Duck Game Unleashed

New version as of May 5th, 2025! BENDY is now open source: https://github.com/superjoebob/bendy_redo/releases

BENDY is a free FL Studio native plugin meant to allow piano roll note bends/panning/effects to control third party VST instruments and external synthesizers, something that is not normally possible in FL. It also comes with some simple automatable MIDI controls that can be assigned to note controls allowing each individual note to send messages to a VST to control some arbitrary parameter (per note frequency cutoff, or per note reverb for example).

As BENDY is still in it’s beta stages, you can probably expect a few hiccups. Make sure you back up projects that you’re using BENDY in, and if you run into any issues please send me a message either on Twitter (https://twitter.com/superjoebob) or via the e-mail listed at the end of BENDY’s readme file- or leave a comment here.

Latest Version 0.993: https://www.wonthelp.info/bendy_0993.zip

Changelog:

BENDY 0.993- May 4th 2025
———————————————–
-Rewrote midi triggering to more closely emulate FL’s Midi Out behavior. This should make the plugin a lot more accurate.

BENDY 0.991 – November 24th 2

BENDY 0.992 – December 3rd 2024
———————————————–
-Fixed bug where new projects where running the legacy codepath, preventing new velocity implementation from working.
-Added version number display.

BENDY 0.991 – November 24th 2024
———————————————–
-Fixed bug where master pitch wasn’t working
-Fixed bug with re-triggers

BENDY 0.99 – November 22nd 2024
———————————————-
-Completely rewrote the plugin in native C++ to solve stability issues.
-Fixed a number of bugs and issues with features not working correctly.
-Improved velocity/volume support in order to closer mimic FL’s Midi Out plugin.
-Added right click menu to CC settings filled with useful defaults.

BENDY 0.96 – July 28th 2023
———————————————-
-Rebuilt using older toolset for improved compatibility and to remove VC++ runtime requirement.

BENDY 0.95 – May 28th 2023
———————————————-
-Fixed issue with note releases cutting off note triggers in newer versions of FL.
-Upgraded to newest SDK allowing the plugin to work in newer versions of FL.

BENDY 0.92 – December 13th 2021
———————————————-
-Fixed issue where note pitch would reset to neutral at the end of notes, causing notes with long release
envelopes to bend unexpectedly. This change may affect Nexus users, along with users of any other plugins
that have pitch bend speed settings. Make sure to always set your VST’s pitch bend speed to it’s maximum!
-Fixed issue where BENDY wasn’t being affected by the master pitch setting. To fix this, FPF_MIDIOut was
removed from the plugin parameters, as it seemed to have the plugin ignore master pitch as it’s only effect.
-Note Controls can now be assigned as either Full, Upper, or Lower. Full uses the whole note control value
range, Upper just uses the top half and Lower uses the lower half. This means you can assign up to 4 custom controls
to the piano roll, but you can only have two active at the same time.
-Added vibrato knobs, which can be linked to piano roll controls to enable piano roll vibrato control.
-Improved performance.

BENDY 0.91 – December 4th 2021
———————————————-
-Fixed issue where CC-0 was being sent from knobs with uninitialized CC numbers, which caused
random bank changes.
-Fixed issue where changing the channel setting would cause a bank change
-Fixed issue where automating the patch selector would lag out FL with the number of messages sent
-Fixed patch selector automation not updating UI

Old Versions:

0.992:bendy_0992.zip

0.99:bendy_0_99.zip

0.96:bendy_0_96.zip

0.95: bendy_0_95.zip

0.92: https://1drv.ms/u/s!At9QBJ_8lobha8bixOVNRawBPXE?e=aey8gO 

0.91: https://1drv.ms/u/s!At9QBJ_8lobhajoVb…, https://wonthelp.info/bendy_0_9.zip

I’ve been spinning on trying to write something nice for a change, something more positive, and there are about half a dozen bits of new posts sitting in my drafts that I’ve tried to write since my last one in February. Some are just beginnings of ideas, while a few of them are flow blown posts that I finished and then decided weren’t any good.. but here we go again:

My last post was anxiety incarnate and I regret making it a bit, it was entirely full of bottled up feelings about a fear of getting attention that’s been left unchecked ever since I hid from my first birthday party. I think it came off as a bit of a ‘pains of fame’ cry to some, but that’s really not what it was meant to be. I’m not famous (thank god!), and my qualms about staying in touch with a large number of people are compiled from years of experiences that reach back to well before Duck Game. I think most people have felt overwhelmed with keeping up appearances at some point in their lives, especially in modern times. It’s hard to avoid having a somewhat gigantic group of people you keep in touch with when we all have such close and quick contact with each other via the internet. It’s amazing, it’s exciting, and maybe it’s a bit scary..

You too, can be like this.

We sort of live in an age of idols, where everyone has the chance to become famous overnight- you can casually post something cool or clever online and have it suddenly turn into an interaction with thousands of people. That’s really not something that existed in the world before the internet, and it’s a feeling that used to be reserved mainly for people who stepped confidently onto the stage. Imagine making a dumb joke while you’re just hanging around with your friends in the mall and suddenly the walls drop from around you to reveal a live studio audience, and they’re just losing it at how funny you are. It could be flattering, but maybe it’s more than a bit uncomfortable if you thought it was just you and your friends hanging out. Public spaces can be wild like that. Some people like the feeling, and some people don’t. But with the internet putting everything in front of so many people, the average person is a lot more likely to find out whether or not they want to be in the limelight these days.

I personally don’t like the feeling, it’s a nightmare! But I make games and try to keep up appearances on social media/write this blog, and these are things that draw attention. I’m not sure why I make video games exactly, but I’ve found that I can’t be happy without doing it. And I can’t make things well unless I’ve got someone to make them for, so I need someone to share them with. I was the most happy as a developer working with OUYA, and later with the old Adult Swim Games team (god, I miss them). At that time Duck Game was created solely for my friends here, my friends there, and for the people who played it at shows. The feeling of taking the game to shows- being able to stand anonymously at a distance watching people enjoy the game, along with being able to step in like a member of the crowd and just play it with everyone casually was the best feeling in the world. In those moments it wasn’t about some dude and his ego, it was about games and it was about having fun. I loved that nobody knew who I was- it was Adult Swim’s game.

So, I’ve been a recluse for the past few months. Tweeted that I was taking a short break in June and that’s what I did. Having had this break, and having discreetly returned back to work for a while has made me realize that the only way Duck Game PS4 is going to get finished- is if I hide away from distractions and from anxieties and just finish it. With my stage fright I find it’s about the only way to get things done. So that’s what’s happening, and I’ll be back when it’s finished.

When we look into the future to the place we haven’t gone, see what we haven’t done..

We have known it all along.

If we wait until tomorrow, will tomorrow ever come?

This is where we’re coming from, and we’re not the only ones.

When we find ourselves in trouble we can find ourselves away,

You can find a place to stay, and the place is always safe.

If you have a heart that’s in pain, don’t be afraid. You’re not to blame.

There’s a better world inside of us, where we always thought it was. You don’t need to hide.

You can open up your eyes and you’ll discover, that there is another world.

-Totally Stupid, Andrew W.K.

It seems like in the country I live, a lot of us share the dream of becoming some kind of Rockstar at some point in our lives. We all tend to give up that dream eventually, either because we grow out of the idea or we put it aside it in favor of doing something more sensible when the reality of making a living kicks in. Quite honestly the idea of getting attention from large numbers of people gets more and more frightening as I get older. Almost anyone could tell you that it’s a trap just by looking at it.

I made a game called Duck Game. It originally released on the OUYA as a local multiplayer game, and since then I’ve ported it to Steam working with Adult Swim Games as a publisher. I’ve had help from other studios to get it on other platforms, and help from AS along the way advertising it and getting it to shows all around the world. Now it has thousands of faithful players and a number of active communities. I couldn’t be happier that the game has come to have meant something to someone, that I was able to help return a bit of the feeling I had playing games with my friends and family as a kid.

Duck Game has kind and helpful players, and it also has toxic players. It has modders and it has hackers. Cowboys and- well, cowboys. Cowboys aren’t all great. As someone who tries to be open and friendly to strangers, I met a lot of people online and made an effort to always respond to random messages and help in any way I could. If there’s an issue with my game that’s preventing people from playing I always want to hear about it, and I appreciate constructive criticism and feedback. Responding to everyone has always been a no-brainer. 

It was easy early on, keeping in contact with ~ a dozen people and helping out with issues as they appeared. As time went on, I worked out many of the existing issues in the game thanks to people coming forward and reporting them. Some relationships turned to friendships and players started coming to me with ideas and feature requests. It was great, and getting to meet so many awesome people was an absolute highlight of my life. But as it turns out, the more attention you offer, the more is expected- and you become less capable of keeping up appearances as more and more people come to expect you to be there. There are some cursed things like this in life, where good intentions can lead to the opposite effect.

By keeping a friendly conversation with a dozen people, a dozen more new conversations would come. Being friendly led to a small group of people I could have a meaningful relationship with, but it also led to a much larger group of people who I was either unable to respond to or worse- who I was unable to keep up a sincere conversation with. It sometimes got to the point where I couldn’t keep up with everyone unless I spent the whole day chatting, and that’s when things started slipping. As things slipped, I’d spend more and more time apologizing to the people who I didn’t have time to talk to- which took time away from actually talking to people- which further led to the people I previously chatted with asking me why I was ignoring them.  By trying to be honest and responsive, I found myself in a situation where continuing to do so became impossible. It’s like I had a whole cake to myself, and when people started asking for some I was more than happy to share. But there comes a point where you’ve got no cake left, and that’s what you need to be honest about when it happens. Otherwise, people will start to wonder why everyone else got cake and they didn’t. They’ll feel alienated and sad, and that’s awful.

Now for the dramatic bit, if you wanna look at it that way. I like to think I’m being dramatic because it helps take a bit of the weight out of things sometimes.

Imagine being happy in 2021

I spend most of my time sitting in front of my computer on autopilot, with a deep and uncomfortable twist in the pit of my stomach that spins itself up every morning. While I work, I’m ashamed that I’m not spending more time communicating with fans and friends. I’m worried about what people will think of me when I don’t respond. I’m worried that the game is broken and that someone is frustrated, or that they can’t afford it and all their friends want them to play. I’m worried that someone has something important to them that they want to share, and that they’ve got nobody to listen. That someone is going to feel alone. That someone is going to feel like the dev of a game they care so deeply about couldn’t give the other of two half-shits. I half heartedly work until I break down and shift gears back to communication. I apologize over and over again but I’ll inevitably leave again when the shame of unfinished work returns. Instead of buttering two toasts I slop the butter right down on the plate between them and hope that the toasts will be happy to see that I’m trying, and that it’ll be enough for my conscience to finally let me rest long enough to come back to both tasks with a new found energy and sincerity.

But I’m tired. I’m sorry, and I’m tired. Sorry. I won’t get started about how I feel when I’m not on my computer. Family, friends and health are most definitely the biggest victims of anxiety. I’m sorry to everyone I’ve been unable to talk to, either because of lack of time or lack of words. I’m really not the people person I thought I was.

It’s hard to have confidence in the idea that anything you do is worth the trouble, or that it is of any help to anyone when you do it in pain. It seems disrespectful and dangerous to do anything that involves other people when you’d rather be sleeping. But when sleep doesn’t cure that feeling, there’s a point where you need to get up and go for it anyway. 

Been brave before, but this aint one of those times.

They’re rare, you know. And me admitting it, well, it’s about time.

Cause what you see,

Is what’s left of a thousand tons of rusted steel

Done up to look like it can run.

-A Thousand Tons, Matthew Good

As someone who works from home on a computer I’m very lucky to say that things haven’t changed too much here. I love computers! But without having anywhere else to go I guess it’s “like music without silence”, and it’s a bit sad to think that this is my usual extent of living. My default social state is the one that the world exists in right now, and the feeling I get from the people around me about this way of living seems to be universal:

“I’m bored, life is boring, this is shit.”

So whether or not I like it, I suppose I’ve discovered that my life is boring. Obviously there’s not much that can be done about it right now.

Duck Game- It’s update has been in alpha for a while. While things keep getting fixed, things keep getting added, the path to completion grows longer. The last few months have been pretty damn productive. But of course they’ve also pushed back the release date of this update time and time again, keeping with the theme of DG updates being delivered on the back of a turtle who takes 2 years to cross a room (and who is currently being extra careful not to drop anything). But hey, we’ve got new weapons, new hats, new levels, way smoother online play and improved synchronization. Steam Cloud is fixed, the level editor has been improved, and you can make challenge levels now. Maybe it’s worth waiting for.

I’ve been working with the Duck Game community, a lot in particular with the good people from QC (Quack Cocaine, a group that plays/mods DG and hosts tournaments. Their skill level is intimidating). They’ve all been testing the alpha like crazy, and so many important fixes and QOL changes have come directly from the community and QC. I can’t thank you all enough, and can’t overstate how important your help has been in making this update possible.

Duck Game has gotten more complex than I ever thought possible, and there are so many little pieces all working in synchronicity- not to mention Switch support and PS4 support changes hanging overhead. It’s a fragile system and it gets progressively harder to work on without knocking out the balance. I feel like I’ve been taking a sledgehammer to the walls while the community watches- we wanted to open up this room anyway so it’s a good hammer- but whenever I take a swing at a support column the community is there to pull me back and say “er, probably shouldn’t hit that one”. Having people like QC to play with, people with so much love and passion for the game.. Who are so intimately in tune with every little detail, is something that you can’t ask for, can’t pay for, can’t even dream for if I you have any value in keeping your dreams to things that might come true. But they’re real, the Duck Game community exists, and they’re keeping the game alive.

Duck Game 2?

It’s been awesome playing DG with everyone again too. There’s something oddly wholesome about playing the game with people and having them go “OH! Check this out, if you jump and slide just right-“.. Then watching them totally break the game- perform some impossible maneuver, clip onto the top of the level or pull a cooked duck out of thin air. Then they teach me how to do the same. I’d never thought of bugs as something to enjoy- but seeing people have fun with them makes me happy. It offers some peace when it comes to the bugs that can’t or wont be fixed.

A quick PS4 Update: I’ve created a new developer account with Sony, as I could not for the life of me get a response in regards to re-activating my old one. I don’t have access to the dev tools yet but have been assured that access is coming- it’ll just take some time. Considering the state of the world, I absolutely understand if it takes them a while.

Oh yeah- and the screenshot up there is actually from Time Splitters 2, one of the best games ever made and the reason why 14 year old me sold my computer to buy a Gamecube. In retrospect, I wonder where my mind was when I started making Duck Game..

So, all in all it’s another blog post to say: I’m still working on Duck Game every day. I’ve been reeling back on major changes, trying to get the game into a stable condition worth releasing for real. As soon as I’ve tested the new Steam Cloud fixes, an official beta will happen (keep an eye out next week). Beta should be *much* shorter than alpha. Then comes the actual Steam update release, then comes Switch, then comes PS4.. !

I’m sorry to anyone I’ve been unresponsive to, I know I drift in and out of Discord/messages and get all gung-ho about doing things that never end up happening. Still need to visit a few Animal Crossing islands but haven’t been able to work up the will to do it (oh woe, release these mirrors from your withering image). I’ve been struggling with sadness about the state of the world like anyone, but seeing everyone come together (while staying apart!), all the love and hard work-

That’s something worth being happy about.

Always think we’ll get more time

Now I’m flying through the air and it’s you who comes to mind

In the red lights and cathedrals there’s a sign:

Don’t we always wish we had more time?

-My Hit and Run, Third Eye Blind

It’s been 2 years since the Steam version of Duck Game’s ‘Underground’ Beta was launched, and damn near 3 years since the last finished update was released. I honestly can’t believe it, if you’d have asked me when I though the last update came out I’d have figured a year and a half tops. But Steam’s build history doesn’t lie, and it really has been forever. I’m…. Sorry.

But rejoice! For a new update is just around the corner.

I can’t even remember all the things that have been added to the new version. It’s using the same codebase as the Nintendo Switch version, so all the new features available in that version will now be available for Steam players. I’ve also spent a ton of time implementing entirely new features, including new Weapons, Levels, Tilesets, Challenges and quality of life improvements! These will be coming to the Switch version eventually, but for now- they all need a ton of testing. 

So, if you want to help test the Alpha, you’ve come to the right place! It’s not a complete version of the update, there are things I still need to finish that are missing. But there’s a ton of new stuff in here regardless, so prepare for lots of bugs! Also, please please please back up your save data before you update, if you’d like to help test. It should be safe, but you never know so it’s important to take precautions. And if you have any crashes, please use the new “Submit” button in the crash window to let me know what happened!

The Alpha is now live on Steam, and you can download it by right clicking Duck Game, and going Properties->BETAS. Type in the access code ‘tonyhawksunderground2‘ and press CHECK CODE to unlock access to the Alpha.

Now click the dropdown, and select the ‘deep_underground’ branch. Your version should now update to the latest Alpha (You might have to close the window and click ‘Update’.

Note – If ‘deep_underground’ does no appear, don’t worry! Try restarting Steam, and entering the code again.

Now you should be able to play the Alpha! And remember, if your game crashes, smack that Submit Error button! If it crashes and you don’t get a crash window, please make a post on the Duck Game Steam Forums in the ‘2020 Alpha’ sub forum https://steamcommunity.com/app/312530/discussions/5/

The Changelist, or As Much of it as I Can Remember

-Many improvements to UI flow and appearance.
-Support for Spanish and Japanese character sets. 
-All new City tileset, background, and level features.
-Support for creating custom challenges, and uploading custom 
Arcade Machines to steam workshop.
-Over a dozen new levels.
-New weapons and equipment.
-New arcade challenges.
-Support for LAN play, as well as support for host migration and 
joining online games with multiple local players present.
-Server names and passwords.
-Steam invite links.
-Major performance improvements, especially when playing online.
-Dozens of new pieces of furniture, new Vincent features.
-Controller rumble support, new profile input binding UI.
-A bunch of new hats.
-Icicles, Item Crates, HOT SLAG, dead TREE, lots of other new items.
-PIPES
-New 'Client Levels' support, allowing users who join online games to
include their own custom levels in the mix.

So in a nutshell, the password for the Alpha branch is ‘tonyhawksunderground2‘, thank you for helping test it!

Excuse me, it’s Johnny Grey. Not Tommy Day, my name’s Johnny Grey.

I can’t remember my phone number.

All the calls I get are mistakes, and I holler and make no noise.

As I’ve said before, my name is Johnny Grey.

-Johnny Grey, Eiffel 65

How many years has it been? I’ve lost count to be honest but it’d be easy to check.

Sometimes I sit down and look through parts of the game that has consumed my life, parts that I don’t even remember writing, and try to remember what I was thinking when I started making it. If I’d realized what it meant, would I have started in the first place, or would fear have overcome me? Let’s see if I can manage to repeat myself once more reminiscing about the good old days.

he game is a local multiplayer game at heart, and it came out when everyone and their internet persona was making them. It should have been a happy time, local multiplayer had long taken a back seat and everyone seemed to get the idea that it needed to come back all at once. Playing games with people is the best thing ever so it was really exciting that the hole was being filled. But, at the same time, the surge also acted as proof that nobody really wants to pay for a local multiplayer game that doesn’t have online, with only a few exceptions. Online is exceptionally hard to add, not to mention adding it to fast paced action games, so a lot of people gave up. They’d saved up and quit their jobs to work hard and pour their love into games that nobody ended up playing.

When nobody plays your multiplayer game, that means you’ll never have anyone to play it with and that’s the saddest thing of all. It’s like you threw a party and nobody came. A party that took years to throw.

Tweeted this as a joke in 2015 when I was about halfway done.

I still get the shakes when I think about writing Online code for the game. It took around a year of full time work and a whole lot of learning about completely new things. Every other night I’d be up until 6AM caught up in some system, trying to complete some meaningful bit of progress before I slept and wiped my mind of whatever the immediate problem was. I thought of quitting more than once, even emailed Adult Swim and asked if online was really all that important. Of course it was!

If you want to pretend you’re me feverishly coding in the middle of the night, listen to ‘NYC Bar 2’ from Deus Ex on loop for 100 hours to get yourself into the same mind state. It was my soundtrack for writing a whole lot of code.

I jammed online into the game like an overzealous colony of ants tries to jam an entire hamburger into an anthill. I did it without thinking, persistently, obsessively. Alive in a separate universe from ours, punching keys with complete oblivion in a room full of shitty code and hot flashes. The whole process was the same kind of impressive as watching someone try to drain a lake with a straw and it took pretty much the same skills.

The joy felt finally playing the game online with someone was my reason for being. It justified everything to me, all the work had meant something, I’d climbed a Popsicle stick tower and seen above the cloud layer on a rainy day. Anything can be accomplished with persistence. But like the fool trying to drain the lake, I was left exhausted with a permanent discomfort in.. the presence of straws?

The bad feelings still come back whenever I need to make changes to the old netcode, or sometimes just when I sit down at the computer. I’ve tried to rewrite a lot of it to be less horrendous to deal with but there’s only so much you can do changing code in a live game. It was the bane of the PS4 version, and it fought to be the bane of the Switch version but we fought back. I’m deeply sorry to anyone whose had to work with the code, the thought that some of my anxiety burrowed itself in the code waiting to leap out at unsuspecting victims haunts me. By getting help with porting the game I released that monster on a team of programmers and nobody deserves that.

Code is a lot like a universe. It starts from virtually nothing, has a certain structure and a set of rules laid out by its creators, and as it develops the rules become harder to break. Anyone working within a codebase is subject to those rules, and everything they hope to accomplish has to work with them in some way. A programmer essentially lives in that universe while they’re coding, since everything relevant to a program must be an extension of it in some way. So when you give a programmer a shitty universe to live in… It’s pretty unkind.

Anyway, the lesson I’m trying to record here for myself and anyone else as oblivious to this point as I am is simply not to let yourself burn out. If you love curry don’t eat too much of it. If you love making games, don’t let your computer become a source of anxiety or there’s no telling how long it’ll take to recover. Be ambitious, but take your time and always remember to stop when it hurts.

Well there’s a guaranteed parade of broken promises if you expect some kind of miracle,

You do what you can do, that’s all.

That’s how a Diamond grows, Give yourself the right chance over time.

Don’t believe them if they try to sell you something quicker.

-Diamond, Jimmy Eat World

It’s been 5 years since the release of Duck Game. 1 year for the OUYA version, 1 year for PC, 2 years of updates and PS4 and 1 more year of Switch development.

It’s been ~10 Years since I graduated from high school and moved to Vancouver, 2 years of college, 1 awesome year at Kerberos and another year working in Mobile games (-.-‘). Finally, less than 1 year as an indie developer before Bawb from OUYA asked me if I was working on anything and I showed him a prototype for this duck game I was working on.

So many people have helped the game be what it is today. Countless hours of testing with friends, support from everyone in the community and at shows, so much priceless feedback and encouragement from everyone that the game wouldn’t exist without. I’ve always thought that persistence was my greatest feature short of actual know how, and I think Duck Game is some proof of what persistence can accomplish.

I’ve worked 5 years on Duck Game, but it’s not really ‘mine’. It’s about as much ‘my’ game as Hotline Miami, Nidhogg, Super Mario World and the hundreds of other games that inspired its existence are. It’s designed by me about as much as it’s designed by everyone who helped me test it and showed me what it should be. It’s just a big duck themed AMV of things that I like, it’s music wouldn’t exist without games like Comix Zone, Thunder Force, Lyle in Cube Sector, and Sonic 3. The Duck’s run cycle is legit traced from James Pond 3, not unlike so many Megamans and Marios before. It has temple themed random levels because Spelunky is a cool game.

Duck Game was just a janky platformer engine until my friend Ryleigh told me I should make it into a multiplayer game, all the best things came from playing the game with people. I still remember when we where playing the Game Maker prototype years ago in the old house, when my friend Tanner said something along the lines of “Man, it’d be hilarious if they could flap their little duck wings”. And so they did, and so it was~

I can’t really bring myself to name names, if I try to name everyone I will most definitely forget somebody important and make a big mess of it. Not even sure if people want to be named, life is a complicated thing. Sometimes people are happier in the background (Hi!!). Lots of really good people are mentioned in the credits in Duck Game, though I just know I’ve forgotten a million names in there as well. But a scrolling wall of names never does justice to the mass of people they represent, even with cool music, so I can’t help but feel a bit bad.

This post is to say thank you, to everyone, for everything you’ve done in support of me and Duck Game. As many times as I’ve been told that I deserve it, I’ll always feel I fluked into something excellent and I’m just riding the wave. Fluke or not, I’m so happy it could mean something to someone, the game always meant a whole lot to me and seeing people enjoy it means that all the good things in the world that lead me to making Duck Game are still alive.

I’ll accept with poise, with grace, when the draw my name from the lottery

And they’ll say “All the salt in the world couldn’t melt that ice”.

I’m the one who gets away, I’m a New Jersey success story 

And they’ll say, lord give me the chance to shake that hand.

I have one last wish, and it’s from the heart

Just let me down, just let me down easy.

-Big Casino, Jimmy Eat World

I never know where to start with these, but when I actually get writing it always gets easier which I guess is like creating anything. I find it’s a lot easier to make something if you can force out some initial context to base everything on and sometimes that just means winging it for a while. Or, I could be flowerless and to the point:

-I’ve been working with a team in Austin on ************ that I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but I’m sure it will come to light soon. Actually flying out there again today for a week to help with the project~

-An actual release version of GENNY will be coming out this year, probably very soon. Been working a lot on usability and interface, and I almost have it working with GenMDM (https://catskullelectronics.com/genmdm). Lot’s of improvements with sample playback, it can now play simple sample based instruments, and load new drum sounds from files so there’s no need for weird metadata files anymore.

-Finally a major update to the Steam version of Duck Game is coming this year, but it’s more than a few months off 🙁  I apologize for this often, but the changes being made to the engine are significant and I’ve been taking my time since I have to make them work alongside other versions in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: Have the Steam version working and bug free, while simultaneously using the same code to update the PS4 version so it has feature parity (the dream). There’s actually a third bird ^ as well but I still can’t talk about that.. It may be obvious what it is if you pay attention to my Twitter timeline though, I tweeted pretty conclusive evidence of the existence of this project a while back. If I say too much Adult Swim Games will be Unpleased.

-Working on a multi platform simple game creation tool, called ‘ElfEdit’ for the time being cause I guess why not hey. It only builds to PC right now, but browser support is almost complete. The dream is to create something to use for game jams, now that Flash Punk will sadly die with Flash 🙁 .  You can already play my friend Dayton’s game, which was created with ElfEdit: https://farfin.itch.io/mountain-rescue-2019

The engine itself is <10 MB, and it compiles everything into a single EXE so compiled games are fairly small aswell, and there are no prerequisite redistributables! It even comes with a custom version of SharpDevelop (<50 MB), so you don’t even need Visual Studio to use it, though you can still edit projects with VS if you want. The initial release will build to PC and Web, using Monogame for PC and most likely Bridge.NET + WebGL for browser support. Expect some kind of release some time this year!

-Recently released a media player that plays MIDI files from websites! You can get it here: http://www.wonthelp.info/midiworld.zip

Lots of other stuff is in the works too, but those are the big ones! As for me, I’m planning on moving to Japan for a year in August If I can manage to get my Visa figured out, so all this stuff aughta happen before then. Need to get in touch with the friends who I’ve been neglecting, need to shed my worldly possessions, need to call my Grandpa.

For now, I’m off to Austin for a week. I liked ending the last post with lyrics that made sense at the time, so I’ll do it again from a Menzingers song that could be my favorite song ever:

Here’s to you, the same chords that I stole from a song that I once heard.

Same melody I borrowed from the void.

I’d rather observe the structure and narrative:

The characters are thin. The plot does not develop, it ends where it begins.

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 ☆