Ten Year Indieversary

Ten years ago today, I found myself at a crossroads in my life and decided to take six months to focus on making more indie games full-time.  It’s been a long six months 😛

I got to make my own games to my own vision, something I had always wanted to do.  A number of years ago, a colleague once good naturedly called me a ‘cult developer’ — most people aren’t that much into my games, but there is a small number of treasured people who like my games a lot.  If you’re one of those, thank you for all your support over the years.

Ten years is a lot of time, and it’s somewhat difficult to encapsulate all the ups and downs into a blog post.  In that time, well over a million people have played my various games, I lost all my money (twice!) in the process, won a couple awards, became a literally starving indie for a while, got to show my games in Japan, got to have and meet fans, started several game communities, made and lost friends, got quasi-internet famous and mercifully forgotten, got harassed and death threats, been on TV, discover and build so many different skills, gave talks at conferences, joined an incubator, showed my games to my gamedev heroes, had my games translated to other languages, shipped games both large and small to PC Mobile Web and Console, and got to work with so many amazingly talented people.

Like most indie devs, I never really made much money in this gig… but the experience has been priceless.  It’s truly been the adventure of a lifetime.  Always follow your dreams, especially when it’s difficult.

Dragon Audit is now available on consoles!

You can now play Dragon Audit on Sony PlayStation®4 and Nintendo Switch™ consoles. The game has a limited time launch sale available on all platforms. More information is available at the links below for each storefront.

Nintendo Switch™

Sony PlayStation®4

(Forward compatible with PS5)

"PlayStation" is a registered trademark or trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. Nintendo Switch is a trademark of Nintendo.

Dragon Audit – Controls Update (SVN3850)

Dragon Audit has a new controls update, available on Steam & AESU.  This update expands on the control options, including adding a new Mouse Look mode.

The three control modes are now:

  • Controller – Still the recommended way to play.
    This mode is default, but you can get back to it by the main Reset All button on the left of options (or to only reset the controls, click ‘Reset controls to mouse look’ and tune down sensitivity back down to 100%)
  • Mouse Look (New) – Keyboard for navigation + mouse to look around.  This is similar to some other third person 3D adventure games.
    Activate this by clicking ‘reset controls to Mouse Look.’ (Doing this will bind the controls appropriately, including new mouse button bindings for left click / right click, toggles off the camera follow, and ups the look sensitivity to 150%).
  • Keyboard Look (Original) – Use the keyboard to move and look around — still supported if you prefer this.
    Activate this by clicking ‘reset controls to Keyboard Look.’ (This will rebind controls, toggle on quick camera follow, and set look sensitivity down to 100%)

In addition to Mouse Look, the update also adds support for:

  • Tunable look sensitivity setting
  • Ability to adjust (or disable!) the camera automated return to center movement behavior
  • Decrease the character movement speed if it is too fast

Lastly, some bug fixes:

  • Fixed a rare bug where George would slide through the Meet Scene
  • Fix that weird foot dance Metra would sometimes do at the beginning of Ayraw’s Castle gameplay section
  • Localization updates & fixes

New Dragon Audit Build (SVN3745)

Now available on both Steam and AESU:

  • A few missing translations added
  • Translations can now specify translated names
  • “High Res Objects” toggle for better Castle performance on lower end machines (defaults to off lower quality settings) — it massively reduces the object count in Castle library by simplifying the books
  • Fix for Todd loading back in the wrong spot after saving after you take his shrimp
  • New EXE Icon
  • Fixed attract mode continue icon in wrong spot in non-English by simplifying just to a flashing button
  • Unity minor version upgrade to 2018.4.30f1
  • Fix an issue where Play Game on mainmenu wasn’t being circled very well on hover