MaxxHoorn

Hey everyone! Welcome back to another update on Sirens. It’s been a busy development cycle, and I’m excited to share what I’ve been working on behind the scenes since the last update. Check out the progress in the video below: Here is a rundown of the latest additions and improvements: In-Game News Feature I’ve kicked off development on a brand-new news feed feature. This will be used to keep players immersed in the game world, reacting to the band's rising popularity, world events, and industry gossip. It's still in its early stages, but it's going to add a lot of life to the game loop! New Character Art Style The characters got a fresh visual overhaul! I’ve transitioned to a brand-new art style. It gives the band a sharper, more polished look that better fits the vibe of the game. Let me know what you think of the new look! New Management Dashboard Managing your band just got a whole lot easier. I've implemented a brand-new dashboard that tracks all the essential metr...

  In the last few days, I made a ton of progress. I'm still working on the same screen, the artist profiles, but I've added a bunch of new features, like getting the profile data loading smoothly from the JSON arrays. All in all, I'm probably only at about 1 or 2 percent of what I ultimately want to make, but I'm really happy with how it's shaping up. Of course, it wouldn't be indie dev life without a setback. Over the weekend (Sunday), I completely screwed up and lost a massive chunk of progress. By the end of the day, I was almost back to where I was on Saturday. Almost. The silver lining? Forced to redo it, I completely restructured how the data handles the modular character profiles. That refactoring actually makes it way cleaner and easier to build out the game further down the line. Then, yesterday and today, I knocked out some smaller additions that somehow feel huge now that the foundation is solid. Check out the video below to see how it's looking ...

  Development has officially started on my game, which I've renamed Sirens (formerly Singularity Sirens ). I'm building it in GameMaker Studio 2 and relying heavily on AI, specifically Google Gemini, to help create assets like images and audio. I've also incorporated some assets from Robert Brooks' Game Developer Studio . I'm a big fan of his work, though it doesn't always perfectly match the specific style I'm going for. The folder concepts, along with a few of the icon buttons, are assets/ideas from his website. The project is still in its very early stages. Right now, I've only got the character selection screen and profiles fully worked out. You might actually recognize a few of the characters from the trailer I posted a couple of weeks ago! At the time, that video was half-joke, half-brainstorming. Below, you'll find the first two builds I put together. After hitting some snags with the initial build, I decided to start fresh with a much stronge...

  In the darkest, grittiest corners of the galaxy, a new pulse is beginning to thrum—and it’s louder than anything you’ve ever heard. Prepare yourselves, earthlings and star-travelers alike: the era of the Singularity Sirens is officially upon us. This isn't just another game. This is a seismic shift in the fabric of digital entertainment. Born from the visionary mind of the legendary MaxxHoorn , Singularity Sirens is about to rewrite the rulebook on what it means to manage, survive, and absolutely dominate in a "used future" universe where the stakes are as high as the atmospheric pressure on a gas giant. MaxxHoorn —the architect of this chaos, the maestro of the mechanical—has crafted a masterclass in cosmic management. We’re talking about a level of depth, style, and raw, unfiltered attitude that you simply won't find anywhere else. Forget everything you know about simulation games; Singularity Sirens is a high-octane, rhythm-infused journey into the neon-soaked...

  Last Thursday Joey said "Let's go away for the weekend." So we looked for a Van Der Valk hotel which had availability. This was not that easy, but eventually we found two rooms in the Van Der Valk hotel Utrecht-De Bilt for two nights. We had to get 2 rooms, because Cloud, our 18 year old son, also came. Since I still had work on Friday (and we had a hard time finding a hotel with available rooms) we left home at 19:00h and came at the hotel at 20:00h. We had dinner there and then, very full, went back to our rooms. The next day we drove all the way back to Heerhugowaard. There was a Retour Depot pop-up store. They have packages that were sent back to Amazon, Bol.com and other webstores, but apparently got lost or something. So they anonimize it as much as possible and then sell these mystery packages for 2,49 euro per 100 grams. So we bought a bunch of packages unseen and back at the hotelroom we had fun unpacking all the (crap) stuff. It felt a bit like Christmas. Th...

  Yesterday we played our second Dungeons and Dragons session. The first session consisted of two sub-sessions, one at night, one the following morning. Probably we'll continue this morning. After Esh (Jilenko's character) left Heiko (Vash's character) and Tilo (Olysia's character) last time, a new hero appeared. Aurrun (Jilenko's new character) joined Heiko and Tilo aboard the Compass Rose, looking for an explanation of why a lot of ships shipwreck here on the coast. Unfortunately the heroes, especially Heiko and Aurrun, don't get along that well. Here's what happend (images created with AI, based on the designs of Vash, Olysia and Jilenko):