The Candybox Blog

I have been regularly sharing my itch.io income numbers on Twitter. This year I’ve been doing surprisingly well on itch (the snowballing is kind of blowing my mind). When I last looked at the account overview I noticed that (since starting on itch.io, in 2015, OVERALL)… The Gross Revenue of my games are: $7,276.70 The very touching part of this is that the *TIP* Revenue is $7,164.18. That’s Tip. So ok, queue me melting into a useless puddle of feelings. I shared that in this thread, with some thoughts about what itch.io and GameJolt mean to me. I asked if...

This last week or so I’ve been neck deep in building the website for the Electric Zine Maker. At this point in development it seemed like a good idea to make it because I need to write people about it, and sharing just the itch page seemed boring… so here it is. I think it worked out wonderfully. It’s very interesting! LINK: http://unicornycopia.com/ezm/ It’s part of the Unicornycopia webring :) Yes, I’m viewing it as that now. All my games have a website, and it’s kind of cute to think of it that way. With making these sites, especially this...

I did it! The update is out! This feels like a big deal because it’s a fairly substantial one. I’ve been meaning to make a more concise design writeup about it, and talk about influences and things that went into it, because I think that the design process that would be interesting…but I’m very exhausted so I’ll have to save that for another time. Download link: YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE So ok… this new update to the Electric Zine Maker brings a bunch of new tools. These are interesting because they’ll add dimension to your art, or give you...

The other day I posted this thread about inspiration and the importance of crediting the sources of your inspiration… so that your success doesn’t lead to the erasure of the less advantaged artists that inspired you… I’m now making this a post because I feel like the issue is complicated, and deserves discussion. It’s a topic that ends up being on my mind a lot since people will tell me how much my work influenced them, inspired them, or led to them making their game, and when it becomes popular that’s not mentioned anywhere. The “what inspired them” reason behind...

Playdate, now Playdate Pop Up, is a game showcase meets miniature event that runs as part of the LA zine fest. It’s been around for a few years now. It’s one of my favorite because of how low-key it is, and how it consistently showcases personal, niche, strange, weird, and wonderful games from a wide spectrum of devs. The games featured are feminist, queer, weird, and wonderfully experimental. It’s a beautiful fit for the zine crowd who are equally as feminist, queer, and weird. It’s also an event run very resourcefully, and personally, since the organizers don’t make money from...

I finally posted the Electric Zine Maker public beta. It’s two days old! They grow up so fast!!!! You can download the beta here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker The Electric Zine Maker is a printshop and art tool for making zines. It includes a drawing interface. You can import images, size and place them, write text with any font that you have installed, smudge, paint, and a number of other options. It's out!The Electric Zine Maker (public beta)https://t.co/yOVfooYtCv?? Easily create, draw, write, and print zines!? Folding instructions included!!?? You can save them, and re-import them.?? Made with collaboration in mind.? Try it! It's...

So here it is. I’m finally announcing it in a blog post, proper! If you have been following me on Twitter, then you’ve probably seen me talk about it. I’m making a zine tool! This is called Electric Zine Maker. It’s an art tool for creating zines. It will allow you to paint, write, and edit zines. It’s specifically targeted at the 8-page fold ones, but I’m open to adding more templates as soon as I have the hard parts of this finished. This grew out of a spur of the moment thing. I was fairly burned out (jaded?) after...

Since it feels really important to me to make an effort to explain the internet portion that surrounds the desktop version of Tetrageddon Games, I’m doing that here. I never talked about that properly. You can download the game here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/tetrageddon This came about because of this. Since I know how these things play out, if I were ever to build on this, or make something surrounding the subject that I have been working with for 10+ years… I’ll likely be compared to, or told that I’m copying the ideas from the new hit game made by men (I apologize...

RUNONCE (remember_me) is an existential desktop pet that you can only run once, and then never again. You can download it here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/runonce What I think is interesting about this is that it presents you with a warning at the beginning explaining that running it will “break them” and if you do then the damage is permanent. I think this is an interesting commentary on death, and how we view death. Aside from the impending permanence of something we will all be, you’re very likely to say “OK! RUN IT!” and as you interact with it the friendship grows, and...

Final Update: The project is playable here: https://alienmelon.itch.io/runonce For reasons mentioned on the project’s page, and at the bottom of this dev post, I pulled out of DeleteGDC. For the sake of awareness, I encourage you to read it. —- I’m participating in Delete GDC! Yay? What I make will be shown there for one night, and then destroyed. ?DELETE GDC? A NIGHT MADE FOR GAMES/GAMES MADE FOR A NIGHTMAR 20 2019 @ Venue 550, SFhttps://t.co/KNXVv3jhpq New works by @radiatoryang @alienmelon @ra @kahodesu @smitleu @dogs_R_cool DJs TBA poster by https://t.co/jjgAgIxL51#deletegdc#GDC19 pic.twitter.com/CMvoasjXBn — BAR SK (@SK_BARSK) January 14, 2019 The idea...

I just published something new! It’s called A_DESKTOP_LOVE_STORY. You can download get it on itch.io: https://alienmelon.itch.io/lovestory A_DESKTOP_LOVE_STORY is a short love story told between two files. Due to system restrictions this is a forbidden love. As a system administrator, you are the only one that can help them. A_DESKTOP_LOVE_STORY is a very short cute little piece. You talk to the files, they give you things to pass to eachother, after a while they realize they like eachother, and you help them meet. This is also one of the most weirdly designed, and technically difficult things I built so far. I...

ELECTRIC FILE MONITOR, my virus scanner, was just posted to itch and gamejolt. Here are the links: itch: https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-file-monitor GJ: https://gamejolt.com/games/efm/371598 ELECTRIC FILE MONITOR is pitched to you as a state of the art virus scanner, and free preventative tool against all types of malware… but there’s a lot more to it. This is software as political commentary. I mean, they said to keep politics out of games. Nobody ever said anything about software. So this is OK. The program is a joke. It’s comedic, and the premise is antivirus software. I suggest maybe trying it before reading about it...

My little treat-myself-project is done! I’m excited to share this with the world. You can download it from… GameJolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/graveyard/351892 Itch: https://alienmelon.itch.io/graveyard Cyberpet Graveyard features a little over 41 programs. That does not include html pages, or all the other things to find and look at and be amused by… Basically it’s a collection of strange, goofy, software that you discover by rummaging around in folders. The premise is a set of abandoned cyberpets. There aren’t THAT many of those, but what is charming about this is all the junk surrounding them. There are a lot of .html pages that...