Soooooo some things have happened lately...

I don't know if you are familiar with a small mom and pop company called Microsoft. They've been around for a little while, really humble folks. So the lovely folks there from the Xbox branch have decided that, well, effing off some of the greatest studios out there wasn't enough to pay the coverage of the hole in the wall they made in the first place, so might as well get rid of some more.

I'm not going to candy coat it: this things blows harder than a plane's engine. This is the equivalent of breaking grandpa's vase and then blaming the cat for it only for your parents to euthanize it. Money is the main cause of all this shitshow after Xbox decided that sure, let's buy a crapton of studios and then get Activision for 69 billion dollars, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG ONCE YOU NEED TO SHOW THE INVESTORS YOU CAN GET THE MONEY BACK?!

We need to stop doing this thing. And I don't mean "we need to stop giving money to greedy corporations that only see walking dollar signs instead of human beings". Well, that too, but Jimbo not buying the next CoD won't change the big issue about all this. No, I'm talking about keep thinking multinational companies are good for creativity and innovation in any shape of form. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING can keep moving forward if the only thing driving the people with the money is "we need more money". If you only seek profits, taking risks is the WORST thing you can do. You make people believe you are taking risks by adding one or two crappy features that can be easily forgotten that didn't change the landscape, erase previous features to reintroduce them after people forget about them so they think it's new, and all that crap.

Profit is the death of creativity. And the proof. Is. Every. Fucking. Where. But lucky for everyone, creativity is not dead thanks to places that keep fighting for it.

Newgrounds is still a safe haven for creative people, and I really, really, REALLY hope it stays like that for more years to come. Indie developers, indie musicians, indie artists, they all have a chance to showcase what they love doing here. And we need more places like Newgrounds if we want to actually showcase what people truly want to work on, rather than on the things they do just because someone wanted to see a revenue line graph go up.

Look, I get it, things are tough and hard. World issues are complicated and it's not as simple as saying "let's be nicer from now on" and then everyone became BFFs. But just because something's hard doesn't mean that you can only stay still and see the train getting closer.

If you feel the spark of creativity burn within your soul, make something! Don't act just because it will give you money, do it because you feel like doing it. You'll make shitty things, you'll make good things, you'll make amazing things, but it will be things you are proud of doing. You don't have that spark within you? Support people that have it! Give them a donation, a shoutout, follow their progress, give them a thank you, anything you offer it's cherished more than you can believe!

Creativity gives wings and allows people to improve and to learn, and people that only want to seek money in life will end up their days staring at a bank account in an empty house surrounded by people that only wanted to be around them to prey on their carcass. Just because you need income to survive doesn't mean you need to focus your entire life to make more and more of it, and if you want to do that at least have the decency to not screw people in the process.

I'm going to keep making games. I'll make shitty games, I'll make good games, I'll make amazing games, but I'll keep making them. And I'll keep supporting people that believe in the games they are making, because that's what truly moves things forwards.

Make things and be awesome,

-Ray

Hey folks,

Not going to lie, I'm not having a good time with the new job. I'm still on the look for other stuff more akin to my skills, and it's kinda funny that everything tends to lead towards the same conclusion: I don't fit in this country. I've tried, I really tried, but Spain just drains me mentally. Is it an awful country to live in then? No, if you are looking for certain things. Is it the place I want to be? No, since I've seen that there are people out there who share the way I act and think like me. But trying different jobs is important to understand what you like and you don't like doing. Granted, when you don't have another option you fight for it, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing to do if you want to keep your sanity intact.

It's fine to not be good at everything. If anything, I've been trying that for quite a long time now, and while it's true that you manage to obtain quite a lot of skills, in the end you end up being a master of none. And if you ever played a class-based RPG, you know that playing as the Freelancer gets dull after a while. Guess that I'm in that part of my life now, which is both exciting and quite exhausting. Thankfully I have people that support me which is something I value more than anything in this world.

I love making games. I love writing. I love drawing using squares. And that's why I want to keep doing what I love, even if I have to go through things I don't love to achieve it.

Just one of those venting posts everyone does from time to time to keep the demons at bay. I'm still working on the game, only slower due to, well, shitty job.

Have a nice week and remember that y'all amazing at something even if you don't know what is it yet,

-Ray

Hi there folks!

I'm happy to present the first boss of the game: Terroke!

Terroke is inspired by the Tarasque, a French mythological creature. There are tons of legends regarding this lovely fellow, being this one from the West of Spain the one that made me have it as the first boss (pretty anti-Semitic ngl, but that's pretty much Spanish medieval folklore in a nutshell).

The tale talks about a greedy Jewish surgeon who went to attend a poor man after the huge offer of the patient's grandpa: 700 maravedi and 70 piglets. The surgeon got into the horse wagon paid by the patient's grandpa, and when they arrived at their destination the poor man was on his last legs. He also had a dream about how the surgeon got eaten by the Tarasque due to taking so long to arrive. The surgeon offered some remedies to ease the pain of the patient in the shape of some herbs he had in his briefcase. For a fee, of course. But when he got the money and the people saw they weren't working, the surgeon said he was suffering from "heart illness".

The surgeon asked for his promised payment despite the anger of the patient's family, and he returned to his house with the company of two servants.

When they were on his way back to the surgeon's residence, the Tarasque appeared and grabbed the greedy man from the neck, choking him with its tail. The servants saved themselves by holding a cross and summoning Saint Marta, making the beast flee.

When the servants returned to the house they served in, they returned to the place where the surgeon was last seen, only to find his corpse floating on the water next to the creature's den. The corpse was holding in his hand the bag of maravedi, which was returned to the family.

La Tarasca, Leyendas de Extremadura

Pretty cool short tale, could have been done without the whole "Jews are greedy" part but again, keep in mind Spain has always been like this with practically every single race and ideology. Tale's still worth reading though, give it a try if you want to practice your Spanish!

In terms of art, the Tarasque is represented for the most part as a creature with the face of a lion, a turtle-like shell over its body and the tail of a snake. I took some creative freedom drawing it because I still need to animate it and make it readable for the player, so I made it more of a "creepy hairy fellow" type of monster.

And that's pretty much it! Last post I'll make about the game will be the design of the first level. After that, I'll fully focus on working on the game and working to earn some money. Hope you enjoyed this journey so far and see you in the next and final post!

Have a great week and stay cool,

-Ray

Keep you waitin' huh?

I'm baaaaaaack from the States! Shortest week of my life, boy I can't wait to return this winter. My time there was great and awesome, and I can definitely confirm I was born to be in the US. The cultural blend of the population, the nice folks I met in the places I visited,... Call me Jack from Lost because I need to get back to the island.

So you might be thinking I'm not going to continue with the game, and you might think wrong if that's the case. My routine will now be as follows: working as a member gatherer for MSF in the mornings (lovely place, they are doing a great job and the salary's fine) and then work in the game in the afternoon. I'll try my best to have everything tied up and done by July so I can focus on the marketing campaign (a change of plans is making me think that going for a Kickstarter is quite pointless since the game only requires musicians at this point, and I'd rather pay them directly but we'll see as I'm also saving a lot for the trip back to NY).

Also a friend of mine is working on a gaming blog and talking about funny stuff regarding Baldomero's Ballad development among other things. Blog's in Spanish, it's called KameTOID3D. Give it a look, he loves games and talking about them.

And that's pretty much it. I'll keep the posts flowing again next week since right now I'm feeling kinda sick due to this wild weather.

Have a great week(end) and be kind!

-Ray

Hey hey hey folks!

Last post of this week before the trip, I'm tweaking everything with what I like calling "Worsening of Life" features (or WoL). I've added my favorite one so far: dropping like a sack of potatoes towards the ground if you don't jump before reaching the edge of a platform :D

Did I mention how lovely the stairs work now? I can stack them, make them longer, shorter,... It's simply amazing what can you get using LERPs. I know you teleport towards them and for the love of me I can't seem to find a way to make the Player move towards them before actually getting on them. But hey, I didn't have any clue about how to make the drop thingy before and now look at me! Still, I'd like to finish adding the final minor enemies so I can work on the bosses.

Oh and I'm making knockback a bit stronger than I already have it simply because I want to let players use NES Castlevania speedrun techniques. I don't really know who's going to want to play this willingly with the amount of outdated mechanics I'm adding aside from me but hey, I'm still proud of what I'm making.

Have a great week and see you when I'm back!

-Ray

Hey there folks!

Hope the week began nicely for y'all. As of me, BsB development is going swift and swell as hell, I managed to add the custom stairs event and everything works as intended (you kinda teleport towards the stairs and I really can't find a solution that doesn't destroy my mental sanity more than it has already been obliterated, so I'll leave it as such meanwhile).

Now, next week I won't post or do anything around here for one simple reason: I'll be in the US of A! I'm going to spend my time there with my best friend checking if I'd like to make a living in the States (because honestly Spain ain't offering much in terms of what I like doing right now). If you live around NY and you see one day a bald bearded guy just scream DON'T TRUST STAIRS and I'll be happy to say hi to you :D

And that's pretty much it! I'll keep working on the game for the rest of this week and see how much I can manage to put together before the trip.

Enjoy the week!

-Ray

I'M CRYING, IT TOOK ME THREE DAYS BUT I DID IT!!! CASTLEVANIA STAIRS ARE HERE TO STAY BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Thanks to the wonderful folks at the Construct forums for the help, without them I couldn't have learned about the lerp and unlerp thingy that allowed me to do it. WE ARE COOKING WITH OLIVE OIL AGAIN Y'ALL (don't worry, I'll make sure to speed up the movement a bit more so you don't spend a year on a staircase and only half a month)!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOO SUNDAY'S LEAVING WITH A BANG

-Ray

I have to rework the stairs AGAIN since the current events and instances are anything but efficient when it comes to making levels with them. Turns out that I've been banging my head all over the place about how to make stairs when the truth was that there are no stairs.

No, for real, Classicvanias don't have stairs.

Average Megamind cosplayer realizing how stupid he's been all this time

Next post will hopefully be me showing the same type of stairs I've showed in previous posts but with code behind it so different and wild that my beard will have grown 4 times its current size.

Don't trust stairs anymore folks,

-Ray

Hey everyone, quick small update:

So there's this game I really love called Vigil The Longest Night that released a while ago (I even made the concept art for a hat, it wiggles around) that would definitely benefit for some support if you enjoy dark metroidvanias. You see, Glass Heart Studios stopped from posting and updating the game with frequent and very good add-ons out of nowhere, and the reason for it was revealed last year on a post they made on the official Twitter account of the game. The TL;DR version is that they had to fight for the right to get back the game's ownership from their former publisher, Neon Doctrine.

Good news is that they actually won the lawsuit, as the game's now back on Steam! Bad news is that they are now self publishing, and they sure as hell need some help getting back on their feet. The game used to be available on Switch, but as of now the only place you can get it is Steam. I'm not getting anything out of this since I don't work with them, but after the whole shitshow they went through they deserve some folks spreading the word about the game and the studio (which they are both great, btw).

So go get Vigil! Support indie devs that fight and win against shitty publishers and you'll make this industry a bit better with a small gesture. Here's the Steam page.

The Glimpse Catcher (bottom image). They definitely made it WAY better looking in the actual game.

Sorry for the odd post, felt like talking about something I missed a lot rising from the ashes.

-Ray

Definitely starting to look like a proper game now! Boy am I happy about making this game.

-Ray