TLDR:

• Arctic Comic Con Postponed to April 2022
• PROVIDER release postponed till Nov 26
• This gives us a little longer to put together the most polished and content-rich game we can

So, I had a whole cool post ready about all the cool stuff we're going to be doing at the upcoming Arctic Comic Con at the end of October. Though between posting that post on Patreon, and the day it was supposed to go up here publicly, the Arctic Comic Con was postponed to April 2022(which we're still planning to be doing a booth at). While we'd have loved to do all the cool demo stuff at the end of October, we also think it's probably for the best given the current overload of our hospitals and the danger of a large-scale public event like this at this time.

Either way, ARCC being postponed changes the release timeline for PROVIDER release. We're moving our release from Oct 27 to Nov 26, giving us just over a month of extra development time. I'm confident that we would have been ready for release by Oct 27,  but we're all more than happy to have a little extra time to polish things up and maybe even add in a little more content in to make PROVIDER as good as possible. 

Wrapping PROVIDER in Nov, with 5 more months to go before ARCC will also hopefully give us enough time to patch issues, release on new consoles(hopefully), and get the next game started.

In any case, we hope everyone shows up for PROVIDER's release, and that if you can safely come (get vaccinated, and also maybe wear a mask)  please come visit us at the Arctic Comic Con in April 2022

Thanks, 
Wyatt White
Redbull fueled code-goblin 

Dev Blogs are posted early for Patreon supporters. You also get free access to all of our games. Maybe become a Patreon supporter?

Don't mind the pretentious title, this is just sort of an update on development. As you read this (assuming you're reading this in the first week or so of it being up) we're working as quickly as we can to finish PROVIDER. Our plans for the whole game are complete, and now we're working on finishing scripts, finishing gameplay programming, and making sure the experience as a whole hangs together.

We've also contracted Jackson Miller (A talented Alaskan Pixel and Digital artist) to do an almost total overhaul of PROVIDER's 2D graphics. All the faux-poly stuff (like characters, enemies, and bosses) will be staying the same. I'm still personally and painstakingly modeling and animating each character and pose, but for the environmental art and items, we decided to get an expert in to make everything look less terrible.

On the writing front, Jesse and I have been hard at work making sure the world, characters, and requests all make sense and build in a comprehensible way. We're also doing our best to ensure we deal with the subjects of each episode in a way that's both clear to the player, true to the situation, and in an engaging way.

We've also got Michael White returning to do some slick tunes for PROVIDER's soundtrack. From what I've heard so far, it's a sort of smooth mix of acoustic guitar, atmospheric, and electronic stuff. I don't have the musical vocabulary to properly explain it, but it's rad as hell and I'm excited to be able to once again commission a soundtrack that's like 3x better than the game it's for.

As for final release, we've got an end in sight. The plan for a while has been to release in Q3 2021 (after July but August) but right now it entirely depends on how things hold together. I'm optimistic about getting out in late September, but it's entirely possible that we'll need to push it off till nearer the end of the year. Like everything else on PROVIDER, we're definitely building the track as we go.
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I think that PROVIDER has grown into something unique and worthwhile, and I really look forward to being able to share the final product with everyone.


Anyway, here's a quick GIF of me fighting John Kinin, recently revamped to be actually not terrible.

Thanks,
Wyatt White

I foolishly thought I had a solid plan for what the rest of PROVIDER's development was gonna look like. Turns out is was wrong. 

We ended up shuffling things a bit. The Toxic Zone (previously Episode 8, now Episode 9) has been pushed back a bit, and we're working on adding a new final monster-of-the-week episode, this time set in North-West Alaska, centering around Project Chariot. It's going to be interesting and based on actual history.

Unfortunately it also means that the release of Episode 8 is going to take a few more days, so we're looking more like a release on April 20 or 21 depening on how smoothly the development goes. 

Anyway, look forward to that, or don't, that's totally up to you.


Thanks, 
Wyatt White

One of the cool things about PROVIDER has been building the game episodically. Apart from the first month or so of building the bare essentials of the game, each episode has been essentially written and implemented in order. The good part of that, is that we can go from "This is a cool idea for an area" to "This area is complete" in just a few days. It's really fun, but also leaves the narrative a bit fragmented, and makes it hard to get a complete picture of the world and narrative.

Unfortunately, we're also planning on having a sort of 3-4 episode arc for the end of PROVIDER. These are episodes that are essentially intended to be played all together. Brightside is PROVIDER's first story is coming to an end (and a pretty cool end if I say so myself) downside is after the next update, we're not going to be updating again until we've finished the last 3-4 episodes.
Episode 8 (the Toxic Zone) will be up and available April 14, but after that we're not going to be releasing any new episodes until May at the earliest.
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So, long story short, we're finishing up our Episode 8 Update, after which, we'll be going quiet on updates until, all at once, Episode 9-10-11-12 all drop at once in late-May or June.
As with everything PROVIDER, this could change at nearly any time, but we'll do our best to be up-front about any delays and keep everyone clued in on why and when they're happening.
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This is a mostly boring post about development and other boring things, so please also enjoy this GIF of a trash disposal mech for Episode 8

And also here's a GIF of one of the new Episode 8 hazards. It's kinda gross. . . 

This article ran last week on our Patreon page. If you'd like to help fund CakeNeq Games' mission to make unique and engaging indie games right here in Alaska, please consider contributing to our Patreon on a monthly basis.

Thanks,
Wyatt White

This is gonna be a loose-one. I've been working on PROVIDER for a bit over 3 months now, and I gotta say, I'm really happy with how it's coming along, but I think it's also important to have something resembling a mission statement for the game. So consider this, that.

PROVIDER is a exploration game about Provider, a deceased soul who's been tasked with helping shepherd souls to the afterlife that have sort of slipped through the cracks. Providers do this by setting the souls at rest, ususally by finding something that meant a lot to them in life, and bringing it to them. 

Excluded zones are places in which tragedy happened. Sometimes big things like a battle or massacre, sometimes small things like a lost loved one or sickness. These places are removed from the natural space of the universe and excluded from the flow of time, to create a sort of cosmic snow-globe of the place. Providers are able to travel between these places using Seal Holes, small rips in the fabric of time, but they can’t stay long. Maqer Energy, refined from M-ENG condensers, is the only thing that keeps a provider lucid while away from their camp, so move quickly and act decisively.

PROVIDER is inspired by a lot. Indie comics where pulpy worlds are explored by stoic heroes who fight strange monsters. Yupik legends that I've been told since I was a kid. Low-budget Fantasy and Scifi like Dr Mordrid, Wizards, and Flash Gordon. Video Games like DarkSouls and Lost Planet (mostly Lost Planet 2 & 3)

The core of PROVIDER is a simple loop:

• Speak to spirits, learn what they remember and any info about what they need
• Find the Excluded zone that matches their recollection
• Fight your way to the item or place they described
• Return to the spirit and set them free

Once a spirit has been released, another will take their place before long. A Provider’s work is never done. 

It’s a weird mix, a little somber ghost-talking, a little swashbuckling adventure, a little battling with esoteric monsters from across the universe, but my hope is that I can bring it all together into a world that, even if not completely consistent, is at least consistently inconsistent.

PROVIDER is available on Windows, Android, and Ubuntu as it’s being developed. I’m putting out new releases whenever I have some real content, usually at least once a week. It’s available for free, but of course any money paid for PROVIDER is greatly appreciated, or if you go to our Patreon you can feel all warm and fuzzy about supporting us through a monthly contribution, you’ll also get your name in the credits of PROVIDER and any other games we finish while you’re contributing and get to see cool new stuff early.


Anyway, here's some cool stuff in PROVIDER right now.

Fight a Terrible Monster

Pet a Cute lil' doggy

Chill by a campfire!

Open a box full of goodie - wait- OH GOD THAT WASN'T A BOX!! IT HAS SOME KIND OF MOUTH WHO-WHY- GOOD LORD PLEASE HELP ME!

Things are happening!! As I write this the biggest BISC update since adding Sleds is on it's way through the Testing pool (Thank you testers, you're cool as hell) after which it'll be dropped into production for everyone to play. 

Before that happens, I wanted to take a few minutes (for the 11 people who read the blog updates) to explain some of the new changes.

If you haven't set your options for the Home menu, first thing that should happen is you get these two screens, which let you choose between the old Menu interface, and the new Explorable interface. If you choose Menu, your experience will be mostly unchanged from the old system. However, if you choose Explorable, you get the new stuff we've been working on.

You also get to select your gender, which really just slightly changes the in-game model for your character. We've decided to include a nonbinary option. If you don't like that or it makes you mad, we reccomend you take a moment to look deep inside yourself and ask "Why do I really care" and go about your day.

Since the new Explorable layout requires a bit more interaction than just scrolling down a menu, we included some quick text about how to navigate the world and interact. All the interactions that were on the Menu interface are now actual buildings around the explorable home

That's most of the big stuff in Update 1.2 at this point. As always, happy people have been ejoying BISC, and I hope that with this update we've addressed some of people's complaints with the game overall. We've got some idea on expanding some of the high-level loops for BISC, but like everything else, it depends on where people's interest leads, and if/when we get a new project into development.

Alright. All that said, BISC update 1.2 will be available 12/15/2020 on Google Play.

Thanks,
Wyatt White
Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla

Alright, quick lil' drop here today. Just wanted to put out some external communication that the folks on BISCord have been getting for couple days now.

BISC has a 1.2 update coming soon!
//put cricket noises here

"But what does that mean!?", you ask terrified and trembling at what this implies. "Deep breath, my friend, it just means we're adding a physical home-base to explore, and gener select options."

It's been a criticism of BISC since like week 2 that's practically just menus and mushing. Now I'll admit, my first reaction to that criticism was along the lines of "Well excuse me for making a free game with intentionally non-exploitative microtransactions and not spending an entire year finely tuning the non-mushing aspects. Eat shit." but after some reflection and deep breathing, I really have come to agree with that thought. I should put more BISC into BISC. 

So that's what I've been doing. Since Trident is on ice for the forseeable future, I've decided to go back to BISC and expand on the elements around the core mushing. Right now that just means adding in some cool explorable area around your home base, as well as giving players a lil' avatar to control directly, but in the near future the plan is to create some other characters to live in this lil' area and encourage players to help them out, run deliveries for them, and generally have more diverse things to do in BISC.

Though, I'm getting ahead of myself. For the time being, it's an explorable camp, a lil' avatar, and some fixes to bugs that I've been ignoring, This update should be ready by December 20. I mean, it's mostly ready now, but I really want to take extra time to make sure it's as good of an experience when it launches wide as possible.

IF you really want to try it now, check out our BISCord here, and opt into the Open Testing branch on Google Play.

Thanks,
Wyatt White
Very Tired

Hey, turns out, games are really hard to make. Who knew!? Games with intricate story and character interactions are double hard to make, because if any of those fiddly little details are off, it immediately kinda breaks your investment in the plot and the world. So add on top of that scheduling conflicts with Jesse, the other writer working on Trident, have led to a lot of the strain on Trident falling on me. 

Unfortunately, it's a hell of a lot more than I can really do in a timely manner, so we're postponing it. We still both really like the charcters, script, concepts and basic gameplay, but we also agree that we should do it right if we're gonna do it, and if we can't then we should wait till we can. Now, that might mean it never releases, might mean it releases in 10 years. I don't really know at this point, but either way, don't hold your breath. 

In the mean time, I'm going to be working on updates and expansions for BISC, as well as updating all my tools for the newer updates to the GameMaker engine. I'm aiming to start working on a new project soon, but at this point I'm really unsure of what form that'll take. 

Thankfully, BISC is never really done. In the coming weeks I'll be working on fixing bugs, addding in new features, and  expanding some of the run-elements, so stay tuned for that.

All in all, I'm really dissapointed that Trident didn't really work out in this timeframe, but I'm really happy with each individual mechanic and system, and a lot was learned in the proccess that I'll be sure to apply to future titles.

Anyway, thanks for following my ranting and raving.
Wyatt White Minor Breakdown-haver

Happy November folks (also, hey it's trangender awareness week, so don't forget Trans Rights!) got a quick little update for you all today.

We've been hard at work on Trident, but somehow I haven't written a single line of code in almost two weeks. "How can this be?!" you shout at your screen, since I know everyone reading this is incredibly invested in Trident. Well, I'll tell you, dear reader.

We're writing like a billion pages of dialogue. Litterally (figuratively) 1.87 Billion pages. 

Really though, we're hard at work writing the bulk of the script. Currently sitting at 61 pages of pure dialogue, we're shaping up to be about 150 by the end. It's going to be a long road, but we hope it'll be worth it.

(Here's an early interaction I'm particularly happy with)

Anyway, work on the actual game itself is essentially at a full stop until we can finish the main writing chunk of the story. As much as I like writing, I'm ready to head back into the code trenches as soon as I can.

Anyway, look forward to me emerging on December 15th with a huge beard and a thick script document, wild terror in my eyes and someone's blood on my knuckles. 

Thanks, 
Wyatt White ​

We've been hard at work on our next game, Trident, so as always, we're really quiet. I wanted to take a moment to send out some updates. 

Trident is coming along nicely, we've got some great exploration mechanics, some fun character writing, and some great hazards for the end setup. The improvements on the Fauxpoly style makes the whole game look chunky and unique. 

We've also added a fairly unique fishing minigame. The minigame requires the player to find which bubbles aren't moving, rather than some sort of  frantic button mashing that other games do. Here, you need to use patience and a keen eye to catch a tasty fish.

We've also got all of our primary cast setup and in-engine. They don't really do much yet, but just getting them in game gives us an idea of who does or doesn't fit properly. It's also worth noting that Trident is by far our largest written cast ever. There are 10 characters in the main cast, which bumps up to almost 24 when you count minor characters and peripheral cast. Sofar, we're really proud of the diversity of personality and interesting stories we're plannig to tell with these characters.

Trident is really a strange game, featuring very little action, and no combat at all. Instead, we're trying to center Trident around getting to know the NPC's, fixing thigns, and exploring the environment. Rather than going for a melodrama like WayDown, or realistic depressing conversations like ThreeStep, but rather emulating slice-of-life dramas with just a splash of disaster movies to cap it all off. We've got no idea if people are going to be at all interested in this kind of game, but we're confident we can deliver it and that it's something we want to work on.

We're not just working on Trident though, we're also updating BISC as we go! There's an update (1.1.0) going out right now, so that's definitely worth checking out. It adds some new sleds, new dogs, bug fixes, and some minor features.

Anyway we're going to be hard at work on Trident, and we hope everyone will enjoy it when we're finally done! (We also hope it sells at least 3mil units. That would be excellent.)

Thanks, 
Wyatt White, Eternally Annoyed