Do you like math? Me either. But more on that later.

In my post about Every Story is The Same, we learned all stories, and by extension life, follows a predictible pattern: descent into chaos and return to the known. Insights are gleened by breaking through order by making sense of the chaotic unknown. Perhaps you've learned some shit about yourself producing content on this site.

Almost every game I've created has taken me on this cyclical ride. Much like a sine wave, the whole process is highs and lows. Sometimes you run out of money, sometimes your vision isn't as cool as you thought it was, people will drop out of your project and others will flat out discourage you (avoid these people, energy vampires). There are often times you think of just giving up.

But also, things go well. You have a breakthrough, people find your game fun, you sell copies and are proud of your work. Then you are re-inspired to power through.

See how that works below? Imagine the sine wave is your happiness at the top, misery at the bottom.
 

Game Dev, as with any long project can have bouts of doubt, misery and depression.

But these things are mitigated by having a healthy lifestyle... something we internet cretins neglect sitting in doors, in the darkness hunched in front of blue light all day.

I battled the depression monster during the development of every single game I ever made. All the way from Slime Quest to Sentry Knight Tactics, the long process and anxiety of reception layed on me. I'll be sure to talk about this more.

But honestly, during Realm Raiders its been not so bad. In fact most of the time its good. Its actually great right now and I feel good. But I owe that to good self-care. So thats why I've started a self-care video resouce to help pull other people up to where I am. Check out the Intro Video:

I would post on NG but I think theres too much video footage to not get Tom Fulp in trouble. Maybe future episodes can be posted here.

Love you all,
- Tyler 

H̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶S̶K̶T̶ ̶c̶o̶d̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶S̶t̶e̶a̶m̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶e̶m̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶.̶ ̶I̶m̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶u̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶p̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶p̶i̶t̶f̶a̶l̶l̶s̶.̶ ̶ ̶

A̶N̶Y̶W̶A̶Y̶,̶ ̶B̶E̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶A̶R̶E̶ ̶T̶H̶E̶ ̶C̶O̶D̶E̶S̶.̶ ̶ ̶ ̶

E̶N̶J̶O̶Y̶:̶

update: (NEVERMIND, ALL GONE. I might give away more later)

Sentry Knight Tactics is my old game.

For updates on my current, new project check out Realm Raiders

      

Gameplay preview. Codes below are gone when they're gone.

N̶Z̶A̶D̶M̶-̶T̶D̶V̶I̶H̶-̶I̶J̶W̶E̶C̶

A̶7̶J̶5̶3̶-̶2̶G̶I̶C̶X̶-̶P̶Z̶X̶T̶B̶

 ̶6̶B̶C̶3̶N̶-̶9̶A̶C̶N̶I̶-̶3̶Y̶M̶8̶7̶

̶ 2̶I̶P̶5̶Z̶-̶T̶E̶R̶I̶T̶-̶2̶W̶4̶I̶4̶

̶ ̶9̶W̶P̶W̶9̶-̶L̶2̶F̶B̶8̶-̶Z̶5̶H̶C̶W̶

̶ ̶G̶Q̶J̶X̶M̶-̶G̶G̶W̶J̶W̶-̶N̶D̶H̶Q̶P̶

̶ ̶R̶K̶W̶D̶9̶-̶G̶6̶M̶V̶8̶-̶R̶T̶T̶D̶7̶ ̶ 

G̶5̶C̶D̶A̶-̶J̶X̶V̶J̶5̶-̶V̶0̶6̶B̶A̶

̶ ̶T̶8̶A̶Z̶8̶-̶X̶T̶0̶B̶P̶-̶8̶3̶G̶L̶5̶

̶ ̶4̶W̶7̶2̶V̶-̶6̶X̶J̶8̶C̶-̶N̶V̶L̶G̶G̶

̶ ̶8̶G̶Y̶8̶M̶-̶4̶0̶3̶K̶H̶-̶5̶W̶A̶8̶R̶

̶ ̶4̶D̶N̶X̶R̶-̶Q̶Y̶7̶Z̶W̶-̶N̶8̶B̶H̶D̶

̶ ̶T̶J̶C̶N̶J̶-̶C̶D̶F̶F̶5̶-̶D̶2̶D̶5̶Y̶

̶ ̶0̶V̶8̶L̶B̶-̶7̶0̶T̶7̶C̶-̶T̶6̶L̶E̶E̶

̶ ̶W̶Q̶0̶L̶K̶-̶F̶4̶8̶F̶Y̶-̶C̶6̶7̶V̶G̶

̶ ̶8̶9̶4̶8̶K̶-̶P̶Z̶Q̶3̶J̶-̶L̶F̶6̶5̶P̶

̶ ̶I̶Z̶Z̶3̶P̶-̶E̶9̶Q̶T̶I̶-̶E̶W̶7̶R̶E̶

̶ ̶L̶E̶D̶0̶R̶-̶F̶Q̶6̶Z̶6̶-̶6̶H̶L̶Y̶N̶

̶ ̶5̶V̶H̶Q̶2̶-̶7̶H̶Y̶K̶6̶-̶B̶0̶4̶F̶V̶

̶ ̶F̶W̶D̶K̶V̶-̶9̶B̶4̶L̶A̶-̶M̶7̶H̶0̶E̶

Comment if you redeem one so I can cross it out.

To the astonishment of absolutely nobody,
music has a profound impact on how you feel.

People listen to music while they work, while they drive, while they workout.

Music can make or break emotional impact in a movie, in a game. 

Certain songs have become synonymous with sporting events (think the overplayed "Kernkraft 400"). 

People who enjoy gaming listen to 'Gamer Playlists'; songs that "pump them up"

etc. etc.

People often match the mood of the music they listen to.

Or avoid music that doesn't match their "vibe"

Why is this?

Sound is, at a quantum level, the energy language of the universe.

Watch this:

As you see in the video above, all sound effects particles on a vibrational level.

For some reason that nobody understands yet, these frequencies alter brain waves and influence your mood.

Whenever I work on Realm Raidersand Freelance work, I listen to a certain frequency of sound called Binural Beats.

Some of frequencies relax

Other frequencies improve cognition

Whenever I work, I listen to this:

It tunes my mind to get "In the Zone" for working

Like everything, different beats affect different people in different ways. I suggest playing with different frequencies and see what does it for you.

Just try it out for yourself.

I suffer from a few problems with working on a computer all day. Perhaps you do too. 

Sometimes: I get distracted by social media, I get sluggish and unmotivated, I suffer with low creativity.

On past occassions I've talked to @TomFulp about health and Flashgitz, during their twitch streams, about productivity and direction. Enough artists practice this stuff, but seldom talk about it. If you have any more hot tips, please let me know.

Some of these might seem obvious, but they eluded me for years.

Lets begin.
 

#1. Full Night's Sleep

Yeah, I know its seriously the most basic answer. But its also the most overlooked common problem. Adults need need 6-8 hours of healthy routine sleep. Its the OG Nootropic 

I don't know if your social circle is like mine, but very often friends will get 3-5 hours a night. AND BRAG ABOUT IT  FOR SOME REASON

Society parades pulling all-nighters around as a badge of glory, yet it causes the most problems: forgetfulness, depression, accelerated alzheimers... all things that will fuck up your work ethic (duh). 

Sometimes you WILL need to crunch, but try to keep it when necessary.

#2 Workout

Being sedentary will cause you a host of problems, made even worse by the fact you sit at a desk all day with bad posture. Cardiovascular disease, anxiety, depression and being a fragile, weak baby are all symptoms of not working out.

On the plus side, working out makes you happier, more resilient, and there is a metaphysical correlation between growing your body and achieving your goals. If you can move the physical world, surely you can move ahead in your mental challenges. 
 

#3. Social Media Addiction/ Dopamine/Instant Gratification Addiction

Do you feel that burning compulsion to always check Twitter notifications? See what emails you got? If cute thotties on Bumble are chatting you up?

This was one of my glaring weaknesses. It still is a physiological addiction, but less so since I've become aware. Humanity hasn't evolved to deal with technology; it is both a blessing to be connected and a curse as well.

Things I've found are:
- Put your phone into Airplane Mode when out or at the gym.
- Disconnect your desktop from the WiFi until you need it.
- Have a time of day to stop all online time and re-connect with reality (ie IRL hobbies like reading)

Most people fail miserable at sleeping, working out, and living in the real world so thats a great thing to fix first.

#4. Listen to Binural Beats to help you focus. 

Science reveals to us that listening to music improves our performance. I know, big shock right? Science, at least in my learnings, hasn't proved why binural beats work... but they make me focus and feel better. Try working with just these on (you need headphones for them to be effective).

I swear by this stuff. Nothing grounds my overactive mind better  

#5. Set goals and believe in your vision

YES ITS CHEESY. But it works. If you don't have a purpose for your life or goal, why even bother? I remind myself every single day that I am making Realm Raiders, and no roadblock will stop me (except maybe death).

Without a vision, it is impossible to shape your trajectory. Forget about economics and politics (well stay alive, duh), but chase after what you want. Would this site exist if Tom didn't believe in his baby? The answer is NO.

In How To Think and Grow Rich, the author sets forth that the richest, most powerful men in the world have a burning desire to achieve their purpose. PS. The whole book is free to read online. 

Whether they articulate it or not, all successful people ive met seem to have this trait of desire.

I can't wait to share my new game updates with you... soon

Til Next Time,

~ Tyler 

I’ve been writing a lot. I've been reading a lot.

The story of Realm Raiders has grown quite beyond the scope I imagined. Im really happy with the direction so far.

Very early on there were certain themes and symbols I knew I wanted to include in Realm Raiders, but the problem was coming up with a structure for that story. 

My hobby outside of games is reading philsophy. Yes, im a big fucking nerd about this stuff. I was spending a lot of time reading Jung, and I realized that I've subconsciously been drawn to certain symbols in my life, and was putting them in Realm Raiders as well.

Eventually my study of Jung lead me to one of his contemporaries, Joseph Campbell. Everyone has heard of the Hero’s Journey, but they typically only ever see a small diagram like this.

EVERY story ever told is based on this formula.

Campbell's book, Hero with a Thousand Faces is THE greatest book on story ever written, im convinced. But this diagram, is merely the cover of a book full of cosmic principals. Every story, every religion, every fable, every historical hero, every good video game, has followed the lessons inside.

Just knowing this diagram is simply not enough. The book is free and everyone who wants to be a better writer needs to read this.

While the coat of paint may be different, Hero with A Thousand Faces reveals to us that All Stories are the same at their very spiritual core. In the human experience, Nothing is new, but everything is to be discovered. Stories are this way too.

TL;DR: This video does a pretty solid job distilling the prinicipals
 

BTW, The book is FREE on archive. Go Get it: https://archive.org/details/0691119244

Like a lot of artists on Newgrounds, I still use flash to produce animation. As the reaper that is 2020 approaches, Flash draws its final breaths. To help animated movie creators move on, Based @TomFulp has blessed animators of the internet with Swivel conversions.

However, those of us who did game art in flash were still at a loss. We could export as sprite sheets, or learn Spine. I've never been a fan of either. Fortunately, I've found a handy new tool for us Flash Game Animators who have migrated to Unity. 
 

SWF to Unity

It's a really good tool.

I can update all the pieces of the Knight and other enemies/heroes on the fly now. This opens up endless possibilities for visual unlockables and upgrades in Realm Raiders. Im debating between cosmetic starting items like WoW transmogify AND/OR weapon drops in game. 
 

GAME UPDATES
 

We're hard at work optimizing this new animation pipeline, so actual gameplay hasn't changed too much in a while. But I am still cranking away at animating with the help of @TopSpinTheFuzzy and @pennilessragamuffin ; here's a look at some new things:
 

Shaman enemy throws soul bombs and other dark magic attacks


Orc roars proudly before he cuts you to pieces


First of spells players can find: Spike Shards damage all enemies around player


Big Slime will swallow you, dealing damage over time... unless you escape
 

I have a LOT more to share, but we've been quiet optimizing everything for our new SWF animation system...amongst other things. I'll be back soon with regular updates. I missed sharing them with you SO MUCH.

Talk again soon,

- Tyler

PS. If you want to see more of how we work, join our Discord.

Combat updates:

We were having this issue where the gameplay was fast, but TOO fast given the enemy mechanics. 

Enemies give plenty of anticipationas to when they're going to strike. Having the enemy be calculated but the player lightning quick was removing all challenge from the game.

Some changes were in order.

- The 3 Hit Combo now gives less momentum to the Knight, so the player doesn't fly past the target.

Knight ruining some Bats. 

- The uppercut has been given a charge up phase to compensate for its power. The uppercut allows the player to chain aerial attacks.  The uppercut also causes knockback on all non heavy enemies. However the player is vulnerable during execution.

- This is a good contrast. The light swings of the 3 hit combo have immediate output for input.
 

New enemies - Some moves are Works In Progress

Archlin - Shoots at you from a far. All around coward. Players can reflect his arrows at other eneimes.

Grunt - The first Desolate enemy type. These Desolate undead cultists are the titular "Realm Raiders". Grunts can thrust at players as well as jump slam toward the player, their magic bringing forth the earth beneath them. 

Bats - These little jerks travel in packs and will dive bomb the player. See top GIF
 

Whats next?

Next we incorporate the Execution mechanics. The idea is when an enemy is downed and below a certain HP point, the player can insta-kill them.

Also, somewhat related to combat. Our new Rogue character is being animated. Here's her concept as designed by @BLITZWUFF


 

Also, we're about to "officially" unveil our Realm Raiders discord channel, but NG readers get an early invite. Here's the link to get in now: https://discord.gg/WjCSgwh

Its going to be open to everyone to hang out, see what we're doing and help shape the future of the game. Also, for more dedicated fans, the Developer chat and Tester privileges will be rolled out via Patreon... soon.

If you want more, consider the above link.

Talk again soon,

Tyler

 

Realm Raiders currency and upgrade system is based on the concept of offering souls to the Gods.

For me, game development is also borrowing souls. Not literally, but metaphorically. I pull influence from all other walks of life: other fun games, philosophy, history, etc. Today, I'll talk about part of the game's philosophy.

You might think what I wrote above sounds pretentious for a cute game about killing little monsters. But how many times have you seen cookie cutter fantasy RPGs, carbon copy FPS or the same damn idle clicker? Theres nothing wrong with them; I used to like them but now I prefer when a game has a soul.

Kill monsters and harvest their Souls for power

Realm Raiders core story mainly serves as a vehicle for fun gameplay. Gameplay is king. However, part of the story's philosophy is derrived from a personal interest in a book called the Four Agreements.

I'm not advocating for this belief system or anything, but keep in mind the point is: it makes for an interesting story.

Essentially, some old doctor goes into a cave for a few days and has a life changing vision. His egoism vanishes and he stops percieving himself as a singular entity, but rather a fragment of the universe/god/nature (whatever you wanna call it):

"This is what he discovered: Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. Everything is God. And he came to the conclusion that human perception is merely light perceiving light. He also saw that matter is a mirror — everything is a mirror that reflects light and creates images of that light — and the world of illusion, the Dream, is just like smoke which doesn't allow us to see what we really are. "The real us is pure love, pure light," he said.

This realization changed his life. Once he knew what he really was, he looked around at other humans and the rest of nature, and he was amazed at what he saw. He saw himself in everything — in every human, in every animal, in every tree, in the water, in the rain, in the clouds, in the earth. And he saw that Life mixed the tonal and the nagual in different ways to create billions of manifestations of Life.

He could understand everyone very well, but no one could understand him. They believed that he was an incarnation of God, and he smiled when he heard this and he said, "It is true. I am God. But you are also God. We are the same, you and I. We are images of light. We are God." But still the people didn't understand him."

Maybe the old doctor was tripping balls. Maybe he was crazy. Or maybe he was on to something. But for now, suspend disbelief and just accept this view for the first component of Realm Raiders' soul philosophy.

Goddess, hands extended to accept your soul offerings. Concept by @BLITZWUFF

The second part of the game's philosophy is an examination of power. A policitian must rally the souls of his constituents to get the vote. A dictator must force submission. A religion's tenets thrive on the faith of its followers.

All of these forces of power require the rallying of souls- through influence, resonance, violence, threats or otherwise.

All of these philosophies are really just a good excuse to make a fun action game.

In Realm Raiders, you offer souls to the Gods for your buffs and upgrades. So far, I think the most fun buff is the Lightning sword enchant.

"Nice enchant, where did you get it?"
 

That's all for this weeks influence post. I'm going to be posting twice a week: once about actual development of the game, the other about the decisions and influence and more personal things (like this).

If you want to see more, follow our twitter at REALM RAIDERS 

Hi, Today I formally introduce my team's new game: Realm Raiders

Continuing in the tradition of my older posts, I'm regularly going to post development updates. Our twitter serves as a hub for our posts, but more specific "Making Of Realm Raiders" content will be posted here, like this animation breakdown.  While this post is a brief primer, check out this quick look at what's to come:

Follow development at https://twitter.com/RealmRaiders

New Game is shaping up to be my most ambitious project yet. Its so much fun to be desiging in 3D space.

The camera used to be locked to make the game LOOK 2D, but it never really was.

Kinda looks like Minecraft in this perspective huh?

Now we've started including depth movement with the camera, and it makes the world feel so much more alive than in 2D. Even subtle movements add a lot in 3D

Still rough but I think its really cool

If this gets your dick hard or brain intrigued, follow me for more development happenings