The State of SNAK3

The DVNC is continuing their development of SNAK3 with concept art, design ideas, and playtesting. I have been playtesting the current demo of SNAK3 and providing feedback on what could be improved. Recently, I have written a short excerpt of how I think the gameplay can take some clever mechanics and controls from other popular games. These ideas are mostly surrounding how we can make the follower system more interesting and fun for the player. Currently the player will move and the follower’s ability will automatically fire off. I would like to see the game take a more active approach to followers. I envision the player collecting followers, and then having a button mapped to each different type of follower. If the player has 2 soldiers and 1 carpenter, then whenever the player press “V”, the soldiers could activate but the carpenter wouldn’t. These ideas still need to be tested and refined.

Finishing the Timeline

The rest of my work this past week has been surrounding the timeline we are following for SNAK3. Last week I laid out most of these steps, but I have fleshed out the Kickstarter side a bit more. I took a lot of my inspiration from the Kickstarter DVNC already has up for Monochrome.

I know that Sean and Nhut have been working on finishing some of these tasks laid out on the document like setting up the SNAK3 Kickstarter.

What’s Next

Now that I am done working on the SNAK3 Timeline, I will be working on the Indie Game Design Workbook Timeline. This timeline will serve as a general path for future games released under DVNC. Nhut has made an amazing template document to plan out future titles so I will likely be working with him to lay out this path. I also will be helping out a bit by capturing some recordings of the Monochrome Demo. I really want to capture the battle scenes, some witty puns, and the fun dialogue with characters.

Smiling Friends and the March of Comedy

I have been very excited to find some time to watch Smiling Friends. This past weekend, my friends held a watch party for the first season and I laughed so hard I cried. Smiling Friends is witty, confident in its premise, and no joke really overstays its welcome. This show has the sort of absurdist, semi-improvised humor that seems to be popular these days. There is this subculture in my generation that has grown up surrounded by the internet and its humor. The creators of Smiling Friends are part of this subculture so I think they understand what will and what won’t land well within their audience. More and more I have seen these artists thrive. As my generation and this subculture come into adulthood, the media we are hungry for is becoming more prominent and successful. If you were to show this show to someone 15 years older than me, I don’t think they would understand the appeal. This system is cyclical and in another 15 years, I will be the old guy exclaiming how they just don’t make shows like Smiling Friends anymore. Such is life 🙂