Day 1 - Workshops & Setup

This first day (Monday) was set aside for workshops - essentially, follow-along sessions where Godot Engine enthusiasts would sit down and create Godot projects following a presenter’s guidance. We arrived at the venue early this day to setup our booth in anticipation for the days ahead. This room was known as ‘The Garage’, and despite its deceptively small footprint, we soon found that it could host a substantial crowd of onlookers.

As Cole & I prepared our showcase (and our laptops for the upcoming workshops), Jack set out to pick up some invaluable prints for the booth; a wide banner with the game’s name TurnTide Tales proudly depicted in front of our artist’s recent sailing art piece, a poster of the main protagonist trio posing in front of the game’s villain, a box of business cards with info about us, and some additional concept art for us to put on display. He would also pick up some posterboard and an easel to help prop up the prints, with the plan of meeting up with us later to drop off the goods so we could finish assembling our table.

Meanwhile, we met with a few other early visitors to the convention; special shoutouts to Alejandro and Ava! These devs seriously impressed us with their amazing projects:

• Alejandro showed us a work-in-progress version of their game RealmWays, an interdimensional train game with exciting side-scrolling 2D physics action!

• Ava, a.k.a exodrifter online, told us about their isolating space escape room game No Signal (soon to come to Steam), which we later got to play as a part of the showcase!

I was glad to find that not only had we quickly made new friends here, but that we would find ourselves sticking together and sharing some special moments over the next few days too. There’s something to be said about the kind, intelligent, and motivated people you will find in a community like this if you’re willing to open up a bit :) .

The day progressed quickly; we attended a workshop where we learned the basics of developing a GDExtension with C++, and another workshop where we learned how to integrate several narrative design techniques into a Godot game. Despite a few hiccups in the presentations (e.g. some crashing programs), it’s safe to say that we learned a fair bit, and will put what we’ve learned to use in TurnTide Tales as a part of our future updates.

By the end of the day, and with the workshops behind us, we had fully prepared our showcase area, putting the game’s art front-and-center for visitors to see. We headed out to a local bar Flat Top Johnny’s to meet up with our friends and discuss game development (of course), and play a few exciting rounds of pool to relax. The night ended on a high note, though I did find myself staying up extra late to push out some last-minute game patches to make the next day’s showcase experience as nice as possible!

Day 2 - Showcase Part 1

On Tuesday, we finally got to show the game to so many visitors, it was truly an amazing time! I’m not usually one for extended conversation, but I found myself talking almost nonstop the entire day. Before I even knew it, lunch had arrived, and then it was time to pack up and leave - how did this happen so fast?

I got into a rhythm of breaking down the main aspects of our game, and the features that players would experience both in their short time playtesting and in the future as the game develops:

• It’s a hybrid open world/tactics rpg with a pirate theme and a cool art style.

• You get to travel around with your pirate crew on land and by sea, picking up quests and helping out the creatures of this world.

• You can engage in turn-based combat with your units, and interact with real-time mechanics to determine the outcome of your attacks.

• and so on…

During all this, I pointed to our new concept art to illustrate these features and discuss the future direction that our game will move in (more on that later!). Partway through the day, I got to give a short interview with the Godot YouTuber StayAtHomeDev, and though I may not have hit all the points I intended to (due to my sleep-deprived state), I’m still quite thankful for the opportunity! I also managed to sneak away from the table for a few brief moments to check out some of the other cool showcases, and vowed that I would see every single one in depth before the convention would wrap up. We left the convention that day with a renewed confidence driven by the overwhelmingly positive reception that our visitors bestowed on us, and an organized list of feedback to act upon through future game patches and additions.

That night, Cole headed out to visit a friend, and Jack & I met up with our now great friend Alejandro for an evening of round-robin ping pong!

Day 3 - Showcase Part 2

Wednesday was, thankfully, somewhat slower-paced than the day prior. We were still very busy attending to our table, but we were able to take our time walking players through the game, and got to show & talk about more of the obscure details like the environmental elements (buildings, foliage, water features) of the large island we’ve been constructing for our demo.

As the crowds thinned out a bit, I was able to go around to all of the remaining showcase devs and play their games for myself! I really took my time to discuss each game in-depth with at least one developer from each table, immersing myself in their crafted environments, and experiencing the shared dreams that led each of them to this point. It’s a humbling experience to handle multiple decades worth of hard work condensed in the form of a dozen independently made games - at least, it certainly was for me! I’ve already extended my wishlist quite a bit, and I’m looking forward to a bunch of new game releases on the horizon.

While I won’t go any further into the specifics of these games here, I am happy to share this video that my brother put together where he interviews every showcase, so you can get the gist of each one!

By the end of the day, we were starting to feel the exhaustion creep in, but there was an undeniable invigorating energy keeping us motivated to continue on. We eventually wrapped up on a very high note, and starting preparing for the long journey back home. That night, Cole and I decided to head out and visit the local Boston Indies Demo Night event where we got to try out another handful of exciting indie games, this time outside of the Godot sphere of influence, but still great just the same! We wish we could have attended even more of the great events going on that week (especially PAX East!) but our busy schedules sadly got in the way. Maybe next year!

Back Home Again

We left GodotCon with a nice stack of cards, pamphlets, and goodies to remember it by. Additionally, each attendant received a copy of the GodotCon Anthology, a collection of small game projects submitted by the convention goers for all to play. We submitted our game jam game Going for Goldie to be a part of this collection, and I’m glad to say it was accepted! I’m excited for everyone to give it a go, and for myself to try out the other projects in this anthology, too.

While we didn’t keep track of the exact number of visitors to our table, we do know we ended up handing out roughly 120 of our cards! From that and other factors I think it’s fair to estimate we had at least 70 people get hands on with the game, maybe quite a bit more. There was a near constant stream of people popping in to give the game a try or to watch another player go through the demo, sometimes we had two or even all three of us discussing the game simultaneously. If we were to do this again, I think we’d bring a second monitor!

What’s Next for TurnTide Tales

Now let’s talk about some of the updates to TurnTide Tales that you can expect to see from us over the next while. These topics are illustrated (literally) by a series of amazing concept artwork pieces by our artist, and they work together to form a rough roadmap of sorts, though the exact order and nuances are not solidified yet. We will only cover these topics at a surface level to start with, as future devlogs will dive into all the details!

The Story

Ever since conceptualizing this game years ago, we knew that there was an exciting, deep story for us to tell, and a colorful cast of characters for us to depict it with. Here we’ve clearly posed the main heroes of the game that you will come to know and love:

• Moss - A skilled swordfighting mouse who becomes the captain of a small but loyal crew, who uses his wits and courage to outdo his foes.

• Beaux - A red squirrel mechanic and ranged specialist who provides invaluable scouting and repair services to her team.

• Budger - An amnesiac badger with a heart of gold, a heavy specialist who can wield a cannon with his brute muscle alone.

Behind the heroes lurks the main villain of the game, Captain Pine.

• Captain Pine - An Owl lord who rules with an iron fist, enslaving the good creatures of the seas. Nothing short of an impressive display of force can sway him…

Future developments will all be made with our story in mind, with features that support the story beats and themes we want to portray. Over time we will add in character models for these four specific characters along with other named characters we haven’t revealed yet!

NPCs and Quests

As we work on the open-world aspects of our game, we will start to flesh out the world through NPCs that will offer up quests for the player to engage with.

Quests will be a critical part of the main story, but we will also have side quests which will lead the player through a number of fun, wacky adventures fitting of a ragtag pirate crew. Solve environmental puzzles, dig up buried treasure, and uncover the secrets of each island and the sea itself through these escapades!

Player and Unit Inventories

Our game has had the concept of unit inventories for a while already; every unit has their own inventory at the start of battle, with access to some number of weapons and items. But we’re going to be expanding the whole inventory system, turning it into a global player inventory that you’ll be able to manage outside of battle too! The goal is to make a system that rewards the player for interacting with and exploring the world, yet doesn’t force them to approach the game in any one specific way.

As you run around the isles, you’ll find yourself discovering new items in the world and picking them up. Some of these will be healing items or other consumables, or will be tradable, cookable, or craftable into usable items, or will be new weapons to assign to your units, and so on! We will also be introducing the concept of weapon ammunition, with different tiers of ammo that can provide a range of damage & effect outcomes in battle. Units will have different weapon proficiencies and differing numbers of inventory slots, so your strategies will largely revolve around team composition using the items available to you.

Skill Trees

The units on your team will each have their own skill trees, so you’ll be able to evolve each of your crew members’ abilities throughout the game. This system will play hand-in-hand with the unit inventory system, so as the player you’ll have more choices to make about team composition. You may find that each battle calls for a different set of units, if you wish to make the most of their synergies!

To actually unlock skills in the skill trees, we’re envisioning a skill point mechanic, where skill points are first unlocked for your player and can then be separately assigned to each individual units’ skill trees in turn. So if you gain 10 skill points, now every unit in your crew gets 10 skill points to assign in their own skill trees. You’ll be able to respec these points easily too. This approach is intended to encourage experimenting with new unit abilities and configurations rather than locking the player into using the same few skills throughout the whole game! These points will be earned as single-time unlocks mainly from the completion of battles, but also from side quests and other activities.

Ship Exploration

So far we’ve been building out one large map scene that we’ve been referring to as the “demo island”, a.k.a. The Breezy Isles, which is intended to show off most of the vertical slice of our game as far as land-based activities go. However, there’s one major part of the game that we haven’t even introduced yet, and that is ship exploration!

You see, the game doesn’t all take place on just one big island. As Moss & crew, you’ll pilot your boat The TurnTide from island-to-island in search of treasure and loot, completing quests along the way. You’ll follow a world map to lead you to these new destinations in the world space, and you’ll no doubt find some interesting isles and hidden coves as you go.

As you approach an island in the world space, its terrain will be dynamically loaded up and then become visible in the distance. At most islands you will need to find a valid dock to depart at, but some islands will be blocked off until you complete a prerequisite task, including navigating through dire channels or fighting off a threatening enemy pirate armada.

Ship-to-Ship Combat

What kind of pirate game would this be if there wasn’t some form of naval combat?

The seas are filled with Captain Pine’s vile underling crews, and evil forces unknown. While traveling the seas, you’ll come across these foes and engage in ship-to-ship combat, where you’ll assign units to various posts on your ship to carry out their duties and achieve victory. As the crew leader, Moss will find his place at the helm of the ship and take control to steer the vessel out of harm’s way and into strategic positions to fire from, Beaux will use her mechanic skills to repair the ship and keep it afloat, and Budger will use his heavy skills & muscle to man the cannons and fire volleys at approaching adversaries. As you unlock new units, you’ll be able to assign them to the ship to increase your firepower or even unlock new ship-specific combat abilities.

World Minigames

In my opinion, no open-world game feels complete without some minigames to pass the time with! And we at ComfyMitten are especially fond of fishing minigames; we’ve played all sorts of them, from the simplest QTE games to frantic bobber-balancing nightmares, and everything in-between. We’re looking forward to putting our own spin on the genre, and to introduce a new, fulfilling fishing minigame that will be worth your time. Not only do we believe that fishing will be fun on its own merits, it will also reward you with new items and treasure to deck out your crew with!

Fishing isn’t the only minigame we’re planning, but it is the one we’ve given the most thought to so far. We’re also considering minigames for card/dice games, sea shanty singing/karaoke, foot & boat races, and more!

Wrapping Up

We hope you’re as excited for the future of TurnTide Tales as we are! We’ve known for a while that our game’s scope is quite ambitious, which is part of why we’ve avoided talking about all these new features until now for fear of setting lofty and unachievable expectations. But with all the wonderful feedback we received at GodotCon about our game even in its current, limited state, I’m confident that we’ve made the right choice here.

Stay tuned for more updates in the near future!

Hello everyone!

We at ComfyMitten are very excited to announce our latest project, TurnTide Tales! Embark on an epic swashbuckling adventure across the high seas with our daring crew; The Captain Moss the mouse, Beaux the Red Squirrel, and Budger the badger. After the wicked Captain Pine sweeps his wings of destruction across his home island, Moss is carried out with the tide and onto an epic journey - from ship battles on the high seas to port towns surrounded by island jungles - to become a great leader, to overcome his fears, and to stop Captain Pine no matter the cost.

Explore a hand crafted open world of diverse islands, all filled with quirky characters living out their lives while evading the dastardly Captain Pine!

Fight in fierce turn-based tactics style battles to free the land and sea from those who want to exploit it. 

Search for lost or hidden treasures from pirates' past while helping your crew overcome their fears and save innocent lives everywhere.

TurnTide Tales has been in the works for the past 4 years amongst our small but growing team. As it is our first major game, we have been learning all about the game development process and have kept the project fairly under wraps to the public eye. We wanted to feel confident in our game and make sure we could deliver on our goals for the project before drawing too much attention to it. This project has been a labour of love in the total sense of the words as we have each carved out a lot of time between our day jobs and every other hectic event that happens during what we call life. We hope to bring you updates on a more regular basis as we push to complete the early demo and invite some of you to join our playtest coming up in the next few months!

Later today, we’ll be publishing an announcement video showcasing some of our game’s features! Check it out here: https://youtu.be/q4RYL2V9hBo

Let your sails be ever filled with wind,

Cole Szeszulski  

September 28, 2022

Today we launch the ComfyMitten website in preparation for future announcements and devlog posts - keep an eye out for updates!

[Edit 4/30/25 - we’ve updated the ComfyMitten logo with our newer design!]