Bolerosoft

Bolerosoft

@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Solo game dev since Jan 2025 in Godot. Current proj: "Mysteries of Old Tokyo". Wishlist on Steam now! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3784300/Mysteries_of_Old_Tokyo/?utm_source=bsky

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Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Today's the day! MYSTERIES OF OLD TOKYO is out right now! Explore the real history of Tokyo across 30 real-life landmarks in a new detective adventure puzzler, available on Steam. #indiegames #steam

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Still a few more days to catch Mysteries of Old Tokyo in the Steam Summer Sale! Dive head-first into the real history of Tokyo, from prehistory to present, in this delightful detective puzzle adventure with over 40 real-life landmarks. #steam #steamsummersale #indiegames

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Explore the real Tokyo from prehistory to the present day across 44 postcards, 30 fiendish puzzles based on actual history, and full-motion video at crisp 320x240 resolution.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Massive first day for Mysteries of Old Tokyo on Steam ... broke through my goals in about 5 hours which is amazing. Thank you to everyone who has bought it and played it! #indiegames #steam

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Doesn't have to be long. You don't need to have finished the game. But reviews are one of the most important tools for promoting games on Steam and once you get to 10 it really boosts your visibility in Steam.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Today's the day! MYSTERIES OF OLD TOKYO is out right now! Explore the real history of Tokyo across 30 real-life landmarks in a new detective adventure puzzler, available on Steam. #indiegames #steam

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

We have a release date! And a new demo version. Beta testing is proceeding smoothly and the game build has been approved by Steam. If all goes well, Mysteries of Old Tokyo should be available on Steam on May 14. #steam #indiegames #solodev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Demo v3.0 for Mysteries of Old Tokyo is now live! The demo returns to Steam with a new office, auto-save, and a much-improved UI. #indiegames #demos #steam

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

So, Next Fest is off to a good start. See, Steam algorithm, if you actually show my game to people, they may actually have a chance to wishlist it! #gamedev #indiedev #nextfest #steam

Bolerosoft reposted

Youngles 🇰🇷🔜PAX Unplugged
@youngles.bsky.social

Hey. Tell people when they do good job. When you like the stuff they make. When you like the characters they’ve created. The stories they’ve told. Nobody hears it as often as you think bc everyone thinks everyone hears it all the time. Trust. They don’t. Tell. Them.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Mysteries of Old Tokyo, my debut game, is in Steam Next Fest, starting right now! It's a detective adventure puzzler set in Tokyo, with reams of historical research. Add to your wishlist! Try the demo! #indiegames #steam #demos

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

I've received quite a bit of feedback that goes something like: "I couldn't click this button, the scrollbar is broken here, and in the last puzzle I clicked something and my PC caught fire. I love the game! Instabuy on release."

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Made my Next Fest graphic! It's so tough to like ... sell my entire game with one image. Constantly questioning if I should add more, or less. I tried a split-screen then/now effect, but it just didn't work. Anyway, play the demo! And wishlist! #indiedev #solodev #gamedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Deployed a tiny (2 line) hotfix for the demo. Stupid oversight, but the "evidence at station" trigger wouldn't trigger if you arrived by train (which you would, it being a train station and all!). Apologies for the error. #indiegames #gamedev #indiedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

I reworked the route directions algorithm, which was a fun technical challenge. Instead of joining stations directly, it now goes one step more and simulates the stations AND platforms as nodes. So there’s a penalty for changing lines, which makes the pathfinding algorithm prefer straight routes.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

It works really well now! It’s neat to compare my routes to Google Maps and see how accurate they are. I know pathfinding isn’t that difficult in terms of computation, but it’s cool to think I coded it.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

It's kinda funny (but not funny) that every time I think my game is feature complete, I decide to add more features, and hence more bugs. I think I need to be pretty strict from now on, especially with Next Fest rapidly approaching. Ideally this should be the last demo release. #gamedev #indiedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

After 248 days on the store, I've reached my pre-Next Fest target of 3,000 Steam wishlists. Hard to believe I'm at this point. I remember when 300 wishlists was a crazy number. To once again quote LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy: "Thanks for supporting this weird thing!" #indiedev #gamedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

It's surprisingly hard to make a satisfying tutorial. You have to teach the player without them catching on. You have to give them freedom to do what they want, but also steer them away from anything they're not ready for. #gamedev #indiedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

It's surprisingly hard to make a satisfying tutorial. You have to teach the player without them catching on. You have to give them freedom to do what they want, but also steer them away from anything they're not ready for. #gamedev #indiedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

You have to resist the temptation to add steps like "Click "Close" to close", knowing that any player who struggles at that point probably won't enjoy the game anyway.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

I'm thinking I need to rework the tutorial for my demo before Next Fest. Needs more of a hook. At the moment it's a bit "ugh, first day at a new job, gotta do all this paperwork", which in retrospect is not the best way to keep players engaged. #gamedev #indiedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

In the run-up to Next Fest, there's a new pre-release demo for MYSTERIES OF OLD TOKYO! V2.1.0 totally changes the way you explore new locations and discover evidence with an improved map of Tokyo. #indiegames #demos #steam #nextfest

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

New menu. I love this thing. I don't know why. It feels very personal to me. Like, years of messing around in image editors and learning to code and thinking about design have created this, #indiegames #indiedev #gamedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

this hybrid Nokia/Apollo/Garmin rubber-edged tactile Thing with lights that feels almost real but also impossible, and it's my magnum opus even though it's just a menu. I'm just really happy with it.

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

All agents: Our equipment request dated July 1998 has been processed by Procurement and approved by Finance. Please look out for your updated CluesPDA in the next release. Additionally, we are excited to issue the new CluesPAGR to selected agents. #indiegames #gamedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

So I loaded a build of the finished game on my Steam Deck yesterday, and played about halfway. It works great. Easy to play on Steam Deck, and only minor bugs. But what's interesting is that the full game gets a bit repetitive in a way that the (short) demo doesn't. #gamedev #indiedev #steamdeck

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

Probably the most requested feature from ̷i̷n̷v̷e̷s̷t̷o̷r̷s̷ players of MYSTERIES OF OLD TOKYO is a hint system. So we've invested $10 million of vendor finance capital into Ria, our new AI assistant running on an enormous underwater datacenter in the Sargasso Sea. Coming soon to the demo! #indiegames

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

The game's finished! Well, the alpha version. Or maybe beta. Or somewhere in between. But in theory you can now load up the game, complete the tutorial, solve all puzzles across all ten chapters, finish the final chapter, and see this glorious end screen. (End screen WIP) #gamedev #indiedev

Bolerosoft
@bolerosoft.bsky.social

An idea I've, er, "borrowed" from games like Spec Ops: The Line is to have communiques from HQ become increasingly unhinged over time. They've been very fun to write.