I think if you're expecting traditional horror, it's more likely just going to frustrate for sure.

You either have the fear the director is trying to evoke, or you don't.

Fair enough, a CBC News review said

"Even though [Skinamarink] has cemented its place as one of my favourite releases of 2023, I almost feel I'd have better odds playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun than finding someone to recommend it to who'd actually enjoy it."

It's not a narrative film as much as just a mood, an evocation, tapping into a very unique experience.

SKINAMARINK.

Two kids wake up in the middle of the night, and things are just ... Not right. The door's not where it's supposed to be, the chairs in the dining room aren't right, mum and dad are acting odd...

It's such a primal form of horror for me, when simple things are just - different... It's either painfully boring for people, or uniquely terrifying.

Trailer

I DIDNT KNOW STEAM WAS GONNA PUBLISH THAT ON PAGE. Haha I thought steam just wanted to know every possible naughty thing so they could assess who to share the game to during marketing. But FINE.

Ahhhh thanks so much, I'd love to know what you think!

Ooh if you love rhythm games you'll definitely be able to play through it I reckon. Hard mode is pretty tough, but I added Less Hard which has fewer notes and wider note trigger zones. And if you ever get stuck, you can switch on Nigel Mode which plays the level for you.

Haha thanks so much! Ive been working on it on the side, but also most weekends for about 8 hours a day (no kids helps!). I worked night shift at the sleep lab for 5 years, and when the patients were snoozin' I'd just start working on it. When I went back to day shifts and actually had to do my job, progress slowed a bit, but then it just ended up gobbling ALL weekends.

If it's a randomly selected Windows User, I'll take Linux and bank on the windows user being like, a 60 year old boomer with internet explorer 6.0. The "average* Linux user would wipe the floor with me.

Not yet, but it works with switch controls on PC one reviewer said?

If it does well, I think Unity lets me port to Switch fairly easily...

Bless you man, I appreciate it! If you like it, someone told me that once a steam game gets past 10 reviews, it gets better presence? If you get the time, hide a Lemmy reference in there so I know it's you 🤝

How did you pick up coding? There was some free old book online by a guy who called "=" a "gozinta", but I can't find it anymore... I read that through, used a few Udemy courses, Brackeys, CodeMonkey the Unity Discord forums. Getting the basics down was easy, anything else was well tough.

What was challenging? A few years into development, and Everhood came out. On first glance it looked just like Game Over, and I got pretty bummed out, like someone had beaten me to the chase. But when I actually played Everhood I saw it was a fairly different game (everhood you're not playing to the rhythm), but it was a rough bit of time prior to getting to play and Everhood and learn that!

Were you stumped by any major development issues? Oh my god the timing of the notes down the note lane. I swear I rewrote that code 10 times from scratch. Making sure they're set to the audioSource.time property, but also accounting for pause behaviour, accounting for generating notes PRIOR to the music starting (and therefore audioSource.time = 0), making sure it doesn't waver out of sync etc etc. But everytime I reworked it, it felt more robust, so it helped with confidence.

I wonder if every developer feels as though their code is held together with tape, glue, and good thoughts...

In Maori, Maua means "we", or "both of us". It's also shorthand for "we share similar beliefs".

Could have gone that route.