I've got some exciting news about the future of Spore Valley!

In April of 2024, I was laid off from my game development job, as part of wider layoffs at the company and in the industry at large. I decided that a combination of personal and industry factors make this a good time to try to develop games independently on a more serious basis, so I'm starting my own independent studio. And the first game I'll be working on launching commercially is a rework of Spore Valley!

Spore Valley 2.0, or whatever I end up calling it, will be a 2.5D version of the game with more complex gameplay, a more complete UI, improved art, and importantly for me, a large number of under-the-hood improvements that will help me hit the ground running on future games. Here's a sneak peak of the current state of the game!

I'm aiming to have the game fully released by the end of the year, hopefully sooner. Gameplay, rendering work, and UI design is almost done, so at at this point, the major things that remain for me to do are:

• A full pass on the UI art and layout
• A full pass on the in-world art and animations
• An audio pass
• Lots of playtesting and balance adjustments
• Content for marketing & socials

This page will remain a page for the Ludum Dare 54 game; Spore Valley 2.0 will be released separately, on an account tied to my new studio. I'll post about that again here once that's ready.

I've got some consulting work in the games industry right now to help support me during this hopeful transition to independent development, and I really look forward to the years of game dev to come!