Joined in 2023 
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I've made my own engine that powers all my games (Hazelnut Café) which I'll be licensing out to other people who want to use it for commerical projects, and also giving away for free for people making things like Sonic fan games. It is capable of playing games in multiple genres and uses a unified system for things like graphics filters, controller support, multiplatform management. An American Pizza in Woking" (coming out soon) which is a top down game about running a 90s style Pizza Restaurant and retro Arcade during the day, then turning into a werewolf and eating all the customers at night! Then cleaning up the mess ready to reopen again the next morning. It plays like a pretty unique mix between Overcooked, Theme Park, and Pac-Man... difficult to explain but it totally makes sense when you play it and theres a really fun sense of humour, lots of puns, fun visual touches etc. The first game is simple arcade fun, but assuming its successful we have a planned sequel in mind with multiple restaurants in different areas/themes, multiplayer, and the ability to design your own restaurants from scratch. In the 1980s, when I was very little (probably around 6 years old?) my dad taught me basic programming on an old 1970s Commodore PET. We couldn't afford videogames til I was a young teenager, so as I got older and better at programming I used to make my own versions of games I wanted - Sonic, Mario, Dizzy, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tetris... I eventually learned machine code and managed to push that system to its absolute limits, waay further than it was ever designed to be pushed - all because I really wanted to play those games! lol Knowing and caring about these different issues with scaling pixel graphics like you mention was one of teh driving factors for me creating my own game engine from scratch, to make sure all of this is 100% right from the start - but also having every possible (valid!) preference available for those that want them. Personally, I'm a "crispy pixels" guy but I'm quite proud of teh custom CRT shader I made for the people who want that because its one of the most customisable ones I've seen so people can fine tune exactly the look that they prefer - even down to recreating RF noise interferance and the curvature of old glass screens, light rolloff at the edges etc. for those that like a "true" analogue feel of their old rubbish quality portanble tvs in their bedroom 😅
This calendar is based on the action adventure game and features imagery of characters such as link and princess zelda alongside a. The Timeless Adventures of Hazel Witch" (coming out in maybe 18 monthsish) My biggest project, about a little girl witch and her friendly pet bat Chirp. When you are in indoor areas (many castles, her Hogwarts style school, villages with houses etc) its a metroidvania similar to "Symphony of the Night" with full rpg style upgrades, weapon and magic system etc, and with Dizzy/Resident Evil style invetory puzzles, but in outside areas its more like a Sonic style platformer, or a Cotton style shmup when she's on her broom. Its also fully voice acted with a story, similar to Freedom Planet. We have big plans for Hazel, hopefully many games in the series (ala the Dizzy games), merch including plushies, comics and either an animated series or movie - my "day job" is I'm a movie & TV producer. If its not clear by this point and you haven't seen me mention it elsewhere, I'm autistic, so sometimes a little niggling thing that other people might be able to ignore will ruin an experience for me. I'm aware I might seem a little nuts to most people but there's plenty of other people who feel the same or similarly.For 2d games especially, for me there is something about that "240p or close" pixel style that is so iconic and I love when modern games use it but with QOL improvements like widescreen and full 60fps no slowdown, extra frames of animation due to removal of memory limitations etc. Without going TMI, I've had a very hard few years on a personal level. I live a very privilidged life so I don't like to complain. I just throw myself into constantly working as stopping to think too much is not always healthy for me. But I have so much motivation for creating fun, positive, creative projects that entertain others and make people happy, and I have so much fun working on them, its much healthier I obsess on that than anything else - I don't drink, smoke, take drugs etc. I think "working hard" isn't the worst vice to have. Because of my day job, I also have 2 games I can't really speak about at the moment which are tie ins for 2 movies, they are a 90s style Taito-style arcade platformer and Capcom/Konami style scrolling beatemup based on each movie.
All games are retro style indies with very small dev teams, I personally do 95% of the programing (occasionally I use plug-ins or presets from others) and my business partner helps with with the designs, character & plot ideas, and we split some of the graphics work & level design. She is a professional voice actor so she does a lot of the voices.As for social media, you're right i don't really use it much for my mental health, as you can probably tell by how much I type in replies here, its hard for me to not spend endless hours replying to everyone all day, especially if people say mean thing or criticise me or my work, I try and make friends with everyone and thats a battle you can't ever win. Its safer for me to be mostly unreachable except when I appear at dedicated events like Comic Cons, Play Expos, Star Wars Celebration etc. I came up with the idea when trying to think of a gameplay mechanic similar to Pac-Man where you avoid the ghosts, but chase them when they are blue - and I thought a game where you are in retail and trying to avoid customers, then killing them would be funny (can you tell I once worked in a McDonalds overnight and had lots of nasty drunk customers?), so the concept came to me to have a mix of elements from overcooked/tapper/themepark to try and run the best restaurant you can to attract as many customers as possible into the building, then eat them once you became a werewolf. In fact they very rarely allow control remapping at all and this causes all kinds of issues for accessibility for people.
My own game engine mostly supports side scrolling and top down style games, but I've implemented sprite scaling and rotation, mode 7 style effects, and Saturn "quad polygon" style drawing of 2d sprites in 3d space... I've considered building some kind of sprite scaling outrun style game with it, or maybe just adding a "Panorama Cotton" style broom section for Hazel in our game, and also either a 3d dungeon crawling or even Doom style "2d-3d" first person mode. These are all genres and games I loved as a kid so I'm sure at some point I'll want to recreate those things in my own work 😀 I owned (and enjoyed!) a Mega CD, 32X... but that first Saturn experience almost entirely destroyed my interest in Sega and I jumped ship entirely to waiting for the N64 and only reading Nintendo magazines. In my head I was like "I'll vaguely keep an ear out and when a new Sonic game comes out, I'll recosider"... of course that never came. Ristar24 Ah, the Saturn version was fanastic I remember fondly getting that in 97 and finally having an arcade perfect version at home - even having the "smooth" option for 60fps upgrade if you want! I was always salty the 32X version got cancelled after the near perfect After Burner and Space Harrier, so finally getting it on Saturn felt like a victroy lap of sorts. Previously, my favourite version was the (obviously very cut down) Master System port, none of the 16bit versions felt quite right to me (and I wasn't aware of the incredible PCE port til later). SteveMBowling: "The Master Sword, which has accompanied Link on his adventures, will undergo a major transformation in the latest entry of The Legend of Zelda series!" Neat Zelda add from the new Famitsu.
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You get bonuses for selling their leftover meat, taking their wallets & phones, recycling their clothes, even government bonuses for reducing surplus population! There's quite a dark sense of humour to the writing in it with a lot of minor social commentary about working for big faceless corporations in thankless minimum wage zero hour jobs... this sense of humour is also reflected by the title - of course, "An American Pizza in Woking" is a take on "An American Werewolf in London", but also the news stories about Prince Andrew... so I made a game about a dangerous predator in a Pizza restaurant in Woking...😂 The sad thing is, all these complaints and many others I could name, are tiny and easy to fix, and yet Nintendo ignores the calls. This is why when they randomly DO do something that fans have been calling out for, for so long that it feels they never will, its such a pleasant surprise when they finally do. Thousand Year Door is a perfect example. And its moments like that that make it hard to be too mad at them! lol As you can see, this Famitsu ad also highlights the "history of the Master Sword" right up until Skyward Sword (which was re-released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021) and also Breath of the Wild.
Magic_Salmon_Pro Yeah my own games I'm trying to fit a specific timeperiod/style (closer to high end 16bit or 2d 32bit games, NeoGeo / Saturn style) and I've worked very hard to get the aethetics and feel as authentic as possible, but again making it 16x9 and having some QOL improvements that don't spoil the effect - Sonic Mania was my inspiration as far as how to retain that 16bit style but in a modern way. Ristar24 Thank you! I agree, I often am more interested in indie games from passionate creative small teams or individuals than AAA stuff nowadays, thats one reason why as far as consoles go, this gen I've been Switch all the way and not bought a PS5 of Xbox Series yet, retro style indies just feel at home on Switch and playing them portably is great. Magic_Salmon_Pro Haha I'm also producing 8 movies and 1 tv show (look up "upcoming" on IMDb if you are interested!) plus a comic book series and producing a podcast, and I act in other people's movies too. I basically never stop working but its all on fun creative stuff - I don't really have much time when I relax and do hobbies because my hobbies are my work! 🥰. I'm autsitic and probably undiagnosed ADHD so I like to have multiple highly detailled projects all on at once and switch between them constantly. Of course, I do watch movies and play games to relax, but nowhere near as much as most people, I'm usually working on my own projects instead. This is why the Switch is good for me, as when I'm travelling to different countries for meetings/filming etc I can chill and play something when on the fight or waiting for a train etc. Hazel is a lot safer of a concept, I know that many people enjoy a good quality Metroidvania - but of course there's a lot more competition for that type of game - so our focus is 100% on getting the quality and polish of absolutely everything to be amazing so that it can stand out - as well as the appeal of the characters, story, voice acting etc. Again, I really thought your game looks cool and I'll be keeping an eye out for it. Definitely knew 100% what you were going for when I saw it and you've nailed the styleOnce again, the Master Sword's new state has already been shown on a few occasions, but we've not really had descriptions like this until now. Still, the mystery remains as to what exactly is going on with it and Link, so we'll just have to wait until 12th May to see how it all unfolds. Thank you for the kind words - yes American Pizza is a pretty original game, though it borrows many elements heavily from various retro titles, its all from completely different genres mashed together in a unique way. I think / hope that its fun and different enough to gain people's attention. Theres more details about it in my response to Ristar below. Ristar24 Hi mate, I'm sorry I didn't respond to this sooner I was taking a rather needed mental health break from online and social media. The fact its so simple to implement and so many people moan about it means that they are purposefully putting their foot down and telling us what we want, rather than giving us what we think we want. Sadly, though I love them, Nintendo does this a lot.
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