- Bubbles the Cat 5th Anniversary - 13 March 2024
Hi everyone! Almost five years ago, I released Bubbles the Cat on Steam. I was really happy with how the game turned out and I had an enormous amount of fun developing it. I've always wanted as many people as possible to play the game. I kept the price as low as I could whilst still allowing me to make enough money to fund its development. Now that the game has made its development costs back, Bubbles the Cat will be completely free from 12th April. This isn't 'free-to-play' with any dreadful microtransactions. This is plain-old, straight-up free. I just want you folks to enjoy it! Thank you to everyone who has supported Bubbles the Cat. I hope to do this indie dev dream again one day!
- Bubbles the Cat - Anniversary Sale supporting RE-PLAY 2020 - 9 April 2020
Just under a year ago today I released my first indie game, Bubbles the Cat onto Steam. I wanted to make a fun game with great accessibility options so as many people as possible could enjoy it. I've been delighted by the feedback I've received for it. One of the massive perks of being an indie game dev is that there are no barriers to be able to use my videogame to help other people through supporting charity events; and with the world the way currently is, I definitely feel that there are others who need help far more than I do. So from the 9th-16th April, Bubbles the Cat on Steam is not only 50% off, but I will be donating ALL money made from sales of the game during this period to @WarChildUK as part of their RE-PLAY 2020 campaign. War Child is a charity that supports children in war-torn regions of the world. They protect, educate and stand up for the rights of children caught in c…
- Bubbles the Cat Version 1.0.0.16 - 18 September 2019
Update 1.0.0.16 adds controller vibration and visual accessibility features to the game, as well as fixing some minor bugs. https://i.imgur.com/GHBSo1y.gif Controller Vibration If you're playing Bubbles the Cat with a controller with vibration functionality, you should notice this is now supported for most in-game actions! Controller vibration can be turned on or off in Options -> Control Options. By default, it's enabled. Please note that this feature is only active whilst using a controller to play the game - this is to prevent you from jumping out of your seat when your controller vibrates and you're not expecting it! Visual Accessibility Options These options can be found in Options -> Display Options -> Visual Accessibility Options. These can all be changed mid gameplay without requiring you to back out to the main menu and take effect as soon as you select them. Change Laser Colou…
- The Bubbles Breakdown - 14 August 2019
Hey folks, It’s been a little over four months since Bubbles was released on Steam; it’s now out on three platforms and that’s given me enough time to assess what I think went well with the game and what didn’t. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34016936%2F350c42099cd942ae529bce3f1f60796122d84341.png With thanks to Jojoo for this art! Check out the rest of her work here! What Was Bubbles’ Goal? Before we dive into the breakdown, it’s important to understand what I was hoping to achieve by developing Bubbles. It was - first and foremost - a learning project for me. I was learning a lot about how to program a game on the job and I’d never released a game on Steam before. I was also managing outsource myself and performing daily, more menial business stuff. That said, it was important to me that I made a good game - that is to say a critically well-received g…
- Bubbles the Cat Version 1.0.0.5 - 13 May 2019
Hello everyone! Today sees the release of version 1.0.0.5 which brings cloud saves and tweaks to the game’s difficulty, including some more notorious levels. Cloud Saves The game now cloud saves. Existing saves will be converted to this new format and your progress will be shared across all your Steam-enabled computers! Please note that the game will upload and use your save data from the first computer you load the game on. If you have played the game on multiple computers, to ensure your progress is correctly synced, please load the game from the computer which has progressed the furthest! Difficulty Balancing World 2-10 par time increased from 18.5 to 19 seconds. World 3-7 par time increased from 37 to 37.5 seconds. World X-23 par time increased from 38 to 38.5 seconds. World 3-10 bonus area tweaked to be less obnoxious. World 4-5 bonus area lasers slowed down. World 4-15 middle sect…
- Post-Launch Update - 8 May 2019
Hey folks - it’s coming up to a month after Bubbles launched and I’m really happy with the response the game’s received so far! I’ve taken a break after the game’s launch to recharge and work out what my next steps are (with some work on Bubbles here and there when I get the chance). Here’s a quick update on what’s coming up next for Bubbles! Cloud Saves I was hoping to get this in for launch, but was a little worried about breaking the save game system so close to launch without being able to give this a very good test. The update containing this feature should be going live within the next week or so! You can sync your save game across multiple different machines or even get the save game back if you uninstall the game! Difficulty Balancing From seeing folks play the game and some of the feedback I’ve got, it looks like I’ve overtuned the difficulty of a few of the game’s levels - par…
- How GameMaker & Tom Francis Changed My Life and Might Change Yours Too - 17 April 2019
In early 2016, I was growing listless at my current game design job. I’d been making games in one form or another for most of my life and felt like I was drifting away from being able to get my hands dirty and craft something. Inspired by my friend Simon at Inexplicable Games who had also recently also quit his games industry job to become a full-time indie game dev, he pointed me to a video series done by Tom Francis of Gunpoint and Heat Signature fame that introduced how Game Maker works. You can check it out here. I’d sat on a Game Maker Studio license for about 2 or 3 years by this point, having purchased it from a Humble bundle and figured that well, perhaps now would be the time to do something with it and regain my love of making games. For my day job, I had mostly used Unity and with my existing programming skills being somewhere between ‘non-existent’ and ‘criminally embarrassi…
- Devlog #8 - Welcome to World X - 3 April 2019
Okay, in the last devlog I talked about Boosts and how they could help you get through the game if you were struggling. Here’s the other side of that coin on how the X Levels will absolutely break you. Unlocking World X levels are unlocked in a different way to the regular levels - you need to have a certain number of platinum stars. Platinum stars are earned by getting all three stars in a level in a single, smooth run - usually meaning you need to find secret areas and take more difficult routes. https://i.imgur.com/4vruzjs.gif World 4-9 has two little bonus cubbyholes that requires tightly timed jumps to get all the food! Fire & Flames World X uses an angry, red version of each respective world to produce a very different looking level: https://i.imgur.com/145FaUR.png World 1 and World X-1 https://i.imgur.com/xnKixth.png World 3 and World X-11 Mechanics from each ‘parent’ world are a…
- Bubbles the Cat releases April 12th! - 31 March 2019
Just a quick break from our regularly scheduled devlogs to let you know that Bubbles now has a release date. The game will launch on Steam April 12th! Bubbles looks forward to seeing you all then! https://i.imgur.com/Wv2LMFm.gif
- Devlog #7 - Boosts! - 20 March 2019
Hey folks! Today I’d like to shine light on a feature that I suspect many of you will pass over, but for some may make a huge difference to their enjoyment of the game - and that’s the Boosts feature. Difficulty & Being A Kid Back when I was growing up in the late 80s, games were punishingly hard with a requirement to beat whole games without any sort of save or continue system and with very limited checkpoints; usually meaning starting from the beginning after a game over. Thankfully, this isn’t so much of a problem for most games these days as game design has moved forward to give players more frequent checkpointing whilst still preserving individually challenging segments. However, when I was a very young kid, even this might not have helped much - I didn’t really get the concept of accurately landing jumps and couldn’t really see patterns through levels. I just liked making the on-s…
- Devlog #6 - Super Slick Platforming - 13 March 2019
Howdy y’all! This time I’m going to show you the little tweaks I made to the game’s platforming logic to make it feel ‘just right’. Pre-emptive Inputs After I decided to go with the approach of making the game a single button platformer, a lot of elements from previous prototyping seemed to fit into place. But the game was still frustrating to control in specific circumstances. As a very quick reminder, you can spawn and jump off a bubble up to six times before needing to land on a solid surface to replenish them instantly. Wall jumping doesn’t consume one of your six bubbles and thus, judicious use of wall jumps is required in later levels to help ration your extra bounces. Therefore, when something like this happened… https://i.imgur.com/oxZxZVP.gif ...or maybe you just pressed jump JUST as you were landing… https://i.imgur.com/GFprSUI.gif ...needless to say, this was massively frustr…
- Devlog #5 - Why Did You Make a One-Button Platformer? (or: SpecialEffect are the Bestest) - 27 February 2019
Hi gang! Today I’m going to talk about my motivations for making the game a one-button platformer. I’ve certainly been asked this question a few times and hopefully this devlog will give you a good insight as to why I’ve gone with this control scheme. First things first; this has been the design goal for the game from the very beginning when I was first prototyping it and isn’t something that came about by accident. Although the game changed form somewhat during that prototyping phase, having only a single button input was always a core tenet of the game’s design. Design Challenge I kind of wanted to flex my design muscles a little with this project and work out how I could make a game that still had lots of fun platforming mechanics with just a single button. As I’ve hopefully demonstrated with previous blog entries, it turns out there’s a lot of gameplay to be had with this setup! Eac…
- Devlog #4 - Content Complete! - 12 February 2019
Just a quick update this time around - but the good news is that I’ve finished work on what I anticipate will be the last level in the game. The game is now content complete; I’ve got all the stuff in there that I would consider a minimum for releasing. https://i.imgur.com/Zz2MpmM.gif I can reveal that the game now has 125 levels which - depending on how you play - will occupy you for up to 8-12 hours, subject to skill level and how much of a completionist you are... and this is before adding new game modes that I hope will mix the gameplay up; in short, there's a lot for players to do! Note that this doesn’t mean I’m done yet! There’s polishing to do, more features I’d like to add and tweaks to those levels I’d like to make before launching the game. Once I have a solid release date, I'll be sure to share it with you - following Team Cats & Bears on Twitter and wishlisting the game wil…
- Devlog #3 - More Hazards! - 19 January 2019
Hey there, friends! This devlog continues to look at the game's hazards, explaining what they do and what kind of challenges I'm hoping to set before players with them. You don't need to read the previous part to understand this, but it'll probably help - plus there's more animated GIFs to see! Spike Walls These relentlessly chase you through a level and absolutely will not stop, ever - well, at least until you beat the level. These add a time pressure to your actions, requiring much more rapid decision making. Levels featuring these are often designed to have obstacles blocking your way that will slow you down and expert/brave players can optimise their movements around these to get to bonus areas with more food! https://i.imgur.com/NHg7qhJ.gif Ghost Slimes Haunted by their limited movement, these slimes will slowly move towards the living if they draw near and then relentlessly pursue…
- Devlog #2 - Hazard Mechanics - 5 January 2019
Happy New Year all! Here’s hoping that 2019 is a great one for you. I’m very excited to be bringing you Bubbles the Cat in a few months time! Continuing a little in theme off the previous blog post, I thought I’d start taking a look at the different hazards Bubbles will encounter and what I hope they will bring to the table in terms of level design. I’m going to split this one into two parts as there's quite a lot to cover! Bubbles, Meet Hazard I try to introduce hazards in a similar way throughout the game: your first encounter will be in a relatively safe environment and in isolation of any other mechanics. You will be able to see the hazard clearly before you have to deal with it and these will be placed at the start of the level - so in the event you do fail, you've lost only a couple of seconds of progress. Future encounters will gradually layer on more difficulty or require cool a…
- Devlog #1 - Powerups and Flow (and GIFs!) - 19 December 2018
Hey folks, In the first dev log post before launch, I figured I would use this as an opportunity to share with you all the progress on the game as it stands so far as well as show off new features as and when they're added. Run, Bubbles, Run! Bubbles the Cat is a single button platformer. This means that Bubbles runs automatically to the left and right, changing directions on hitting or jumping from a wall. The single button allows you to jump, and pressing it whilst in mid-air will create a magic bubble (common noun) for Bubbles (proper noun) to bounce off. (Quick sidenote to say that the perils of naming a game's character after the primary mechanic produces some highly troublesome sentences...) https://i.imgur.com/jsboaYc.gif By default, the standard bubble allows the player to jump up to six additional times in mid-air! Touching the floor will instantly replenish the player's stock…
