Today I am happy to share that Gravedigger Doug, my byte sized arcade game about a Gravedigger helping ghosts has just been pubilshed on the AppStore

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gravedigger-doug/id6754942940

And is a big milestone for me as a game developer: For the first time, I am wrapping up the development of a game!

That means that I have finally finished developing all the features that I wanted and published it on all platforms/stores that I planned.

I would like to also share some thoughts about my journey on developing this game with you all, so, if you are onboard for reading it, bear with me, I will try to keep this interesting and hopefully not long!

This game idea came to me a couple of years ago, I had the weird idea to recreate Konami's DigDug Arcade game with a twist, instead of playing as a, which at least to me seems like a vintage racing car pilot and blowing up enemies with an air pump, you will play with Doug, the gravedigger of a graveyard, defeating demons that are annoying the local ghosts using a water gun loaded with holy water and all of your wits!

I left that idea abandoned in my bucket of "never done ideas" for a very long time. But one day while I was scrolling through Itch's Jams page I saw that the famous Mini Jam was starting, and it had a quite cool theme (which sadly I can't remember exactly now, but it was partially "pocket") and that DigDug reinterpretation idea would be a great fit for it!

Initially I was on the fence on really making it, I was at the time working on another of my games, which I was really trying to finishing so I didn't wanted to lose focus, in the end I decided to pause the ongoing project and make it, and I guess I did a great choice, the reasons that made me decide to go with was the following:

• I needed a break from my current project at the time, I was clearly getting burned out

• I had never done a game release before, having a smaller game project, which I could test out things and get some experience from would make me better prepared for the main game project.

But I set some requirements

• Game had to be small and simple, I planned on making just 15 levels (What I usually call Byte Sized Game)

• I would make it free! Making it a free game would remove a great deal of concerns, so I would not be overloaded or overburden

While developing this game, I learned so many things:

• Used and learned shaders for the first time (not available on Android sadly)

• It was my first Byte Sized Game, something I am really interested in and I hope to do more in the future

• Reminded and updated myself on all the quirks and gotchas of publishing in the Google Play Store and the App Store

• Improved and added new features in internal tools that I use on my game dev

Another cool thing that this project provided me, was the possibility of expanding the Gravedigger Doug Universe outside of only games!

I have been using it practice my writing and drawing skills! Using the game universe of the setting for those practices.

I plan on eventually creating not only more games using this universe (by the way, I already have on in the production which I can't wait to share), but also things like comic books, or even who knows, a book it self.

These are some of the drawing practices I have been doing in the past months!

If you read until this point, I am happy I managed to keep your interest, and if you haven't played the game yet, I would love if you could! And maybe leave a rating and a feedback, this would help me a lot to grow as a game developer!

You can download the game directly from Player3, or find it on all platforms on this link: https://g4me.info/doug

Thanks for reading, and don't hesitate in reaching out!!!