- Happy Birthday Bundle of Joy! - 19 March 2026
Bundle of Joy turns 1 on March 25th, 2026!It's been an incredible year for BoJ, with showcases across the US, international press recognition, and very thoughtful user reviews. To help celebrate the year, I'm releasing a v1.2 update, which includes some updates to the narrative formatting, grammatical updates that reflect your partner's gender, and some additional minor updates based on a couple of bug reports I got in the past 2-3 months. I haven't been actively maintaining the game since the end of last year, but I thought it was high time I pushed some of these updates!Above is the admitted sloppy code I appended to the ink story module using the inkgd plugin, but I think this hacky way of addressing the M's gender in the dialog is perfectly fine. In an upcoming project, I'll standardize this type of variable handling a bit better, but I thought it was a funny image to include in thi…
- Bundle of Joy 35% off! - 30 September 2025
It's been a relaxing summer, but Essay Games is back to school and prepping for our next game.We're also working on bringing Bundle of Joy to new audiences on mobile console platforms by doing viability tests and porting demos. We're hoping to partner with someone to bring the game to larger non-PC gamer audiences, but we first want to get more folks on Steam Deck to check out the game, since it was originally developed and designed with handheld devices in mind.As part of this effort, we're launching our biggest discount as part of the Steam Autumn Sale, and we'd be delighted if you wanted to grab a copy and try it out on a Steam Deck!As always, make sure to leave reviews and feedback in the community forum, and hope everyone is having a great start to Fall!
- Bundle of Joy v1.1 & Other News - 30 May 2025
Heya Dads! It's been a minute since I last updated folks directly on Steam about BoJ news, but since I just uploaded a minor patch as part of the Games in New York Steam Event, I thought it might be a good time to check in. First, I wanted to share that the game received a lil' bit of love and is now officially in version 1.1! There won't be huge changes, but the biggest bug had to do with how the Godot SteamAPI was being implemented. Even though folks were getting achievements, when the game quit, it would either erase those achievements or reset them. This should now be patched, but please let me know if you're still experiencing issues, and I'll revisit this! Another small patch involved UI improvements for mouse/keyboard users in the pause menu, as well as a minor UI update to one of the minigames. In addition, one helpful user pointed out an error in the narrative parser that misge…
- Your Bundle of Joy Has Arrived! - 25 March 2025
It’s finally here. Bundle of Joy is OUT NOW, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you. Today marks the end of a near three-year journey. Bundle of Joy began as something deeply personal—an attempt to capture the unvarnished, beautiful, and chaotic nature of early parenthood through the lens of the pandemic. Now, **Bundle of Joy** is birthed into the world, and I can’t wait to properly see how it resonates with you. At its heart, Bundle of Joy is a game about balance—between joy and exhaustion, between chaos and calm. It’s a mini-game romp wrapped in the reality of new parenthood, where (what you would imagine to be) simple tasks turn into unpredictable challenges. Each of these moments - captured in mini-games you’ll play many times over the course of the game - reflects the push and pull of daily life as a parent. For me, one of the most exciting things about launching Bundl…
- Footnotes #4 | Moments from MAGFest - 4 February 2025
We’re another month closer to Bundle of Joy’s March 25 release date, and in today’s Footnotes, I wanted to share some reactions from Super MAGFest - an event we attended at the back end of last month. Seeing players interact with your game in the wild - often with no priming or existing knowledge - is perhaps one of the most valuable parts of the whole process! Not only do you learn a ton from watching players navigate your game, you also get wonderful reminders that what you’re doing means something. In this final phase of development, the unvarnished reactions from players are the most cherished form of feedback and validation. Seeing the smiles, laughter, thoughtful reading, and somber contemplation of player reaffirmed that what I’m trying to do has a place, and thanks to everyone at MAGFest for making me feel so welcome. Moments from MIVS On Friday, a dad stopped by the booth to pl…
- Bundle of Joy Has a Due Date! - 21 January 2025
Some big news coming out of Super MAGFest - where I’m exhibiting this week. Our Parent-Simulator Bundle of Joy will be arriving on Steam and Itch.io on March 25th! Check out the new Release Date Reveal trailer below: The release date marks the end of two years of development, and the birth of a project I’m hugely proud of. Bundle of Joy is a game about connection, and I hope it becomes a vehicle for discussion. The Big Bundle of Joy Diaper Drive! As part of MAGFest, we’ve partnered with the Greater DC Diaper Bank to raise awareness about the difficulties facing new parents. For every diaper that’s changed in-game at our booth, Essay Games will donate the cost of one diaper to the Greater DC Diaper Bank. 1 in 2 families struggle to afford diapers in America, and GDCDB is an incredible resource serving the National Harbor and DMV community (where MAGFest is held). Our mission is to make t…
- Footnotes #3 | Comfy? It's storytime. - 7 January 2025
Happy New Year! 2025! A big year for Essay Games! We hurtling closer to releasing our parent-simulator minigame romp Bundle of Joy on… well let’s not get hasty! (but more on that soon!) As a parent, the Holiday season is far from a restful reset, but it has injected some new vigor into these final months of development. I got a chance to show the game to my partner’s family, and their laughter, excitement, and mild panic trying to get through the game was exactly the emotional cocktail I’ve been mixing up. But it was a long break; almost 14 days home with the kiddos. And I was reminded when both of them caught a stomach virus on day 12 that looking after kids is HARD. This notion of how hard and all-encompassing raising kids is was explored from a difficulty perspective in last month’s Footnotes, but for January we wanted to look at it through a narrative lens. Comfy? Because it’s story…
- New Demo Now Available! - 9 December 2024
It’s arrived! The new BoJ demo (v0.5.2) is now ready for your attention, care, and unconditional love.
- Footnotes #2 | Difficulty and the New Demo - 3 December 2024
Hiya folks, Welcome to the second issue of Footnotes. As we inch ever closer to Bundle of Joy’s release next year, we’d love your help bringing our to the masses. Please share this post and with a friend, colleague, or anybody who’d like a peek behind the curtain of indie game development. Ok, December. Here we go… New Bundle of Joy Demo Dropping December 9th Mark your calendars: the new BoJ demo goes live on Steam next Monday, December 9th! We’ve packed in some exciting new features for this update: Controller support Steam Deck compatibility New 'Tidy Up Toys' mini-game New ‘Burp the Baby’ mini-game And plenty of since the last demo. If you play the demo, don’t forget to take a moment to share your feedback with us — it’s invaluable as we make the final push toward release. You can do that on the Steam Community Hub for the game, get in touch via Discord, or send us an email. Your Par…
- Footnotes #1 | The Conception Story - 4 November 2024
Hiya folks, This is it. The start of regular behind the scenes updates from Essay Games as we ramp towards the release of Bundle of Joy. These monthly “footnotes” will offer some transparency into the development process as we bring the game to full term, highlight notable studio updates along the way, and share a lil’ round-up of links that caught our eyeballs. Here’s something nifty to kick things off: Want to join an exclusive Bundle of Joy Playtest? On Thursday 14th November, we’ll be opening the doors to an exclusive and limited Bundle of Joy playtest, as we build towards a brand new demo - complete with a slew of new features - at the start of December. If you’d like to join the playtest and offer up your reactions, thoughts and feelings, please join the Essay Games Newsletter, where we'll be sending out invites on a first-come-first-serve basis. -- But let's back up a minute. I w…
