Duck Game Lives (Me too!!)

It’s been a good 4 or 5 months since I last said anything, but me and Duck Game have been wandering through the fields working out what to do next.

I tried a lot of new things in the past few years. I traveled all over the world to play Duck Game with people, met a lot of really good people and made some friends that I don’t know what I’d do without. I also lost a few friends, and have been trying to fill the voids that they unintentionally left behind. I took singing lessons and quit, learned to sing and forgot, and started playing drums instead. I’ve been learning to draw and trying to learn Japanese. Two years ago I listened to nothing but 00’s Alternative and Pop Punk, now I listen mostly to J-Rock and Vocaloid stuff. I ate raw salmon and I gagged, but I still ate it and I feel mostly fine.

I’ve also been doing a lot of the things that I’ve always done, like spending months hunched in front of a computer trying to come up with something worth sharing with people. I’ve been eating burritos with barely anything in them and playing Sonic & Knuckles. I buy dumb toys when they’re on sale and Kinder Surprises as long as they don’t have Minions on them (except for that one time). I still wanna be a rock star one day, as soon as I can learn to play a guitar in my sleep, and I still make music whenever I get too excited.

As for Duck Game, things are happening and it’s going to be an exciting year! I’ve spent a few months sitting down with a Monogame C# to C++ transpiler changing code and building over and over again, before finally:

It runs really well too! I’ve been working with Tom from the Monogame team who is the most powerful code wizard I have ever met and without him the switch version never would have been possible. The original OUYA version of Duck Game actually ran in Monogame as well, so really Duck Game never would have happened at all without those guys. So this is basically an announcement for the Switch version of Duck Game, although release dates and features and whatnot have yet to be decided.

Switch Duck Game isn’t the only thing coming up though. The fact that the PS4 version’s online connectivity has been broken since release has been constantly in my mind and it’s really embarrassing that it’s been this long and many people still can’t connect to each other. I’ve been working to get access to the PS4 codebase from the porting company, and as soon as I’m in the plan is to fix the connection issues ASAP and release a patch. If I can get access to the code this week I’m hoping that the patch should be out in less than a month. I may have to take the reigns on the PS4 submission process which I’ve never been through so it’ll be interesting. I’m sorry to anyone whose had problems with the PS4 version, it’s not cool to have a version of the game released for so long with such a serious problem.

With the PS4 update also comes a Steam update, mostly with bug fixes related to the leveling/furniture systems, improvements to online synchronization, and some other fun stuff that I haven’t looked at in such a long time I’ll have to go through it all and remember what it all is. The plan is to get that stuff into BETA by the end of the week. I’ve been bad at meeting deadlines in the past and this year I want to make up for it, so if there’s no Steam BETA up a week from now feel free to rip into me ’cause I deserve it!

Also coming down the pipeline are Vinyl releases of the Duck Game and Kingsway soundtracks through Ship to Shore Media which to me is like a dream come true. It’s something I had always dreamed of but figured would never happen, so that it’s finally happening really makes my year. Release dates on those are still fuzzy, but it’s happening sometime this year!

Besides Duck Game stuff, I’ve spent the last year working with my best friends on a new game that we’re yet to announce, and we’re working really hard to get something together that’s ready to show. I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing and I don’t know how I can ever thank all of you and the powers that be for what I’ve been given, and for how lucky I’ve been. I’ll be talking a lot more about the new game really soon!

So life goes on and I’ve been fine, really awesome even. I took a break from the internet for a while but I miss talking to people and keeping up to date, so I’m back. Things can get overwhelming and I’ve changed a lot, I get lost trying to remember how exactly I can get back to normal but the things that make me happy have always been the same, and have always been simple. Like the level up tune from Earthbound or the color of the sky after it rains in Fantastic Dizzy, I can’t really get lost when I have that stuff. Those things wont ever change and neither will we. It’s good to be back ☆