Blue Pin Studio

Regret is proof you've grown

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Regret is proof you’ve grown. The fact that you wish you had done better means you are already someone who would.

Welcome!

We’re back and we’re back! Let’s see what old vik did in March 2026. I can’t believe the “6” at the end of 2026 sometimes. Where has the time gone?! Time is unrelenting…

March 2026 Goals

Trash Force incremental demo (in the new resolution)
Falling Thingies new demo and full back to front feature complete

I transferred February’s goals into March and still didn’t finish them in March. Can you imagine that?! I write more about what happened in the “Musings” section down below. It is an outlier for me to not have any planned tasks done 2 months in a row. But such is life, sometimes you have outlier moments.

Bonus Tasks Completed in March 2026

Banger April Fools post
Lots of private gig work for games
Progress on a project I’m announcing next month! This is a big collab with 6 other devs, it’s verrrry exciting :)

Regarding April Fools

I made this post The End and posted it everywhere. The next 24hrs were honestly amazing. I had so many people reach out expressing their concern, sharing their warmth and compassion. This included people I never expected. But it also didn’t include people I expected to reach out. Quite facinating the breakdown of who said and did what. The post I made was mostly genuine. All of the feelings I have for everyone that has helped me and encouraged me are genuine. I feel blessed to have as many people to thank as I do.

Obviously, since you’re reading this, I didn’t quit game development and I’m carrying on. Carrying on with some new friendships! Thank you everyone who reached out and thank you again for everyone who has supported me along the way.

Here's a sneak peak at the collab project I'm announcing next month!

April 2026 Goals

Trash Force incremental demo (in the new resolution)
Falling Thingies new demo and full back to front feature complete
Prepare the Steam page for the new collab project announcement

Falling Thingies will be entering the Steam Bullet Fest on Jun 8. So the game will have to be launched and for sale by then. Which means April we’re getting it finished. It’s about damn time. The Trash Force new demo is almost ready too. I made progress on it, converted most of the systems. Just need to add some of the new upgrades I wanted.

Musings

Well well welllllll. We’ve arrived at the part where I talk to my future self and to the reader. It’s always tricky writing this part because there are so many things I want to remind my future self of, but i don’t want any potential random person reading that stuff.

One thing that I think needs to be shared is my last 9 months of struggling with love. I had a long term relationship that ended (i mentioned it in this post). After a few months I came to my senses and reached out to try to make it work. Long story short, after 9 months of working hard on repairing the relationship and getting back to the hayday, it didn’t work. When we ended it the first time I think i was the one who wasn’t able to pull my weight emotionally. This time it was her. Its tricky thing that is ultimately blameless. When the feelings aren’t there, nothing can be done.

That’s what the little blurb at the beginning of this post is about. “Regret is proof you’ve grown. The fact that you wish you had done better means you are already someone who would.” I regret ending it originally but at least I’ve become someone who wouldn’t do that again. Silver linings!

Anyway. Onwards and upwards. I want to thank everyone who reached out as a result of my april fools prank again, it was a well needed medication to soothe the soul after such a heartbreaking month…

Here’s a nice track I’ve been hitting up lately. See y’all next month!

renaissance man by april27

Comments & Reactions

The End

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 01:00:00 +0000

This is the original post. It was made for April Fools! You can see my reveal post here.. This post is still worth a read though, it contains a lot of gratitude for all the people who helped me along the way.

How do you make god laugh? You tell him your future plans.

Welcome Back!

This is the final blog post… It has been an absolute pleasure to try gamedev and get all your support for this long. Me and Will, the other half of Blue Pin Studio published our first game on itch in March 2020.

I figured there’s no better time to contemplate the past than every year in March. This time I decided enough is enough.

In the beginning many people were supportive but as I sunk more and more time without financial success I started getting concerned comments. I had falling outs with family, friends, and even lost a long term relationship partially because of who I became chasing game dev success.

I can’t even tell you how many people told me to stop, to slow down, to focus on getting a real career, etc.

I know their heart was in a good place. It’s time i listened…

But before we go, I would love to reflect on all the positive comments people have left on all my games. I also want to write a special thank you to everyone who helped me on each of the games. I made an effort to work with and meet as many great people as I could.

I’m honored that all of these great people carved out at least a small part of their time, effort, emotions and energy for me…

Collaborators

I’m proud to say everyone I worked with was great at their role and made each of the projects greater than the sum of their parts. I couldn’t have done it without you all, literally and figuratively. Thank you.

Toaster Treasure: Will & Dano & Luko & Cherry
Keep Dano Alive: Will & Dano & Luko & Cherry
Imperial Eggnog Inc: Will & Dano & Cherry
Explory Story Jam: Bizmaster & Thlurp & Tepg
U49 Meltdown: Matias & Ashley & Likenjay
Quadratorum: Bahska
Blend Defend: EiRe & AENJO
Panopticon: Al
Charles the Bee Jam: Gina & Minus
Devilivery: Manisha & George & Dale
RAMpage: Manisha & Keely
Sinful Scoops: Funky Mushroom & Chrishie & Leunarie
Insock Out: Augusto & RedCocoa
Charles the Bee Steam: All of the talented composers & Gina
Save Nebuville: Pijinguy & Bonejacq
Trash Force Jam: Mike & Pixel Pigeon & RedCocoa
Power of Loveball: Pijinguy & Fasla & Princess Sylvysprit
Falling Thingies (jam): Calvin
Antz vs Plantz: Manisha & Keely
Ship Happens: Rujum & Tarudesu & Liam & Calvin
Greg Gathers Ghosts: Manisha & Keely & Axel

Never-Ending Encouragement

Thank you to everyone, your support means the world to me. If i forgot to list you its probably because I forgot, not intentionally omitting you. These are people who never told me anything except how to improve and encouraged me to keep going.

This list doesn’t contain some people because they’re already in the list above ❤️

Dmitri
BDMatsterrr
DragonSlumber
Evan
Athano
Fruloo
Zemeck
Patrick
Yashar
10 Tigers Groupchat

Players

Thank you to all the players who checked out the game, or bought the game. You made it easy to keep going. Until it wasn’t.

600+ Eggnog Incorporated players
11,000+ Pixel Fixel players across Steam, Newgrounds, Itch, iOS, Android
2000+ Charles the Bee players across Steam, Newgrounds, Itch
10,000+ Players across all game jam entries on Itch & Newgrounds
Hundreds of positive comments on Itch and LudumDare and Newgrounds

It would take me possible weeks to gather screenshots of all the comments.

Parting Words

I want to thank all my friends that comforted me during all the tough times.

I did the best I can. If you want to see the journey, this website will remain up. Don’t be a stranger, drop into my dms.

Onwards to greener pastures! Good luck to us all.

I’ll leave you with a new song by Fetty Wap. I would rather die than not leave you with a witty remark :D

White Roses by Fetty Wap

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Hard work and the donkey

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

If hard work led to success the donkey would own the farm

Welcome!

Welcome back peeps! Are you ready for the shortest monthly update that I’ve written since I started writing these in August 2024?

March 2026 Goals

Trash Force incremental demo (in the new resolution)
Falling Thingies new demo and full back to front feature complete

Would ya look at that? It has not been a productive month on the game development front at all! There is some progress on some unannounced things but as far as Trash Force and Falling Thingies goes, not great. I was sick for the end of Feb and I had a day-job crisis the week before that. March should be much smoother!

Here's a lil screenshot of what I was up to in between all the stress. I highly recommend giving Lego Voyagers a try! It's a very wholesome co-op game.

March 2026 Goals

Trash Force incremental demo (in the new resolution)
Falling Thingies new demo and full back to front feature complete

Just sliiiiiiide the previous months tasks into this month and pretend like nothing happened haha.

Musings

Most of Feb was dealing with day job fires and then getting sick. In between doing that was exploring secret collabs and secret projects and playing video games. I think I managed to offset the stress with video games enough that March won’t be negatively affected. Long term stability over short term goals is the key! March is going to be good, have no fear!

I found this track when it only had literally 1 view on YouTube. Apparently its an indie Canadian artist! Very cool. Thank you YouTube for giving me the honor of being probably the first or second person to hear this song on YouTube.

Procedural RAM Syntax by Jack Sazonov

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Somewhere ages and ages hence

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 03:00:00 +0000

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Welcome!

First month of the year down! Month 70 in the Blue Pin Studio game development arch…

January 2026 Goals

Eggnog Incorporated Overhaul Update
Falling Thingies steam-ready build
Trash Force milestone planning for 2026
2025 yearly recap post read it here!

What an elusive Eggnog update amirite?! I might have to move it aside to free up brain space. I didn’t get it ready in time for the holidays so we’ll have to circle back for next years holiday season.

On the bright side, the Falling Thingies project is almost entirely done! We should be able to do a launch late Feb or early March. Starting off the year with a game launch is perfect medicine for the soul (and hopefully a little bit of medicine for the wallet too).

Bonus Tasks Completed in December 2025

Hosted the 2026 Construct 3 game jam!

It was my third year in a row doing the Construct 3 game jam! This year we had more prizes than ever thanks to generous sponsors. People who have know me well can see the influence I had over the theme of the jam haha

I had a blast finally seeing a jam with the chicken theme. Getting to play 30+ chicken games was a blast. It was a cool experience and I’m proud of being able to do it for the third year in a row.

February 2026 Goals

Trash Force incremental demo (in the new resolution)
Falling Thingies new demo and full back to front feature complete

Time to focus! Fewer tasks, big tasks, no distractions. In March we’ll resume going to meetups and April we’ll do a game jam. Even this post is short and rushed, NO TIME!

Musings

Who has time for musings?! Im writing this 1hr before I have to run off to do day job stuff. I have to focus on releasing Falling Thingies, preparing Trash Force and most importantly trying to make more money in my day job. Go go go!

As is customary here’s a banger I’ve been listening to lately.

LUNA by JLLY

Comments & Reactions

2025 Yearly Recap

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome!

Hello hello! Welcome to 2026 and welcome to another yearly recap! If you want to check out previous years, head over here. I’m excited I’m still here doing gamedev and excited to share with you what I did in 2025.

Metrics

First thing’s first. The numbers! I have collected various cool metrics that pertain to my success (or lack thereof) in game development.

Total Net Revenue from All Sources	$563 (USD)	-57% compared to 2024
Discord/Mailing List	147	-1% compared to 2024
Followers	1429	+63% compared to 2024
Steam Store Impressions	699,247	-82% compared to 2024
Steam Store Visits	218,755	-68% compared to 2024
Website/Blog Unique Visitors	2500	+9% compared to 2024

Total net revenue includes all sources such as game sales, merch sales, publisher payments, contest prizes, merch, etc. The various vendor fees like Valve’s 30% and Etsy’s 7% has been subtracted.
Followers is a combination of all the other platform followers such as bluesky, twitter, youtube, steam, itch, newgrounds, twitch, etc.

Another interesting thing to consider is how my own project management went. In 2025 I planned to do 72 tasks and completed 47 of them. Thats 65% completion. I find myself asking “Is completing 65% of the stuff you set out to do a lot or a little?” I’ll compare it to 2026’s ratio and decide then. Its addressed from both sides, smaller more achievable goals AND becoming better at actually working.

Noteworthy things from 2025

Migrated to this website. The previous website had a blog section seperately and a landing page seperately.
Published two new steam pages. Falling Thingies and Trash Force. Pending launch in 2026! 🤞
Exhibited Falling Thingies at two in-person expo’s. (Musician for Falling Thingies Calvin was there in person)
Started Twitch Streaming again! Managed to do 108 hours of uptime. Let’s try for double that!
Pushed big updates to Charles the Bee and Pixel Fixel. Cementing them as things I can move on from and don’t have to think about as much.
Made a suite of tools for various pre-production and production tasks for myself. These are the tools that are publically available here.
Competed in 6 game jams, won one. That’s 6 more Blue Pin Studio mini games out there!
Wrote 21 blog posts (including this one). That’s basically twice as many as last year!
Created a steam bundle for games similar to Eggnog Incorporated called the Corporate Climb Bundle
Co-created a minecraft server with a bunch of other game devs. All of our communities can co-exist in this online space that we’ll evolve over time. Check my discord for more info!

Extra Tidbit

Here is how each year compares to the previous year

Year	Revenue	YoY Delta	Game Jams	Commercial Releases
2020	$307 (USD)	-	3	1
2021	$1,067 (USD)	+248%	2	0
2022	$351 (USD)	-67%	3	0
2023	$232 (USD)	-34%	4	0
2024	$1,296 (USD)	+459%	5	2
2025	$563 (USD)	-57%	6	0
Total	$3,816 (USD)	-	23	3

Musings

Last year I wrote that I had the best year and worst year simultaneously and was hoping 2025 would be better. Was it better financially? Not really. But it was better in all other aspects of life. I made more money from my day job than the previous year and managed to still do game development a lot.

As I’ve mentioned in the December 2025 monthly recap post, I aim for 2026 to be the best year for Blue Pin Studio to-date. And I’m not talking about simply making a few thousand dollars. I’m going to try to break into the 5 digits gosh darn it. In my mind I’ve framed the first 5 years as a valuable education where I spent 5 years part-time learning the ropes, tuning my skills, meeting cool people. The next 5 years is when I cash in all of that education and start doing game development properly.

There are concerns amongst game developers and people at-large that A.I. will make artistic endeavors even less profitable than ever. It has also never been easier to make cool games, so there are lots of humans joining in too. Will these two factors affect my ability to succeed? I doubt it, but who knows! I’ll surely let you know by this time in 2026 how it all went.

Thank you following along, thank you for playing the games, thank you for hanging out and chatting. Thanks to everyone for everything! Let’s have a great 2026! :)

Charles the Bee Fan Art by N.G Jose

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Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 03:00:00 +0000

Welcome!

Ho Ho Ho! December has come and gone! Let’s see what ol’ vik was up to! Happy New Year by the way :)

December 2025 Goals

Eggnog Incorporated Overhaul Update (due by Dec 17)
Falling Thingies incremental slight pivot
Prepare “5 years ago I made this game” video for publishing Jan 1
Take it easy pal, relaaaax

I think I took the “take it easy pal” task a little bit too seriously haha. The eggnog update got roughly 70% done but then i devolved into simply playing games to soothe the mind. I’m going to put the eggnog update in January 2026’s goals, it should be relatively easy to get it out in the first week or so of January. Look forward to that!

Regarding YouTube? Man… I’ve put that task on my to-do many months now. Perhaps I just don’t have enough time to do it. I’ll reconsider doing YouTube content once Falling Thingies is released…

Bonus Tasks Completed in December 2025

16hrs of Twitch Streaming
Updated my suite of gamedev tools (beta) test em out here, at your own risk!
Created a new Steam bundle with some new developer friends! The Corporate Climb Bundle

January 2026 Goals

Eggnog Incorporated Overhaul Update
Falling Thingies steam-ready build
Trash Force milestone planning for 2026
2025 yearly recap post

Look at that! Only four tasks. How hard could it be? Don’t mind that one of them is literally making a game :P Place your bets if ol’ Vik will be able to do 4 simple tasks in an entire month.

Musings

A much deserved restful December has come and gone… I think I spent more time playing games this month than any other month in the last 2 years. It was a great time!

I have so many plans for 2026 so unfortunately we’re going to need to pick up the pace in January. See y’all in the 2025 yearly recap to learn more about those plans. I suspect 2026 will be the biggest year for Blue Pin Studio yet!

As is customary here’s a banger I’ve been listening to lately.

finding butterflies by BLISSFOOL

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You Dance Fast But I Dance Faster

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 03:00:00 +0000

Welcome!

Woweee! November was a bit of a whirlwind. I was tasked (by past-me) to chill out. But I didn’t really chill at all. So much stuff done! Let’s dive in…

November 2025 Goals

One long-form YouTube videos (November 24th?)
Pixel Fixel update
Charles the Bee Multiplayer Update
Visit 2 in-person gamedev meetups (Bonus Stage & Dirty Rectangles in Toronto)
Submit a game to Alakajam 22
Write a post-mortem blog post for Alakajam submission
Take it easy pal, relaaaax

Welp! We did it! Almost.

The youtube video goal has been quite elusive. Will I finally have one ready in December? Only time will tell. I have moved it for a December 2025 goal. The other list items were accomplished quite nicely and have corresponding blogs on the website or posts in the discord.

Bonus Tasks Completed in November 2025

Visit the Toronto Game Expo
42hrs of Twitch Streaming
Released a suite of gamedev tools (beta) test em out here, at your own risk!
Blue Pin Studio x EvanMMO x Bonejacq x Manishagamedev Minecraft server!
1hr interview on IGA twitch stream for Charles the Bee

Out of the bonus tasks. Two are the most exciting ones. I made a series of tools you can find in the tool section of this website. They are all pretty game-dev centric, but I aim to expand them and add more to the tool belt. A lot of it is self serving like making a tool to help me find similar games for pre-production research, or tools to help me find random factoids like “90% of steam games make less than $100k” etc.

The other exciting task completed was setting up a public minecraft server! A bunch of my gamedev friends got together and made a minecraft server that we can all use for all our communities. It’s tough keeping a minecraft server populated using only one small community. Hopefully since we’ve combined 4 small communities it would be much more lively :) If that sounds like something you would enjoy, don’t hesitate to reach out for an invite. At the moment it’s invite-only to keep away the spooky bad actors.

December 2025 Goals

Eggnog Incorporated Overhaul Update (due by Dec 17)
Falling Thingies incremental slight pivot
Prepare “5 years ago I made this game” video for publishing Jan 1
Take it easy pal, relaaaax

This time we’re actually taking it easy! Last month I was crunching to finish those updates and get started on the Eggnog update. This month, half way through we’ll deploy the eggnog update and the rest of the month will be relaxing. Finally! Some respite :)

I’m sure I’ll have a bunch of bonus tasks that I’ll report on…

Musings

The tail end of November has been pretty stressful because of the looming dead of the eggnog update. I got a lot done on the day job front and went to a lot of gamedev events. It was a professionally enriching month in every way! Updating pixel fixel and charles the bee have been eating away at the back of my mind for a long time. Just like the eggnog update. Let’s get that behind us and onto greater things in 2026!

I know you’ve probably heard this song a million times if you doom scroll on instagram or tiktok or youtube, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include it. It’s a certified banger fleeky yeet 6 7.

MONTAGEM XONADA by MXZI, DJ SAMIR, DJ JAVI26

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Yield Post Mortem

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Introduction

During the Alakajam 22 game jam, I created The Yield. The theme was Under the Surface, and I had 2 days complete the game. This time I decided to do my first ever solo-jam. I didn’t enlist anyone to help. Spooooky. Let’s see how it worked out…

Timeline

Friday Day 0 - Theme Announced

The theme was announced at 2pm my local time on a Friday. Unfortunately for me, I was at work and had a lot of crunching to do on day-job stuff. As soon as I got home, I booted up my Twitch stream and started working on the game. I got a lot of the bones done within the 7hr stream. The game idea I landed on was making a digging game similar to the old flash game Motherload.

Below is a screenshot of how the tile generation and upgrade data looks like. Quick and dirty json data. The image on the right is determining the probability tables for different ores. I had 8 different tables like that depending on the height, the one you’re seeing there is the one at the absolute bottom tier of tiles.

Saturday Day 1

Saturday morning came along and before I could work on the game I had 3 important tasks. Do laundry and then meetup some friends for fun activities and dinner.

My dinner plans were over, so it was time to head home, take a small nap and begin working on the game. The only problem? I woke up from the nap on Sunday morning!

Sunday Day 2

Here we are on Sunday morning and I have to go to work again! Darn it…

Fast forward to coming home after work, I boot up the Twitch Stream again and get back to work. Determined to finish everything I still needed to do. Upgrades screen, progression, saving and loading, scene transitions, sound effects, etc.

Welp. I didn’t manage to get all of it done, but I did get all these fancy gems in, spawning at different depths and a working upgrade system.

It was time to submit and I still didn’t have solid scene transitions and there were a few bugs and no sound effects. What did I do instead of submitting? I pushed submission back 1 day so I can still participate in the 72hr category. This means my jam submission won’t get any ratings. C’est la vie (forgive me for my french).

Bonus! Monday Day 3

I had an extra day! Woweee. The problem? I also had to go to work on that day too. At least I had extra time. I ensured the level transitions, upgrading, running out of fuel, the hazards and everything was working properly and pressed submit.

I also squeezed in secret button commands that let the user cycle between different color palettes. I grabbed the color palettes according to old technology. 16 colors each. Here’s a gif of me cycling between them…

What Went Well

Considering I worked on this game for maybe 20hrs total. Entirely by myself. I think it’s a really great outcome. It has something like 20 minutes of gameplay as you mine deeper and deeper, seeing new gems, getting new upgrades, etc.

Challenges

The biggest challenge was the time crunch. I had so much going on that weekend and I was all alone on the game. I couldn’t lean on other people for help for art or audio. The final game jam submission basically had no audio except for a few voice lines I recorded for the upgrades screen.

If it wasn’t for making a game and a post-mortem being on my monthly goals for November, I might’ve just said “fuck it” and not submitted anything. We’ll see, based on what it ends up becoming, if that would’ve been better.

The Final Product

All that being said, I think the final product is solid. I would rate it a 7/10 game jam submission.

Reception

Because the game was submitted to the extra category of a pretty small game jam event, I got basically no reception. However I showed it to a handful of gamedev pals and go their take on it. I will take their advice and spend maybe 20hrs on it in the next few weeks to make a solid post-jam version.

The post-jam version will be posted to Newgrounds in December so stay tuned for that!

Comments & Reactions

Pumpking Pie

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 03:00:00 +0000

Welcome!

Welcome to the summary of what I was up to (and not up to apparently) during October 2025!

October 2025 Goals

Submit a game for Ludum Dare 57
Make post mortem for the Ludum Dare submission
Charles Anniversary update
Polish Falling Thingies
New Trash Force Content (Boss and Act2)
Publish two longform youtube videos
Attend 2 gamedev meetups

Oof! Not a lot of goals met this time around. I had a lot of stuff pop up IRL with my day job so gamedev took a bit of a backburner in October. I did manage to get a lot of work done on the Charles update and Pixel Fixel polish. Unfortunately not enough to deploy the update to Charles but I’m very close. Probably within 24hrs of writing this blog post the update will be out!

Bonus Tasks Completed in October 2025

Visit Montreal
Website tweaks, a new tools section with more tools coming soon!
35hrs of Twitch Streaming

On the bright side, I visited Montreal for the first time in my life! It was a quick bus ride down so it wasn’t too expensive. Who knew you could go from Toronto to Montreal for merely $15!?

Anyway, it was a great time, I enjoyed some Montreal staples like poutine and smoked meat sandwiches, saw the sights and most importantly warded off burn out for one more month ;)

November 2025 Goals

One long-form YouTube videos (November 24th?)
Pixel Fixel update
Charles the Bee Multiplayer Update
Visit 2 in-person gamedev meetups
Submit a game to Alakajam 22
Write a post-mortem blog post for Alakajam submission
Take it easy pal, relaaaax

Pixel Fixel?! Why is that on the list? Well apparently the medals on Newgrounds are broken and I’m too far down a rabbit hole of refactoring stuff to go back and fix just that. I want to make a new game mode for it, change the way the Remixel version was advertised and finish putting up stickers all over town. (See what stickers im talking about here) As is customary every November I guess haha

The other tasks are pretty straight forward. Finish the update for Charles, do a quick weekend game jam, finish my youtube video and go to some meetups. Didn’t scope creep the November goals too much I hope.

Musings

That about wraps it up for October! On the professional side of my life just a game jam and some updates but on the personl side it was a welcome break and weekend getaway. I reckon October 2025 is one of my favorite months of this year so far. Cheers to many more!

As per tradition, here’s a song I listened to a bunch during the month…

NEIGHBORS by Dyce

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Greg Post Mortem

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Introduction

During the Ludum Dare 58 game jam, we created Greg gathers ghosts because that’s what he loves the most. The theme was Collector, and we had 3 days complete the game. The team consisted of Myself (Viktor), Manisha, Keely and Axel.

This is the same team responsible for bringing you the infamous RAMpage and Antz vs Plantz. With an added bonus of Mr. Axel! Long time orbiter, first time collaborator.

Timeline

Day 1

Before we started I told the team that I would really like an idle clicker game like Cookie Clicker. Once the theme was announced, Keely and I got into a call to start brainstorming the game design and the idea of making an idle clicker game lasted about 5 minutes. You know what they say about the best laid plans!

We knew we wanted to have a million objects on the screen, but it didn’t take the form of a clicker game, it took the form of a bullet hell quite quickly. The first day was about getting the core mechanics down so we had basically just a bunch of circles flying around, here’s a screenshot of what that looked liked.

Day 2

Since we already had out direction established, everyone went to work making assets. Keely was tasked to make an iconic character (like the tree guys in Antz vs Plantz or the skull guy in RAMpage), Axel set off drawing ghosts and Manisha started working on a music track.

I began creating a bunch of behaviors and variables to toggle/set those behaviors for the ghosts. For example v_delay determines the time between ghost waves, v_speed determines their speed, v_amount determines how many spawn, v_straight determines if the ghosts fly straight or curve (curve angle determined by v_turnstrength) and so on…

This allows us to have many levels by simply setting those variables in different ways. Additionally, the runtime could randomize the variables on its own to create whatever patterns.

Day 3

As per usual, the final day is crunch mode. We intended to have an endless mode where the runtime would re-generate a new pattern every 20s but we had to scrap it for time.

A lot of time goes into making sure the game flows properly from loss and win conditions to npc dialogue to functioning menus and so on… I would estimate 75% of the work of the game jam submission had nothing to do with working on gameplay.

What Went Well

The strength of this project was able to get so much variety in gameplay without having to manually create a bunch of content. The entire game is basically 3 pngs and a few audio files. On a per-file basis I can’t imagine a more efficient game.

Efficiencies aside, the game is also quite fun and hypnotizing. During development I found myself just staring at the ghosts spawning, perhaps it could be a cool music visualizer or screensaver or something.

Comment from Axel (Art): I don’t often personally work in teams, so having clear division of labor was nice. Being able to safely rely on other people to focus on the design, music, and programming allowed more focus on the art side which was needed.

Comment from Keely (Greg): Aesthetic, music and vibe of the game turned out great. I liked the initial ideation - the base mechanics of the game felt like a neat spin on bullet hell that I hadn’t seen before.

Comment from Manisha (Music): I’m starting to get a better feel for the kind of sound I want after seeing the art and asking about the gameplay pacing to get an idea about the tempo. From there, I’ve been getting good at laying down a solid foundation to build on. I also feel like my workflow is improving, I’m getting faster at testing out ideas and knowing what fits or doesn’t fit the vibe. I’m also starting to trust my ear more instead of second-guessing every choice.

Challenges

Coming off the back of making Ship Happens in 10 days, I wanted to include the same level of functionality to the game such as achievements, multiple game modes, and more narrative. Turns out 3 days isn’t enough time to do 10 days of work.

I found myself telling people “I don’t know if I want to do 3 day jams anymore” because how limited the time frame is. I want to include a bunch of stuff, but I simply cannot :(

Comment from Axel (Art): I’m not an artist in any sense of the word, mostly do programming, so it was definitely a different track of mind. Think I’m pretty slow at it, and generally not super happy with most of the output. I also unfortunately just didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to dedicate towards the jam, and am thankful for others largely supporting most the project.

Comment from Keely (Greg): I just wasn’t really all that available to help with stuff. For previous jams we had a little more coordination/in person collaboration which is what I like about game jams.

Comment from Manisha (Music): I wasn’t free all weekend and had a massive headache on the last day but I pushed through! Sadly, I couldn’t find the right sounds until just a couple hours before the deadline. Luckily, my sister had some free time and jumped in to help. She actually came up with the second half of the melody line, so props to her for saving me while I was half-dead. After that, I cleaned things up, added a spooky ambience in the background and called it a wrap. It ended up being a bit more chaotic than I’d like, and I really wanted to stream the process, but overall I’m happy with how it turned out. I also didn’t really contribute to the gameplay or brainstorming side of things, so I had a bit of FOMO and didn’t feel the team aspect as much as usual, which was totally my choice but I hope no one minded! The team handled that part super well and it all came together nicely in the end.

The Final Product

The final product turned out great! I don’t really have much to add. It was a great use of minimal assets and the team worked well together.

Comment from Axel (Art): It was really interesting seeing other peoples design ideas, and I think it added a lot of flavor to something that if I had made myself would be quite stale. I think the rest of the team did a really great job, and although I’m not super happy with my art in general, think the overall product is pretty fun!

Comment from Keely (Greg): It was a good scope. There’s some neat ideas in there. Some aspects could use some nudging in terms of the challenge/feedback but overall it turned out pretty well. Also, Greg is cool. I’m glad I got the chance to help bring him and his ghost fetish into the world.

Comment from Manisha (Music): Pretty happy! It’s upbeat and fits the gameplay well, though it could’ve been less repetitive. That’s something I’ll work on next time. Still, seeing the positive feedback has made it all worth it!

Reception

Final Game: After two weeks of people playing the game we got our scores! We had 42 people leave ratings, and lots of comments as well. Here’s a link to the scores and feedback! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/greg-gathers-ghosts-because-thats-what-he-loves-the-most.

We also managed to score some pretty cool accolades from Newgrounds! We were the second best game of the day when we uploaded it AND got on the front page! Verrry cool. There is also a contest happening right now on Newgrounds for halloween. There are prizes but we’re not in it for the money and fame. Only keely is…

There were 1365 other entries

Criteria	Rank	Percentile
Overall	169th	Top 16%
Fun	85th	Top 8%
Innovation	225th	Top 21%
Theme	425th	Top 40%
Graphics	197th	Top 18%
Audio	152nd	Top 14%
Humor	277th	Top 25%
Mood	524th	Top 48%

Blue Pin Studio

Regret is proof you've grown

Welcome!

March 2026 Goals

Bonus Tasks Completed in March 2026

Regarding April Fools

April 2026 Goals

Musings

Comments & Reactions

The End

Welcome Back!

Collaborators

Never-Ending Encouragement

Players

Parting Words

Comments & Reactions

Hard work and the donkey

Welcome!

March 2026 Goals

March 2026 Goals

Musings

Comments & Reactions

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Welcome!

January 2026 Goals

Bonus Tasks Completed in December 2025

February 2026 Goals

Musings

Comments & Reactions

2025 Yearly Recap

Welcome!

Metrics

Noteworthy things from 2025

Extra Tidbit

Musings

Comments & Reactions

Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep

Welcome!

December 2025 Goals

Bonus Tasks Completed in December 2025

January 2026 Goals

Musings

Comments & Reactions

You Dance Fast But I Dance Faster

Welcome!

November 2025 Goals

Bonus Tasks Completed in November 2025

December 2025 Goals

Musings

Comments & Reactions

Yield Post Mortem

Introduction

Timeline

Friday Day 0 - Theme Announced

Saturday Day 1

Sunday Day 2

Bonus! Monday Day 3

What Went Well

Challenges

The Final Product

Reception

Links

Comments & Reactions

Pumpking Pie

Welcome!

October 2025 Goals

Bonus Tasks Completed in October 2025

November 2025 Goals

Musings

Comments & Reactions

Greg Post Mortem

Introduction

Timeline

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

What Went Well

Challenges

The Final Product

Reception