Life Blog: Back At The Funny Farm

Kasha at the beach, by Dillon/Bozosart.

Welcome to the May post, squeezed in just before the end of the month! Figured I’d drop a brief update on what’s happening with Hole-in-Nyan and a few other things.

May’s annoying changes in barometric pressure and dry heat have come, and along with it came two back-to-back power outages in my neighborhood, which naturally impacted my ability to get any work done. I’ve been holding onto an emergency battery station a family member lent me in case a third one happens, which it hopefully won’t, but it’s been very uncomfortable and annoying dealing with this. Apparently it’s because of faulty underground power lines. I was in the dark for 12 hours a few nights ago. Spent most of the day in the backyard with family barbecuing stuff so it was kinda nice until the sun set after which it just became annoying as the loud power company trucks were working away behind my house until they managed to bring back the power at 2:00 in the morning.

Progress continues steadily on Hole-in-Nyan. I now have a friend helping out with the game, an old friend I knew from Newgrounds. He has plenty of knowledge about making games so he is gonna make it easier for me to just focus on gameplay/level design and artwork. Since it’s a minigolf game, laying down the groundwork for this game should be fairly simple, it’s just a matter of getting the game to the point where developing it is largely just an art/level design grind.

As indicated in the video, we are going with an isometric style for this game, sort of like Kirby’s Dream Course but with controls that are a bit easier. While this game has several inspirations, one particular game I am trying to emulate is an early 2000’s Shockwave game called Candystand Mini Golf. This game was a lot of fun to play on your browser with friends and family back in the day, but since the death of Shockwave/Flash games it hasn’t been possible to play it anymore. Even playing it on the Wayback archive still doesn’t work in many browsers, so this game’s absence has left a void in the soul of the internet that Kasha shall reclaim(!).

Hole-in-Nyan mixes aspects of Candystand Minigolf with Kirby’s Dream Course, as well as a bit of pinball. One thing I’d really love to do is make each course/hole its own world. There is an aspect to pinball and real-life minigolf that I enjoy, which is seeing the ball interact with stuff in the ‘world’ of the course. Sending the ball through toys on the field, not just loop-de-loops and gutters, but lanes with pulleys, shafts, trapdoors, secret entrances and exits and interactable objects is an absolute joy to behold. One pinball game in particular that does this well is Medieval Madness, which contains a castle toy you can attack with your pinball. Shoot the drawbridge to lower it, shoot the gate to open it, and then shoot your ball inside the castle to make it explode! That kind of fun thing is something I’d really like to do here.

In other Kasha-related news, I’ve had the chance to kick the tires on one other thing I may like to explore with her in the future. I’ve created a Kasha plush doll!

This is just something I wanted to do for fun, obviously I’m not entirely serious on making plush dolls of Kasha just yet as I’d like to get the game out first and do some market research. I think this plush is pretty good for a prototype, although in the event that I ever went into mass production with this I’d change a few things about it. Mainly, I’d shrink her torso and limbs, and maybe make the ‘fur’ material on her hands and legs out of something finer and shorter. I’d also make the golden cat brooch on her blouse something else, like a stylized sticker, to more accurately capture the shiny gold look. It’s nice for a start, definitely a type of merchandise I’d look into if Kasha becomes popular.

Mass-produced plushies typically have very large heads and considerably smaller limbs, so those are some changes I’ll have to make with an eventual production model. Still, plenty of time for that, so I’m not too heavily focused on it just yet. If Hole in Nyan becomes popular I’d love to give people a chance to keep a Kasha of their own.

In any case, that’s all I really have to say for this update. I’m still thinking on what I’ll write next time, maybe some more character bios, or upload some music I’ve had done for my projects. I haven’t had time for much blogging but I’ll try to make more time in the future – I managed to get this update in just before the bell rang on May, so I haven’t missed a month yet! Almost slipped up, hopefully I don’t falter in the future.

Thanks for reading and see you in the June post, whatever it may be!

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