Joshua Bossie

  • Restoring a Village, Week 0

    I’ve been putting off writing this post for far too long. That probably goes without saying, eh?

    So let’s jump right to the good news: active development has resumed on Village Monsters! The fabled v1.1 will release this October. Yes, that’s next month.

    More details, a new trailer, and a firm release date will follow soon.

    If that’s all you’re interested in knowing then you’re good to go! But for the sake of accountability I wanted to explain myself. I owe you all that much. Keep on reading to understand what’s been going on.

    (Note: This post contains no new info on VM itself, no new screenshots, etc. I thought that’d muddy the waters too much.)

    tl;dr

    Over the last year I’ve had the worst luck imaginable in my personal life. Eventually, I was forced to focus on my family’s health over working on projects until I got my head above water.

    It Rains

    I’ve mentioned a lot of this stuff previously – here, on Twitter, via emails and DMs – but it’s been long enough that I felt I should put it all down on paper from the beginning. Let’s revisit March 2022 and the disastrous release that was v1.0.

    It all began, unbeknownst to me at the time, with a bug in my version control software introduced months before release. Version control let’s you maintain and organize the huge amount of code changes you make to a project; I use git and SourceTree. It’s very important even for solo devs.

    I did not discover this bug until the day before release when I created the final “build” of v1.0, which basically means creating the files that let’s you play the game. Instead of taking 10-15 minutes and spitting out the necessary files, GameMaker instead ran for hours and then silently failed and froze my entire computer. Not good.

    The nasty part was that Git said everything looked good, and GameMaker showed no errors, not even when the build process failed. The only clue pointing at my source control was that my directories were full of junk files that coincided with times I’d push / pull from my remote git repository. It seemed that GameMaker was “choking” on these junk files when it came time to build the game.

    Of course I had backups – local and online – and went through them slowly to find a “good” copy of the game that’d build successfully. I did find one… but it was many months old. I had been crunching for weeks on v1.0, and all that work was lost. I’d have to do it all over again.

    I should have done the rational thing and delayed the release so I could fully examine and fix the problem programmatically. I’m not an expert on git or source control in general, so the problem may have had a simple solution if I had time to dig at it.

    Instead I panicked and attempted to fix everything by hand using the old backup from my laptop and manual “cherry picks” from git. I pulled multiple all-nighters and worked 16 hour days in an attempt to release and fix the game simultaneously.

    This was a very silly idea and made a bad situation much worse. Now my codebase – which was already a delicate house of cards – was full of errors, half-fixes, copy / paste mistakes, hardcoded data, etc. etc. A total mess, and even months later the game was still broken regardless of how many patches I shoved out there.

    I had the plan for a v1.1, a reboot of sorts to get everything back on track. I just needed a good chunk of time to work on it. Instead, I got much less.

    It Pours

    Separate to all this, my family was dealing with its own (unrelated) major stresses and problems. These had been building up prior to the release, and had resulted in some major shifts in my life and schedule to accommodate.

    But the situation became untenable after the difficult birth (and even harder infancy) of my son in the summer of 2022. This was unfortunately around the time I was first designing v1.1 and planning what a “redo” release might look like.

    Suddenly I was put into a position where I had to choose between family and work. I put it off as long as I could and tried to juggle between the two priorities in my life. But turns out I stink at juggling, and I was dropping things more than I was catching them.

    I ultimately throttled back my work to the barest minimum so I could focus on my family. I figured a break of a month or two would let me stabilize my own life so I’d be able to focus on stabilizing VM.

    Of course it didn’t work like that. The problems somehow kept adding on, some urgent and very scary, others minor but extremely tedious, and Village Monsters became more and more distant down my priority list. I never fully stopped working, but I wasn’t putting in enough time to get a release out.

    Now What?

    It has been a very, very long year. But things are better now.

    I’m now 3000 miles away from where I was this time last year. I’m on my same desktop, using my same keyboard and monitor, but everything else is different.

    We’re in the process of moving closer to our relatives – turns out you really miss being around your safety net when crap hits the fan. However, this means means going back from Seattle to New England. It’s an ongoing process, but we have a good (albeit temporary) setup now where I can work.

    It feels good to work on VM again, though it’s a bit like waking up from a deep sleep after throwing a very irresponsible party. I vaguely recognize the comfortable shapes of my house under all the trash and broken furniture, but putting it back together won’t be easy.

    But it’s doable, and I left myself in a good place before hitting pause, so I’m able to start from 70% as opposed to 0%.

    I’m also using this opportunity to reevaluate things. To be frank, I may end up turning indie vidcon development back into a side effort, and not my main career. I’m still defining what exactly that means and I’m currently exploring all my options. It won’t effect v1.1, but it may change future releases of VM or any other titles I may work on. We’ll see.

    Anyway! You can look forward to more progress updates here and on Twitter (…X?), and I can pinky promise that v1.1 will be ready by October. A monster month for a monster game. Seems as good of a fit as any.

    See you soon, villagers!

  • Book Review: The Lions of Al-Rassan

    The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay

    Lions of Al-Rassan is one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read, and I say this even though I’m not entirely convinced it is fantasy.

    Whatever its genre, it tells the tale of Moorish Spain and events leading to the Reconquista, but through the lens of the fantastical. The major powers and players are sufficiently mixed up and layered with new details to make it clear this is not earth (there are two moons in the sky!) and it’s not a historical account , but things are also immediately recognizable, even as an American. Instead of Christians, Muslims and Jewish peoples, you have the Jaddites, Asharites, and the Kindath – with all the same customs, stereotypes, challenges, and desires. It’s a little weird, to tell the truth, but more on that later.

    Thankfully, it is much more than just a fantastical retelling of Cantar de mio Cid. At the heart of Lions of Al-Rassan are the lives and personal stories of impossibly powerful, emotional, and clever men and women. There’s The Captain himself, Rodrigo Belmonte, a genius tactician and leader of the strongest band of Jaddites on the peninsula. Opposing, or allied, with him is Ammar ibn Khairan, an Asharite poet, advisor to kings, killer of kings, and lovable rogue. Finally there’s the woman that stands between them, Jehane bet Ishak, a Kindath doctor whose life is defined equally by love, war, and medicine.

    These three heroes are the pillars of the book, with themselves and the people that follow and love them serving as a metaphor for the mishmash of cultures and the inevitable conflict arising on the peninsula itself.

    Al-Rassan is a ticking timebomb of external pressures and irreconcilable differences, but there is a compelling argument made by its characters that it doesn’t have to be. There’s a dream shared by many characters that conflict is not inevitable, that it is possible to blend disparate cultures (in some cases quite literally) to create something new, better, but fragile. This struggle is the source of its many emotional highs and lows.

    I don’t think I’ve ever read a more human book, especially in the fantasy genre. Characters frequently stop and appreciate beauty, celebrate companionship, weep at tragedy, and profess respect for their friends and rivals.

    The key here is that, with few exceptions, there are no evil men. There are competing and incompatible cultures, religions, and political systems, but humans are human, and their shared likenesses are as important as their differences. These are crafty and intelligent men having crafty and intelligent conversations with each other, even in conflict. You end up sympathizing with everyone, even going so far as hoping, naively, that they somehow all get what they want.

    They won’t, of course. One of the greatest themes running throughout the book is that these men would be great and lifelong friends if not for just one small problem – the tragedy being that these “small” problems are often the most defining parts of their lives.

    It is a nearly flawless book, though there are a few problems I couldn’t get past.

    I’ve read plenty of books that straddle the line between fantasy and historical fiction, but this is the first time it’s been a source of distraction. Events and characters are so close to their real world counterparts – often with comically referential names, titles, or descriptions – yet at the same time are very clearly not.

    I kept wishing that the book fully committed to fantasy or history.

    Take the three major religions as example. Going by their descriptions, you’d likely say they are sufficiently fantastical: the Jaddites worship the sun as god, the Kindath worship the two moons, twin sisters of the sun god, and the Asharites worship not the gods but the stars and the human prophet who preached their glory.

    And yet when you read of their cultures, practices, and so on, you’ll quickly find they are literally Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The Kindath (Jews) are called the Wanderers, valued for their skills and trades when times are good, but immediately blamed, persecuted, segregated, expelled, and labeled as sorcerers and baby eaters when times are bad. It’s not subtle!

    It’s also not a bad thing, necessarily, because the fantastical framing is as good of a teacher as any historical drama would be. And yet… it remains distracting, taking me away from its world and putting me back in my own.

    More distracting are the names of its characters: Rodrigo “The Captain” Belmonte is of course El Cid himself, Rodrigo “The Lord” Diaz. The character of Ammar ibn Khairan is based on a man named Muhammad ibn Ammar. A major city in the book is named Silveness (Seville), ruled by the khalifate (caliphate), which eventually falls and is replaced by the Almalik (Almoravid) dynasty.

    Both book and reality contain a Sancho the Fat, yet they are different people… sorta?

    On more mundane annoyances, there are a number of writing ‘tricks’ that Guy Gavriel Kay goes back to a few too many times.

    Often – too often – there will be a scene in which an important event is viewed through the perspective of one of the characters. It will then end on a cliffhanger – like a character’s death, not yet named – and then the perspective shifts. Sometimes the cliffhanger is resolved, but more often than not this trick happens a 2nd or even 3rd time, or the time frame jumps suddenly and you’re left to infer what happened before the book eventually just tells you.

    The writing is very clearly aware that it’s dangling the reveal in front of you, and it’ll purposefully lead you down false conclusions to stretch out the tension even more. Once you notice the trick it’s hard not to get impatient or even frustrated by it.

    There are also a number of repetitive words and phrases that grate after a time – people can only talk about “dissembling” or “diverting” so many times before it becomes irksome – but they’re minor.

    Indeed, all of its problems and distractions are minor when compared with the work as a whole. They are primarily noted only because the rest of the work is so phenomenal that even the smallest error stands out of place.

    It’s a remarkable book, one that should be on the shelves of every fantasy fan, and it’s made me a Guy Gavriel Kay for life. Just don’t read it too close to taking a test or quiz on the history of Spain, because it will cause you to fail spectacularly.

  • State of the Village, vol. 4 – Backed Up & Running

    Hello Villagers!

    I have mentioned before my terrible luck this past year, especially when it has coincided with Village Monsters stuff.

    So it wasn’t surprising to me when my entire family came down with the flu the literal day I published the last dev log. 2+ weeks of sickness, including an incredibly grumpy 3 month old? No surprises there!

    “Ha! This time I knew it was coming, so it doesn’t bother me at all. Now it’s out of the way and I’ll have a funny anecdote for the next dev log!”

    Then, thanks to school starting, we all got sick again. I am unsure which gods I angered or what my offense was, but I am very ready for this curse to be lifted.

    Still, the journey continues. Work has resumed on Village Monsters, and I have plenty of news to share, so let’s get to it.

    What’s The Latest?

    • The tools have been updated, the source code recompiled, and the debugger is chugging away once again. We’re back up and running, baby!
    • All feedback and bug reports reported since May (post-baby) have been logged, prioritized, and in many cases fixed
    • All reported crashes and blocker bugs have been confirmed fixed
    • Village Monsters v1.1 will launch this October. For real. No redos this time.

    It has taken me a great deal of effort to get back up to speed, especially with all the gross distractions in the real world, but I am pleased with where I’m at now.

    One idea I toyed with was splitting the work into two releases: one with priority bugfixes (crashes) I could get out soon, and then another, larger update that focuses on the more content-heavy things sometime later.

    However, I decided against it. Village Monsters is not a live service game, and it didn’t seem like there would be much of a benefit to that. I also worry about the confusion of saying “it’s fixed!” while also promising that more fixes are coming.

    The plan is to treat October as a relaunch of sorts and making v1.1 what v1.0 should have been. It’s somewhat riskier (as all big launches are), and it requires more waiting, but I think it’s the right move given the choices.

    I can’t go back in time and redo the disastrous launch, but I can try to at least make up for it. It’s like when you burn dinner while entertaining guests; it sucks, it’s embarrassing, but people still need to eat, so climb out the window and go grab some burgers.

    Until next time!

  • State of the Village, vol. 3 – Precious Little Sleep

    Hello Villagers!

    Hello again. It’s been a while!

    If it’s seemed like I dropped off the face of the earth for the last few months… that’s because I did. In fact, I’ve barely left my own living room since May.

    Long story short, my 2nd son, Arlo, was born on May 17th. In fact, I was in the middle of writing a dev diary the exact moment my wife’s water broke.

    Note the timestamp. I never did get to sleep that night… nor have I slept since.

    Arlo is our 2nd kid, so we had a plan for what ‘paternity leave’ looked like. Or so we thought. I never imagined I’d be gone for months, and I certainly never wanted to disappear altogether.

    In truth, this has been a very hard time for my family. I don’t feel comfortable sharing everything, but Arlo has had a heartbreakingly difficult start to his short life. We were in survival mode, and there was no room left for anything else.

    I am so incredibly sorry to have been gone for so long. To release Village Monsters in such a sorry state – only to seemingly leave before I finished fixing things – is unacceptable.

    However, I had to prioritize my family over everything else.

    The good news is that things have finally calmed down, Arlo is happy and healthy, and I’m finally ready to get back to work in earnest.

    Thank you so much for bearing with me during these difficult times.

    State of v1.1

    Work has resumed on v1.1, but it’s going to take some time to ramp back up to full speed and knock off the rust.

    I’ve created a new public Trello board after the previous one was eaten by Atlassian. I’ll update this board daily so you can keep track of my progress.

    In addition, I’ll be resuming live streams over at my Twitch channel starting next week. Keep an eye out on Twitter for the schedule.

    —

    I wish I could provide a more concrete schedule given how long it’s been, but history has shown that’s not wise. I’m bad enough at making plans, but I also have supremely bad luck whenever I commit to something.

    If nothing else, I can promise that – barring any unforeseen circumstances – this should be the last son I sire while developing Village Monsters.

    Until next time, villagers!

  • State of the Village, vol. 2 – Let’s Try This Again

    Hello Villagers!

    Welcome to the 2nd State of the Village update, where I talk about how things are going with Village Monsters, as well as what’s coming next.

    To summarize the past month: the launch of Village Monsters was a supreme mess, and I’ve been trying to make things right ever since.

    However, I soon realized that releasing hotfixes every few days wasn’t working – there were simply too many big problems to fix things in piecemeal way.

    I needed to change my approach. So I took a step back, regrouped, and began work on a larger, more comprehensive patch.

    Village Monsters v1.1, which I’ve been affectionately referring to as the Let’s Try This Again Update, is the result of these efforts.

    What’s Coming in v1.1?

    First and foremost, v1.1 will fix the multitude of bugs that have been reported since launch. Some of these bugs were preventing entire features from working, so it’s been a real big effort.

    Next, I’ve gathered up all your feedback and have incorporated as many suggestions as I could. Expect many new quality of life changes, such as improved gamepad support, more sensible energy and time management, and more.

    Finally, a number of last-minute things cut before launch have been re-added back to the game.

    In short, Village Monsters v1.1 represents a complete do-over of the previous embarrassing launch.

    When is v1.1 Coming?

    News regarding Village Monsters v1.1’s launch date will be revealed within the 

    next two weeks. Look for an announcement as I get closer to the actual date.

    —

    it’s been a messy year. A combination of technical issues, naivety, supremely bad luck, and good ol’ fashion developer incompetence has lead me here.

    I can’t redo the terrible first impression I made, but I can make sure to do things the right way going forward.

    I hope the results speak for themselves when you play v1.1.

  • State of the Village, vol. 1 – Let’s Talk Turkey

    Hello Villagers!

    It’s been exactly one week since Village Monsters v1.0 was released.

    Village Monsters is my first ever creation. I am very proud of the work I did, and the many kind words I’ve received from players has been beyond heartwarming.

    I have notebooks from back when I was in 1st grade detailing a game where you live with video game monsters, and now nearly 30 years later… it’s real! People are playing it!

    But, to be frank, Village Monsters is in a very rough state right now. I’ve already released 5 bugfix patches, and after looking at the reports on my desk, I have a long way to go.

    I want to use this post to address the biggest problems, how they came about, and what I’m doing to fix them.

    The Problems

    My top priority right now is fixing the issues that were introduced during the final push.

    For context, a technical bug with my developer tools caused me to lose 2 months worth of work the literal night before the original launch date. It sucked. You can read more details here.

    I had already been crunching for months, so this last-minute disaster nearly broke me. In a fit of reckless optimism, I opted to manually stich the game back together over the course of a week. I had hoped adrenaline and the code being “fresh” in my mind would help pull off a miracle.

    I was stupid and exhausted. While my approach ultimately was “successful”, it has (predictably) introduced far more problems into the game than before.

    Over the last week, I’ve identified two of the largest ones.

    Problem #1

    World Flags are not working properly across the board. These flags control nearly everything in the game, such as holidays, events, and story cutscenes. The knock-on effects are tremendous, and it’s my top priority to fix.

    Problem #2

    There are many features that were disabled in the final moments of release. Some intentionally (due to time constraints), others due to bugs or source control issues. There are many lingering issues due to this. My next priority is to test, fix, and reenable these features.

    The Solution

    I’ve been investigating my code and player save files since last week. I have a really good idea of what needs to be fixed and how, and I’ve already started on working through it. Things are going very well, especially now that I’ve had a chance to sleep and regroup.

    You guys deserve a fixed and polished game, and no amount of words, roadmaps or timelines will get you that faster. To this end, I’ll continue doing rapid smaller patches to fix crashes and urgent bugs, but I’ll otherwise keep a low profile until I’ve finished the work necessary.

    I want to extend an enormous thank you to everyone who has supported me. From the very first Kickstarter, to 2019’s Early Access release, to last week’s v1.0 launch. I don’t take any of you for granted, and I won’t stop working on Village Monsters until it’s in a state worthy of your support.

  • Village Monsters v1.0 – “The Big One” – is now available!

    Hello Humans!

    Sorry to keep you waiting!

    Village Monsters v1.0 – “The Big One” has launched! It is now available on all platforms.

    What’s New?

    Everything!

    Story & Progression

    The biggest change in v1.0 is the addition of story and progression elements.

    You are a human who has arrived at Eidolon Village – a town of monsters – in surprising fashion. Unfortunately for you, humans aren’t welcome in this world anymore.

    As you await your fate, you learn that the village has something more important to worry about: it’s scheduled for imminent destruction.

    Soon after, your freedom is tied to the fate of Eidolon. The village is given a short two year reprieve, and now it’s up to you – through court-mandated community service – to save the village and win your freedom.

    More Stuff

    There’s more critters to catch, more fish to hook, more plants to grow, more treasures to discover, new secrets, new perks, new visitors, new events, new areas to explore, more dialogue, more cutscenes, more friends, more enemies.

    Chances are, if you liked something about Village Monsters before, there’s even more of it to enjoy now.

    Less Stuff…?!

    Features and content that weren’t working great in Early Access have been trimmed, simplified, or cut entirely.

    Some things may return in future updates – especially the things that were cut recently to avoid further delays.

    However, many are consigned forever to oblivion – and good riddance! I think everyone will agree that Village Monsters is a tighter and more complete experience without the extra baggage.

    Quality of Life

    An endless number of changes have been made to make the game easier, simpler, and more fun to play.

    The economy, energy expenditures, passage of time, and more have been tweaked and rebalanced to be smoother.

    Many new user interface elements have been added or modified to make things easier. Filters help you manage your inventory better, while new dialogue menu makes interacting with villagers more dynamic.

    What’s Next?

    First: I’m going to get some rest. It’s been a long week, month, and year. I’m ready to catch my breath.

    I then immediately have jury duty to worry about on the 23rd. Seriously. It’s been a weird few weeks, guys.

    Please expect a short amount of radio silence from me. I haven’t gone anywhere, I’m just recharging my batteries.

    After that, I’ll start on the usual round of bugfixes, quality of life changes, and incorporating your feedback. As always, you can submit feedback in game, send me an email, a Twitter DM, or a Discord message.

    I’m gonna level with you: I’ll be spending a good deal of time fixing bugs. My list of “known bugs” is pretty big already, and I only expect it to grow after lots of new people start hammering away at this monstrous release.

    I realize that sort of thing isn’t something you should admit, generally speaking. But it’s not like I can hide it. I’ve been more than transparent (for good or ill) about the woes I’ve been dealing with getting this release finished.

    Don’t worry, I’m here for the long haul. I got big plans for the future of Village Monsters.

    For now: welcome home, humans!