Greetings, dear friends,
Firstly, I’d like to open this blogpost by briefly explaining what these "Scene Log" posts will be:
Back when I was a kid, I followed this game called “Mother 4” (you may know it by its new name “Oddity”) that posted these semi-frequent blurbs by developers detailing the game development process, and how things were generally coming along. That game was famously shrouded in mystery, and the intent was to be more transparent with fans.
The goal for these blog posts is the same: every other month or so, somebody on the team will write a short blurb about how development is going, and maybe show off some new content. Keep in mind: on this page we will only be talking about Spawn of the Spore Spectre content: the full game’s page will have these “Scene Logs” too, but I don’t want to spoil much of it just yet.
I want to keep things as transparent as we can keep them with development. Since Croak Crusader is an action game inspired mostly by Ed Wood movies, I doubt anyone will really care about the plot, but in case you do, here's your spoiler warning:
These blog posts will showcase a lot of new content. If you’d like to wait to experience it firsthand in the final game, please stop reading.
That said, this month's post will be an introduction to the team, so no new screenshots for now.
Secondly, and more importantly, I’ve seen a few people confusing Croak Crusader for a browser game, or believing that some form of it will be posted to html.
Let me be clear: both Croak Crusader and Spawn of the Spore Spectre will be hosted exclusively on Steam. Spore Spectre will be free, and Croak Crusader will cost money. With the way the game works now, controls, enemy spawning, and particles would need to be completely redone from scratch to accommodate a browser build (which is possible, but would also be a colossal waste of time). There are no plans to bring either game to web browsers.
With those two things out of the way, I figure a first blog post is as good an opportunity as any to introduce the team:
Dry: one of my frequent musician collaborators, Dry is known for having hosted a variety of music collabs on Newgrounds. Previous projects include Portal Defenders: Fast Break, Gappy 3, and Porb Dressup.
Paytonio: Paytonio has been a frequent collaborator of mine ever since we made Bird Tapper Easy Mode together in 2023! We’ve worked on various projects together, many of which we’re hoping to bring to Steam in the wake of Croak Crusader.
TeffyD: what Teffy lacks in experience, he makes up for in his spirit of collaboration. The soundtrack would be extremely different were it not for Teffy’s eagerness to collaborate with everyone on the team. Though he hasn’t had much experience scoring games, I’m confident people will enjoy Teffy’s one-of-a-kind music!
Roverkibb: Roverkibb is responsible for pixel art, and occasionally gives us guidance on how to make the game feel more Canadian. Previous projects include Gates of Hades, Collective Unconscious, and Sine Surf.
PostElvis: PostElvis and I met on the Starmen.net forums when I was working on Beetle Ninja, and his skill immediately blew me away! It’s always a privilege to work with PostElvis on new projects. Previous projects include Pizza Tower, Beetle Ninja, and Rolus in the Outskirts.
Teravex: I believe Teravex is the biggest name on this project. We’ve worked together since the early days on several browser games: many of which unfortunately probably won’t see the light of day for a while. Past projects include Shoot Trip Die, Gappy’s Playground, and Madness Roulette.
Microbihon: even though he isn't a core member of the team, I still think it's necessary to include Micro here. Microbihon does all of the promotional art for the game: meaning basically anything that isn't a screenshot was drawn at least in part by him.
ProsciuttoMan: since it's too hard to write about myself objectively, I'll just list some of my more popular games. Past projects include Bird Tapper: Purple Platoon Panic, Adventure of Leek, and Karrion Killer.
Everybody on the team brings something new to the table, and I'm grateful to be working with such a talented group of people! Although some might be less experienced than others, I feel like that brings a lot of fresh ideas to the table.
I remember watching Orson Welles talk about Gregg Toland on the Dick Cavett Show, and I very much agree with his statements about ignorance breeding innovation. With games, I think it's a little different: artists tend to think game design and art work the same, where you can have a cool idea for something totally unique, but they don't put much thought into how hard it can be to put those ideas into practice. In small doses it works well and leads to new features that most people don't consider, but it's a careful balance.
Paytonio, for example, hasn't worked on a large-scale game before, but as a result he's always asking for features I try to avoid: like mechanics that are only used in one or two levels, lore explanations for ambiguous parts of the game, and unique tilesets and parallaxes for every level. Personally I try to avoid all of this, so it's always interesting hearing what Paytonio has to say about his ideas for how the game should work.
The TL;DR of this is: I want to bring on people who haven't worked on games that much before, because they have no clue how things are meant to work. They think outside the box, and are more susceptible to questioning what most people consider to be common conventions of the game development process.
Some of it might be a bit much, but we compromise on features that go too far, and keep what works: after all, it wouldn't be an Ed Wood tribute without cutting a few things for time, right?
Anyhow, that's it for this month! Hopefully you'll get to hear from other people on the team at some point or another: I know we all have very diverse opinions on what this game is and how we approach certain things, so it'll be really cool seeing that reflected in these blogposts.
See you soon!