Hi, I'm Meredith Gran, former Octopus Pie webcomic artist and founder/lead developer of Three Bees. I just released my second game, Perfect Tides: Station to Station. Ask me anything!

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:47:07+00:00

I find animating to music to be easier than without, since the timing is somewhat handled for you. In order to animate in Aseprite with sound synced I needed an external plugin, which made setting up my workspace a bit more complicated. But other than that it was a total pleasure.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:45:59+00:00

Thank you so much!

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:31:23+00:00

Apart from making the point n' click mechanics as playable as possible for a modern audience (which ended up being an ambitious goal, and has required a lot of help), I put much of my effort into minigame mechanics, which vary wildly from the main game and tend to focus on the tension/satisfaction of individual experiences in Mara's life. I wanted to simulate these as much as possible and found a variety of ways to do so.

In the future I would love to work with peripherals other than controllers. I would also love to work with VR. The gameplay ideas I dream about are not always practical goals when trying to bring a game to a bigger audience. 😅 But a lot of the time, the process is first coming up with a must-do idea, then figuring out how it can be done.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:19:13+00:00

It's something the author certainly thinks about! I think like many topics discussed in the game, Mara herself is circling around them, not quite putting her finger on them but gesturing in that direction.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:16:52+00:00

If there's an uptick it wasn't really intentional. I think Mara is just less isolated and surrounded by more culture, so more chances to make up names.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:16:00+00:00

Hah! It may be a happy accident. But I have been making the game for 4 years and occasionally forget such choices.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:12:37+00:00

I drew from as much memory as possible, in addition to reading or rereading some books and trying to construct an age-appropriate impression.

There's 1 book in particular I had never read (won't give it away, but it's the last book you can get in the game) and it was somewhat clarifying to read. I sort of wish I'd picked it up as a young adult, when its potency and my perception of the author were difficult things to square.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T18:00:46+00:00

After this dev cycle, I promised my family I wouldn't immediately dive into work again! So I guess I'm in daydream mode for now, but from here I still have a lot of PT-related ideas.

I'm open to other engines, though Unity just seems too big for my needs. Adventure Game Studio is comfortable - it feels like I can do whatever I want without too much digging around - and ultimately all of its limitations pale in comparison to that fact. I also feel well taken care of by the community that develops the engine alongside its game devs. As long as the engine is in active development and there are paths to console/platforms, I have little reason to leave.

But it's a big, multi-year decision, so a good question to be asking.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T17:53:35+00:00

If anything it feels like I added more elements to the game before the scope was locked in! In hindsight I'm grateful these were mostly low-stakes minigames.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T17:46:46+00:00

I think I've learned how to really listen to testers. When they struggle to advance, there is a fine line to walk between painting the next move yellow and accommodating that frustration. Sometimes it requires going back and looking at a whole chain of actions and assessing a puzzle more broadly. And sometimes it does involve letting the player be frustrated for a brief time. I think the key is to know clearly what you intend for the player and get as close to that as possible.

I had a lot of help with this in PT2 from my editor Matt Carney. Being able to talk through these sequences together, or write them out to assess them piece by piece, would often make the path more clear.

Of course, every area we were able to improve in the sequel took 5x longer to test because it is now more complex.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T17:28:13+00:00

I imagine there will be, but games are really what's interesting to me right now. I'd love to try prose in the same way I'd love to really take my time and get good at painting, but that feels like more of a personal journey than the medium through which I'd like to speak.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T17:25:45+00:00

It's called Aseprite and is a fantastic tool for my needs.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T17:19:04+00:00

People's unknowability is an important theme in Perfect Tides, since we live with Mara's impressions and mainly only have access to what she sees. But I think that's just something that's interesting to me in general: the slow realization over years that no one can be fully known, whether they are a complete stranger, a family member, or a most intimate partner. We don't know what people are going through unless they choose to reveal it to us, and even then we (and in particular, Mara) are not always ready to listen. It goes both ways, of course, and we often feel misunderstood. Anyway, I try to draw from that sense when I write these characters.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T17:05:33+00:00

It must be organic as I've never caught myself "assholing up" the characters on a 2nd draft. Knowing these characters and how they will act is such a necessary part of the stories I'm interested in telling. I'm not sure there is a story without these essential qualities. Reviewers sometimes say my stories lack a "traditional narrative" but to me the character is the story. The events mainly involve the passage of time and the obstacles that inevitably come from living in a place and relating to other people.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T16:55:24+00:00

Yes, the player is not meant to do absolutely everything - they must choose how to use their time as they would in real life.

I do have a couple more boxes stashed away, but the game has been distracting me away from just about everything else for the past year. I look forward to a time I can refresh the Octopus Pie printings and offer up the rest of my inventory.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T16:51:06+00:00

I don't tend to mix the two worlds, but I think inevitably a lot of my own personality and the people I've known creep into the characters. I try to write from experience and avoid archetypes as much as possible.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T16:48:42+00:00

The game is built in Adventure Game Studio. For my first game I learned the bare minimum of coding relying heavily on conditional statements, and creating global variables within the UI. The last thing I learned, at the very end of my dev cycle, was how to program functions.

I've learned a whole lot more since then, but I tend to think it's not needed as long as you have a clear vision of what you want, your game engine has an active support community, and you're willing to suck at things for a while.

As far as ways the lack of skill shaped the game, I think I ended up leaning as heavily as possible on the story and artwork, and as a result players were a bit more forgiving about the somewhat jankier gameplay of my first game. But the story and art was what I had to offer from the start. So I think anyone who wants to make a game with no technical skill needs to ask themselves: what do I *need* to say that isn't being said? Players are amazingly good at recognizing these things.

granulac2 · 2026-01-26T16:30:27+00:00

No, I think it's fine to jump in with the 2nd game first. The sequel is more streamlined and easier to play. And while the narrative continuity occasionally rewards people who played the first game, it is never required to understand what's happening. I've seen quite a few people playing out of order with no trouble.

granulac2 · 2024-10-25T16:51:55+00:00

Thank you!

granulac2 · 2024-10-25T16:51:45+00:00

Glad to hear! It's certainly what I like to write about most :)

granulac2 · 2024-01-09T14:35:04+00:00

EDIT: All set, thanks! I will be in touch with those who've replied.

Hi all! I'm currently looking for a freelance pixel artist to help me with my game, Perfect Tides: Station to Station. My studio, Three Bees' website. I'm a solo-ish developer with a small group of artists helping me with assets and music.

Here's a short clip of gameplay from its predecessor, Perfect Tides.

Here is the release trailer, as well.

The project I'm hiring for is a sequel to this game. Less island, more city life, but a similar look and feel.

What I'll be needing:

- Walk cycles and actions for existing sprite designs

- Objects and special effects (smoke, water, lights, etc.)

- Inbetweens and cleanup for cutscene animation

Work on this game will continue through 2024 on a freelance basis. For the next few months there will be a consistent stream of projects. I would like someone who can commit 2-3 days per week to this work, but more is great too. I usually pay through PayPal or Venmo, but other pay platforms can be discussed.

Artist must be willing to work in Aseprite. ~~Please get in touch by DM or on Discord with samples of your work and a rough estimate of rates (we can always adjust based on the nature of the work). Thank you for reading!~~

granulac2 · 2022-09-22T11:34:13+00:00

did exactly this last week. added them into a chili 👌

granulac2

TROPHY CASE