A Watched Pot Is Boiling
Welcome back, viewers! Uh, I mean, greetings to all Caravel community and newsletter subscribers! This is Chaco, with another Caravel status update.
Treacle Stew is Nearly Done
With the Bar now at the prime percentage of 89%, development on the upcoming Smitemasters' Selection, Treacle Stew, is nearly completed. We're at the point where final end-to-end testing is in progress, and in general will be putting together all the pieces for final publication. I'm as excited as anyone that the hold is getting this close to being done, but there's still plenty of work ahead.
Artistic Outreach
Unfortunately, we find ourselves without some CD cover art for the hold. While I doubt at this point we'll be doing a physical print run for this Smitemasters' Selection, we could still use that cover art both for the Caravel Games website and the Steam release. Both Mike Rimer and I have reached out to the previous artists we've worked with for prior games, and generally they are either unavailable or busy working on other projects. So, I must turn the question to you, the DROD community: Do you know of any artists interested in producing CD-quality art for a puzzle game? We're willing to dip into the war chest to help fund this properly.
Making Good DROD Levels, As Though We Didn't Have Any
The Make a Good DROD Level Contest Compilation is, at the time of this writing, nearly through the Hold Administration process. How does "
making a good DROD level"
need to be distinguished, for an official contest? It's an outgrowth of the "
Make a good X level"
idea from several other established communities, e.g. "
Make A Good (Super Mario World) Level"
, "
Make A Good Mega Man Level"
, "
Make a Good Level X"
.
In short, it's an excuse to have a contest about literally anything, and being able to recognize and reward our hard-working level designers for doing what they do best - making fun, novel, and slightly tricky experiences that show that a good level isn't just good the month it comes out - it's good forever. People will be playing and enjoying the Make a Good Level contest compilation not just in 2022, but in years to come.
Contest thread:
https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=45276
Compilation architecture thread:
https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=45392
(Addendum 2021-01-04: Now published!) Holds board thread:
https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=45503
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 - Out Now!
Erik Hermansen has just released his new puzzle adventure game
The Godkiller - Chapter 1. The Godkiller combines DROD's stepping gameplay with the third dimension and inventive new block-pushing mechanics. Other features include a full musical soundtrack with vocals, death as a puzzle mechanic instead of a failure state, and Erik making bird noises into a microphone. The Godkiller is now available on Steam at
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1449570/The_Godkiller__Chapter_1/.
Recognition for Not Asking
It's time for another Don't Ask award, for those who help keep the community going during these quiet periods where large projects have been released for several years, and hype and excitement have cooled off and turned to a more patient satisfaction.
This newsletter's Don't Ask award goes to hyperme, for his tireless work fixing bugs and implementing some neat feature requests for the upcoming 5.1.1 and 5.2 releases of DROD. A true display of the open source ethos at work; this deserves at least a little reward.
hyperme, pick a free prize from the Prize Pile!
Closing Thoughts
Well, this has been another tough year. We've all had to struggle to make it this far, but all in all I'm glad you're still around, dear reader. And if our community can be a good place to forget your worries and have some hearty discussions, then all the better. Until next time!
- Chaco, closing out the year
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