Status Update, Showing at BIC, New Website!

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the long silence on here. I had hoped to have certain things set up before posting an update here again, but that process has taken way longer than hoped, (and is still not finished) so I decided to make a post now. I have been posting monthly development updates on my discord server though, so if you’re interested in getting more frequent updates you can join that here: https://discord.gg/7acATbT

General Status Update

First, the status of the project:

• I have 22 levels made and the art for 3 more partially finished.
• There has been a significant amount of UI updates (particularly for the beatmaker).
• I’ve been majorly reworking the sound system and how music is made for the game.  (I’m still in the process of doing that, it’s maybe ~40% done)

I’m not quite ready to upload a new demo here yet, but that will be coming at some point.

New Website, Showing at BIC Festival August 16th - 18th!

Second, two fairly big announcements:

1. I have built a new website! https://bearmask.io I’m hoping it can be a hub for all my creative work. Please have a look and let me know what you think! I was inspired by the 'handmade web' and similar ideas when making it.
2. I am showing the game at Busan Indie Connect (BIC Festival) in Busan, Korea again! (https://bicfest.org ). It’s August 16th -18th, so if you’re nearby, please come along! 

Other Related Stuff

Finally, here are some highlights of what I’ve been doing since the last time I posted.

Showing at Events

I’ve shown the game at ~4 other events since I last posted. There was the IGDG Festival Jan 2023, ‘Burning Beaver’ in Dec 2022 + 2023 and Tokyo Sandbox in Apr 2023. (I particularly enjoyed that, as it was my first time visiting Japan). Here are some photos from those:

Puzzle Game - Image Archaeology: A Pictish Stone

I made a small puzzle game for the Factory Reset Jam, you can play it here: Image Archaeology: A Pictish Stone. The basic idea is that you use the image adjustment features on your phone gallery app to find hidden images & figure out the solutions to puzzles. It was inspired by The Case of the Golden Idol, and based around Pictish Symbol Stones. Please give it a go!

Live Music Performances

I worked out a set up where I can use the game on an iPad + an SP404 sampler to do live music performances, here is a video of one of those. I’ve also done this at physical open mic nights around ~3 times now. I’m putting this on hold for now though, I mainly wanted to see what was possible. I’ll probably do more of these in the future though.

I’ve also been playing gigs and recording in the band I play drums in VARIM (바림), here’s the single we recorded and the video from the release show (I did the artwork for the cover too).

Art Exhibitions

I’ve been participating in some local art exhibitions. I found out about a couple of local groups that are open for anyone to participate, which is what made me want to try it out. I usually make hybrid physical/digital art, so it was interesting to try making something all physical. Here are some of the pictures. (I have one more black sheets of card, so there will be at least one more in this series)

Anyway, thanks so much to everyone who has played and the game and is still interested in it's development. I'm sorry everything has been taking so long, but the game will be done eventually! I'm slowly getting through it.

I'm planning on updating the demo here once I get a few more things organized and also releasing a new playtest version of the game (probably once I've got 25 levels implemented).

Thanks again!

Barend