Gonna Start Diddy Kong Racing On Tomorrow's Stream! We'll Have A New Emote Too... Hope You're Looking

gonna start diddy kong racing on tomorrow's stream! we'll have a new emote too... hope you're looking forward to it 💖💖💖

dev commentary time! every once in a while i am struck with a vision of a fully formed scene for a game, or a comic, or a video… and the vision feels so strong, looks so real, that i have to drop everything to bring it into reality. whether i have to learn new skills, or it pushes my abilities to their limits, it doesn't matter; the vision will not leave me until i have made it real. such is the nature of my adhd daydreaming curse.

most famously, if you've read all of the other dev commentaries so far, this is how the Red Coin Remixes were born – a vision of extra challenges for my silly little 12 level pack, turning it into 24 and then 32 levels as the vision iterated and grew. this was the central reason why Retrush took nine years to finish, and a cautionary tale on the dangers of scope creep.

so when i had another big vision, just two months before i intended to finally release Retrush… i was more than a little concerned!

the vision is almost exactly as you see it in the video: my oc Rivers congratulates the player at the end of a long journey, complimenting the player's confidence for having cleared every level, while a special song plays over a sunset beach scene matching the song's ambient waves. as it played and replayed in my head, it was so beautiful, so fitting… that i HAD to add it somehow. even though it was intimidating.

but why was it so intimidating? it was surely not the writing, as i knew exactly what i wanted to tell the player. nor was it the fear of overscoping myself, as i decided to limit myself to four extra secret coins. nor even was it the technical work of tracking and saving completion, a system that doesn't exist natively in Mari0 and had to be manually added via the game's event system…!

no, it was two very specific things that intimidated me most: the music, and the sprites of Rivers – both skills that i had tried and failed to cultivate in the past. but for each of these, i had a new blessing that i did not have before.

the song, Last Wave, plays at the end of OutRun, a Genesis-era arcade game with gorgeous FM synth music throughout. it's not an 8-bit NES song, though, and all of the other music in the level pack is in NES style. and no matter where i looked, no NES covers of it existed.

but i could hear it in my head…!

so my plan was twofold. worst case scenario, i could just drop the original song in – i doubt anyone would've cared too much about the style clash. but Plan A was to ask my musically talented partner @harmonyfriends to cover the song for me... in a style that she had never tried before.

and to both of our surprise, she pulled it off! she was able to split the original FM synth into its constituent parts, transcribe it in Famistudio, and arrange the song using the VRC6 expansion – the same expansion chip used by most of the other NES arrangements in Retrush. the results are absolutely incredible and they elevate the scene far beyond anything i could do on my own!

(i paid her for her work, of course~)

long story short, the first blessing i didn't have before… was my partner. long ago, when i wanted to add my own music to Retrush, i tried to do it all alone – and got just short of nowhere. now i'm not working alone anymore! i have help!

that brings us to my final magic trick: the sprites and animations for Rivers… which, by contrast, is art that i did all on my own.

see, the whole reason Retrush looks the way it does – made entirely of recolored and lightly edited tiles from the original SMB games – is that i've never really been a sprite artist. all of my level packs over the years have used existing assets from other games and artists; the most i've ever done is re-arrange them for use in Mari0's engine, or maybe edit a few pixels here and there to make them flow better or fit a specific scene. outside of that, i tried to avoid making sprites as much as possible; my few attempts at custom sprites always came out rather shoddy, in my eyes.

so when i saw the grand vision in my head… i instantly knew what the most intimidating part was. it was the prospect of making custom sprite work for Rivers.

by the time i launched the beta, i had just put together the outline for the secret ending. all the text and scripting was there, but Rivers… was not. in her place was a line of text saying "pretend that Rivers is standing here."

a little too goofy for the impact i was aiming for... though one of my playtesters said they still cried at the ending.

when my playtesters got back to me with feedback about the rest of the mappack, i got to work on tweaking the levels, adding new quality-of-life features, fixing bugs… everything other than making sprites for Rivers. i procrastinated until the last minute, as my fear very nearly got the better of me…

finally, on the last Friday before Retrush was set to release, i cleared my day and dedicated it solely to sprite work. i expected to hammer my head against the wall all day and night, only to chicken out at the last possible second, with a single, motionless, half-baked sprite of Rivers standing at the end.

instead, in three hours, i had all of this.

that's her!

see, even though it's "just" recolored SMB sprites, Retrush is the most that i've ever experimented with custom tiles and spritework. all of the animated tiles are still just heavily edited versions of existing SMB assets – but i got to experiment with different effects and styles. looking back, i can see a throughline of growth from the waterfalls in Pineapple Pipeline, to the train tracks in Toffee Tracks, up to the wave effect in Fillet Fjords… each of these is just an effect applied to an existing tile, but making these by hand helped me understand the composition of the tiles and why the effects worked to create the illusion of movement.

then, without me realizing it, my abilities grew. the Retrush logo was my first custom logo, and possibly the first custom sprite art that i ever finished and released. the custom eel sprites in Tilapia Trench were my first ever character animation. the bone fish in Vegetable Vat, while loosely based on the sprites from mario maker, are custom sprites – the first time i ever made rotated adaptations of existing sprites. my technical prowess grew without me ever noticing…

and, apparently, it was enough for me to bang out a character sheet in an afternoon.

now, that was far from the end. in fact, all the sprites above ended up going unused – because they all face right, and i need them to face left in the final. but it wasn't hard to flip the sprites, move the flower, add some more expressions…

you've seen this before, haven't you?

in doing so, i even got to attempt a full turnaround, which i used for looking towards and away from the horizon. but even this kind of technical work was more fun than frustrating, and it didn't take long for me to complete the rotation!

good day to fly a kite, by the looks of it...

also, because the wind effect only plays when facing the horizon, these front shots of the wind effect also go unused. but they were a GREAT base and a huge help for the rest of the sprite sheet…

still not 100% happy with the scrunched grin on this...? expressions in general were probably the hardest part.

one little detail i'm extra proud of is her little nervous foot shuffle. i've never animated anything like it before, and it looks great in motion!

"in celebration of the upcoming launch of Retrush, i made some Rivers sprites to use as my pfp! these turned out a lot better than my last attempt and i'm pretty proud of how far i've come as an artist 💙" — April 23rd, 2023 via Twitter.

finally, here's the promo tweet i made for using the Rivers art as my avatar… i almost didn't want to do this, i wanted Rivers to be a surprise! but i was so proud of the sprites that i wanted to share some of them early, and i'm glad i did – this my favorite avatar i've ever had, and the full animations ended up surprising most players anyway.

where did i suddenly get this skill? i asked myself at the time… but it wasn't sudden at all. the rest of Retrush taught me all the skills i needed. all i lacked was the courage to use them.

so if the first blessing that i didn't have before was my partner, then the second blessing i didn't have before… was confidence. the very same confidence that i wanted to impart to the player, right here at the finish line.

turns out, i needed that confidence just as much.

and i meant every word of it.

our work together – her music, and my sprites – are the last things we added to Retrush, the night before release. fitting that it would end this way, after nine years of ADHD workflows, procrastinating on challenging endeavors, pinballing between levels. the last completed piece was the finish line itself, and i'm so happy that i could properly greet players at the end, just as i had so strongly envisioned.

38 posts later, this is also the last developer commentary post… as much of an adhd mess it was to write and schedule these too. but the mess doesn't matter – because when my memories have faded in a year or two, these blog posts will be the journal pages that i cling to, the last vestiges of the development stories i can no longer remember. i hope you've enjoyed them too, that you found some insight and lessons to take with you on your own journey!

one day, when i get to make another game, we'll do this again! i'm sure i will have a lot to share, and i hope you'll be there for it too. for now, though, i am going to take a break from big projects and work on smaller things. nine years is a long time, and i think i need the space to rest and get my IRL in order before i tackle something big again.

but i'll still be writing, streaming, designing, creating… and maybe even spriting. i hope you enjoy my smaller things too, and i hope we keep sharing new things with each other for a long time.

until then, thank you for reading. 💙💜🩷

Secret Ending | Retrush

After clearing EVERYTHING in Retrush, we arrive at the end of the road… where I pour my heart out to the player. Whether you've unlocked this yourself or simply watched along, thank you for joining me on this journey 💖

(Note that the "perfect stars" you get for clearing the stages without dying are NOT REQUIRED to see this ending – you simply need to clear all 16 remixes and get all 4 secret coins, no matter how many deaths it takes.)

"so how'd you spend your new year's, sky?"

top 5 sonic games go

warning: i am inviting you to poke a hornet's nest and i am the hornet

oh i am very aware of your Unique sonic opinions...

by contrast my opinions are gonna be more on the basic side! i'm a simple gal, i like going fast and letting the wind take me down routes i've never seen before. getting to explore big, open levels is one of the series biggest strong suits!

this is a hard list to narrow down, partly because the sonic series is so diverse and there's so much to love... but mostly because i haven't gotten to play a whole lot of sonic recently? i'm slowly trying to change that, like i just finished sonic battle last week and sonic origins the other day. to keep it easy, we're gonna stick to the main series only – i'd probably explode if i had to rank the spinoffs...

all told, that means my two biggest ranking factors here are Level Design and Nostalgia, so i doubt this list is particularly set in stone. as i replay more of the games, my top 5 will probably change – but for now, here's my best attempt at:

My Top 5 Sonic Games

5. Sonic Advance 2

the Rush games are stylish, fluid, and set the blueprint for modern sonic as we know it – but the granddaddy of them all was Sonic Advance 2, and i can confidently say that i've sunk more time into this one than any of its successors.

honestly, advance 2 is one of my most replayed games of all time! it's so easy to jump in from the beginning and let the game carry you through to the end in one sitting. i always think of the other sonic games as more of a commitment, something i have to plan around playing... not so with this one, i can blast through it in an hour or two and love it the whole way through.

i'd say this game's biggest strength is its level themes – this is peak modern sonic aesthetic, with some really unique level tropes and some of the most gorgeous pixel art on the gba. i know the gba's sound chip isn't for everyone, but i think advance 2 makes great use of it!

i know this game has a LOT of flaws – the chaos emeralds are a pain in the ass to acquire, and so many of the game's best features are locked behind getting the emeralds with every single character??? but i'm not thinking about the meta-game when i choose to blast through the levels in one sitting, and i've played it so much that i know where all the bottomless pits are and how to avoid them.

all told, sonic advance 2 is my most comfy sonic, so it deserves a spot on the list.

4. Sonic Adventure 2

if you read the story behind my least favorite game, then you probably saw this coming – adventure 2 is the game i played most with friends, long ago when i had my dreamcast. of course i still have a soft spot for it!

what i didn't mention in that post is how much mileage i got out of the chao garden, but that's because i put in most of those hours on the gamecube. i was obsessed with boosting my chao's stats with the little critters i found on my adventures 💙 so one of my favorite comfy ways to spend a saturday morning was to go collect animals for my chao...

...in the hunting stages. i actually love the hunting stages! and i really like the mech stages too! this isn't just nostalgia for sonic and shadow – i genuinely love playing the whole game, through and through.

thinking about it now, i sunk SO MANY HOURS into this game... that i got a little tired of it and stopped playing it for years. even when i picked it up on pc as an adult, i had no desire to actually replay it – why would i, when i have the whole game memorized? but maybe it's time to revisit this for a casual playthrough sometime soon...

3. Sonic Generations

i will freely admit that this one's cheating: half of the reason i love this game is because of the Unleashed Project mod. i haven't yet played unleashed, but one thing this mod taught me is that the level design is immaculate – infinitely replayable, highly rewarding to get good at, and a feeling of speed unlike any other sonic game.

but it's also kinda hard for most casual players! this is where the original generations comes in: it has less punishing low routes, and as a result, it was my gateway to modern sonic in 3d.

my pipeline was simple: i loved the hell out of my first playthrough of generations, so i replayed it enough to learn the stages and routes. by the time unleashed project released, i was good enough at modern sonic to not fail endlessly – so i loved my first playthough of unleashed project, and replayed that a ton to learn the (more advanced) stages and routes. a perfect pairing!

...but don't sleep on classic sonic either! i genuinely enjoy the classic sonic stages in generations, and i think it's a crying shame that people love to hate on them these days. it makes me think less "classic sonic" and more "sonic advance 4" in a way that makes my nostalgia happy 💙

1. Sonic Mania

no, that's not a typo, and i didn't skip one: my top 2 sonic games are tied for first place. i can't choose which one i love better!

what is there to say about mania that hasn't already been said? it's classic sonic perfected for the modern era, with gorgeous pixel art and the best level designs in the series. if you've never played a sonic game, start here and you'll fall in love.

sonic fans sometimes rag on the fact that mania leans so heavily on reused zones and nostalgia, with only a handful of new zones. that's a fair criticism, but let me flip that on its head:

i love that they revisited these old zones, not for nostalgia's sake... but because they could revisit some of the old games' biggest flaws, and smooth those over. then, in act 2, they expanded each one with new mechanics and flavors, remixing the nostalgia into a new experience that's more than the sum of its parts.

that is the impossible dream for a sonic game! that's never happened before! and it may never happen again. but at least they caught lightning in a bottle once, and it'll be with us forever, just like the memories of old.

1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles

shocker: sonic fan likes the popular game, more at 11

no, see, i grew up with sonic 2. and to be honest, i'm a little sad i didn't get to fit it on this list for nostalgic reasons. sonic 3k is everything i love about sonic 2, but bigger.

i just got through replaying this in sonic origins, and the game is just as magical now as it was when i was a kid. possibly moreso now that i know how to get past that damn barrel! let's be honest, the original games had some mean level design, and my recent playthrough wasn't 100% smooth... but nostalgia wins the day.

this game defined my childhood – even when it kicked my ass – because i had the power of a long lost art in video games: cheat codes. i got my mileage out of exploring this game simply by picking whichever zones i wanted to play in the level select and going ham! even the game's debug mode turned each zone into a playground where i could spend hours just experimenting and exploring.

then, one day, i got good enough at the game to beat it legit, with all the emeralds... fulfilling a journey that lasted so many formative years of my childhood. this is a special game to me for so many more reasons than i could list in one post, but i hope i summarized it well.

...oh, and even with all the debug mode as a kid, i still found new routes in this game last playthrough lmfao

new pre-stream archive, in which we celebrate our new emote and talk about just how long the ol' stream backlog is...

since i write a lot of series of the blog, i'm toying with the idea of adding a list of Collections that link to each of those series – like the retrush dev commentaries, the design retrospective that's still in the pipeline, the "catching up posts" from 2019...

problem is that i don't know how to add it easily just yet? i can't think of a place it'd fit into the existing site layout, and there's no support for it in tumblr outside of tags – so i'd have to manually curate the list of collections somehow. tumblr labs did suggest they might be working on something like post collections, but who knows when or if that will come to fruition...

in the meantime i might make a pinned post for collections? that way it's all in one place and easy to access on mobile. hopefully that won't be too hard to organize! plus it can be replaced rather easily, if tumblr labs ends up pulling through. sounds like a good first project for 2024!