FLIES FLIES FLIES

Devlog

• Episode 3 is now available!
  October 21, 2024 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Episode 3, “The Buzzing of the Flies,” is now available, just in time for spooky month!!... Continue reading

  
• "I Collect Butterflies"
  March 10, 2024 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  In episode 3, Flyman & Miguel will meet with Jennifer, a kooky Christian butterfly collector. Here are some super chaotic GIFs which showcase my game engine and the scene in progress: In my Hollywoo e... Continue reading
• The results are in!
  February 10, 2024 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  In the last post I talked about running a 3-part promotion of FLIES, which included a brief advertisement on a trans-centric podcast, a giveaway partnership with a polyamory educator via Instagram, an... Continue reading
• I try to do marketing
  January 31, 2024 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Right now FLIES is 33% off on Steam! I timed this week-long sale (which is also happening on Itch but I know y'all are cowards who won't buy it there) to align with two experimental marketing events... Continue reading
• Win some, lose some
  January 14, 2024 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Win some, lose some After a month and a half of pestering my friends and acquaintances, FLIES FLIES FLIES hit 10 direct-through-Steam user reviews! Sure enough, impressions from the Steam discovery qu... Continue reading
• 10 Reviews Quest
  January 04, 2024 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Happy new year! I'm back at work (I'm a high school teacher's aide) after a pretty nice winter holiday. I had a list of winter break goals, and I was able to accomplish most of them! I do wish I had g... Continue reading
• Can't predict 'em all!
  December 13, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  When I write sci-fi, I try to base my concepts on real trends and research, to expose my audience to cool or scary new ideas, etc. Even if I'm not writing "hard sci-fi" I still think taking inspiratio... Continue reading
• Launch Weekend
  December 04, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Launch weekend is coming to a close. Steam sales numbers and analytics come in at a ~24hr delay, so I can't say exactly how things are going. But basically, there's good news and bad news: The good ne... Continue reading
• It's out!!
  December 01, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  It's out! For the next week, grab a season pass to FLIES FLIES FLIES for $4.01 on Steam or here on itch.io. After that, it will cost $5.99. I hope no one finds any bugs in it--pun intended. But if you... Continue reading
• First 2 Episode Release date: Friday December 1!
  November 27, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  The first 2 episodes have been approved for Steam launch! So I'm excited to announce that I will be pressing the big green button on the afternoon of Friday December 1, right after I get home from wor... Continue reading
• Boycott Black Friday, Play the Free Demo!
  November 24, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Anyone else boycotting Black Friday? On this cursed day of corporate greed and consumerism, don't give a single red cent to Disney, Starbucks, or McDonalds. Click here for more info about ongoing boyc... Continue reading
• 11/11/23
  November 12, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  My friend Charles has been writing a really neat series of posts on Substack, full of musing about games, life, vulnerability and inspirational good stuff. Reading the latest one today helped get me o... Continue reading

  
• Mac App Notarization
  September 22, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Another road-block on the way to release... Starting October 14th, 2019 Steam will require all new macOS Applications to be 64-bit and notarized by Apple. If your Mac application already supports 64-b... Continue reading
• Submitting FFF to IGF 2024
  September 14, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I found this thread shared on Mastodon, and it got me thinking that I'm close enough to release and it just might be a great opportunity to submit FLIES to IGF 2024. I filled out the form for the fee... Continue reading
• Fake scene skipping + Sprite layer logging = Semi-automated visual novel testing!
  September 12, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  The last few days, I've been focusing on eliminating all the bugs I've had waiting in my to-do list while I focused on implementing new episode 2 content. I was aware (and worried about/trying not to... Continue reading
• In the weeds with flywriting
  August 22, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  In the weeds with flywriting Episode 2 is coming together, but I realized I had a problem when I saw this: (There are several problems on display there, like the keyboard was supposed to have been rem... Continue reading
• Final Pre-beta Feature
  August 15, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Big news! I've finished implementing every engine feature that will be in the VN before Beta, and if Beta goes smoothly, before launch. Today I finished implementing the feature I procrastinated the m... Continue reading
• Big-Picture Themes
  August 13, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I came across this transcription of a speech on my Mastodon feed this morning. Reading it got me feeling super inspired. This is such a good distillation of many of the values I’ve been learning and... Continue reading
• Episode 2 Sneak Peek/Marketing Update
  August 11, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I've been hammering out episode 2. In this sequence, Finn's dad activates a robotic replacement of him. We'll see how that goes! --- I messed up pretty big-time by dismissing Valve's message about Vis... Continue reading
• Noodling about the price point + a GIF!
  August 06, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I wanted to set the price at $10 USD for a season pass because that feels like a fair price for 6 episodes x 25ish minutes each x my heart and soul in every minute. But now that I'm coming closer to a... Continue reading
• Steam Store Page is live!
  July 28, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I know y'all are probably reading this dev log on Itch because you love the platform as much as I do and wanna buy the game here when it comes out. <3 BUT creating a presence on the Steam store is a h... Continue reading
• New Teaser Trailer!
  July 24, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I've made a new, shorter trailer to give a quick taste of the game's look and sense of humor:... Continue reading
• Trailer redo!
  July 22, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  2

  I re-recorded the trailer with some notable changes: - The new sprite for Finn. - A new voice actor, Danny Borba , for Miguel! I'm sad that my friend Milo had to bow out of the role, but super happy w... Continue reading
• Pixel art trickery
  July 20, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I did one more palette swap for a brown-eyed version of Finn, which I think will be the final: I've also been scouring the internet for free photos and sprites for new characters, props, etc. for epis... Continue reading
• Representation/Diversity in the game
  July 14, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  What I'm working on today is good meaty stuff for a devlog discussion, and the way I can tell is that I'm afraid to share it and look cringey like I'm overthinking everything or getting it all wrong... Continue reading
• Custom Lisp hijinx
  July 12, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  I answered a few questions that were asked on TIGSource about how my custom Lisp works and why I made it. Sharing those questions and their answers here, too! Do you have some kind of testing framewor... Continue reading
• while I'm at it
  July 11, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  while I'm at it let me tell you about another embarrassing bug I found in my custom Lisp. Code: (custom lisp test case) (function _testWhile [] (let [max 8 &mut current 0 &mut iterations 0] (while (>=... Continue reading
• The worst gameplay footage of all time
  June 28, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  A couple days back I was trying to screen-record the first 5ish minutes of episode 1 using OBS to put together a new trailer. I just got let go from a contract job which was my primary source of incom... Continue reading
• Subtraction was broken
  June 21, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  I caught a very silly bug recently! In Lisp languages, you write a - b as (- a b) which seems ridiculous when you first learn it, but then you learn you can write a - b - c as (- a b c) which is margi... Continue reading
• Dialog History
  June 14, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  I don't play many visual novels, but in the ones I have played, I always love it when you can pull up a log of the recent dialog. It's such a great feature because I'm constantly zoning out or getting... Continue reading
• Credits pt. 2
  June 07, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  I took the credit auto-loading system a step further and started making a Firefox extension that quickly downloads and records credit information from various free asset sources, starting with pixabay... Continue reading

  
• Credits
  May 23, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  1

  Who's ready for a boring update about game credits?? I made my last visual novel in a team of 3, and in the end, the credits list was so compact that it's just one static screen in the menu: I don't r... Continue reading
• Flywriting
  May 08, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Our hero, after transforming mysteriously into Flyman (a normal-sized fly without superpowers), can no longer communicate in conventional human ways. Spoilers for episode 2, but he will eventually com... Continue reading
• Title Card: "FLIES FLIES FLIES"
  April 30, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Title Card: "FLIES FLIES FLIES" This project started as a series of scripts for an animated TV show, and every draft has contained some variation on this: I always envisioned that each episode would s... Continue reading

  
• Developing the first 3 episodes for Steam and Itch!
  April 05, 2023 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Since the last update, I've quietly finished new drafts of episodes 4, 5, and 6. These scripts were hefty to write, because they build up to season 1's big ending and try to tie so many loose ends tog... Continue reading
• Write Write Write
  December 23, 2022 by Nat Quayle Nelson#writing

  To recap: when I started programming and directing the animated pilot episode, I had already written 6 first-draft episode scripts comprising season 1, and edited the pilot script into something like... Continue reading

  
• Writer's Room
  October 12, 2022 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  #writing

  Writer's Room I don't want to jinx it, but I've been writing the show every morning. I keep an electric kettle, instant coffee, creamer, and box of Costco muffins next to my bed. When I wake up, I mak... Continue reading
• Productive Procrastination
  July 14, 2022 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Protip: procrastination is very healthy if you do it right. This morning I'm procrastinating my episode 3 re-write by meal prepping for the week and cleaning up around the apartment. And now, by dev l... Continue reading
• Some Parts of my Writing Process
  June 06, 2022 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  I'm the creator and main writer of the "show". It feels weird to call it a show while I'm sharing it on a gamedev forum, but future posts about the production (which is mostly done with code) will mak... Continue reading
• First Trailer Release
  April 05, 2022 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  First Trailer Release I've been publicizing my new Patreon to friends and family who I know will want to support it. It's kind of like mooching off everyone I know who works harder or earns more money... Continue reading
• #3: Praise Bobble-Head Jesus
  December 21, 2021 by Nat Quayle Nelson

  Despite getting my crew of voice actors organized and lines recorded much faster than I expected, there was no way I was going to finish episode 1 in time for the December 17 deadline for Midwest Weir... Continue reading
• FLIES FLIES FLIES: Dev Log #1 and #2
  December 06, 2021 by Nat Quayle Nelson

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  FLIES FLIES FLIES After spinning my wheels on unfinished projects for a long time, I've settled on one with the right balance of manageable scope vs. passionate ideas. We're gonna see how it goes. It... Continue reading