Progress on Retrobooster is a whole lot faster now that it’s my full-time job. I have decided to submit it to IGF and IGC, so work is currently focused on all the pieces that will make for the best submission. More specifically, I am making the most progress on early levels, the tutorial, menu screens, and menu art, and I am refining every little detail that bugs me. It’s great to have intermediate goals like these competitions to work toward.

Some big tasks remaining are in-house playtesting and a bit of repackaging so the game feels fairly complete even with a limited number of levels. The testing should provide some good feedback on the current state of the game, and I can use it to make a few final improvments before submissions are due.

I have also been refining this website a tiny bit at a time. One reader, Mayur, sent in a bunch of ideas for Retrobooster and the website, including suggesting this archive page. Thanks, Mayur. (Yay! This blog actually has readers!)

This morning I got another request from someone who wants to be a beta tester, which is just awesome. For anyone who is interested, I haven’t decided if there will be any kind of public beta for the whole game, but I definitely plan to release a playable demo with three or four levels. Preparing a demo and making a submission to IGF and IGC requires mostly the same work, so a demo should be feasible in the not-too-distant future. After that, I will be gratefully accepting feedback on the demo from anyone who wants to give it, and I will probably update the demo as development proceeds.