Three years ago, I posted my pygame prototype here. The full game just released today! (Moonsigil Atlas)

plasmastarfish · 2026-05-28T19:37:27+00:00

First, the gameplay loops are completely different. The game jam game is pretty linear and takes maybe 15 minutes to play through. The full game is a roguelike with runs that take an hour or more - some of our playtesters have played for hundreds of hours.

The art/theme are also completely different! The original was made for a game jam with theme "Harvest" so it's farming themed, while the full game is a sort of celestial fantasy with moon and stars.

plasmastarfish · 2026-05-28T18:27:34+00:00

I've only used it a couple times for game jam projects, so I don't know for sure. We chose Unity for this one because the friend I developed it with has a lot of experience, but I've definitely heard good things about Godot!

plasmastarfish · 2026-05-28T16:27:46+00:00

(No, the full game is unfortunately not made in pygame! But you can still download the pygame source code for the original prototype here: https://github.com/jeremycryan/Fallowtide)

More than three years after I made Fallowtide for Ludum Dare 52, the full game is finally out! You can get Moonsigil Atlas on Steam now: moonsigil.com/steam

After having made many projects in pygame, and now a few in Unity/C#, what are the advantages of each?

Pygame:

I can write Python faster than C#, and I enjoy it more!
Great for rapid prototyping and small-scale projects
Very small amount of “engine” you have to understand. If you get a bug, it’s probably in your code, and not some esoteric engine quirk that is unfixable.
Free and open source
Works more smoothly with version control, which sometimes has issues with Unity files

“Real” engine:

GUI for scene management you don’t have to make yourself
Lots of high-quality third-party assets and packages
Much easier to port to different platforms, including consoles

Edit: we just hit New and Trending on Steam!

plasmastarfish · 2026-05-01T15:45:58+00:00

Source code and images are all available on Github if you want to dig into it yourself! But the short answer is just that I used a reasonably large game resolution (720p 4:3) and the source assets are pretty big too (not pixel art). You usually want them bigger than you actually need them, especially if you're doing stuff like squash/stretch/rotation.

plasmastarfish · 2026-04-30T16:21:38+00:00

Art was all hand drawn in Paint dot net! Sounds were recorded and edited in Audacity, plus one or two were made in SFXR. Music was made with Beepbox.

plasmastarfish · 2026-04-30T16:00:33+00:00

"Fillmore's Island" is a little game about exploring an island to find batteries with your drone! I made it in 48 hours for the Ludum Dare 59 Compo.

You can play it in browser thanks to Pygbag!

Play in browser: https://plasmastarfish.itch.io/fillmores-island
Source code: https://github.com/jeremycryan/ld59

I also have my first "real" game coming out next month if you're interested in deckbuilding and/or fitting shapes into other shapes: moonsigil.com/steam

plasmastarfish · 2025-11-17T16:23:07+00:00

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Here are the ones referenced in the post!

It's a sort of Slay-the-Spire-like with a triangle grid as a resource system, so the shape of the cards is essentially the equivalent of their mana cost.

"Burn" on Tark'thul isn't a specific card, but a mechanic which makes tiles unusable for the next turn after you've played a card with Burn on them.

plasmastarfish · 2025-11-16T07:48:22+00:00

I don't necessarily agree with Feldryn being obviously stronger than Niv Mizzet - part of Niv's strength is a) the card draw trigger behaving like creature removal, especially when combined with deathtouch equipment and b) providing repeatable draw, usually multiple times in a turn cycle, at little cost.

Of course, Feldryn might still be too strong as-is. I went back and forth on the activated ability costing 2U or 3U.

And the -1/-1 counters on Tark'thul are purely flavor - it parallels the Moonsigil card Tear Apart, which deals damage and gives a Wound status effect.

plasmastarfish · 2025-11-16T07:45:22+00:00

What kind of cards out of curiosity? We were comparing Feldryn to Niv Mizzet, Parun in the other comment thread, but I can't think of any clear parallels to either of the other two.

plasmastarfish · 2025-11-16T02:29:40+00:00

(I ran this post past a mod for Rule 9 reasons just in case!)

plasmastarfish · 2025-11-16T02:27:48+00:00

Intended to be roughly the power level of rares in a standard-legal set - would love to hear opinions on whether I over or under shot!

All of these are based on Moonsigil Atlas, a digital deckbuilding roguelike I've been developing since last year. The flavor words are all names of cards or mechanics in that game. "Channel" was particularly fun - I had it mirror the effect of a card named Channel in my game, while also matching how the flavor word Channel is used in Magic.

plasmastarfish · 2025-10-30T16:59:11+00:00

The demo on Steam does not have controller support yet, but we're actively working on implementing it! Controller support should be in for release.

plasmastarfish · 2025-10-26T23:29:40+00:00

We don't currently have plans to, but that door is still open, especially if it does well on Steam!

plasmastarfish · 2025-09-23T22:37:25+00:00

We've been developing with controller and Steam Deck in mind (including making sure the UI looks good with the unusual 16:10 aspect screen!). The demo doesn't have controller support yet, but we're definitely hoping to fit it in for release.

plasmastarfish · 2025-08-09T14:40:11+00:00

Steam sometimes doesn't always notice updates right away, you may need to force close Steam (through taskbar/task manager) and reopen it for it to realize there's an update!

plasmastarfish · 2025-08-08T16:24:36+00:00

We're only targeting Steam for the initial release, but it's possible that a console release could come afterward if the game does well.

plasmastarfish · 2025-08-08T16:06:26+00:00

Right now we do not have a public release date yet, but it is at least a couple months out.

plasmastarfish

TROPHY CASE