Mommy's Best Games' Dev log

Added New Ability to ChainStaff - Launch Getting Closer

2026-03-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

Vault Ability

As we continue to polish ChainStaff for the April 8th release date, I've got cool news.

After loads of playtesting I realized we needed just a little bit of extra polish in the game.

Behold--the "Vault Ability"!

This is a new, automatic move that happens to the player in the game.

Any time you are next to a ledge, and you press towards it (left/right), you will automatically try to climb it just a little bit.

You don't climb all the way up walls.But you do kick off of them twice, giving you a tiny boost.

You do not do a full ledge grab. That I feel would slow down the pace of the game. But you quickly do a small wall-hop and it lets you over loads of tiny spots you'd fall normally.

Want to try it out? It's in the free demo on Steam right now! Is it better than a ledge-grab? Let me know what you think.

Final Playtesting

If you are interested in playtesting the game before its release this April 8th, join my discord and ask around and I'll hook you up.

The game is 90-95% complete and I am now smoothing out rough edges and looking for more bugs.

We are getting close and I could use all the help I can get to find bugs in the game. Thanks!

ChainStaff Launch Date, Pre-Order, Price, and Cheats Menu

2026-02-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Launch Date Revealed

I have cool news! We finally have a release date for ChainStaff. Steam, Switch, Playstation, Xbox, everything...the game is coming out April 8th. Check out the trailer for new monsters, weapons, and levels.

Pre-Order Open

Also big news--we have a price now: $14.99. And pre-order options are available! We worked really hard to get the game through all the annoying systems for Nintendo and Microsoft. (Sadly Sony doesn't let smaller games like mine get a pre-order. I did try though! ) Please wishlist it or pre-order it. It's a big help! This page has all the store links: https://chainstaffgame.com/

Cheat Codes Now in the Demo

I just updated the demo on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2976260/ChainStaff It is still the tutorial training level and level 1, but there is now also a Cheat Menu.

How's it work? Well it takes simple words. But you have to *know* the words. And I put all kinds of wacky, helpful, powerful cheats in there. Letter-case does not matter. Spaces do matter in between words.

Just go to Options->Cheats in the demo to add them. How do you find out the Cheats? You should join the Discord server. Also I will reveal a few sometimes in the newsletter.

I add some cheats on the Discord server. https://discord.gg/8PYEmJWxAT

Enjoy!

How I Built a Life-sized ChainStaff for MAGFest

2026-01-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

I will be at MAGFest this weekend in Washington DC! It's June 8th to 11th. It's absolutely packed with awesome indie games, arcade games, and lots of amazing game music. Come out to the show and tell your friends about it!

ChainStaff was accepted to be shown in the "MIVS" division of the show. It's an indie-only section where cool indie games are previewed for the gaming public. You get a 10x10ft booth and you design it all yourself.

My first idea was... what if you could hold a real ChainStaff?!?

What would it be like? Check out this video as I detail the construction of it.

It ended up being over 7 feet long, but thankfully only weighs about 5 pounds so anyone can wield it.

I also printed a backdrop of the main game box art, and you'll get to pose in front of it with the ChainStaff!

This is inside my office; it barely fits! I'll do a new blog post when we get the real booth set up at MAGFest. The banner is 10x8ft. We had to take the picture sideways because the room is too small to fit. Thankfully the convention center is huge, so this will be awesome when we get it set up there.

The light fixture at the top obscures the game logo, but my idea was you'd get to "pry open the monster's mouth" on the box art with a real ChainStaff.

ChainStaff is due to come out to consoles and Steam this spring, so I'm working hard to get the word out for it. Thanks for following along on my journey!

ChainStaff Demo Update - Difficulty and Story

2025-10-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a video showing off some of the details from the new update.

Updated Demo

I've gone ahead and added some cutscenes from the main game to the free demo that's on Steam. There are now two new story cutscenes at the beginning of the demo, where you can see the origins of the Star Spore invasion.

The demo update also has the ability to pick between Easy and Normal difficulty modes. The difficulty is hand-tuned for each level. There will be new attacks and more enemies in Normal difficulty. Easy mode might have more platforms to land on, plus you start with more player shields.

Here's the list of demo changes

Cutscenes added
Difficulty modes added
Now has 3 Save Slots
Dual Stick controls fully supported
Better button remapping
Game balance changes: Players don't retract ChainStaff on Damage. You now need a full heart to take an extra hit (not just a subheart).
Many more balances and game polish.

Want to join the Beta Playtest?

Come help steer the direction of the game balancing! I'm slowly finishing up the rest of the game and will be doing playtests soon. Join my newsletter to get in on it!

https://subscribepage.io/Mk6GOH

Let's Chat

And finally, I check Discord more frequently than most places:

https://discord.gg/8PYEmJWxAT

I'd love to hear from you there.

How I Fixed the Camera in My 2D Platformer

2024-11-14T19:09:00.000-08:00

I've been working on ChainStaff since 2019!

And while I finished Bumpy Grumpy and a few contract jobs in between, it's been a lot of good iteration and learning along the way to make a better platformer.

One of the most important parts of a platformer for me is a good camera! And for me a good camera is one that you don't even notice. Check out my recent video here about how the camera works in ChainStaff.

If you'd rather read than watch, then please read on!

Vistas

There a several special things I'm trying to do with the camera in ChainStaff. One of them is to create exciting fights and beautiful moments.

Each level opens with a gorgeous vista of the new level.

Level 4: Moss Islands

You get to soak it all in, the alien world, blowing leaves, lighting, nasty clouds, and creepy tongues swaying in the wind. Then when the player starts moving the camera picks up and starts following you.

Another special camera I use is to have a vista combined with a big fight. The opening of level 2, the Dragon's Bridge has you launch straight into an epic battle with the Jet Dragon on a thin rock bridge. As you get closer to the dragon, the camera zooms into the action. If you run away, the camera backs up to capture you and the dragon in view. I like this a lot, but it's a bit unusual for 2D action games to pull back quite this far. I carefully designed several fights in the game to take advantage of these huge views, while still remaining fun and fair.

The Dragon's Bridge: Look how tiny you are!

Less Is More

For most of the action of the game, the direction I give the camera is "only move if necessary".

Basically I follow the Miyamoto method developed as far back as Super Mario World.

There's some great videos on how he designed the camera there. I use similar direction in ChainStaff. If you are jumping up, the camera only moves up with you, if you actually jump up to a new platform. If you are simply hopping up and down, I don't follow the player up and down. If you make the game like that, the camera is really spazzy and it's hard to see what platforms or enemies you're going to land on! It's much better to keep it still unless you land on new ground.

Swing Town

One tricky area for ChainStaff is making something that works with the wildly swinging grappling hook.

You are attached to a grappling hook, and swinging left and right fast. If I simply follow the player, it's very hard to play.

The direction I use instead for the camera is to follow the attached point of the grappling hook. This works because its in between of where the player wants to be. The player can swing left/right fast, and its easy to focus on the action. As soon as they let go, the camera smoothly transitions to then following the player again.

These are the three main areas and methods I use to make for a smooth camera experience for the platforming and shooting action in ChainStaff. Check out the video for more details, but also check and see how Miyamoto did it for Super Mario World. As usual, he's a master!

Thanks for reading and please wishlist ChainStaff, thank you!.

Bumpy Grumpy Tourney and PAX West Soon!

2024-08-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

New York City Trip

Bumpy Grumpy is in residence in TWO prestigious arcade cabinets in New York City, so my wife and I decided to make New York City our destination for our family trip.
(Header pic: So much amazing cream cheese)

Was the Empire State Building visit awesome? Yes!
Am I scared of heights? Well, you can see it in my eyes :D

New York City Arcade Scene Is Big!

Wonderville Arcade is in Brooklyn and it's got an amazing collection of "indie game arcade cabinets".

These are often one-of-a-kind arcade experiences. If you are in the area, you've gotta check this place out!

Wonderville Arcade Home Page

Bumpy Grumpy Tournament Results!

I had organized a high score tournament for Bumpy Grumpy with Mark from Wonderville.
So on the Saturday evening of our trip we took a subway ride from Manhattan over to Brooklyn for the tourney.

Remember: the game is out on Steam so people can practice at home--but its very different to play on an arcade cabinet in front of a LIVE audience!

It went like this. We took sign-ups for all to play. Then each contestant got two runs. We went through all players once, then a second time. Mark wrote their scores on the whiteboard.
And I got to commentate!

The end result was lots of Bumpy Grumpy games, lots of cheering, shouting, and screaming, and lots of fun! Congrats to the top 3: Nick, Blaze, and Mark!

Bumpy Grumpy and the NYU Game Center

We also got a tour of the NYU Game Center in Brooklyn.
Gentle reader--let me tell you--their "library" was enviable. It works just like a regular library, but you get to check out GAMES instead of BOOKS!
And the faculty there often give students assignments like "Your new game is similar to this one from 2002. Your weekend homework is to check out the game in the library and play it to see its design."
How cool is that?

ChainStaff Demo at PAX West!

The honestly-fantastic publisher for ChainStaff, Null Games, is flying me out to Seattle to show off a demo of ChainStaff at PAX West.

If you've not already wishlisted ChainStaff on Steam, please do!
It's a huge boost for me.
Every wishlist helps me as it moves the game up through Valve's automated lists, which gets us in front of more people. And that means more sales and more weird games for you!

My next big game is an action-platformer with a transforming grappling hook.

Here is the Null Booth info for PAX West.
Null Games has a great collection of games coming out in addition to ChainStaff and Null always has AMAZING SWAG for giveaways, so please stop by.

Player Animation Progress

And finally I'll leave you with a recent video I made on the player animations in ChainStaff!
Happy swinging.

Building an Arcade Cabinet, Part 5: Panels Galore!

2024-04-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

In my last post I talked about finishing the all-important side panels. These are important because they are the defining shape of the cabinet! We had to match the iconic Occidental Designs style of the big curve on top.
Wait, did I say I was finished with cutting them? Yeah, right! I was only getting started.

Because I hand cut them with a jig-saw and measured with a circular saw (as opposed to a CNC machine doing it with computer accuracy), my two side panels, which need to be identical were a bit off.

So I spent several days in December cutting them and refining them some more.

Here the two panels are compared to each other. You can see the back one is higher than the near one.
I need the edge to match as closely as possible.

I clamped them together to carefully compare them.
Straw bales were actually really helpful to hold things upright!

Here is the tricky inside curve. You can see slight discrepancies between the two panels. I used a power sander to smooth them down to match each other.

Cross Panels

While the side panels are usually an interesting shape, the cross panels are pretty boring. They are probably all rectangles all the same width, but of different heights. They are the horizontal pieces and include obvious things like the control panel (where the buttons and joystick is), the front kick plate, the back panel for access, and the top.

The middle is the side view, the left and right are all the rectangles that form together to make the horizontal parts of the cabinet.

The cross panels are easy to cut once you get everything clamped down nicely. It still takes me about 15 minutes to make a cut each time, because I keep checking it, lining it up, clamping it. You really want to take your time on all these cuts. It makes a big difference.

I actually got to take one large piece of melamine and cut it long ways down the middle, into half. My cabinet is 24" wide. The board is a touch over 48". This made it easy. But I had to be very careful ripping the board all the way down the middle to get the cut perfectly straight.

If some of my cross panels were 24", but some were 23.5" across, then it would make the cabinet wonky.

Some of the bigger panels, all labeled.

Here are some of the not as tall panels (all still 24" wide).

Getting ready for a cut. Everything is clamped down. The table that splits apart was very handy to have a steady working area.

Checking the size.

Handing Over the Batons

I needed lots of little wooden "batons" to connect all the cross panels to the side panels. I bought some pine trim board that was 1"x2", by 12 feet long. I then measured and chopped these up to the proper lengths. After it was all said and done I should have bought 3 boards of 12 foot long (not just two boards like I started with).

The screws I used were 1.25" and 1.5" depending on how much it could connect to. It is very important to pre-drill all the holes so no material bulges out or breaks as you drill the screws in.

The lighter colored rectangles are the trim board chopped up. This is me comparing the size and seeing how much space will be on the edges when it is all put together.

Don't get excited yet--this is just dry-fitting all the pieces! I lay them all out, no screws, no glue, to make sure it all makes sense.

I then spent lots of time actually adding the panels for the base, kick plate, and back side parts, to one of the side panels. It took a while to line up and to clamp as I drilled and screwed. Also I used the pocket hole jig a lot, to drill in from the inside, to the outer panels so no drill heads will show.

Here is a specialty "locking vice c-clamp". It reaches way out and inside, to grip things in situations just like this. It's easy to open and unlock then re-lock quickly to exactly the spacing you just had it at.

The inside baton that will hold the TV platform was hard to do! I had to tape it, and ensuring both batons matched each other took a lot of measuring and checking.

I bought a "pocket hole jig". Totally worth the extra bit of cost to get sunken, long holes to connect screws at an angle.

The oval cut on top on the right is where you put the screw into it. You can see the screw protruding. I'll screw it into a panel and get a very nice fit!

Slowly coming together.
If you can get another person to help you on this day, it's great!

Pocket Jig magic!

Perfect December day in the Midwest :D
Gloomy and cold!

Closer still.

How do we get the one piece with all the panels connected to the other side? At first I thought it would be good to lay it on its side, but this was dumb.

Instead, with my son, we tipped both panels up. Some of the cross panels drooped a little bit, but as we held it together by hand, and slowly screwed everything together but it was a bit tricky.

Screwed and glued. Mega clamps for the win.

That’s when I remembered that, long ago, I had seen some giant clamps on the farm. My dad has done lots of carpentry work over the years, including building our house back in the 1980's! He has lots of tools laying about the farm. It took some time to locate the clamps. But they were excellent and it would be tough for me to think the project would go so well without them.

Once I clamped those onto the sides, seeing the gaps draw in close was a wonderful feeling. And then getting the screws into the panels and see it all draw up tight, it was so exciting.

All panels are connected!

That's it for this installment.

Lots of drama and laughs are coming soon to the next post! Stay tuned.

Building an Arcade Cabinet, Part 4: Side Panels

2024-02-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

I bought the board to really start making the cabinet!

I bought 3 melamine boards, $50 a piece from Menards.

Two of the boards in my "building room/vegetable store"!

This Stuff is HEAVY

When I was in the parking lot, I had three of the large particle boards, 4 foot by 8 foot, that I had to load into the truck. I had an employee help me load them into the cart at the store. But in the parking lot, I was by myself. It was an overcast day, and wasn’t supposed to rain quite yet, but was getting misty. The water would destroy the boards, so I was worried. I worked for a while to line the truck bed with a tarp, and then was preparing how to drape it across the top of the boards. It was even difficult adjusting the tarp as it was a large 15x30’ tarp (just the best one we had) and it took some wrangling to lay it out nice in the truck and get ready to lay the boards over it and then cover them up because of the mist.

I was standing next to the truck, sliding around a board, trying to get my head around the best approach for how to lift this heavy thing into the bed of the truck AND not tear up all the corners on it.

As I was standing there, an older man got out of a large delivery truck and started walking to the store. But he stopped and asked if I needed help! I was so grateful. It was even still a pain for the two of us to get all three boards into the back of the truck. I’m sure without his help it would have taken me much longer, and I would have make a big mess of the boards trying to get them in there. So thank you nameless, kind gentleman! You helped me make this cabinet.

Why Melamine?

Melamine is particle board with a special paint coating

Melamine is a type of particle board. Particle board is different than plywood. Plywood board is made from very thin shavings of wood that are glued together. There is still strength from the grain of the wood. In particle board, there is no strength from natural grain, though particle board is still plenty strong. It's wood dust that is ground up and glued together. It's homogeneous, not slices of wood. Particle board is very heavy. It is tough, but it can break differently than plywood. It's often cheaper than high end plywood I would use for a cabinet.

You would use much finer grain plywood than this for a cabinet (cabinet plywood) but here you can see the wood pieces of plywood.

A 3/4" melamine board that is 4x8 foot, weighs around 88 pounds. The same size plywood piece may weigh around 66 pounds. My cabinet is heavier because it's made from particle board instead of plywood. That's kind of bad!

I made it this way because if you use plywood, you have to paint it. And painting plywood and getting a great arcade cabinet-style finish is a lot of work and takes special tools.

I watched a lot of videos and read a lot about it, but the issue is like this: Plywood is real wood which has fibers. Painting it is tricky. You paint a primer layer, and now the fibers in the plywood soak up paint, and rise up (very tiny fibers) but it feels and looks rough. So then you sand it down, over and over. Now you paint it your black color, and the same thing happens again. You have to sand it more! And if you want to do two, three, or 4 layers to make it look amazing, you have to paint a sand so much! Youtuber Way of the Wrench has an amazing video on painting his cabinet.

"How to paint an arcade cabinet!" Credit: Way of the Wrench

After looking at everything involved with building my cabinet, I saw many special tools and tons of effort involved in the painting part of the cabinet. I decided if I could remove this step of work, building the cabinet would be more of a possibility for me.

That's where the melamine board comes in. It is pre-painted with a tough surface. Yes it weighs more, but the pre-painted part did it for me. If you are not careful, the edges can chip. It does make it tough to cut cleanly. Plywood is better that way. But the enormous amount of painting work involved for plywood turned me away from it.

How I Cut Melamine

Did I mention it's pre-painted which is great, but is a little harder to cut? Okay, it's not that big a deal, but you can screw it up if you're not careful. Basically the special protected coat of paint is tough, and chips when cut. You need to use fine-toothed cutting tools. That means you probably need special circular saw blades, and maybe even new jigsaw blades.

New jigsaw blades were worth getting to make sure they were sharp.

Notice all the 140 tiny teeth. This is not a standard blade like I use for cutting simple 2x4s!

I used the circular saw for cutting my straight lines. Then I use the jigsaw for the curvy lines. Yes, I cut the jigsaw parts by hand. I'm good enough with it to make it look good. My straight lines are much straighter though, because I used guides and a circular saw.

My standard blade is 40 teeth. It was worth getting a "plywood blade" with at least 140 teeth, to get a cleaner cut.

The black paint on the melamine makes it hard to see your lines. I never found a perfect solution, but I used pencil sometimes, and a white-paint marker other times.

I made a test cut at the bottom of a panel with the circular saw. My dad and I noticed that the top of the board has chipped edges but the bottom did not, since the blade spins under and upwards (hitting clean) and comes out the top, throwing material away. We decided to proceed, but to remember to simply flip both side panels, so the previous “outside-facing” side that I had planned would be on the inside (since the outside edges looked chipped).

The Workspace

My dad is retired, but runs a farm selling vegetables. He has several large barns. He also has a barn-store that is pretty big, nice, and clean. And it has power, and lighting. He let me build the cabinet there. Also he’s helping me work on it some too, since he is in the farming off-season. I own a home but it doesn't have a garage, only have a shed. I would not have attempted to build the cabinet in my tiny shed!

The vegetable table turned tool pile.

It's very good to have a pair of extra hands sometimes, to have my dad to help. This is very slow and mostly boring work. There's lots of standing around while lines are drawn, measured, re-drawn, and measured again.

Cuts don't happen fast. When I do one cut (straight or curved) it takes me about 15 minute to set up the cut. That's a long time. It feels like a long time. It feels silly. It mainly involves measuring, but a lot of time is adjusting the cutting guides, and setting up all the clamps on the material. It's very important to take your time.

Cutting the Panels

I made the straight cuts with a circular saw. I used a jigsaw from the curved edges. The first panel came out pretty good. It was very tricky to use the jigsaw and get nice curves.

First panel is cut!
The dust from particle board is very fine and not good for your lungs. Wear a mask.

We used 2 saw-horses to support the bottom, and quickly move them around as I cut with both saws. We did this to give them most support underneath. It’s important to not let the board start to fall, as this would pinch the blade as you cut. (Pinching a moving blade is bad!)

The shape of the "Bumpy Grumpy" cabinet is unique.
It's just big enough that I can't fit two in one panel, sadly.

After the first panel is cut, I laid it on a second board, and used that first piece as a template.

We flipped the panel onto the second board and I traced it. I then cut the second panel like I did with the first. It came out pretty close to the first. Slightly off in places, but I plan to sand those discrepancies down.

Can I play the game yet???

The side panels are cut!

Building the Arcade Cabinet, Part 3: Cabinet Design

2024-02-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

After I bought the IP rights for Bumpy Grumpy from the parent company Occidental Designs, I was surprised that they kept pretty loose business records. For a company that had a sterling record of professionalism, I was shocked they didn't even have any photos of their own cabinet! And allegedly all the paper designs for Bumpy Grumpy burned during the great Arcade Fire in '85.

That meant I had to work pretty hard to re-create the design of the iconic Bumpy Grumpy cabinet! You see, having played it as a kid, I could definitely remember some high points of the cabinet. I knew the profile of the cabinet was unusual. And I also know that I had to figure out the angle at which the monitor was set inside the cabinet.

Monitor Tilt

The first step was figuring out what angle I wanted the monitor. The monitor angle is important because it effects how the average person will stand and position themselves at the cabinet when trying to play. The Bumpy Grumpy cabinet is a full sized 6' tall cabinet. Which means, if you are six foot tall or taller (like myself) you typically have to look down at the monitor to see things. This help explain why arcade cabinets often have the monitor tilted back, down inside the cabinet.

There are some cabinets where it makes sense to have the monitor tilted upright, such as gun game cabinets like House of the Dead. But if you are right next to the cabinet, using a regular joystick, you'll probably be looking down into the monitor somewhat.

I took a look at cabinets through the years, and it seems like older games typically had the cabinet tilted back more.

Nintendo used this cabinet style for several games including Donkey Kong in 1981

Also in 1981, Galaga, by Namco had a more extreme monitor angle.

It did seem like cabinets ended up near 30 degrees in the later years as a good tilt.

While still sorting all this out, I tried out some heights and tilts with my tv monitor in our bedroom to see what would feel good.

First up, after getting all the controls working, I made sure windows worked on it on the TV.

In the bottom right you can see the PC desktop that will run the game.

I set my test version of the Control Panel inside my sock drawer. This was a good test, but wasn't sure how to test the monitor tilt angle. The TV is bulky and heavy after all!

I ended up with the right side version, with more tilt backwards.

I eventually rigged up several pillows on my bed, to continue to test the TV, leaning it back and trying the game at about the same cabinet height in the final version to see how it felt. I ended up with closer to a 40 degree angle.

Cabinet Profile

Occidental Designs was always a pretty provocative company and they knew how to turn heads. Most cabinets through the years have been angular.

Many cabinet designs over the years. Only Burger Time (upper right) had a similar curved top design to Bumpy Grumpy.

But not Bumpy Grumpy. It had a signature circular side panel! Easy to spot, and easy to accentuate with some exciting side art.

Bumpy Grumpy's CURVY design!

Yes, that makes it tough to cut the curves in the side boards, but once you get a template going it's all about the same. That first cabinet is tough to make though!

The red line is the side shape. The black bars are in the "cross parts", like the control panel.

I ended using Adobe Illustrator to measure things in my picture to get a properly scaled drawing. I really wanted to make sure the actual TV I bought was going to fit, and at the angle I wanted. After some time measuring, drawing, and checking, I got a decent layout figured out.

The Build Starts Next Week!

That's it for this week's cabinet update. With all the designs triple-checked and planned it's time to buy some boards and start cutting!

In the meantime enjoy one more picture of testing with the heavy TV on my bed.

You might call it a "Test Bed".

Building the Arcade Cabinet, Part 2: Guts and Wires

2024-01-29T21:54:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last week, I studied many blog posts and videos to figure out the best way to go about building my arcade cabinet for Bumpy Grumpy.

And I ended up doing one thing I haven't seen others do.

Since this was a fairly original cabinet design, AND it was my very first cabinet, my plan was to work backwards. Or rather, inside-out!

Yes! I would build it from the inside out, ensuring that I first had the game running perfectly on all the hardware, and only then would I work on the very tough physical cabinet part afterwards. Once I felt confident in the guts and wires I would move on to the expensive wood and glass.

Control Panel Parts

When you are building your cabinet and the first shipment of buttons and controllers arrive, it feels amazing!


I thought the colored wires were excessive, but it helps when connecting all the buttons to have different colored wires, to help keep things visual and easier to understand!

These are 22 gauge "hook up" wire. You want it pretty thin, but definitely use insulated wire, to connect your buttons.

I've had the idea to build a cabinet for years. And years ago, a standard 4'x8' sheet of 3/4" plywood was only $40. Now it was easily $80! So I was pretty worried about getting into the cabinet part of it, and wasting a bunch of money with mistakes. I had to get it right on the insides first.

So to start with, I bought all the buttons and controllers I needed. The design for Bumpy Grumpy uses one control stick, and 2 main buttons (one for the Gas to drive, and one for the Brakes to stop). But I also wanted a 1-Player button. And because the original designer Occidental Designs was very forward thinking they offered "left-handed" buttons, which happened on some older machines. So I also needed another Gas and Brakes for the left-hand side. But still just one control stick.

I bought the buttons and control stick from Paradise Arcade shop. The prices and shipping all worked out and pretty good and I would recommend them. I like the simple HAPP buttons. They have a solid construction and feel. Lots of people like Samwa buttons. They're probably better! But these buttons I got were cheap and work great.

And I like Seimitsu controllers. Holy cow, the clicking feels so good on them (pushing up, down, back and forth on them).

Here is my purchase order to kick things off!

As you can see I bought "Female quick connectors". These make it easier to connect your wires to your buttons. You need to make sure you know how big the connectors are, and what your buttons take in the description. Normally this is pretty easy see. But just make sure you double-check all the sizes.

I made sure to buy all the micro-controllers with the buttons.

Arcade button with micro switch. One side goes to ground, one to the computer board.

That switch on the back is where you'll use those quick-connectors. It's easy. Same thing with the Control stick. It turns out the bottom of a control stick just uses 4 micro switches! Wire those up and connect them to your special computer board (more on that in a moment).

If you are really excited about seeing how to wire it, check out this video. I watched it to make sure I knew what I was doing. It is way more complicated than my simple layout for Bumpy Grumpy!


Bottom of the control stick with "micro switches" connected. Wait, what side is up??? Lol, you will mess this up a lot, but it's fun to figure out.

Control Test Layout

The two red buttons are for the Brakes. The yellow ones are for the Gas. And the red control stick in the middle is for Changing Lanes. In the upper right is the Player 1 button.

Before I cut any wood panels, I wanted a way to test my button layouts and control stick. So a very easy, flexible way was to use this foam board. That way making a new hole for a button was easy. I think the whole board from the store was a few dollars, so plenty cheap. I carefully drew lines and measured out all the positions of the buttons. This let me make sure I liked the layout before committing to a piece of plywood.

Checking to see the size of things. I ended up moving the buttons outwards some more after this first layout version.

Controls to PC Connection

Since Bumpy Grumpy uses the Unity engine to port the game to PC, I needed a ways for my arcade buttons and control stick to talk to the software. How will the Gas and Brakes button send signals to my game?

Bumpy Grumpy in action. It only needs one control stick and two buttons: Gas and Brakes.

When I play Bumpy Grumpy on PC, I can use the Z key for the Gas, and the X key for the Brakes. It turns out there are very reasonably priced pieces of hardware that can simply send keyboard commands to your computer! This special computer board is called an I-PAC and they've been around for a while. There are some pretty advanced ones, but we only need a simple one. So I grabbed the "I-PAC 2" for $40 from Paradise Arcade shop (nope, I'm not in business with them--I just like them!)

The I-PAC 2. It's very easy to use. You simply insert your wires into the sides, connecting "1 Right" to the right direction on your control stick, and so on.

Here it is, all wired up to my test layout.

As you press the Gas arcade button the signal goes to I-PAC board, which converts to Z key and then goes to Bumpy Grumpy on your PC that the Z key was pressed and suddenly you drive forward!

The I-PAC board has a USB connection to your PC, and a little setup system for what key mappings to use. I kept the mappings as the defaults for everything, and I followed the default MAME layout in the controls. So it's easy to have Bumpy Grumpy running on a MAME system.

Speaking of which, here is the main concept for the Guts of the cabinet.

CRT TV to PC Connection

Bumpy Grumpy runs on a fairly traditional MAME setup. That means, there is simply a Windows PC running the game. A lot of people use the MAME software to run multiple old arcade ROMs, but I am only showing off one old game, Bumpy Grumpy. But the concept is the same. Use a PC inside the arcade cabinet, connect the arcade controls to it, and display it on a TV.

But one difference is that I am using an old TV, not a HDTV. This requires a bit of "magic" to get the signal from the PC to the old TV. Fortunately it's very easy and cheap to buy this magic!

This "magic" hardware is named the "HDMI to AV" converter. It works great. It connects to the back of an old CRT TV like mine, and then has an HDMI input. You then plug a regular HDMI into this, and it connects to your PC.

You will only need this converter if you are using an old CRT TV.

Internal Parts Review

To review, the Main Parts are:

Display

I chose a CRT TV for the authentic look. You don't have to fake those scanlines!
The special HDMI to AV converter to go from the CRT TV to the PC.

Controls

Buttons and control stick, wires, connectors.
I-PAC controller board to connect your buttons and stick to your PC.

Keyboard and Mouse

This works along side your control stick and the I-PAC controller. Basically this is nice to have plugged into your PC so you can operate Windows and look at files and such. It is needed when you are setting everything up.

Grab an old Dell from the year 2002 or something. They're like $60.

Power strip

Plug everything into this. TV, PC, the marquee light. Then plug this into the wall for power.

That does it for the main inside parts. But I will get to some of the other fun stuff like how I did the marquee light and the coin door.

I was VERY excited to have the game running on a CRT for the first time!

Stay tuned for the next update!

Building the Arcade Cabinet, Part 1: Planning

2024-01-21T21:57:00.000-08:00

I've always loved arcade games, and I've been especially enamored with the arcade cabinets themselves. From playing Moon Patrol and Galaga as a kid in the early 80s, to playing Golden Axe and Alien Syndrome as teen, I've always thought that custom-made arcade cabinets are wonderful.


I mean, how awesome are the eyes on top of Alien Syndrome?

Thus after buying the IP rights to the arcade game developer Occidental Designs, which was a underground but influential company from the 80s and 90s, I knew I would want to remake one of their cabinets. You can read about their insane company history here if you've not heard of them.

Any gamer raised in the 80's can probably (??) recall game developers Baer Sternmidden and William S Fushnell, founders of Occidental Designs.

Surely, you a true-blue gamer, can vaguely remember one of their MOST beloved games, Bumpy Grumpy. Made in 1983, it tells the tale of Frantic Frank and how he must race to work to save his job! Sadly there were only a few cabinets made, sold only in regional test markets in the Missouri area.

Personally I can remember playing Bumpy Grumpy once on a school trip to the see the St. Louis Arch. It was a smokey pizza parlor, or was it a laundromat? In any case Bumpy Grumpy really stuck with me, and I knew that given the chance, I would want to share the brilliance of Occidental Design's game with more people! And lo and behold, I managed to buy the game rights many years later from the now-grown children of the original owners.

But while I own the rights to the game from Occidental Designs, I couldn't find the actual plans of the Bumpy Grumpy arcade cabinet. As you may remember, Occidental Designs suffered a terrible arcade fire in 1985, destroying many of their plans which were on paper back then.

The factory fire, on the corner of Rosen Ln and Kalinske St.

Because there are no actual design plans available I had to rely on the foggy memory of my childhood for what the Bumpy Grumpy cabinet design actually looked like.

But making an arcade cabinet is hard. Shoot--it's right in the name! It's an arcade "cabinet". You are making freaking furniture! And furniture is tricky stuff to make well. People are right on top of it, able to scrutinize it closely. If you make just a 1/4" mistake, the whole thing is gonna look goofy. Not to mention the serious money investment in all the panels and parts.

I was pretty worried about this, so I spent a solid year studying designs of all kinds of old cabinets, and as many blogs of "how to build an arcade cabinet" that I could find.

My of two favorite blogs on how to build a cabinet are:

1. "Building a Home Arcade Machine"

https://retromash.com/2016/06/01/building-a-home-arcade-machine-part-23-the-finished-cabinet/

The guy is insanely detailed about everything he lays down. It's an amazing resource.

His final cabinet. Credit: RetroMash

2. "The Neg Blog Arcade cabinet build"

http://negnegneg.blogspot.com/2012/09/day-1-blog-plan-so-approximately-6.html

Neg's posts have tons of useful detail, but are also full of humor and humanity. You really feel connected to the process here, and you feel all the hardships and troubles. Amazing stuff as well.

Neg's final cabinet. Credit: Neg

As you can see both builds looking amazing! I scoured these blogs many times over to understand all the possible pitfalls. And within these blogs, they share great links and resources as to what helped them along the way!

For more research and inspiration, I also joined two Facebook groups. One group is on super hardcore retro arcade refurbishments. The other group was on modern day MAME cabinet builders. I learned a lot of tiny details from these, and was able to ask questions there as well.

In March of 2022 I once again attended and thoroughly enjoyed the Louisville Arcade Expo. I live in Indiana, and the show is close by. It's a great show, full of arcade games and pinball machines. I've attended the show for many years, and can say it is three straight days of gaming bliss.

Pinball as far as the eye can see!

But for me, this year was different. Because at the end of the show, on the final day, I started my cabinet-building journey. I knew from the start that in order to do the Bumpy Grumpy cabinet right, a game originally released in 1983, I'd have to make things as authentic as possible. Many other modern builds use HD TVs, which is fine for them. But I knew I didn't want clean pixels, I wanted true pixel bleed. So I made my first purchase of the build. I bought a CRT TV from the owner of the show for $20.

It has begun!

Mommy's Best Year in Review: 2023

2024-01-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

I have two and a half BIG stories from 2023 for Mommy's Best Games.

The first is that I bought the back catalog IP from another game company!

The second is a secret, but it involves the next HUGE, original Mommy's Best Games production.

And the half story is that I built a full-sized arcade machine, from scratch!

Yes, back in June I announced that I bought all the game rights from the company Occidental Designs.

Occidental Designs office in St Louis, circa 1985

Most people haven't heard of them, but they made some truly excellent arcade and console games in the 80s and 90s. I want to right that historic wrong and get Occidental Designs the attention and respect their games deserve!

One of their best games was Bumpy Grumpy, a fast-paced racer in which you are trying to get to work through loads of traffic. It's super fun, has a familiar, yet original gameplay, and is white-knuckle excitement.We are currently putting together a port of the game and will be releasing it this year to Steam!

Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2411970/Bumpy_Grumpy/

Please wishlist the game on Steam and let me know if you would like to playtest the port before it releases! Just email me, nathan at mommysbestgames dot com.

In related Bumpy Grumpy news, I ended up actually building an arcade cabinet to showcase the game. It's based on some designs we found of the original machines, even though we couldn't actually find an in-tact cabinet from back then.

I plan to do more blog posts about the building of the machine, as it was a tough but fun project to undertake. In the meantime, here's the final result!

And finally, the reason I've not posted much on the blog this year, and for the past few years is that I've been working on a secret, new project. It is a new, proper Mommy's Best Games project that is dear to my heart. I love run n gun games with awesome monsters and insane gameplay. And in 2024, finally, I get to share with you our next project.

Time to get pumped for 2024!

I Bought a Game Company!

2023-06-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, I didn't buy the whole company exactly, but I bought all the IP for their games!

You may remember them from the early 80s. The company is Occidental Designs. They made a lot of obscure arcade games, with limited releases, and one of their best games was Bumpy Grumpy.

Wait, you don't remember Bumpy Grumpy? Personally, I vaguely remember playing it on a trip to see the St. Louis Arch back in 3rd grade on a field trip. Were ate dinner at a smoky Pizza Hut and I was drinking way too much Dr. Pepper.

The original company behind Bumpy Grumpy was Occidental Designs. Ring a bell? Did you know Occidental Designs was the only game company endorsed by both Milli Vanilli AND Orson Welles?

And I know you're old enough to remember Milli Vanilli. And how GOOD they were at singing, right? They sure were authentic. Boy, oh boy, they were true artists. When Milli Vanilli endorsed a company, you knew that company was on the up-and-up.

When you get a break later tonight, you should skim through the "history" of Occidental Designs. If you're into arcade stories, you'll get a real kick out of it.
http://mommysbestgames.com/ODgames/index.html

" You’ve lost your papers and are late to work!
Race through packed streets and zip by hordes of wacky drivers. "

We're bringing back this amazing arcade game by first releasing it on Steam.
If you could please add it to your wishlist, as it really helps us get it in front of more people.
Thanks!
And long live the arcade!

Mommy's Best Year in Review: 2022

2023-02-03T12:47:00.001-08:00

What did I do, in public game-dev view, in 2022?

We released two entire games!

I know, I know, they might not be what you were hoping for from Mommy's Best Games, but rest assured, there was plenty of behind-the-scenes work going to prepare for big games to come.

But come on, these are still pretty great games!

Spring Time

In the spring of 2022 I finished work on a contract I had with Girls Make Games. They had a very nice concept from a young team, of making an underwater exploration game. It's called What They Don't Sea, and it's about finding life in ocean, but also realizing that trash is clogging and harming all that life! I spent several months doing game and level design, and coding, and helping the team bring their game to market. It was released on Steam in November of 2022. Check it out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2152030/What_They_Dont_Sea/

I worked on "What They Don't Sea" by Girls Make Games

Summer/Fall/Winter

The rest of the year was working on secret projects. But I also worked here and there, touching up Game Type DX. As I detailed in previous posts, it took a long time to get it to release to consoles, mainly because the game started its life as a mockery and commentary. As such it has lots of details about the Xbox 360 in particular. Which means Nintendo and Sony really flipped their wigs, reviewing the game. It took forever to get the game approved, but I love how it turned out.

http://mommysbestgames.com/GameTypeDX/index.html

Our own Game Type DX, out now on all consoles!

I spent a good amount of time adding new enemies, levels, and modes to the games. If you love a quick, high-score shmup with some serious 'tude, give it a play!

And into 2023

And now in 2023, I can say I am starting to talk to publishers about our next big game! It's super scary to be reaching out to people finally, but they are liking it, so that's encouraging. With any luck we'll have something to reveal this year (I hope!)

Thanks for a great year!

And Now There's Xbox 360 in Your Playstation

2022-11-18T14:54:00.005-08:00

Game Type DX is out this week on Playstation 4 and 5!

This is my last remaster of my older XBLIG games for consoles and it does have some new nice features if you played it long ago. And it's gotten some good reviews, and is a solid "high-score" style shmup even if you've not played it! Please consider buying it as it's super fun, has 2-player mode, and is only $5.99. Thanks!

Here's what critics have said so far:

What's in the game?
Well half the draw is a complete Xbox 360 style menu system, within the game, replete with bad gaming jokes and nonsense from 2011. Yes, it's like an interactive time capsule filled with puns and satire.

The shmup part of the game now has 3 different game modes, and each one has an infinite or 3-minute option. There's lots of new enemies, and even power-ups and "power-downs"! Plus there's online leaderboards on each console, which is perfect for a high-score shooter like this.

Every so often, there's even a "power-up swarm" that flies through quickly.
Some are power-downs though!

Here's where to grab it on every console and region!

Xbox: https://tinyurl.com/gametypexb1

Switch NA: https://tinyurl.com/gametypeNA

Switch EU: https://tinyurl.com/game-type-dx-switch

PS NA: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10004621

PS EU: https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/concept/10004621

You can get the game in "Original Xbox 360"

Or "Nintendo Switch Red"

And now "Sony Blue"!

Happy shooting, and I hope to see you on the leaderboards!

Game Type DX: Advanced Abilities and Strategies

2022-08-29T09:42:00.005-07:00

Game Type DX comes out soon to the Xbox, Switch, and Playstation, therefore I am putting together some basic and more advanced strategies!

Here is the video version:

And here is the written version:

Time Pulse

A lot of shooters have a “super bomb” attack which does enemy damage and wipes bullets from the screen. Game Type DX doesn’t have a regular super bomb, because Game Type DX is pretty weird.

But … it's good weird.

The Time Pulse is great because it slows down time as you use it. But it does not do enemy damage. It does however allow you cancel bullets, but it requires the use of the Kick Beam to do that. The Kick Beam is useful for killing enemies, since it is powerful, but it is limited because you need to power up the Kick Beam with cash drops.

Use the Time Pulse. Now shoot enemy bullets with your Kick Beam.

Enemy bullets are turned into cash drops. Suck in cash and get loads of points!

What do the cash drops do? Well, they do a lot of things.

Cash drops

give you points.
increase your multiplier.
reset your multiplier timer.
increase your Kick Beam power.

How do we get cash drops?

From killing enemies, but also from destroying their shots. We can destroy enemy shots with the Kick Beam while the Time Pulse is active. You simply tap the button to use a Time Pulse, then start shooting the Kick Beam. As you shoot enemy bullets they turn to cash drops AND you can contribute to getting another Time Pulse.

Chaining Points and Powers

The is the real power cycle in the game. In the bottom middle of the HUD is an enemy bullet icon, and a number. As you destroy enemy bullets with your Kick Beam during a Time Pulse, this number drops. When it hits 0, you get a new Time Pulse. Chaining this effect is the secret to huge points. Find a spot where there’s lots of enemy bullets, then use the Time Pulse and shoot all the enemy bullets. As you shoot, you’ll possibly get another Time Pulse to keep it going! Eventually you’ll run out of enemy bullets to milk, but this is a great strategy.

Chaining Method:

Use Time Pulse
During Time Pulse, shoot Kick Beam at enemy shots.
Destroy so many shots like this, that you gain a new Time Pulse.
Allow loads of cash drops to flow toward and gain you points.
Use another Time Pulse and do it again!

Show Me the Bullets

But you need lots of enemy shots to do this! Where are they?

Well, there are three modes to the game. Two of the modes, have hand-designed, static level layouts. Each time you play the levels stay the same. You can memorize the levels in these two modes, and predict where to be each time and improve your score.

You’ll want to remember where lots of enemies (like the crabs) come out and spray the screen with bullets. And you’ll want to use the Time Pulse here, then shoot all their bullets with your Kick Beam and get tons of cash drops, and points. You can then get another Time Pulse this way, or even a Time Pulse powerup that is sometimes floating around.

The third game mode has a lot more variety of enemy setups, but is also randomized every time you play! Once you get too good at the hand-made modes, you can try out the “Surprise” mode for more variety.

No Hoarding

Make sure you use Time Pulses pretty often. You get a new one each time you beat a Loop, and you can get them as a floating powerup. Make sure to catch those powerups!

A new Time Pulse powerup is floating near the middle of the screen. Grab it!

That's the general idea for the Time Pulse and chaining points. Remember Game Type DX comes out everywhere soon. Here are the store pages: http://mommysbestgames.com/GameTypeDX/index.html

Thanks for playing and happy shooting!

Game Type DX: Basic Abilities and Strategies

2022-08-23T12:38:00.003-07:00

Ahead of Game Type DX releasing soon on consoles, here is an overview of Hoodie Girl's basic abilities. There's plenty of detail in here, even for players of the original version. Enjoy!

Here is the Video version of the article, for sitting and listening.

And here is the readable article version!

Slap Shot

As you start the game, your basic attack is called the Slap Shot. It fires forward, and up and down. You can simply hold the button for constant shooting. A lot of the enemies come from the right side of the screen, so your forward shot does the work. But many other enemies come from up/down/behind which is when your back hand is really helpful.

You start able to shoot forward, up and down.

Several enemies are really important to take out quickly. Mainly the cats. The dang cats keep shooting as long as they are on screen. Each Loop of the game, the cats can shoot more. Once you get pretty far into the game, they are a simple enemy, but really nasty. Use your side shots to take them out from all angles.

Enemies coming in from the bottom are perfect targets for your down shot.

Double Tap

Another feature is to tap the shot button quickly. The benefit is, at the start of the tap, you get double-shots stacked up, not just one bullet but two. It's physically tough to take advantage of this all the time though, since you'll have to keep tapping constantly, but occasionally the extra firepower can help.

Power Up

In the original release, there were no powerups, but now in the DX version there are several types. One of the new powerups is the Gun Up. Each time you grab them, you gain a new angle of shots. This only powers up your Slap Shot. (You cannot power up your Kick Beam.)

Here the Slap Shot is near fully powered.

You’ll max out your Slap Shot after a while, which will look like this, with 4 bullets going to the left, and 3 bullets going to right. Try your best to simultaneously line up all these bullets onto actual enemies for maximize efficiency!

Point-Blank

You don’t get extra points or power from killing things in very close proximity, but what naturally happens is all your forward shots can hit a bit enemy. (Some shmups grant your attacks more power, or you get more points if you point-blank enemies.) So in some ways “point-blanking” does work well, if you can memorize when the big enemies show up. I like to run up quickly on the green SUVs and the Orange symbols and get in some concentrated hits.

Kick Beam

The Kick Beam is your mega shot like from other games, but here it is powered by cold, hard cash. You get cash drops from killing enemies. The cash drops do a lot of things, including giving you points, but they also power up your Kick Beam.

Your Kick Beam slows your movement, but gives you a strong forward shot. Plus you get to yell “Parkour”, so that’s just plain fun!

(Bullet) Slow Down

The Kick Beam is strong, and focused, but another benefit is it slows down enemy bullets in its path. This is great for giving you some space from oncoming attacks. Watch out though because the enemy bullets speed back up after they leave the Kick Beam's area of influence!

Look closely in the middle,
the pink bullets all bunched up are a result
of the Kick Beam hitting them.

Cash Infusion

Because the Kick Beam is powered by cash drops you’ll often need to stop shooting for just a moment, then keep shooting again. When you stop, all active cash drops start homing towards you. You can chain this nicely by holding shoot, letting off for a split second, then holding shoot again, killing more enemies and powering up your beam with the cash drops that fly at you.

If you stop shooting,
all the active cash swarms toward you and gives you points.

The final, amazing use of the Kick Beam is to turn enemy bullets themselves into cash drops! But we’ll get into that strategy in another post.

Until then... PARKOUR!!!

You Got Xbox 360 in my Nintendo

2022-08-08T08:25:00.003-07:00

Newest Pre-order Spot

Great news! Before the funny story about porting the game to the Switch, I'm happy to say Game Type DX on pre-order right now for the Switch!

Here's the link to the North American store.

And the linke to the European store.

(And is also on pre-order for Xbox One.)

Making a Game For The Wrong Consoles

Game Type was inspired and heavily references the Xbox 360.
When creating the upcoming DX version for it, things got pretty difficult considering we're releasing it for the Nintendo Switch and the Playstation 4 and 5.

Now the worst possible thing to happen would have been for Nintendo and Sony to simply not allow the game in its present form, or to request a complete overhaul before we could release it. That would have stopped all work for the game. I was happy to create some new content for the DX release, and incorporate each platforms achievement and leaderboard systems. But to redo everything would have not been possible. The great news is, Nintendo and Sony are letting us release it!

However, both Nintendo and Sony sure didn't let our game in easily, or seemingly even understand what the game is about. I guess a "documentary style game about a competing game console" IS a pretty unusual concept!

RGB

Not surprisingly each platform, including the Xbox One, has rules about advertising a competitor's platforms. Plus, you have to adhere to each consoles naming conventions. Our game gets pretty "meta" though, because we have a made-up console in which you are playing the game. That console is called the "MediaBall" and its interface is a direct reference to the Xbox 360. To that end, I would have liked to have use terms such as "Dashboard", and "Game Marketplace" to complete the connection to the Xbox 360.

"Switch Red" variant dashboard color

But unfortunately for the Switch and Playstation, those terms and several things were required to be changed or removed. Even the number "360" in one of our fake ads got nixed! We also couldn't use the green color from the Xbox 360 Dashboard. In some ways we did end up with some pretty cool changes. Now each platform has it's own version! The Nintendo Switch version has "Switch Red" for the menu. And the Playstation has their blue for the menu tiles.

I guess what puzzles me is that the Xbox 360 is completely off the market and not a true direct competitor any more, so it surprised me how much they pushed back on every little thing references it. Maybe it's more a long-standing brand concept than one console. I don't know!

You're on the Naughty List

Here is an incomplete list of things we had to change when adapting to Sony and Nintendo (I can't get too specific with the details as they are very touchy about mentioning their internal rules to the public).

Can't use term "Dashboard" as this is the Xbox 360's term. I chose "Control Panel".
Can't use term "Xbox 360". So I chose "Certain Game Rival's console" and made sure to print it in green. :D
Can't use term "Game Marketplace", so we picked "Game Store".
Can't use green menu blocks. Green! Okay, they didn't say can't use green exactly, they just said the menu system looked too close to the Xbox 360. So change it some way.
That's where the red and blue colors came in.
Can't show a cartoony controller that is even vaguely like the Xbox 360. So I dropped the other stick.
Microsoft on the left, Sony on the Right
Can't say "Control Stick". Um... what? I think that was more of a "must use our term" thing but it made me laugh.
Can't say "360" or "Rumble" action. So I went with "720" on the fake ad name and "Deep Tissue action" in the text description.

When you click on the fake controller massage ad, you get these texts.

All in all, it really wasn't that bad to make the changes. I think it was just funny how it didn't seem like they noticed what the game was doing or what it was about. But I'm thankful we get to release it on all consoles!

Release in September

Game Type DX is coming out September 8th!
It's ready for pre-order on Switch and on Xbox One.
(PS4 is tough to get a pre-order for it, but that's a whole other story!)

Announcing Game Type DX

2022-04-25T12:07:00.003-07:00

Parkour!
I'm thrilled to announce the remastered and enhanced version of our face-paced, high-score shooter Game Type coming soon to PS4/Switch/Xbox One, later this year.

You may be saying "wow, Game Type is a terrible name", and I agree! We actually named the game that, because it was the same name Microsoft used to access ALL GAMES FOR SALE on the Xbox 360, way back in December 2011.

Can you imagine making a video game console, and leaving the majority of games to be stuck behind the simple name "Game Type"?
And the picture of the tile was a woman, doing a high-kick, in a green hoodie. That's super weird!

360 History

Yes, that's a real screen capture from the Xbox 360 dashboard! There were a few categories like "New Releases", but if you wanted to find XBLIG or even XBLA games, you had to click there first!

To help combat this, and get some attention to the problem, we quickly make a very fun little shooter and called it "Game Type".

And now all these years later, to complete our DX pack of Shoot 1UP DX, Explosionade DX, and Weapon of Choice DX, we've added lots of new content to create Game Type DX!

Have a look at the announcement trailer which tells the history, but also shows a bit of the new content.

Microsoft Changes

Game Type, the game, received wide gaming press coverage, bringing large amounts of media attention to the problem.

Microsoft shortly revised the menu system, removing the poorly named menu tile, making it easier to find XBLIG and XBLA games again.

From internal sources, MBG has been told that their Game Type protest game really did help push Microsoft to change their console for the betterment of Indie Games.

Deluxe Treatment

With new enemies, new game modes, leaderboards, and achievements, Game Type DX is the complete package, and a fascinating time capsule of gaming history.

Key Features for Game Type DX in 4K

Loop-tastic speed insanity! Every time you beat a level, the game speed increases!
Time Pulse gameplay -- Slow down time and turn enemy bullets into score drops!
2-Player local co-op for extra firepower, and extra Parkour!
3 Game modes: "Standard", "Parkour Remix", and "Surprise!"
Surprise Game mode features new level layouts every time you play.
Online Leaderboard! Show up often. Show Off your play skills!
The new DX version of the game has lots of powerups and even POWER DOWNS!
DX version also features loads of corny video game jokes to discover in the fake dashboard section.
PARKOUR!!!

Alright friends, we'll be announcing a release date soon, and a pre-order option. Stay tuned!

3, 2, 1, Contract!

2022-01-14T11:35:00.004-08:00

Yes, I meant to write "contract", instead of "contact" :D

The past few months have had me spending time on two new secret projects! They are quality, original, action Mommy's Best Games productions and I'm super excited to share them! Sadly, I've decided to not share them prematurely. They must remain in secret for the time being. Which means, for November, December, as I worked on them, I couldn't find a way to do a blog post, without sharing information about those games.

But in the meantime, I've taken on another contract game design job. I've worked with Girls Make Games for several years now. They are a good company which helps get teenage girls into game development. The girl teams create an idea, and as a bonus, GMG contracts out the final development to finish their concept and release it! It's a pretty neat thing to be a part of.

Previously I've finished several games with Girls Make Games. Most recently we released "Find Me" onto Steam and consoles. It was great to see that project come to life on my own PS4! And it's gotten some great reviews as well.

Here is the PS4 store link.

Steam Link : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1263060/Find_Me/

I ended up doing a lot of the programming, gameplay design, and level design for the game.

I'm happy to say Indie Gamer Chick reviewed it and loved it!

https://indiegamerchick.com/2022/01/02/find-me-ps4-pc-review/

Find Me has remarkably tight and responsive controls and some of the most intuitive jumping physics I’ve seen. That double jump? Perfect. One of the best I’ve ever seen, indie or otherwise. I’ve played games by seasoned pros who couldn’t get the movement, speed, and precision as fine-tuned as Find Me has. Sublime effort, everyone. The best thing I can say about Find Me is the controller will vanish in your hands. It’s a total non-issue, as it should be.

I'm pretty thrilled with that review of the gameplay controls! I feel proud about that.

My current contract project is for "What They Don't Sea". It's a new Girls Make Games fully funded project. I'm heading up programming and design again for that. I can't reveal the new look of the game, but it's shaping up great. The game is about a young girl that is exploring the ocean and looking for renewable resources.

But rest assured I am also still working on completely insane Mommy's Best Games original games! I plan to reveal some news bits of them in the next few months.

Weapon of Choice DX Out Now!

2021-10-04T11:47:00.005-07:00

I'm proud to say that the remastered "Weapon of Choice DX" is out now on all consoles!

Here are all the store links:

Xbox One and Series X (Worldwide)
Nintendo Switch (North America)
Nintendo Switch (Europe)
Playstation 4 and 5 (North America)
Playstation 4 and 5 (Europe)

Way back in 2008, I released Weapon of Choice, my first indie games as "Mommy's Best Games". That was after working in AAA games for 10 years!

A lot has changed, and Weapon of Choice is so old (how old is it??) it was first released in 4:3 aspect ratio, with many gamers playing it on a CRT TV!

The new DX remaster has lots of improvements over the original, and surprising one to need was "16:9 widescreens support"! I didn't just slap some bars on it though, the actual level design and layout was changed to properly support a widescreen play area. In addition the game now blasts along at 60 fps!

There's lots of new changes from the old Xbox 360 release as well, including hidden MBG pies to discover, 7 total difficulty settings, and of course Trophies/Achievements to unlock!

So grab it this weekend on your favorite console for only $5.99, and let's blast some hideous aliens!

Thanks for all the years of support and happy shooting!

Weapon of Choice DX Is Gunning Soon to Consoles!

2021-07-08T14:24:00.001-07:00

Way back in 2008, we released our very first indie game Weapon of Choice on Xbox 360 to great acclaim. And I'm excited to announce it's now being remastered as "Weapon of Choice DX"!

The game will release on September 2nd on Nintendo Switch, both PS4 and PS5, and both on the Xbox One and the Xbox One Series X. I've been working on this one for the past few months with my game dev friends at Super Soul, to port it to all the consoles.

If you've missed my other DX releases, check out my blog posts on the development of Shoot 1UP DX and Explosionade DX.

Innovations of Choice

As a reminder of what makes the game so special, Weapon of Choice DX is a riff on the "run and gun" sub-genre similar to games like Contra and Mega Man. There are many innovations in the design including "death-brushing" which causes all time to slow down if you are about to be killed, thus giving you a chance to escape your brush with death.

Another big change is the ability to find new players. You start with 3 "lives" like a traditional shooting game, but here all 3 lives are unique characters. And if you die, you can actually rescue the downed person, and get them out of the level (thus getting your "life" back). Each of these characters has their own special "weapon of choice" for players the learn how to use. Players can also find entirely new characters that have fallen in battle. If you rescue this new character, they permanently stay in your group, ready to fight and add to your total life count.

The level design is also unique. While the game is short to beat, there are many branching paths and 4 possible endings. This encourages replaying the game multiple times, and with different characters.

Deluxe Treatment

Remastering Weapon of Choice DX focused on several technical issues. The game has high-res textures, and large expansive levels. It was difficult and took substantial optimizations from the Super Soul team, to get the game running at 60 frames a second on all consoles. The hand-held mode for the Nintendo Switch is sadly slower and less powerful than most of the other consoles and layouts, so it took extra work to get the game up to par there.

The hand-drawn was also all up-rezzed to 4K and looks extra nice on a big TV. Full button remapping was added, per console layout, as well.

For gameplay content, the game does remain similar to the Steam release back in 2015. There are "Mommy's Best Games pies" hidden throughout the game. Progress is tracked and recorded and encourages the player to find all the pies for an unlockable Achievement/Trophy! The original Xbox 360 release had 3 difficulty settings, but there are now 7 difficulty settings adding plenty of challenge.

I also took time to tweak the 'death-brushing' effect. Now the game darkens the background entirely to make it easier to see you and the dangerous threat, which is better than the earlier versions of the game.

Deluxe Challenge

The DX version has also been made a bit tougher than any other version! With the game now running well at 60 fps, some bosses were going down too easily. I personally worked on rebalancing the game (testing on console hardware), and I tweaked all boss health, and some smaller enemy fights to keep things challenging and satisfying. The player speed and movement has been increased making the feel of the game much snappier than the original release.

Pre-Order Power

Weapon of Choice DX is currently available to pre-order on Xbox One here.

The Nintendo Switch pre-order starts on July 21st.

We tried to get as long a pre-order as possible as that seems to help sales. I think this is because the pre-order sits in a special section of the digital stores, basically sectioned off from the giant warehouse of "released games".

We'll also the have the pre-order in both the Europe and North America Nintendo Switch store pretty early, which we've struggled to get approved as quickly before. This is our 3rd DX game, so at this point, we're finally getting pretty good at the store approval process. It is a lot of work, but clearly important.

In the meantime, grab the pre-order please, tell your friends, and stay tuned for release on September 2nd!

Explosionade DX, Out Now, Which Explosions I Remastered and Why

2021-03-19T08:51:00.003-07:00

Explosionade DX is out now on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Playstation!

As with Shoot 1UP DX from a few months ago, this is a remaster of one of my older shooting games. Though we added 2 new levels to Shoot 1UP, I feel like we did even more to improve Explosionade for the 'deluxe edition'.

Discovering the Horronyms surprisingly organized culture is a subtle part of the fun.

Explosionade DX is a run 'n' gun mech game, in which you gleefully blast walls, and squish poor, little critters to gooey bits. I've always enjoyed the game, but one thing felt lacking--the difficulty was always a bit low. The final levels never really challenged you until the literal last areas.

To address that, I managed to get the original level design program working again! I couldn't believe it, but the program Richard Rosenthal made for me, over 10 years ago, still worked, with a bit of help. The original version of the game had 40 levels. We basically scrapped about 35 of those levels, and created 55 new ones!


All levels are hand-balanced for Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty.

The most exciting part, is I got to work with my kids on it. Specifically my 10 year old son really took to making new levels. It was a great division of work. He loved making extremely hard levels. I strove to make varied levels. Often I would make new enemies and write new code, to create some original situations, such as the two "all dark" levels, or the new "barf bag" enemies.

On the right side, is the result of the concrete-like sludge that comes from the "barf bags".

Not surprisingly my son's level designs did need some polish, but it was fun to have him block in the level, with ridiculous challenges. Then I would work with him and show him how to smooth it out just a bit, to make it more enjoyable over all, but still preserve the great challenge.

In the "all dark" levels you'll have to "feel your way" through by destroying walls.

The end result now has at least 5 very tough levels (probably more depending on how you grade them) but these levels are spaced out later in the 60 total levels. I like these difficulty spikes, as you can enjoyably blast your way through several short levels in a row, but then hit a "wall" where you'll have to step back and actually think about how to proceed. These levels aren't that tough, but they offer a good bump in the challenge here and there.

Cris-crossed by the laser-shooting Bruiser Horrornyms can make for some tricky fights.

In addition to level design, we've added many new enemies, uprezzed the graphics to 4K, locked the framerate to 60fps, added Trophies/Achievements, and online leaderboards!

It's only $5.99 on all systems, so if you enjoy shooting up some baddies, give it a go this weekend!

And do yourself a favor, if you've ever played through a Contra game, go ahead and pick the "Serious" difficulty for Explosionade DX. You'll have more fun.

Shredded Secrets

2020-12-22T10:08:00.002-08:00

With the end of the year approaching I wanted to share two of the contract games I helped ship this year. They are not the normal "Mommy's Best" insane action games, but still very cool on their own.

Both games were made for Girls Make Games, an organization that works with young girls to encourage them to get into game development. These two games were made based on very popular Kickstarter campaigns to fund their development. (No I didn't get paid all that money, lol.) I charged a fairly low, Midwestern rate for the very nice GMG team! Today I'll talk about the first game we finished.

Shredded Secrets is a story-based platformer with 4 interconnected stories about 3 students and a teacher living their lives and struggling in school. Each character has their own troubles, and some of the stories even intertwine. The original girl team came up with the concept and the characters and Girls Make Games people produced the game. I helped form the gameplay for each characters. I'm proud that we created some new gameplay--new action moves for a platformer!

The first character Isabella is being bullied by the other kids in school. This is shown by visible insults flying through the air at her. The art was created by Katie Longua and it is adorable.

Isabella can "block insults" by holding the action button. And she can even "reflect insults" back at the bullies if you tap the button just before being hit. I came up with that one. Isabella can jump and explore through each school level, and it plays like a platformer, but feels a little different, as you interact with the school kids some. You also find lost items that relate to your character. As you find new items, and visit checkpoints more of the story is revealed, and most of it is fully voice-acted!

The sounds, music, and voice acting is by Team Audio and is well done and helps elevate the game.

There are 4 levels for each of the 4 characters.

The next character is Oakley the bully who is meanest to Isabella! You get to discover his secret, and some of the reasons he feels compelled to be so mean. His action is to shoot insults at other kids! I helped push that idea. It's fun, in a cruel way, because you can make regular non-bullies cry. But you can also attack bullies with insults.

The big twist with Oakley is you can eventually evolve into getting to pick between insults or compliments! Eventually you learn you can tame your demons by actually helping, not hurting.

Next up is Taylor, a smart kid tortured by less than perfect grades. He's obsessed with grades and tests, and eventually his mind distorts his perception of the school, so he sees evil grades attacking him! His ability is to throw a school book like a boomerang. I borrowed this gameplay from Ninja Gaiden, the yellow boomerang powerup. It's very fun. You can even jump over the book and keep it swinging around you, attacking the evil grades.

The final and fourth character is a teacher, named London. She is feeling overwhelmed at work, and has some troubles at home. Her interesting ability is to offer praise and help on people in the form of flying, arcing happy projectiles. But if you overdo it, and give too much of yourself, she gets tired and you have to calm down for a bit.

I did the level design and most of the code for the game. The level layouts is basic platforming stuff, pretty fun, and has some nice secrets. There are even some bosses in the game, and the team managed to sneak a shoot-em up level in there! (Taylor, level 3).

It was a short project, but it is pretty good as a story-platformer, as you keep wanting to read more and find out how all the characters turn out. And if you play to the end, I finished with a final level that references the "Zombies Ate My Neighbors" credits level (if you remember that one!)

Check it out on Steam. I don't make any more money from it (I was paid to work on it at the time, no royalties). But it good to see an example of story used in a platformer, giving some fun retro gameplay, not too hard, but challenging enough, that is connected by interested characters.

Shoot 1UP DX on Xbox One/Switch/PS4

2020-12-02T08:12:00.005-08:00

UPDATE: I've successfully gotten my website back from the hackers. Yay!

If you need the Shoot 1UP DX presskit, you can look below, or now here on my website:

http://mommysbestgames.com/Presskit/sheet.php?p=shoot_1UP

ORIGINAL:

I am running the presskit for Shoot 1UP DX temporarily through this blog post. Why? My main website was hacked by some Russians! (It takes you to "webhost1.ru") Yuck!

So while we wait for me to fix that up, here is all the info you need for Shoot 1UP DX coming to modern consoles!

Developer: Mommy's Best Games

Console port by: Super Soul

Game Stores Pages

Price: $5.99.

Nintendo Switch: eShop link

Xbox One: store link

PS4: (not released yet)

Summary

Why play shoot 'em ups one ship at a time?
Launch them all at once!
Unleash an entire armada of ships in Shoot 1UP DX!

Instead of stowing each 1UP you collect, each new ship becomes playable immediately, resulting in an ever-growing armada of destruction!
With your home world ruined, lead your detached battalion's charge by destroying the mechanical-tentacle hybrid attack forces responsible for your pain.

Remastered DX Version

Shoot 1UP DX has enhanced graphics, new enemies, levels, and bosses! Carefully remastered for 4K, with modern Achievements and Trophies and online, worldwide leaderboards!

Each DX version is carefully ported to Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One. Even if you're familiar with the original, the new deluxe version has plenty more to offer shoot-em up fans.

All DX versions of Mommy's Best classic action titles are being released to modern consoles!

Features

1UPs INSTANTLY ENTER THE ACTION!
Command up to 30 ships at the same time!
2 player local cooperative play for 60 simultaneous player ship insanity!
Contract your phalanx to dodge enemy fire, expand your ships to fire the plasma auger!
Weapons upgrade as you collect more ships (And they downgrade when you lose them so stay sharp!)
Sacrifice ships for a bullet-vaporizing bomb which increases in power the more ships you've collected!
Hardcore? Crank up the difficulty and gameplay speed for thumb-twisting maneuvers!
Classic shmup design - 8 levels of alien-fighting action, ready for you to get your revenge!
New Deluxe Edition includes new enemies, new levels, and more!

Trailer

Screenshots

Hey, am I famous now? We've never been hacked before.

It feels kinda cool? But also really bad since I feel like I locked myself out of my own house. Anyway, here's to a great game launch and to getting my website back!

-Nathan