drajjon (Alexis)

First half of vacation I had no internet, second half my phone with BlueSky died... pretty good vacation :D I did not miss the stress of social media.

But I miss posting, so sorry haters :D

July Update - The Rising Star Patronage Project — Slide20XX | Composer Our contracts are signed and production has begun! Right now that means we've set the creative direction of the project and gotten everything set aside for us to start working. Unfortunately, due to s...

I have phenomenal news: thanks to the support of an organization here in Seattle, we have now raised a total of $14,748, funding our first milestone at 134%.

Our contracts are signed, creative direction is set, and we're ready to get to work!

www.slide20xx.com/blog/2025/7/...

Once Upon a Galaxy is now on Steam! Check us out & leave a review! (with picture of two blind mice cheerleading)

A screenshot of Once Upon a Galaxy on PC

Once Upon a Galaxy is now officially in Steam Early Access! Combine fantasy characters and magical treasures in our free-to-play card autobattler- quick to learn, play at your own pace, no AI art, lots of strategic depth to discover. #indiedev

store.steampowered.com/app/3062740/...

If you enjoy our game, we'd really appreciate a positive review. Every review helps a ton!

Once Upon a Galaxy is now on Steam! Check us out & leave a review! (with picture of two blind mice cheerleading)

A screenshot of Once Upon a Galaxy on PC

Once Upon a Galaxy is now officially in Steam Early Access! Combine fantasy characters and magical treasures in our free-to-play card autobattler- quick to learn, play at your own pace, no AI art, lots of strategic depth to discover. #indiedev

store.steampowered.com/app/3062740/...

Once Upon a Galaxy Captain your starship and recruit an eclectic crew from various space-fantasy tribes & factions in Once Upon a Galaxy!

The best part about Once Upon a Galaxy is that you don't need to understand any of the above to have a blast taking shiny cards and watching them smash into each other. The game will adapt to your playstyle and you can learn about the strategic depth at your own pace. #indiedev

galaxy.fun

Strategically, you should also be banking (recruiting off-board) Bronzes over marginal spells. (but spells are so much fun!) The extra Silvers (and later, Goldens) really do add up over time.

Early-game Silvers (and treasures from the resulting Goldens) are so powerful that it's almost always correct to take them anyways, but later game, you should probably be taking more Bronzes that play on your board over Silvers that don't.

Taking the Bronze leaves your pool at 13.7% silver, whereas taking the Silver followed by a bonus Bronze leaves you with 6.25% Silver. (and 6.25% Golden) The former is much more power and flexibility in your pool long-term, and has compounding effects e.g. double-silver shops.

Note taking a Bronze over a Silver early in the game is actually a pretty big boost in "Silver density"! Let's say your second shop has the silver of your first pick, and you have no commons in your deck. (18 commons in pool) You probably want the Silver because +1/+1 is HUGE, but what if you don't?

But because Silvers represent a critical resource (rerolls) and are "always useful", they work differently. Passing on them actually makes them more likely to show up later. So essentially, if you don't need the reroll now? You should feel safe passing on it.

Players don't need to understand this at all, in order to enjoy the impact it has- essentially, the cards you choose to play will be more likely to show up, and the cards you pass on, less likely, therefore whatever you're "trying to do" is more likely to happen. (we want you to have fun!)

The entire pool, in fact, is a player-managed resource: The cards you draft become more common, and the cards you don't, less common. Each game morphs a bit around the choices you make.

bsky.app/profile/alex...

If you're trying to level-up your game, try PASSING more Silvers! Galaxy doesn't have a reroll button, per se. Instead, it has Silvers- taking the second copy of a card gives a small upgrade and a bonus draft. (even if not played on your board) And these Silvers are a player-manageable resource.

I like how this hints at so much strategic depth. Most players gravitate towards auto-picking Silvers, which is a great way to play Galaxy like a "fun machine". (I like that you can play Galaxy this way!) But Silvers are NOT autopicks, and there are numerous reasons to pick Bronzes over them.

Just had the core of my own Once Upon a Galaxy pool rules summarized in a great, "non-mathy" way:

"...by passing on a Bronze card, it becomes less likely to show up in your shop later.... If you pass on a Silver card, it actually becomes more likely to show up in your shop later."

Hercules zoomed with stats of "~~~e9223372036854..."

(pulled from another player's posts) apparently at some threshold our scientific notation gets even more arcane ~~~somehow~~~

I just wanted to say that this is one of the better quality of life updates. I enjoy the X multipliers instead of the crazy animations that crashes the games. I’ve also noticed some little aesthetic changes making various things more clear, including rewards at the end of a run. Great job

I adore the re-roll feature. I recognize that it's just a fourth captain option (which is great), but it feels so much better than that. It's like I got something free and it feels good even if I hate all 4 options because that last option was already a freebie. A huge psychological win even though I recognize I'm being fooled 😄

The change in multiple procs to just show x4, x6, etc. is a HUGE QoL improvement. The change to make treasures smaller in the chest interface (when you have more than 5) is far more usable and pretty ❤️ Multiple deck lists is a huge win. Being able to buy a captain in the captain select is a great idea, and the re-roll makes it fine if you don't want to pay for it. Combat runs much smoother and doesn't get bogged down in the triggers you don't care about anymore. So much to love, excellent work everyone!

I love getting feedback from our awesome players, but I really love when they call out stuff I was worried would fly under the radar. Even cooler when they nail the vibes you were going for. :D #indiedev

p.s. play Once Upon a Galaxy galaxy.fun and you too can inspire my weird BlueSky posts

sometimes you forget a single `return` statement and your game just has to point it out to you

I believe in being "organizedly disorganized"

for every super angry vocal asshole going off about you kicking them out there's like twenty silent people who are so relieved you did it, you won't always get a high five for it but you'll notice people worth having stick around more

"Nice to meet you, Shy. I'm Alexis!"

There's a reason everyone dreams of starting a commune and it's because we evolved to exist in villages, not isolated in our homes

the same image but on a sticker in real life

a neon gateway opening to six eyes floating among stars and nebulae

DON'T FORGET
this month's sticker of the month is UNIVERSAL PRIDE
join IMMEDIATELY and get it in the dang mail with two other secret stickers what a deal
➡️ ko-fi.com/thxnywy/tiers ⬅️

Some white proxy cards with large bold colorful marker lettering. On wooden stand, arranged on tiers. Examples: "Bathe Cat", "Stretch", "Tend To The Garden"

My task management system- the product of decades of learning about how my brain works and trying every system under the sun...

My life is run on proxy Magic cards #gamedesign

yeah when you're on a winstreak and then life hands you a series of 5th and 6th places it really takes the wind out of ya

but I'm addicted to the grind (aka being alive)

look just because my average pace has been "one feature a day" this week doesn't mean I need a handicap

"just a few more days to finish up what might be the most important release of my career going into GenCon/Early Access"

Brain: *you like challenges right*
...
Brain: *how about a migraine*

I've read 100s of Shigeru Miyamoto interviews; this one is a top five, easy.

A long Iwata, Miyamoto, and Itoi (Earthbound creator) discussion on the nature of creativity, how to cultivate it as a leader, artistic aesthetic, how to collaborate creatively

iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/w...

ONCE UPON A GALAXY Returning to GENCON July 31 - August 3, Indianapolis IN

Once Upon a Galaxy will be at GenCon again this year!

Come find our booth in the events area (e.g. where Magic is played) and hang out with the devs :D

Our card drafting autobattler is available now - galaxy.fun - deep enough for strategy gamers and quick enough to play between rounds :) #indiedev