Happy new year everyone! It is now 2024 I guess now lol. I know it's going to take a while to get use to writing 2024 instead of 2023 when I write the date, though that happens every new year. It is also a leap year so my birthday is on the 70th day of the year instead of the 69th ugh. Every leap year that I can recall has been quite eventful in my life. In 2020 the pandemic started and ended the world for approximately the next 2 years. 2016 was the year where puberty began for me, I was 8 years old in 2016 so I did have quite an early beginning to puberty I guess. I do have a shitty memory and can barely remember anything from before 2016. An interesting year with many new experiences for me. This was however towards the end of the year, there's nothing wrong with me in that respect lol. The farthest back I have clear memory of would probably be 2018 I guess. 2024 will see me turning 16 years old, the beginning of my life slowly opening up into adulthood. I plan on getting a job this year, I've been waiting until I turn 16 to get one because it will be easier for me to find one for obvious reasons. Also since I live in the USA, I will be able to drive this year. I will be applying for my permit and taking my lessons as soon as I can, and hopefully I will be able to get my license some time in September. Though unfortunately I do not have a car waiting for me and I have no idea when I will be getting one since cars are insanely expensive, including used ones. I know absolutely nothing about cars though, as long as it drives it's fine by me. With 2024 I will be entering my junior year of high school which means that I need to start seriously considering what I'm going to study in college and spend the next half-century to the rest of my life doing. Those may mean the same thing or not but check back here frequently over the next 60 years to find out. I've been considering these 3 fields: Computer Science, Psychology and Linguistics. Computer science because I know it is a very competitive field and I've always loved working with them. I've been considering psychology because being a therapist feels like it would be a good path for me imo. I am already the therapist friend hearing them vent to me and trying my best to understand everything and give them good advice. I've also been considering Linguistics because I love learning more about languages. Just like with computers, I've been interested in languages and the ways we communicate, the sounds, vocabulary, grammar, etc since I was young. I currently speak English at a native level, Portuguese fluently as a L2 speaker, A decent amount of Spanish (mostly from the similarities with Portuguese), A little bit of Mandarin Chinese, and I am currently Learning Finnish and French. I'm learning Finnish because I liked their song in Eurovision last year(Yes that is the reason, go listen to Cha Cha Cha by Käärijä or watch the performance at ESC if you don't live in the USA or can find it reposted somewhere online), and I'm learning French because I have plans to go to Portugal, Spain, and France in 2025 and French is the only language I don't have a decent grasp of. That's really all I have to say, It's 2:22 AM and I probably should go to bed. Thanks for listening to my TED talk, hope you enjoyed, and here's a cookie if you read everything: 🍪. Again, happy new year!

Last time I was on Newgrounds was in September. Since then I got in a depressive rut and had a stressful second half of freshman year. I have had roughly one month of summer break to work on myself since then. I felt that I would like to get back into game development again, something I haven't really done in 2 years. Anyway I'm sure you want to know about the game.

About the game:

The game is a sequel of my game Laurens School which I made in 2021. It is my only good and ambitious game so far and wouldn't recommend playing my other games.

Here is the link for it: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/818457

This sequel which will be named "Matthew's School" will have a larger map and more gameplay. So far I am yet to draw anything for the actual gameplay, I've only done the title and splash screens so far. If you want to see those and more frequent updates on the game, those will be on Game Jolt.

The page for the game on Game Jolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/matthewsschool/824260

I do this on Game Jolt because it allows for games to be specifically in devlog and early access states. Once the game is fully complete I will upload it here and maybe on itch.io (not sure yet). To actually make the game I will be using the GDevelop engine like I did last time. The engine has changed quite a bit since when I made the last game though that hasn't affected my knowledge on it. I've tried to learn to use another engine, I've spent some time trying to learn Unity and I also understand a bit of how Godot works. Though I don't know them as well as I know GDevelop.

I've already done a lot of the storyboarding, I plan on inching closer to being finished with that later along with doing the art for everything. Out of every part of developing a game, the art is my least favorite. I am no artist, and doing it all with a mouse doesn't help. With Laurens School I used pixlr.com for all the art, this time I will be using Krita. Hopefully it will at least look a little better.

In the last game I made the music for the title screen and the credits myself, while using a song from the internet during the gameplay. I plan on doing that again. I have been an iPhone user since the beginning of this year, which is strange for me since I've been an Android person my whole life. I would like to try out making the music with GarageBand, though I still might use Bosca Ceoil like I did last time.

Because I can be slow with developing games and also forget about them sometimes, knowing from my experience making the last game, my answer for when I think this game is going to be released is going to be quite pessimistic. I hope to have the game finished and released by the end of this year. Though I will be able to elaborate on this and get a more accurate date or time frame once I've developed this game further.

That's all I have for now, I will make sure to do frequent updates and devlogs here and on Game Jolt. Maybe I'll start doing them on YouTube as well idk. Have a good day everyone :)

Yeah so it is currently 1:40 am and idk wtf I'm doing. I randomly just remembered newgrounds exists. I just saw it's been almost a year and I still haven't released a new game. Tbh I really miss making games. It's one of my favorite hobbies and stuff has gotten in the way. I've been in school for 5 weeks now, I'm currently in my freshman year of hs which I'm not very happy about. I missed a day of school last week and I had to make up 2 tests after school that day, along with a lot of homework. Tbh the tests were short and easy but that's besides the point. I'll try to work on a small game since I don't feel like I've lost any of my game developing skill and to at least have something to say that I've made this year. I hope all of you are doing well and I'll come back here to say something when I have something to share. See y'all later! :D

So I did say school is over, it actually ends on Tuesday but you get the point. Last time I updated you all was in January so its been way too long. I've spent the last 6 months focusing on school and getting good grades n stuff. I actually made honor roll but that's besides the point, I haven't been here in a while. So I'll give you all an update on what I have planned for the summer, music, games, ect.

Game development plans:

Last time I've made an update I was talking about making a sequel to the last game that I've uploaded on here. While I still would like to make that game, I don't feel like making it. Point and Click games take a long time to make for little gameplay. The last game I made took me 4 months to make and can be beaten in less than a minute if you know what to do, less than 30 seconds if you're fast at it. So I'd like to do something else that will hopefully be more interesting to play, and less of a hassle to develop. Making a Zelda like game sounds like something that would be less tedious to develop and way more fun for people playing. Also, I don't think there are many of them here on newgrounds and also on the internet, and I don't really think there are any like free ones. I'm not going to try and make it long because I have more or less 8 weeks and not 2 years. Probably somewhere between 3 and 5 dungeons including the final one. A world that's not gigantic but not claustrophobic either. A story that's not insanely long but not so short that it almost doesn't exist either. I'd like to balance some of these things as much as possible so there's enough content for me to be satisfied with it, but not too much that it makes developing process insanely long and unsatisfying or so short that there's barely any gameplay. There's no school on Monday so I will begin developing, making the map of the world, getting ideas for the music (I'm going to try to make all of the music myself), and storyboarding the game then.

I'll try to update you all on that stuff frequently over the summer. I hope you all have an amazing day or night or whatever :D

So yeah last time I posted here was at the end of October. Let me explain.

What was happening?

I've been busy with school, friends, family, ect. Haven't had time to work on my game. I've worked on it a little recently but drawing takes a long time. So does coming up with the ideas, making them work in the engine, animating the cutsceens, having the motivation to do all of that, you get the point. So yeah, I've barely done anything. All I have to show you currently is the main theme that I've picked the other day. So here it is, Have a good rest of your day!

So today I'm beginning development on my next game.

What's the game going to be about?

It is going to be a better sequel to my last game, but better. It's going to have a bigger map, More complicated puzzles, a few cutscenes (the last game had none), And hopefully better art.

When should I expect to be able to play it?

Knowing that the last game took about 4 months to make I'm going to estimate that this game won't be completed until January or February. That is if everything goes to plan.

What have you made so far?

Last week I made a model of what the map is going to look like in Minecraft. Before I program any of the logic and puzzles into the game I'm going to do all of the artwork first. I want to make the game with the Unity or Godot game engine, But knowing that I can't be bothered to learn C# or Python I'm going to use the GDevelop 5 game engine, The same game engine I used for the last game mostly cuz It uses visual scripting like Construct 2&3 and also I'm more comfortable with it. For art I'm going to be using Krita, Last time I used pixlr. It was convenient because it was a website but the ads kept annoying me and Krita has more customization. I'll show you a drawing of the school I'm going to be using in the game and the model the picture is based off.

That's it!

That's it for now, Stay tuned to know when you can play if you're interested!

So today there was no school because of violent weather. So I had a lot of time on my hands. And I used the extra time to plan my next game! So It's going to be a sequel to my last game, with more content, a new map, and all that fun stuff. I've spent all day making a prototype map in Minecraft so I know what I'm going to do when I start development this weekend. So here are some screenshots of the prototype.

So yesterday I sorta finished my game, I still have some bugs to fix before I fully release it so I'm going to give you this link to play it before it gets released. If you could please give me feedback and make me aware of some bugs/glitches that would be amazing :D. So here's the link and you can play the game if you wish! https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/project/1751974

I've been in school for 3 weeks now, It's getting in the way of all of my hobbies. And I have a project where I have to make a meter stick look like an ordinary object. And I have to write a 2-page essay about my name. So far the easiest thing about school is the Kahoot games in Spanish class, I've ranked #1 in all of them so far. And we're not gonna forget I also have to apply for the high school I want to go to. So I have to do those. But I had an hour today to spend working on my game, So I worked on the interface for the computer you need to interact with, here's what that looks like.

Hi, So my game Laurens school is going to have a delayed release date. Why you may ask? It's because of Hurricane Henri. I live in an area that is going to be hit by the Hurricane. And the news says my area is going to be hit pretty badly. I don't expect it to be as bad and damaging as other hurricanes cuz it's gonna be a type 1 hurricane but it's still going to be bad. After the hurricane, I plan on making a 2nd devlog video for Laurens school. But for now I just released a video where I edited some Eddsword eddisodes for comedic effect. https://youtu.be/XDrZVloZi4c there's the video if you want to watch it. I planned on finishing up Laurens school and posting it this weekend because I'm almost finished. But because of the hurricane tomorrow night I am going to have to postpone it until next week or September.