Will Bowerman

Finally, a visual representation of the inside of my mind

oh hell yeah

huge stamp of personal approval on this one, it's extremely design-brained in that way i'm always looking for in rpgs, smartly structured and well paced, creative, clear-thinking, and tons of fun. it's a knockout

Shoutouts to @tunditur-unda.itch.io and @farawaytimes.bsky.social for finally successfully scamming me into making not only an RPGMaker game, but an RPGMaker 2003 game,
as well as to @quinnkdev.bsky.social for helping me figure out how to get this game's core gimmick functioning.

Sword & Squire by Will Bowerman Wrangle your unruly knight in this short RPG! Made for the Cookie Cutter rm2k3 jam.

New game! Manage limited resources - and your unruly knight - in Sword & Squire!

Had a lot of fun putting my personal RPG design theory to the test while making this for the Cookie Cutter RM2k3 Jam - I hope you'll enjoy playing it!

will-bowerman.itch.io/sword-squire

no!! they're nasty little statuses!! it is a "no" of rejection!!

I love how expressive the eyes are!!

red text that reads: "Bad Statuses: Paralyze: no Sleep: that's just paralyze so no"

rpg's done and feels good, here's a peek at my design documentation for it

Finished one of the commissions I just took! This is @ultigonio.bsky.social's character Geena from his project "Unearth"! I'm pretty happy with how the hairstyle came out.

"haha i'll just make a silly rm2k3 game in a few hours over the weekend" i thought to myself, forgetting that i am physically incapable of half-assing anything

I mean, I get it. Vibes-wise it's very charming, solid sound design, the characters are cute and have nice dynamics with each other. Its storybook-esque energy is just very comfortable.

personally though I prefer games that do not have 6 microscopically different varieties of Stun

I actually really like the music choice - paired with the sailing theme and easyRPG's fm synth soundfont, it feels like some sort of lost pc-98 sim game...

Finished this last night and forgot to save my screenshot of the end screen, but this was neat! This is a cool exercise in minimized scope that I think works well - it can feel a little bit trial-and-error-y, but it's small enough that that's not really ever a major issue

game screenshot. a boat which is glowing yellow for some reason is docked a town at the mouth of a river. text reads: "Grunita is north in the Sea Corridor. Balbalap is west of the Souther Lighthouse, and Nouf is east."

this week's rpg sketch "Valdivia"

- features time-honored rpg tradition of 'boat'
- made in 1 hour
- you can play it in your browser
- it is possible to beat

tunditur-unda.itch.io/rpg8

cover of PS1 game "junk brain diagnosis" with Japanese actress Kanako Enomoto wearing a pink dress leaning forward (in a, I think, somewhat flirtatious manner? idk)

went to the doctor today and got a

MAKE AN EMERGENCY DONATION to Trans Continental Pipeline right now.

They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate there and they are overwhelmed with requests. CO borders KS, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out.

GO DONATE.

tcpipeline.org

DUNGEON GALS

Rosa the moth, saying: "Didn't you bring some fighting games or whatever? You could at least do something besides just sitting there and whining..."

Wendy, a satyress, standing below a puzzle. There are blocks that used to be color-coded, but are now indicated via visually distinct symbols.

Version 1.4 of the Dungeon Gals demo is LIVE!

store.steampowered.com/app/2864880/...

Changes include:
-Improved player sprites
-Tweaked level design
-Numerous script edits
-Greatly improved accessibility settings
-Faster animations
-More readable font
-Extensively re-arranged music

This is the... NEXT next?

We had a visibility issue with Next Fest, so we get to try again! This time for REAL

And to celebrate, we have an updated limited time demo! Clash with each character's unique play styles, and stack up new Style Bonuses!

store.steampowered.com/app/2697670/...

It's interesting brain food for me as a designer, as well; a combination of puzzle, action, and strategy also make up the bones of Unearth, and being able to pick apart Relooted's approach to this combo is a fun exercise. But it really did surprise me just how high it punches above its price point.

I've been playing Relooted in short bursts over the last couple weeks, and even for its base price it's a steal. It's an enjoyable, roughly 10-hour, fully-voiced game with an increasingly dense set of mechanics and several fully animated cutscenes. Comfortable rec for folks wanting a heist game

6 Tips For Making Angeline Era-style Exploration If you've played, you might know that Angeline Era's approach to exploration is very unusual. There's only a very minimal map, about half the levels "Have No Point", and treasures aren't really the ma...

New blogpost on some @angelineera.bsky.social game design! Come and learn..
'6 Tips For Making Angeline Era-style Exploration'. buttondown.com/melodicambie...

Y'know, it's funny - I don't really consider myself a writer, but nowadays I find myself much more drawn toward telling at least a very short story in my games than telling no story at all. I definitely wasn't this way for most of my life, so I kind of wonder when and why this flip happened.

game jam................

oh good it's not just me

I saw that post and I knew I had to speak my truth

edit of "nice cat of the week/naughty cat of the week" meme image. Godot is listed as the "nice IDE" which cuddled nicely. RPG Maker 2003 is listed as the "naughty IDE" which bit my ass

こんな感じかな

rpgmaker 2003 is a piece of software which hates me, personally, as a game designer

Godot's node system allows for a lot of fun, tactile problem-solving like this, I think it's a big part of the reason so much more of the process is enjoyable to me nowadays.

This is an iteration of the enemy placement approach in Chrono Gear, where I could set a specific difficulty integer in the inspector and the enemy would delete itself if game difficulty exceeded that, but this helps me more easily see at a glance which enemies show up at which levels

screenshot of level editor in godot showing a pixel art snake. above the snake shows pink text that reads, "Rude"

Experimenting with a neat approach to enemy layout based on difficulty where I can apply a difficulty "tag" which will delete its parent enemy if the game difficulty is below a set threshold. The text dynamically adjusts in-editor to display what the threshold is set to for that specific tag!