Marshmallow Bear /
Addressing the hiatus

Hello everyone! It’s been a little while since we’ve had any updates on the blog, Retro Sketch, or the game engine I’ve been wrestling with. But fear not! I’m getting back into the swing of things, and thought it would be a great opportunity to share what’s been happening.

Life, as it often does, threw a few curveballs recently, which pulled me away from engine development. You know how it is – other exciting projects pop up, demanding your attention! Thankfully, I’ve tackled those life events and distractions, and I’m now laser-focused on games and the engine.

My next step is to start working on another game in the game engine. That means I probably won’t be pushing out updates to Retro Sketch unless a bug pops up, or I need it for a feature while I’ve been developing my game. Don’t worry though – I use Retro Sketch myself for my pixel art, so there will almost certainly be updates related to that!

Of course, diving back into code after a few months can be…interesting. Turns out nothing was compiling or running! I spent the last couple of days wrestling with the engine just to get it building and running again. The good news? The address sanitizer is now fixed and working! That was pretty annoying to be without for a while. Another cool feature I’ve been experimenting with is time travel debugging – a fantastic tool built into Windows when you install WinDbg. With all my cool tools back online, it’s finally time to start developing that new game!

I’ve been making games for over 15 years, and have published quite a few… though not under the “Marshmallow Bear” moniker. Previously, I ran a studio called Bearded Man Studios. But that chapter has passed, and most of the amazing people who worked with me have moved on. Those games have faded into obscurity, and they’re sadly built on older versions of Unity, making a resurrection quite the challenge. If I find the time and the desire, I might resurrect them in the new engine someday. But my focus right now is on creating something brand new.

Once I have something genuinely fun and interesting to share, I’ll be posting it here on the blog. For now, I’m overflowing with ideas – but, ideas are cheap. I’m starting to test out some of these concepts, probably sticking with pixel art for the near future. The game engine itself is a 3D engine, and it plays very well with Vulkan. However, creating 3D art and all the assets that go with it takes a lot of time and energy, especially when you’re a bit of a perfectionist (like me!). I want to make simple, fun games, and the easiest way to do that is to embrace some constraints.

Although I am completely comfortable working in 3D and working with 3D game engines, animation rigging, texturing high-poly models, re-topologizing, sculpting and the rest of things that come with 3D. Right now, it just isn’t something I can realistically focus on. Feel free to stay tuned for what I’m working on next.