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Jon Nielsen

@encifer.bsky.social

480 followers 170 following 190 posts

Artist, cartoonist, indie dev creator of WitchHand, Lost Nova, and Mechanibot! Beware of the occasional Dad Tweet · (He/Him) Mistpaw Ravine: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/Mistpaw_Ravine/

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Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · May 15

Big announcement!! My next game is on the way!

Mistpaw Ravine is a city builder where you give cats jobs and bring magic back to the world! 🐈✨

Wishlist now on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/...

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 14h

Working on new cat worker animations

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 19h

store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/...

Mistpaw Ravine on Steam

The witches are gone. Only their cats remain. Make a new home for them in this feline city-builder. Keep your cats fed and happy, clean their litter box, and endure the toxic mist of a world ravaged b...

store.steampowered.com

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 19h

Hope you like the new Mistpaw Ravine demo I made for the Steam Next Fest.

This is my most ambitious game ever. It's taken over a year of really hard, constant work to get here and I just hope you like it 🥰

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 23h

oh man without fail and no matter how much testing I do or how many other people I get to test it, a game-breaking bug always makes it into my game right at the start of a big Steam Festival. Every time! 🙃

It's fixed now but oof. Waking up to the messages almost gave me a heart attack.

Reposted by Jon Nielsen

solarVagrant @solarvagrant.itch.io · 1d

Winter Witch is a part of #SteamNextFest! Explore and craft as you traverse deeper into the winter woods.

Play the free demo here: store.steampowered.com/app/3633020/...

Promotional image of Winter Witch, now a part of Steam Next Fest

Reposted by Jon Nielsen

Lazy Eti @lazyeti.bsky.social · 1d

Happy Birthday Paradise Marsh!
To celebrate, the game is 75% off! That's cheap as dirt!

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 1d

My cat city-builder :)
store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/...

Mistpaw Ravine on Steam

The witches are gone. Only their cats remain. Make a new home for them in this feline city-builder. Keep your cats fed and happy, clean their litter box, and endure the toxic mist of a world ravaged b...

store.steampowered.com

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 1d

I added a bit of Creeper World stuff for ya ✨

store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/...

Mistpaw Ravine on Steam

The witches are gone. Only their cats remain. Make a new home for them in this feline city-builder. Keep your cats fed and happy, clean their litter box, and endure the toxic mist of a world ravaged b...

store.steampowered.com

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 1d

daaangg it looks so slick 🤩

Reposted by Jon Nielsen

Constance @constancegame.bsky.social · 1d

CONSTANCE IS FINALLY PART OF STEAM NEXT FEST - LIVE RIGHT NOW!! 🔥

Make sure to PLAY OUR DEMO!! 💜

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 1d

Mistpaw Ravine is part of the Steam Next Fest!!

🐈 build a city for magical cats
💣 terraform and make new rivers
💩 clean their litter box

Play for free: store.steampowered.com/app/3735490/...

promo image for my game Mistpaw Ravine. It says you can play the demo during the Steam Next from October 13th to the 20th

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 3d

(Don’t worry I fixed the typo)

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 3d

The latest Mistpaw Ravine demo update added little story moments. This one's my current favorite :)
#screenshotsaturday

Screenshot from Mistpaw Ravine that reads:
"After sending this relic to the Capital, a cat appeared in its place. They claimed to be from the future but had originally been from the the past. That was before -- and after -- they arrived in the present. Which was now.

A second, identical cat appeared, thanked us for detaining the first cat, and they both vanished.

A pile of food was later found at the scene. No one could agree if it came from the past or the future. It definitely wasn't from the present. Which was no longer now."

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

Anyway that's it! I could talk about this stuff forever.

Go play my game! It's free!!

encifer.itch.io/the-sun-keep...

The Sun Keeps Exploding by Jon Nielsen

Repair your ship and escape before the sun explodes! Again!

encifer.itch.io

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

2: I had the entire game designed and planned out before I started programming. There was no "I'll figure it out when I get there." Some things were tweaked and changed during the process, of course, but there was a direct path to the finished product

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

Some final thoughts on what worked for me:

1: I led with a "name and pitch first" approach to designing for this. These game jam games need to be immediately understandable and fast to pick up

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

After a much-deserved rest (and celebratory pizza)... I then spent the following day designing the full version of the game 😅

Will The Sun Keeps Exploding be my next game after I finish Mistpaw Ravine?

I don't know. But I know it'd be a blast to make.

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

And so, even with taking my time committing to the jam and starting late, I submitted my completed game 4 hours before the deadline.

I did it :)

My first game jam, my 5th game ever, made in about 4 days.

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

Progress was amazing but I was really starting to feel the burnout and exhaustion at this point. I pushed really hard on what should have been my days off but the finish line was so close! It was so beatable

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

The final day of the jam started with my game basically done. I put in the final win condition and victory sequence, and spent the rest of the day making the cover art and store page with gifs. My two daughters playtested the game for me, even finding some funny bugs

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

The asteroid-spawning system was based on the card-spawning system from WitchHand. The player movement and feel was based on Mechanibot.

By design, every aspect of this game was varied yet fully within my wheelhouse and it was a joy to create.

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

Programming-wise, even though it was an intimidating mountain of work for one guy, it was a ton of fun pulling bits and pieces from my 5 years of game dev experience.

The claw works a lot like the laser from Lost Nova. The menu functionality is from Mistpaw Ravine

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

I got permission from the sound designer of my first game Lost Nova to reuse those sounds for this game, which was a huge time saver. He even kindly made brand new sounds for the claw and the Victory guitar sting (thanks Topher!)

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

The next two days were a whirlwind of non-stop programming. It's a small game but there's still a ton of moving parts and features

- claw shooting, retracting, grabbing, upgrading
- buildings, the ship
- particles, effects, sound
- menus, browser version

bsky.app/profile/enci...

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 11d

Making progress on the game jam game!

Lots left to do of course but look! It's already a game! 🫨

Jon Nielsen @encifer.bsky.social · 4d

Halfway through making the color concept art, I'm like, all right I guess I'm making a game 😤

That first full day of work (which was actually the second day of the jam) I finished art for every asset, set up the project, and got player movement and the claw working