello hello, been a minute for sure!

This small update is just to notify everyone that as of today the book is finished and sent to the contest :DDDDDD Also I'll translate it during the span of next week and maaaaaaaaaaaybe sell it on Amazon this summer if I don't win the contest just to get some revenue from it (If you have better ideas for self publishing feel free to share them, the less money I give to Lex Luthor's cousin the better). But that's not a priority right now, as I'm going to continue with Baldomero's Ballad. It's been TOO long and I need to get back on the game development train all over again.

Stay tuned for more and get ready for THE RETURN OF THE BALD

-Ray

Hey there folks! Complete and utter nonsensical rambling ahead, feel free to skip it:

Soooooo I'm around 50 pages left to be done with the book thingy, and the topics I'm dealing with the narrative are, to put it in a soft way, kinda fucked up. Now here's the thing about talking or addressing horrible things on entertainment: it's very important to portray the worst of humanity to bring up the best of it. Mind you, I'm not saying you should watch slasher films and found footage of cartel victims for breakfast in order to become a better human being, but one aspect of horror or grounded terror is that it should make you say "I need to take a break from this".

When you are engaging with something tough, something gruesome, turning away from it doesn't make you a weakling or a wussy. It makes you human. And as I'm writing this book, I wanted to basically approach it as something that will make you say "yeah, I'm not reading this right now" and forces you to put down the book and go touch grass or pet your mascot.

Ok this sounds like I'm writing a transcendental story about loss and mankind or something similar, but far from it, book's shit. But within that shit I want to still portray interesting concepts to at least create discussion among the readers. Aside from "this guy's fucked, who would write something like this while being sane?", obviously.

Horror is important, regardless of our enjoyment while experiencing it. I love horror, and I'm such a Courage the Cowardly Dog towards horror games that I've never been able to play the Resident Evil Remake for more than 1 hour without getting a heart attack. Hell I can't play Majora's Mask because the clock constantly running gives me anxiety. But I still love horror, and everything related towards that genre because of the way it speaks to people.

My hopes of winning the contest are 0 to none, and I'm not saying that as a downer. I haven't written anything solid since I was 19, and I'm well aware that my way of writing is miles away from your average guy. But even if I know this, I want to try it just to see if at least it can make someone say "I want to hug my loved ones after this" due to the mental scars left by the imagery I'm presenting to them.

I don't even know what I'm trying to say about this post see this is what comes out from someone who has been coughing 10-15 pages a day.

So yeah, I'm still alive, still writing. Oh and like I said, I'll translate this to English once I send it just to actually write in a language I'm more comfortable with rather than... My own native language. Yeah I think I have some loose screws in my head.

Take care and enjoy the weekend!

-Ray

Hey hey hey everyone!

Book's going swell and swift, I'm halfway through it and if I don't get possessed by the spirit of Amadeus Procrastination I'll be done with it in 2 weeks. I'm having fun writing down the story, but being honest I'd rather continue with Baldomero's Ballad. Also here's a small tier list of Castlevania games just to make people mad because I didn't put X game higher.

Best wishes and hope y'all doing great!

-Ray

Hi there!

I'm writing this just to give a small heads up about the rest of this month. Since I'm in need of a job lately I'm taking any chance or opportunity I can to make money, and there's a writing contest in my country with a nice prize for the winner, so I'm going to spend what's left of March writing a short novel (150 pages) for the contest (it ends on April). It's in Spanish, but being honest if I don't win I'll just straight up translate it to English as well and publish it on my own. This means that I won't post more Baldomero's Ballad content until April. Good thing is that the only thing left to do for the game is the levels, so the hard work is already over.

Sorry if you were looking forward to more regular content and posts, but C.R.E.A.M. (get the money, dollar dollar bills yo).

Have a great end of the month and see you on April!

-Ray

Hello everybody and welcome to another showcase!

This one's a big one, so I'll save the word salad for the references.

·Niapparition: these are manifestations of the souls of those who died waiting for someone. They torment their victims for all eternity by reminding them of all the things they never did.

·Baghoul: notorious for stealing kids in the middle of the night to make lard with them, these demons resemble humans only in shape, as their intentions are far too wicked for the minds of men.

·Fleshco: resurrected bodies of tortured victims, they wander the Earth seeking a new skin to cover what's left of their bodies.

·Nerreida: usually found around bodies of water, they lure fishermen and sailors only to burn them with their corrosive spit.

Well those were quite a few for sure! Some need more explanation than others, so bear with me with some of them. First one is your basic floating ghost, but the main twist is that the face features a facial gesture a friend of mine baptized as the "Ñard (pronounced as /Nyard/) Face". It's a face he made for the anniversary of Scalebound's cancellation and has followed him since then. I always try to feature it in one way or another in the games I make (only exception so far being PLOMO).

Ñardface, Twitter

Next one might be well known if you are into Spanish or South American folk tales. The Baghoul is the Sack Man, a creature used by parents to terrify kids who didn't behave well/ as part of a lullaby in which he's addressed as "El Coco" (I don't know what's wrong with Europe and not letting kids grow up without traumatic monsters crawling at night). Oh and he was rumored to be an actual person who inspired the legend, soooo there's that too. Fun!

Sack Man, Villains Wiki

Moving on we face Fleshco, which I think it's pretty straightforward: just a body without skin. I was going to make a skeleton like in Castlevania but then I thought "well I don't want to make a zombie, and you can do so much with a skeleton without going for an overkill, so what's the middle road between those two things?". The name is a portmanteau of the words "Flesh" and "Fresco", which is Spanish for "Fresh". Hey, 12 years of teaching and studying English allows me to do bad puns fusing languages, I don't make the rules.

Human muscle system, Britannica

Last but certainly not least, Nerreida! I love fish creatures, specially the ones featured in Castlevania. But since I didn't want to straight up copy a Fisherman, I opted to browse paintings depicting demons with scales or features present in fish like fins and the likes of it. And then I found this amazing oil painting called The Many Temptations of St. Anthony the Great, which depicts this wonderful creature in the upper left corner:

Il Tormento di Sant'Antonio, Linusfrontodona

It's funny because at first I thought it was a picture made by Hyeronimus Bosch, a great artist known for his weird paintings of hellish and chaotic landscapes, but turns out it was made by Martin Schöngauer and later reproduced in a bigger scale by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Who says you can't learn things making video games?

And those are a few more enemies! I still want to add a couple more to the game just to cover all the possible variables for a fair challenge, but if you want to share some ideas about interesting or not so well known creatures feel free to share it in the comments below.

Thanks for reading and have a nice one!

-Ray