Nara Makes Games

My old art photography

I have been updating my personal website (anthonywallace.com), and a large portion of what is contained on that site is my previous art photography collection. From age 16-37ish, I considered myself an art photographer and that was my number one life passion. That all started to change after I became a digital nomad in 2018, as I found myself having some serious inner conflict about the whats and whys behind ...

Hippo&Buttercup now in Beta!

Yes, after a few months of nonstop work... Hippo & Buttercup is finally nearing the finish line and is officially in beta. The first fully playable ROM has been sent over to the film studio for review and we will be making final adjustments in January.

I'm not entirely sure the plan for release yet, but I am guessing that you guys will get a chance to try it out for yourself very soon!

Now... I need a break! Heading to Osaka tomorrow for great food, relaxation, gaming, and bi...

Hippo Poster

This is the current working cover image/poster for the upcoming "Hippo & Buttercup" video game. The game's logo and the poster design were both created by me, with the poster utilizing some of the environment art from the game and the main balloon imagery recreated by the one and only -IZMA- using the film's poster as reference.

This video game is on schedule to be complete by the end of the year. Depending on what the film studio wants to do, we may spend some more time adding more...

What's Next?

Most of you are probably aware that I have been back in Japan for about a week and a half now. I returned on December 3rd with my partner, and we were in vacation mode since that time. We pretty much cancelled all of our big touristy outings in favor of just playing Echoes of Wisdom on our Switch. And it was awesome. Today, December 15th, she returned to our home in Thailand and I will now be solo in Japan until the end of February.

This Japan trip has several goals, the first being to...

Writing video games with my wife

I am married to a Thai woman whom I met on my second visit to Chiang Mai at the beginning of 2019. She was a major support to me during the pandemic, and we kept building our relationship during that time while she was locked down in Thailand and I was locked down in Japan for all of 2020. We are very different people in a lot of ways, but we agree in our general life goal - to build a simple, comfortable life and to focus on the little things that bring us joy.

2024-11-30 15:19:39 +0000 UTC View Post

Hippo & Buttercup - Exclusive Patreon Preview Video

This is a Patreon exclusive video clip of the first section of the upcoming "Hippo & Buttercup" game for the Game Boy Color. Things are still deep in development, and some of this is still very much under construction. But it gives a nice idea of what to expect from the game later this year!

   2024-11-21 10:30:00 +0000 UTC View Post

The Future of Nara Makes Games (Part 2)

The results of the poll showed that 80% of you feel like you want to support Nara Makes Games no matter what I am posting or where. And 20% like the exclusivity of Patreon to get something for their investment. So what it sounds like is I should place emphasis on Patreon, but it's cool to share some of that on other mediums as well. Which is what I was thinking, as well.

I think, now that I have moved into my home in the country of Thailand and am heading to Japan soon for three months...

The Future of Nara Makes Games

Been thinking a lot about the future of Nara Makes Games, my possible game dev future, and what I should do with social media. My game dev career aspirations were stomped on (and continue to be behind the scenes, even today). And social media is absolutely exhausting lately. So I'm thinking the best move for me might be to step away and work more in private. Get back to doing it for me first. But I do have a following on Instagram, Youtube and Patreon who will want to know what the heck I am ...

The Music of Sanctuary

Nara Makes Games and Joseph Tomkins presents The Music of Sanctuary - a unique randomizer for the Game Boy Color (or digital emulator) featuring music and art from "The Mayor of Sanctuary".

Many (including myself) say that the music and pixel art are the best parts about my game. And this is a unique way to present those two elements in a new package. We also hope to gen...

Incube8 Games

Yeah, man. What else can you say or do? I've said it all. They are still trying to drag me down with them. I'm done fighting for what's right and done letting Olivier from Incube8 affect my life.

http://anthonywallace.com/incube8.pdf

Patreon Early Access - NMG Episode 20

Latest episode on my Youtube channel is available early to my Patreon followers. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKqFp6SNx_4

Patreon Early Access - Upcoming Release

Just a little something I have been cooking up for the past week or so.

The hardest part about making a game (for me)

The hardest part about making a retro style pixel art game by far is finding pixel artists.

I am not a pixel artist myself, so even though I have 20+ years of graphic art experience, it doesn't mean I can make really awesome pixel characters. And animation... forget about it. But it is insanely difficult to find pixel artists to work on a game.

From my experience, which is now about four years, anytime you are looking for a pixel artist, it is not unlike what it was like when co...

What happened with Sen'i?

After all was said and done, I decided that the Sen'i project might not be something I need to do or want to do. As you know, Sen'i was intended to be a smaller step towards finding my passion again. A lesser commitment to see if I even had it in me anymore. And that effort is very much a work in progress. There are still days where I just don't think I can work on games ever again. And there are days where I feel super inspired and motivated to start something new. I lean towards the latter ...

Sanctuary & Chill B-Sides

During the development of "Sanctuary & Chill", the lofi remix soundtrack for my game, Joseph and I were in contact with quite a few artists who wanted to contribute to the project. Many of these potential contributions didn't work out for one reason or another, and this left us with a handful of incomplete remixes that did not make it onto the final tracklist. I still have some of these in my own collection that I listen to, and it's a bummer that nobody got to hear them (even if they wer...

My Next Nara Trip

My next long stay in Japan is set for December-February. Needless to say, the main point of this trip is to return to Nara for an extended period of time to just enjoy it without major distractions. The primary plan is rest and time away from work. But I do have some plans for a few creative things I would like to do while I am there, which are mostly film based ideas. I would like to start producing short nomad/tourism type videos that tie into my love of retro gaming, coffee, animals, chil...

I'm not dead :)

Been grinding away at the "Hippo & Buttercup" game, which we would like to complete this year. Seems doable. Still early and rough, but the plan is there.

I released my Anbernic RG40xxv review and the views have been great. But no affiliate sales. These reviews actually end up costing me money since I almost always buy the devices myself. My next review will be the Ayaneo DMG, which I'm praying is my "end-all" device. It's got all the makings for my perfect handheld. Even with the...

Patreon Early Preview

As you guys know, my focus has shifted to working on the HIPPO game. We may have our official title, "Hippo & Buttercup", as you will be able to play as both characters in the game. And this is my vision for the logo. I created an onscreen (on the Game Boy) version, and this upsized version for print, which is 3x for more detail.

As I mentioned in my last video diary on Youtube (apologies for the terrible audio on that one), "Sen'i" is on hold for now. My passion and energy to wor...

TMOS Expanded - FOR NEW MEMBERS

Hello new Patreon members. First and foremost, thank you for your support!

If you signed up for my Patreon looking for the digital ROM file for "The Mayor of Sanctuary - Expanded Edition", I do not host that here. If I were to keep my game behind a paywall, that's technically you paying for it. And my game will always be 100% free to anybody who wants it.

Edit September 18, 2024: 
The game is now available on itch.io: 2024-08-13 15:23:47 +0000 UTC View Post

Patreon Early Access - Nara Makes Games Episode 19

An update on what's been going on, most of which my Patreon people will already know about. But here's the latest catch up.

https://youtu.be/WAKc9vDOWg8

Game Boy Dev Insight - Too Many Actors II

As a followup to my previous post regarding some of the limitations I encountered while developing my first game for the Game Boy, I wanted to breakdown what is for sure the most complicated scene in The Mayor of Sanctuary. Surprisingly, it is not the collectibles menu... it is actually the fire scene with all of the cats.

As you can see, this scene is insanely complicated when you see it in ...

Game Boy Dev Insight - Too Many Actors

I am currently reviewing my game files for The Mayor of Sanctuary as I prepare a new folder and GB Studio file for the HIPPO game, and I wanted to share something with you guys that I find particularly interesting and impressive.

When developing for the Game Boy, there are a lot of limitations you run into that you must find creative solutions to overcome. Those limitations usually involve graphics and what can be shown on the screen at one time. One of those limitations is the amount o...

My New Project! Patreon Early Access

The next project from Nara Makes Games will be the official Game Boy experience for the film "Hippo". Hippo was produced by Rough House Pictures (Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Jody Hill) and directed by Mark H. Rapaport, who is somebody I had the pleasure of working with in the past in my professional graphic design work. (Before I dove head-first into retro gaming and game development, I was a professional graphic designer and web programmer with a lot of my work in...