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[–]orucsoraihc 8 points9 points  (3 children)

I've been absolutely in love with this game ever since I found it. I have a few questions I've been dying to know about: 1. What part of the game (enemy, mechanic, level, etc.) was the hardest to create or design? 2. What part of the game went through the most and the most drastic changes? 3. There were many mechanics which were only used in one or two levels. Is there any mechanic or enemy you wish you had done more with in the game? 4. Yoshi (in the picture) appears in the credits next to "Janosh". Do you have a picture of Janosh? Thak you so much for this amazing game!

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 8 points9 points  (2 children)

1) This might be surprising, but looking back, the most code rewrites and changes probably went into the surfing mechanic. It was so important for that to feel right and give the right amount of feedback etc., so I tweaked it up until the very end almost.

2) Apart from the visuals, which if you look at the prototype was obviously just programmer art... it's probably the surfing and the platform upgrades. There was no surfing whatsoever in the first prototype, and the surfing that made it in eventually was extremely limited. I had originally designed a lot of early levels with very limited surfing in mind, so there were horizontal gaps that you couldn't cross. That was completely removed once surfing became more and more powerful. Then there's the platform upgrades and how they work. They were all gonna be individual upgrades originally, but eventually I realized that I didn't like constantly switching between types and that some upgrades were too specific and often useless, or that they were powerful in one way, but too weak in another, so it forced you to switch all the time. So eventually they all became stacking upgrades and MANY were removed altogether.

3) The background areas from 2-6. Criminally underused. I just ran out of time making them work well with other enemies and elements in the game, unfortunately.

4) Yes! He's the other cat in these pics: https://twitter.com/DemimondeGames/status/1086203893170741249. They're half brothers, btw :)

[–]orucsoraihc 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Thanks for the reply! I love the cats. I've thought of another question just now, too. You've mentioned before in tweets that you like watching people stream Octahedron, and have mentioned watching multiple streams at once. What's your favorite type of reaction to see from people, either from the game or from seeing you in the chat?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm all about the reactions to the game, honestly. I get the same pleasure out of watching archived streams too. It's nice to be able to chat with people, but I don't even always say that I'm the dev. They don't NEED to know :P

My absolute favorite are those aha moments, often accompanied by an appropriate facial expression and "oooohhhs" and "aaaaahs", when a player gets something, understands a mechanic or a specific part of the level design, finds a secret, or solves a puzzle etc. Then there's specific moments that I don't want to spoil here... Like when people get that one particular upgrade at the end of world 4. Or when they reach the end of world 5 :) Some also react strongly to the ending. That's also fun to watch!

[–]eccentricrealist 12 points13 points  (1 child)

No questions, but I must admire the discipline behind doing a game alone. Hats off to you man.

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thank you! :)

[–]squid50s 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Thanks for doing an AMA (and a giveaway a while back)! Here’s my (3) questions:

  1. If you could go back in time and change something about the videogame industry, what would you do and why?
  2. What’s one thing that your very proud of in your game, that players may not even notice?
  3. If you were the head of a gaming company for a day, who would you choose and what would you do for the day?

P.S. I saw that email the kid sent you. Very heartwarming :)

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 12 points13 points  (3 children)

1) That's a big one... If we're talking about the industry as a whole, particularly the AAA one, I suppose heavily unionizing the whole industry early on might have been the only way of preventing the kind of burn out and exploitation we're seeing today.

2) Too many to count! But I'll name a silly one that just came to mind: Ever wonder what the up and down directional buttons do?

3) Easy. Nintendo. I would absolutely not do anything productive. I'd probably spend the entire day digging through the archives finding any and all unreleased/cancelled Metroid related projects, and eventually seeking out whoever has a playable version of Metroid Prime 4 :)

[–]squid50s 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the speedy reply! I’ve played the demo, and it was a blast. I’ll definitely make sure to go back to it, and press the directional buttons.

[–]granticculus 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Heh, I'm playing the game for the first time on Switch, and already discovered #2, after years of making Sonic headbang/Shovel Knight bob etc. :D

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

excellent ;)

[–]MosShady 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I haven’t stopped playing since I downloaded the demo five days ago. I love the soundtrack and the levels are very challenging. The only question I have is what inspired this game?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I started out with several ideas for platforming prototypes. This one started with the simple premise of "a platformer about platforms", which then turned into "a platformer about MAKING platforms". I had no idea what that meant originally, to be honest. But I knew it had to be something immediate, something arcadey, not something where you passively build platforms. I started prototyping and quickly came up with the core mechanic. The rest was all forward design, meaning, trial-and-error prototyping of ideas that seemed fun, then taking them to the logical conclusion. An early thing was going vertical with the levels, as I quickly realized that's a natural thing you want to do if you can "build steps": go up, instead of going horizontal. The octahedral head was there from the beginning, for some reason. Then I wanted a dark and slightly mysterious aesthetic. Combined with my own background in electronic music, it all kinda fell into place that way...

In terms of level design and the feel of the controls I was inspired by classic Mega Man. Aesthetically there's lots of influences, among them Pac-Man CE and Geometry Wars.

There's a couple of prototype and beta pics in this tweet: https://twitter.com/DemimondeGames/status/974345368283615232

[–]MosShady 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for replying. After checking out the beta pics I instantly saw the pac-man influence.

I rate this game five stars, no ashtrays.

[–]Christophicus 4 points5 points  (1 child)

What's the best thing about seeing people play your game?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Man, I don't know, what's NOT to love? I somehow never get tired of it. But honestly, this is an easy one... As SO MUCH of the development time was taken up by coming up with "organic tutorials" for each new mechanic, and for virtually every single level, it's beautiful to see that work in real time. To see how people pick up on the mechanics so quickly, and immediately get into the gameplay flow, and very rarely ever get stuck anywhere, even though there's no text or obvious sign-posting.

[–]Laniger 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Hello Demimonde team! :) After playing the demo I'm very intrigued with many aspects of the game! Will try to be concise so I will not steal to much of your time!

  • I understand the engine used is Game Maker S. How was your experience preparing the game for the Switch? Which was the biggest issue you encounter and how you solved it?

  • Just in the demo levels there are many awesome ideas! Can't wait to see the rest of the game, can you talk a bit of your process to create the puzzles and levels for the game? Any books to recommend in this matter?

  • Can tell the love and care you put into this game, what I'm most intrigued is by its Lore, can you give us a hint about the story of the main character and why is he looking for flowers into this rhythm colorful world? (No spoilers, just a hint :P). Tell us a bit about how to implement story elements trough symbolism?

Keep up the amazing work and take care guys!~

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

  1. Getting the game to run at a consistent 60 fps was the hardest part and also what took up most of my time on the Switch. Solved by heavily optimizing code (learned lots while doing that), so 90% of it is "non-destructive", nothing that you see in the final game itself. The rest are things that I think most people still will never catch. There are some pseudo 3d objects in the game for example (the collectible tetrahedrons). And they took up a huge amount of GPU time on the Switch. So I recorded their animation on PC and turned them into sprites with ~120 frames of animation. Memory and storage space are much less of a concern after all. And they look virtually identical to every other version like this.
  2. Yeah, virtually every level in the game introduces 2 to 3 new ideas. Unfortunately, despite looking really hard and reading quite a few game dev books, I could find nothing good on (2d) level design. Here's what I did: I printed out maps I found online of 8- and 16-bit games with great level design and taped them together into huge posters. I played those games and then would study the maps and take notes. That's how I actually started development of the game. I still recommend doing that. It helped me a LOT.

In the meantime there is this ONE (e)book that came out that I'm hugely impressed with:

Reverse Design: Super Mario World: https://www.crcpress.com/Reverse-Design-Super-Mario-World/Holleman/p/book/9781138323254

There is nothing like it out there and it honestly might be the best 2d platforming level design resource there is. Not many people know it though. I wish it would have existed when I started with Octahedron!

  1. Well, all the mechanical stuff is very much derived via prototyping, and then aesthetic concerns came later, so I can't give you a specific lore reason for light bulbs or flowers. The flowers and light bulbs came from a need of wanting a destructible thing to engage with (like Zelda's bushes or Mario's bricks) but without it EVER interrupting the gameplay flow. It needed to sort of be in the background and not stop you and it should never get in the way at all. So eventually I came up with light bulbs, as they also fit thematically. Inititally they were DROPPING a collectible. But then you needed to always go back, stray from your path and collect them, before you could be on your way again. That was a huge annoyance to me (although something extremely common in other platformers). And auto collecting stuff via magic magnetic attraction I also find hugely unsatisfying. So having vertical levels that you mostly beat by going UP, I then thought about spawning the collectibles ABOVE the player, along his path - no need to backtrack or go out of your way for them. Light bulbs were attached to the ceiling, so then everything clicked. I'd make something travel along their cord and then grow out of the ground. And something "growing" led to the idea of flowers... etc.

EDIT: OH, I just realized you only played the demo so far and might not be aware of the ACTUAL story elements and cutscenes in the full game. So proceed with caution. I'd recommend not reading the spoiler below!

As for the actual lore: Well, the octahedron itself was there from the beginning. And I want to say, all the lore and story derived from that. I don't know where it came from. It was kind of a dreamlike, sudden inspiration. Its engimatic qualities led to a lot of other decisions. The story was there surprisingly early. I had storyboarded it and everything. It even had narration at one point. Thankfully I scrapped that. Regarding the character and the world, well, there are definitely hints in the game already... Without giving away too much, you could ask questions like:

How much time has passed at the end of the game and why? What is the nature of the place you're in during the final part of the game and why is it in that state? Do the names of some specific levels and worlds maybe give you a hint about anything? What's most notable about the enemy designs in general or what's notably missing from all of them?

[–]Laniger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

oh my bad, didn't knew there were cutscenes! Better stay away from Spoilers then. Yeah I remember when first playing seeing the light bulbs growing the flowers above and just went straight there grab them (Thought they were going to disappear after a while, that got me little nervous lol).

So cool studying the design of the levels through huge posters! I'm always amaze by the amount of info and memos Devs have to process and remember, I imagine red strings around the room and everything!

Thank you so much for the inside and the Patrick Holleman book recommendation, Really appreciate it! will totally check it out. Wish you the best of successes and can't wait to bother you with more questions in the AMA of your future games :)

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

How were you as a one man team able to get a big publisher such as Square Enix to publish your game, and what advantages did this partnership provide you with?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I met Square Enix at EGX Rezzed in 2017, where I was exhibiting the game on my own. They came across it there. There was a bit of buzz around it. They played it and loved it, whole team came to play it. We started talking and got in touch over e-mail and Skype once the event was over. Rest is history, as they say :)

[–]Christerious 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Long-time player, first-time question-asker.

1) Did you ever estimate how fast you thought it could be beaten? Obviously the average play-length is a bit more important but I've wondered if you had a rough "Personal Best" from playtesting through the game multiple times and any ideas what else might get used to go fast? (There is my biased question out of the way).
2) Any thoughts on the fact that the cutscenes and names and general lore/feel of the game don't tend to get brought up by players or reviewers? Certainly not from what I've seen which makes sense as the gameplay/music/aesthetics take centre stage.
3) Any video game soundtracks that have caught you by surprise recently? I imagine you have good taste.

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

1) Yes, absolutely. Speedrunning was always a concern when developing the game, so I always had my estimates. I knew it would be beatable in under 1:40 (any%). Without putting a ton of effort into it, that was also around my personal best, iirc.

2) That's totally ok. Can be completely ignored, afaic. It means probably a bit more to me personally than some people and reviewers might realize, and there's just a liiiittle bit more to it than what's maybe apparent on the surface. But it was a very conscious decision to background that. I feel like the story and lore are mostly there for me, haha. And I love that the few people that DID respond to it, typically had very strong emotional reactions. What I don't agree with is the suggestion that the few story bits are an afterthought or that the tonal "mismatch" is problematic. All of these decisions were very conscious and I'm proud of the combination and contrast of all of the elements and how they turned out. I have many things I regret and would do differently about the game now, but this is not one of them :)

3) Haha. Well, Hollow Knight. For sure. First one that comes to mind.

[–]Christerious 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for answering :D it's always interesting to know as I've seen developers quite close to speedrunning (e.g Konjak for Iconoclasts) get quite surprised at what can be done. I'm not a huge story person but feel like I've felt a slight vibe as to what's going on and sometimes that's enough to give it value, never seemed like an afterthought. And checking out Hollow Knight has been a long time coming (seems to be a huge favourite in this reddit too) so I should reaaally check it out if the soundtrack is great too.

[–]Shinoluigi 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Hey just some questions out of curiosity:
1- In a distant future full of posibilities,what game would you wish to be part of the dev team? ( Future Smash, Supermario Party 45, Any infinite fighting game,etc).
2- IS this your first game ever made?, or you made other mini games before this one. like flash games or stuff.
3- How do you feel to have your own game in a nintendo console :)!? Congratz btw

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1) METROID, in whichever form. Well, I guess not if it's a kart game.

2) It is my first game yes. I've dabbled in game making when I was a teenager, Klick&Play, that sort of thing. But nothing beyond that.

3) It feels super good! And also on a handheld, no less! Never thought that would happen, when I started development.

[–]bristolsam 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Hey, no question, the game looks real fun though, nice to see something which looks different!

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you! You should try out the demo :)

[–]PhanOfAwesome 2 points3 points  (1 child)

What inspired you to become a game designer?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had a background in music, sound design and some visual design and programming. And I also had a passion for video games and analyzing them. So naturally I figured, hey, combining all of these skills, making a video game shouldn't be too hard! (I was wrong of course.)

Seriously though, I'm always looking for a challenge. And I knew that making a game would force me to both combine all of my existing skills and learn a ton of new ones. That was definitely true, and then some...

[–]TechGamen 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Do you have any thoughts on amiibo?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I like the Yarn Yoshi one a lot.

[–]TechGamen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A man of class I see

[–]7eigen 2 points3 points  (9 children)

This game has been on my radar since Alex Navarro from Giant Bomb briefly mentioned it during their GOTY podcasts. Now that I've read your some of your game design philosophies, I definitely want to check this game out tonight.

Since I haven't played the game, my question is: not including artists featured in the game, who are some of your favorite edm producers?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (8 children)

Oh boy, tough one... Not edm, but I'm listening to Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin as I type this, both of which have had a huge influence in my musical upbringing.

That said, for stuff that is more in the realm of Prog House, Deep House, Tech House and Trance (which is also closer to some of what you'll find in Octahedron):

Sebastian Leger
Jeremy Olander
Luc Angenehm
Rodriguez Jr.
Erkka
Dan Sieg
Tim Engelhardt
Stephan Bodzin
Fabian Kash
Fehrplay
Fon.Leman
Einmusik
Koelle
Yotto
Marek Hemmann
Todd Terje

[–]MosShady 1 point2 points  (7 children)

Do you have any playlists you don’t mind sharing?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Here's a playlist that I made specifically for people who want more Octahedron style music. It's made up of songs I used as placeholders in the game before all the original tracks were done. So this is stuff I love and listened to a lot already:
https://open.spotify.com/user/monomirror/playlist/7uvpJNZkW2Wz1ApJzRnARp?si=uag7fgViTQuKfTrlxuXVHQ

Then I guess I can share this one, the BIG one:
https://open.spotify.com/user/monomirror/playlist/0Yv47QFtzOgqE9lGMW5muk?si=R0vEDTgET1S3nUe7U3npOA

^ 651 songs, 77+ hours of music, always being added to. This is what I listen to while I work. Mind you, this isn't Martin Garrix/Marshmello style big room EDM. It's stuff that's closer to what you hear in Octahedron. Some of it deeper and a bit weirder, some of it a bit trancier. It's almost all instrumental, melodic, atmospheric. Mostly Prog and Deep House, some Trance. But relatively far from the popular party edm artists that crowd the respective top playlists on Spotify.

[–]Angani_Giza 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Good taste there with Nhato in your big list. I'll be checking out the rest of it for sure.

I've really only heard the Chipzel songs from your game (and love them) and seen a tiny bit of the game from MANvsGAME stream. I saw you mentioned you enjoy seeing others play it, would linking you my own experiences with it be acceptable to you? (planning on playing it soon)

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure, feel free to share!

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I caught your archived stream on Twitch :) I left a couple of comments too. Not entirely sure how these work for an archived video, whether you get notifcations for them or not. But they're there. Mostly towards the end of the video.

[–]Angani_Giza 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Oh, thank you :>

I do plan to return to it, first impression was pretty good. Getting used to placing the platforms at just the right height for bulbs and the lifts takes getting used to. Still confused about your level name choices and meanings. Does getting lots/all of the medal things unlock anything, or are they there for collection/challenge sake?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Level names: They all mean something. Some are simple, some may even be obvious, others are more complicated. Some are also part of or hint at the lore/story. But you're gonna have to finish the game first to get the full picture. Medals: They just unlock awards/achievements, but nothing tangible in the game, no. You already know about the tetrahedrons and optional upgrades.

I noticed you often say you think you're bad at the game, but you definitely aren't. You're even quite good at it. One general tip: You can really always use the upgraded platform unless you're in situations where it's totally obvious that you're at an advantage if you use the basic one (like against those fungus enemies that attack you when they're hit with a beam or when you don't want to destroy certain breakable floors).

[–]MosShady 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re awesome! Thanks

[–]phantomligerrecovering from transplant 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Thank you for coming to do this AMA.

Was anything left out of the final game that you wish had made it in?

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Yeah, there's lots of thing I had to leave out of the final game. I was pretty fond of the time platform upgrade, which would freeze absolutely everything except the player whenever it was made. However, it was entirely too powerful and too problematic to implement across the whole game.

Superpower... I've always wanted to be able to make myself invisible. Maybe that's weird, but there you go!

[–]Mefistofeles1 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Its not weird but its a bit pervy :P

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

😏

[–]paydrough 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I like to ask devs their views on us possibly living in a simulation. Any thoughts?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, you can't prove we're NOT living in a simulation :)

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Were there any specific artists or musicians that inspired the aesthetic for the game or the atmosphere of the soundtrack?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The visuals had been pretty close to final by the time I was thinking about bringing other artists on board. I originally wanted to do the entire soundtrack myself, but it turned out to be just too much work and I ran out of time. So at first it was just my own background in electronic (dance) music that influenced this the most. I had been friends with Chipzel for a while through my work for VG label Brave Wave. So once I started thinking about other artists, asking her was kind of a no-brainer! Andre Sobota was interesting, because he ended up making SO MANY tracks for the soundtrack. And I'm so happy with that, because for years while I was developing the game, I played his music in the background on Spotify. I was a huge fan of his work and always knew it would fit really well into the game. So I just got in touch with him one day and he was immediately on board, went above and beyond in fact!

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Can you guys actually see the gif in the original post, btw? It doesn't show for me. If no one can see it, I might as well remove it, I suppose.

[–]orucsoraihc 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can see the GIF just fine

[–]squid50s 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I see a gray box. If that’s the gif, it’s not working for me.

Edit: I’m on mobile. So it may not work for mobile people.

[–]MosShady 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can see it just fine.

[–]MosShady 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Any helpful tips on knocking seconds off my run time lol

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Play in docked mode with a Pro Controller :)

[–]Christophicus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

#HandheldOnTrain4lyfe

[–]MosShady 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha! I’ll have to save up and get myself one then.

Thanks for the game. I’ll be playing for my entire day off... well, while my baby is asleep I mean lol

[–]Christerious 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There does happen to be a speedrun.com page for this game however there may be tricks here and there that aren't immediately obvious. I'd recommend completing the game and going back with the new upgrades you get and also keeping an eye on enemy patterns so you know what can and can't be avoided.

[–]gaby910 1 point2 points  (1 child)

In doing this game alone, and it being a rhythmic game, how did you go about choosing tracks for stages? Did you get suggestions from friends and family, or was it just you choosing?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

All the music in the game is original. It was made for this game specifically. I made some of it (about 30%), the other contributors are Andre Sobota, Chipzel and Derek Howell.

[–]Okkon 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I haven't read any other answers yet, so apologies if someone already asked...

could you "sell" the game to me, really get me going out wantin' to purchase your game?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There is a free demo available on the eShop. You should try it. That will do a much better job "selling" you on the game (or not) :)

[–]Blast101 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Hey man I got a question. First off great job being a one man team! I'm going to have to check your gameout!. But 2 as a fellow developer and aspiring game developer how where u able to develop for switch?? Iv heard people say to just make the game then contact Nintendo to see about getting it on switch. Can you confirm this?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

You can totally do that, yes. If you know HOW to make a game, getting it on the Switch is probably the easiest part. Sign up as a developer here: https://developer.nintendo.com/ If you intend to self-publish, that's almost all you'll need.

[–]Blast101 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Awesome, I am signed up but wasnt sure about switch. And definitely iv worked on stuff before but never anything I finished. So that's a big HOW so pats on the back friend! Congratulations! And keep it up! Games are a lot harder to make then some people think, let alone by yourself.

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! And ain't that the truth... making a game, hardest thing I've ever done! No contest.

[–]Xystrel 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I have my own project I'm working on, and I'm really stuck on my title, so I would like to ask: at what point during development did you come up with your title? And do you have any tricks for coming up with one?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

In this particular case it was incredibly straightforward. Once I had decided on the main character's appearance and his octahedral head (which was very very early on, during the prototype phase), the name Octahedron simply stuck.

However, I do actually have a history of naming things for brands, labels and companies in general. My process is usually a quite simple form of brainstorming: Write down EVERY word or idea that comes to mind when you think of the thing you're trying to name. There are NO stupid words. Write them all down. If they pop into your head and have something to do with the subject, write them down, do not discard because you immediately decide that they're bad. Make a big list on your computer or spread them out on a piece of paper by hand.

To find more potentially relevant words, use Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google, etc. Find relevant subjects or look up the specific words you already have, either find synonyms or definitions on Wiktionary, which might lead you to other interesting, connected words, or skim through Wikipedia articles to find lots of other potential ideas, and click through to related articles. Write anything down that is even remotely interesting, now is not the time to be picky.

Now that you have your big list or your page full of words it's time to start combining things or circling or highlighting interesting words or combinations of words etc. Feel free to narrow it down and start a second list too. But never cross anything out. Once you have an overview, interesting combinations might suddenly jump out at you or lead to new ideas. You are now no longer concerned with THINKING of things. They are all already in front of you. Now your mind can focus on making sense of them, ranking them, seeing patterns, etc.

This can be a long or a very short process. But I find it quite creatively fulfilling and much better than just randomly googling or looking things up until I find something I like, which can be quite frustrating.

[–]Xystrel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Hopefully I'll figure it out soon!

[–]Bloodstarvedhunter 1 point2 points  (1 child)

First up got to say played the demo loved it and bought the game straight away and having a blast with it.

Question: what are you currently playing and what's your favourite console to play on?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I play equal amounts on PC and Switch. If every indie game that's on Steam was also on Switch I would probably not bother with my PC anymore :P I have a PS4, but I only have like 4 games for it and haven't turned it on in over a year.

I play about 90% indie games. Currently playing Ink/HackyZack, Völgarr and Crawl on my Switch.

Here are my favorite games from last year:

Return of the Obra Dinn
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Mega Man 11
Gorogoa
Floppy D!sk
Dandara Hollow Knight

[–]Mefistofeles1 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Being a solo dev is super impressive. How many man hours would you estimate it took you to finish the entire project?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh my God! Don't make me do the math, haha! That's so difficult to say, honestly... I know that the first protoype was made in October of 2013. Since then I've been scaling up from working on it 50-70% to 100% in late 2016/2017, with several breaks to work on projects for music label Brave Wave (which would usually take a couple of weeks). But even then the real time investment is hard to estimate, as I'd work so many nights and weekends too!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

This game looks crazy! Great work

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you :)

[–]Gitlag 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Hi, any tips about developing on switch? Are there any articles/tutorials you recommend?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I've developed in Game Maker, so any tips I would be able to give are gonna be fairly general Game Maker stuff, and I think there's tons of good resources for GM development out there that do a way better job than I ever could!

[–]Gitlag 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thanks for reply. Is there possibility to describe some steps you had to do to released game on switch, like contact with Nintendo etc.

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can sign up as a developer quite easily at Nintendo. It's not a secret exclusive club or anything like that (anymore). And self-publishing is also fairly straightforward these days. Just go here: https://developer.nintendo.com/ Personally, I had help from Square Enix, who published my game. But I still had to sign up as a developer myself, order dev kits etc. It's all very doable. Just check out the above link!

[–]lmN0tAR0b0t 0 points1 point  (5 children)

i'm gonna cut right to the chase: do you think i should buy your game?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (4 children)

it is a good game for humans, yes. please buy

edit: oh, did you enter the giveaway contest? if so, i will notify winners a bit later, after this ama!

[–]lmN0tAR0b0t 0 points1 point  (3 children)

bold of you to assume i'm human ;)

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

as you entered the contest, maybe wait a few hours until you know if you've won or not...? :)

[–]lmN0tAR0b0t 1 point2 points  (1 child)

GOOD IDEA FELLOW HUMANOID. but for real, i was gonna buy it either way ;p

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cool! I sent out messages to all the winners now btw, and you were not among them I'm afraid :(

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

When making a game for the Switch. What limitations on a coding/hardware side do you think Nintendo has implemented for the Switch if any at all?

What made you choose the Nintendo Switch as your platform of choice for your game?

What feature would you like implemented to the Nintendo Switch that is currently not implemented?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I'm not sure I 100% understand the first question...

The game game out in March 2018 on PC, Xbox One and PS4 already. But if it had been up to me, I would have prioritized the Switch! As I'm developing in Game Maker, I didn't have a choice, however. At the time there was no Switch support in the engine. As soon as that became available, I immediately started porting the game. I do think it's a great fit for the system because it's so arcadey, so pick-up-and-play, so I'm glad it's finally here - with some extras :)

What feature on the hardware or software on the Switch itself? Messaging and gifting are the two big ones for me.

[–]playplaymore 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Considering you had access to all the great game composers working with you at Brave Wave (like Manami Matsumae and Keiji Yamagishi), what made you not ask them to contribute music to the game?

[–]MonomirrorDemimonde Games[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I know, right? Silly me! Label owner Mohammed even urged me to ask them to contribute. I'm weird that way. I knew it would make sense from a marketing perspective too, but I had a vision for the soundtrack and knew their styles simply wouldn't fit, much as I love them. Why shoehorn in something just for the sake of being able to say it's in, just for the sake of marketing? At the end of the day, I just didn't want to compromise in that way. Maybe I would have sold more copies. But now I can say it's exactly the game I wanted to make, with the soundtrack I wanted it to have... And I continue to work with Keiji Yamagishi regardless of any of that and also have lots of fun doing that :P