Good morning my lovely peeps of the world of indie games!

So it's been a little while since the last update a? Feels weird not posting one of these every day but news has been slowly trickling so I wanted to wait till I had a few things to talk about before posting a new one of these :)

Key Art

First things first, Bubble Frog is getting some fancy Key Art. Using the profits of the kind customers who paid for the game I've commissioned the artist James Nutting to make a high quality image I can use in promotional material. Although I'm an artist myself, full image art with backgrounds and a full scene going on isn't my strong point, so I felt it would be best to get a professional to help with this as when the game goes to Steam the Key Art will be front and centre on the Thumbnail for the game and that is the first thing many will see and will dictate how many click on the game to check it out.

I've known James for a long while, we used to share convention artist tables together but what really sold me on using him for the Key Art was this little fan animation he sent me a rough of;

IT'S SO FREAKING CUTE!

I should have the art in the not too distant future and it'll be one of a number of pieces I plan to commission to fill out the Steam Release with some nice visuals. Speaking of which...

Bubble Frog Steam Edition

So this has been discussed for a while but in the last week totally hit a brick wall as we discovered that getting a .gb ROM to play nicely in an executable that Steam will accept is actually really really hard if you're not really a programmer. I had lots of suggestions from different people, some almost worked until we found that loading the game caused this;

Finally the wonderful guy known as Mooonbit Studios (itch) came to the rescue and put together a really nice frame work for me to use to get things built, so finally as of a few hours ago the ball is rolling again on the Steam Edition. Which now leads to the topic of the...

Kickstarter

Due to the issues with the Steam Edition things were looking bad for a Kickstarter. I didn't want to ask people to help fund a version of the game I wasn't confident I could offer in any level of quality but now I'm feeling more confident than ever! The Kickstarter is still a little bit away as I wanna get this right, plus I wanna wait for the Key Art and work out if I can offer some kind of unique backer rewards beyond names in a Backers Credit Screen.

In my previous career as a Convention Artist I made stickers, and still have the equipment, so I'm toying with offering a reward level which would get people a Backer Sticker Pack containing adorable stickers of Bubble Frog and Friends :D

A New Logo!

So the box art for Bubble Frog on here was put together because I needed a thumbnail for my game. Now things are getting more serious with a physical release on the way and plans for a Steam Release via Kickstart I've taken my time going back and re-drawing a bunch of the illustrations AND made a real logo for Bubble Frog;

Merch!

As requested by a fan of Bubble Frog you can now get Bubble Frog Merch. DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU'RE OUTSIDE THE US. The delivery fees are insane. I'm planning on adding the design to Red Bubble soon as they do deliveries from inside the EU too which should be WAY cheaper for most.

This isn't some kind of cash grab, I make $2 off a t-shirt sale and less for anything else. For me this was about offering something some fans want, I found it very flattering that people wanted Bubble Frog merch and maybe in the future I can produce my own and charge way less than these companies do, but for now this is just an option for those who wanna show their love for the little bubbly fella.

FAN ART

I love Fan Art. I love making it and of course I love receiving it. For the Bubble Frog Steam Edition I'd love to include a Fan Art Gallery. It'll only feature pieces by those who want to be in the gallery, everyone will be fully credited (you get to pick what name you go by, real or user name) so if you'd like to appear in the Fan Art Gallery get your artist hat on :D

I'll have more news on this soon, once we know the Gallery system will work (I'd be confident it will, but with the week we've had of stuff not working I'm nervous about everything now) and will put out a dedicated post about this, I just wanted people to be aware ready :)

Upgrades

So with the itch.io version of Bubble Frog being free what's the appeal of the Steam Edition?

Obviously the Steam Edition will have a fancy pants front end, with menus, an intro, and galleries, but what about the game its self?

I'm planning on doing some upgrades to the game, including animation in the NPC scenes (blinking + mouth movement), new visual flare (I'm currently learning Tile Swapping so I can give the game a nice coat of paint), and possibly some bonus levels.

The Bonus Levels would be a set of 5-10 new challenging levels, designed to be tough to beat. 

All of this and I plan to keep the price point for the game low on Steam just like buying a copy on here. $2-$3 is my plan :) (I'd also add the .gb ROM of the upgraded version on here but it wouldn't be free like the basic .gb ROM that's also offered)

Obviously none of this is set in stone currently, I need to get this all fully figured out and nailed down so I'm kind of spit balling ideas here and welcome feedback :)

And That is That!

That wraps up the game news. Now a little shout out! Kathryn over on Threads made a Fan Trailer for Bubble Frog which puts my official trailer to absolute shame! Go check it out HERE!

I should have another update early next week unless something major happens which pushes me to update sooner!

Thanks for reading, hope you're enjoying this little journey with me <3

-Timbo