Product Plans for April

 Hello. C J here. I’ve got a few product updates for the month. I’m doing the initial setup of Dragon Engine slowly. I need to make the floor, roof and wall tiles that the landscapes and buildings are made out of. This is a lot of planning and assigning materials to shapes. I also need to duplicate, rename and sort additional materials and shapes. This is not being done quickly. I know for a fact that doing this fast would burn me out. I’m not as horribly bored as that sounds. More on that in a moment.

I’m also considering Roads to the Spirit World. That product would work much better as an expansion or a series of expansions for Heart and Fur World. The spirit world and the spirits that live there can’t die. There’s really no point in putting them in armour and giving them weapons. I’m moving Roads to the Spirit World over to Heart and Fur World. I’ll decide later whether I work on Lands of Creation or Index Armour next. These two make more sense being done first. Lands of Creation is all default generic monster packs and Index Armour is all of the normal or common crafting recipes and items.

This leaves me with a lot of free time that I didn’t have scheduled. This is probably a good thing. I’ve got three or four Android games I’ve either downloaded and never opened or that I’ve played five minutes of. Android has some really good looking games these days. All of them are free. This is coming from a game designer who learned everything they know from playing games and nothing else. Making good games requires playing good games but it isn’t always easy to tell which is which going into them. That’s getting easier thankfully. Most of the violent or stupid crud just doesn’t make it to market these days.

I’ve downloaded one called Evil Lands RPG and from the sales page it looks like it’s a classic fantasy RPG with maybe a dark fantasy style. It’s also free. I’m looking into that. Mostly though I’m playing Amikins Village, previously called Amikins Survival. This game is cute. It’s a slightly more science fiction take on the Pokemon genre. I’ve just made it to the second area and I’ve died the first time I attempted it. Good. It’s a Pokemon themed game. Winning is impossible without being made of magic fire powers.

It’s actually fun though. It’s crafting based and you level up through combat and gathering. The collectible creatures are called Amikins. Amikins are cute. I’m okay with this. They level up as well. They can be combat companions or help you craft things.

I’’m sorry, I get a cute little monster to help me with chores? Can I have one in real life too?

The combat is also fair despite being hard. Both you and your combat allies can fight and the whole thing is in real time. There are some items and perks you can buy with real life money to level up faster or something. I never buy stuff in games. I need the base game for learning from and buying things just interferes with it. The perks seem worth it though for someone who knows how to use them. So I’m back to harvesting nexus seeds so I can beat the living tar out of innocent wildlife and then make them do yard work.

Really, no, could you make a real life version?

C J Mcpherson