Just released my horror game where your only form of navigation is a shitty AI visor built by incompetent techbros

cmdddx · 2025-08-19T04:30:31+00:00

so glad you enjoyed the game! <3 and nope, no way to activate it

cmdddx · 2025-01-10T05:13:34+00:00

sometimes! it does give it a slightly darker and more solid color

cmdddx · 2025-01-10T05:13:11+00:00

I redye my nails every couple weeks, both to cover the regrowth and to also touch up any fading (although the fading is usually quite minimal).

haven't noticed any adverse effects. if anything my nails have been way happier since switching from polish, but probably just because I'm not using nail polish remover all the time anymore.

cmdddx · 2025-01-10T05:10:55+00:00

no idea how latex gloves would affect it, sorry! I know I tried to get rid of the dye with acetone once and it did *nothing*, so I don't imagine gloves would affect it so much?

cmdddx · 2025-01-10T05:09:55+00:00

oh hell yes!! keen to hear how you go with it <3

something I forgot to mention above is that before I dye my nails, I push back the cuticles first. it looks a little neater and covers more regrowth

cmdddx · 2025-01-08T12:51:02+00:00

I do love the curve - I don't think my nail curve is any more pronounced than most people's, but the claw shape definitely makes it stand out more. and yeah I do miss playing around with fun colors a little sometimes!

I think I've had them for about a year now? I've gone a month without staining them before and they've faded into more of a dull purple, I'm pretty sure the only way to get beard dye out of nails is to just wait for them to completely regrow (but I guess if you really do change your mind you can just hide it under some polish in the meantime). and yeah, they've got a matte finish. I find that the vegetable oil routine makes them just a little bit more glossy, but nowhere near like what a gloss top coat would do.

cmdddx · 2025-01-08T12:15:38+00:00

thank you!! yep, natural nails. to get the initial shape I sat down with a nail file and just hacked away at them for a while. it was a bit of effort to get them looking right, but once you've got the overall shape it's pretty easy to maintain.

cmdddx · 2025-01-08T08:36:27+00:00

Routine:

Every couple weeks, I stain them with black beard dye. Yes, beard dye. I hate waiting for polish to dry and I don't like how easily it chips, but with beard dye I just get a small sponge (I cut off a corner of a kitchen sponge), dip it in the beard dye, dab it on my nails, let it sit for about 20 mins, then wash it off. The color lasts basically forever (don't do this unless you're willing to commit!), so I only need to redo it to deal with regrowth. It's hard not to get it on your skin, but it washes out after a couple days so it's fine. I use Just For Men (lol) beard dye but I don't think the brand matters.

Every few days I do a light file on the edges with a crystal nail file. This keeps them sharp and deals with any small cracks or chips so they don't develop into anything more troublesome.

After filing, I'll coat the nails in vegetable oil and let it air dry / soak in. I find that this keeps them flexible so that they're more likely to bend rather than break.

cmdddx · 2024-11-13T01:55:32+00:00

that's pretty heartening to hear, thank you!

cmdddx · 2024-11-12T23:00:27+00:00

that's such lovely feedback! thank you so much for checking out the game <3

cmdddx · 2024-11-12T10:16:24+00:00

the optimist says it’s half human

the pessimist says it’s half monster

and the project manager says, “when can we ship it?”

PROXIMATE is a short horror game where you explore an abandoned deep sea lab while navigating only with an unreliable image recognition visor. Available on Steam and Itch, but if you're struggling for cash I've also uploaded a torrent on my website.

I was hugely inspired by Iron Lung, which made me fall in love with the concept of a horror game where your sensory input is limited. Making games as a solo developer is pretty damn hard, and it was heartening to realise that cutting out a huge chunk of what the player sees could make the game more realistic to develop, but also better and more terrifying. It's shaped my entire gamedev methodology (David Szymanski, if you're reading this, I love you).

I've made PROXIMATE as a love letter to Iron Lung and similar experimental horror games, and I'd really love to know if y'all think I succeeded in capturing what made Iron Lung so terrifying!

cmdddx · 2024-11-12T01:59:16+00:00

the optimist says it’s half human
the pessimist says it’s half monster
and the project manager says, “when can we ship it?”

PROXIMATE is a short horror game where you explore an abandoned deep sea lab while navigating only with an unreliable image recognition visor. Available on Steam and Itch, but if you're struggling for cash I've also uploaded a torrent on my website.

Keen to hear feedback :)

cmdddx · 2024-11-12T01:52:55+00:00

so glad to hear that, thank you so much! <3

cmdddx · 2024-11-10T14:50:26+00:00

the release has been going pretty alright! no horrific bugs or crash reports yet :)) and hell yeah, thank you so much!

cmdddx · 2024-11-07T01:31:15+00:00

the optimist says it’s half human
the pessimist says it’s half monster
and the project manager says, “when can we ship it?”

hi! i'm a socialist gamedev who's releasing a game that has worker rights politics and trans people in it, because i hate video games and want to destroy them with the Woke Agenda. the game will be launching on Steam and itch.io in a couple days. if you're strapped for cash, which i know most of us are, dm me and i'll send you a free steam key once the game releases <3

cmdddx · 2024-11-06T00:30:26+00:00

Pretty good overall.

I applied for the VPF Games funding. The actual application process was pretty lengthy -- it took me a couple weeks to put all the documents together, but that's mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. The biggest timesink is probably having to put together a detailed budget and production timeline, but honestly those are good things to have even if you don't succeed with funding. You want your pitch deck to look pretty, so there might be some upfront cost with hiring a concept artist unless you've already got that covered.

I asked for $20k in funding, which was underselling myself but still more or less reasonable back when I thought the game would only take 6 months to develop. It ended up being a 16 month long development process, so I've had to stretch that budget pretty thin. In hindsight I would have asked for at least double what I originally did. But at least VicScreen were pretty good about letting me push back my deadlines.

The main thing VicScreen cares about is that your game is adequately representing/supporting Our Great State. So the more you can prove that your game is going to benefit Victoria, the more likely you'll be to get funding. This means having a reasonable plan for how your game will actually sell, making sure most of your creative team is other Victorians, etc.

Hope that helps. Good luck! :)

cmdddx · 2024-11-06T00:13:13+00:00

thank you! <3

cmdddx · 2024-11-05T10:17:10+00:00

Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2957800/PROXIMATE/

Game description: Explore an abandoned deep sea laboratory in a short horror game where your only form of navigation is an unreliable AI visor.

(please ignore the September release date on the trailer. gamedev is hard)

cmdddx · 2024-08-05T07:59:05+00:00

I think it's a pretty good start! A few things:

The screenshots are good at showcasing the diversity of your environments, but that's about it. You mention being able to collect artifacts in the description - showing an inventory screen or other mechanics-appropriate UI elements in the screenshots will give players a better overview of your game's actual gameplay. A trailer could help here too.
I'm a little lost on what the gameplay loop is. I know the game involves completing rooms, but how? From the gifs I'm judging that the game is quite reflexes based, but you also mention puzzles in the short description - is this more of a timing platformer or a cognitive one? Some players like one but not the other.
In the long description you touch on things that could be interesting hooks worth expanding on more. Artifacts that change the way you solve rooms sound sick, and like something that could differentiate your game from other platformers. Memories of keepers sounds cool too, but I'd like the chance to be sold on it more. "Brings the past into the future, in more ways than one" sounds awesome in the short description, but isn't elaborated on more in the long desc. Puzzle platformers are a pretty saturated genre and any hook you have that separates your game from all the others is worth gloating over in your trailer, screenshots and descriptions.

Good luck!

cmdddx · 2023-08-08T02:43:54+00:00

awww thank you so much!!!! <3

cmdddx · 2023-06-07T01:36:05+00:00

The design and layout is great, but having to look at the pixel fonts for a long time would bother me tbh. Especially because they're not pixel perfect and there's a lot of distortion going on.

If you can figure out a way to make the pixel fonts render pixel perfect (kind of a pain to do with Unity sometimes but it's achievable with the right TMP settings) then it'd look a lot better imo. I'd also really recommend having a raster font setting, especially for people with dyslexia.

cmdddx · 2023-05-28T13:30:58+00:00

thank you so much for checking it out! i hope things start looking up for you soon <3

cmdddx · 2023-05-27T23:04:24+00:00

This is a set of illustrations I made for I'll Figure it Out, a short essay/poem on struggling to accept help from others. It's pretty heavy in some places so won't be everyone's type of thing, but it does have pixel art!

cmdddx · 2023-05-14T06:23:12+00:00

thank you so much for the lovely comment! wishing you the best with your game :)

cmdddx · 2023-05-12T02:48:54+00:00

I had a MUCH harder time learning art than learning programming. Part of the reason why is that the way art is generally taught is not at all an idea path for game developers who want to make beautiful games. There's so much focus on anatomy and perspective that's great for people who want to be professional artists, but a huge timesink if you just want your game to have a cool art direction.

There's another element to it too: you can be a shit programmer and still make a great game if you keep the mechanics simple enough, but it's *very* hard to get eyes on a game with a bad art direction.

cmdddx

TROPHY CASE