al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 13/10/2026"AI can make a 2D metroidvania platformer in minutes!" yeah no shit there's a ton of them to train off of AI just makes it easier for people who have no talent or creativity to churn stuff out, the indie games that thrive are the weird quirky ones that don't settle for what everyone else is doing 040
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 10/10/2026not sure when I'll end up doing skins for AGGRO but when I do this is the first set I want to make 0121
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 10/10/2026I think it's important for both gamers and game devs to go out of their way to find hidden gems instead of just playing whatever's recommended to them, there's so many video games out there for people to enjoy and draw inspiration from 260
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 10/10/2026as a kid I played this game called eco-creatures: save the forest and loved the hell out of it, the game was a surprisingly deep RTS where you create an army of squirrels to fight against evil robots and you could evolve your squirrels into different units with unique stats and abilities 171
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 10/10/2026"old games" also includes games from the 2000's like flash games and DS/Wii games, and not just stuff from the 80's and 90's I remember playing a lot of weird hidden gems from that era as a kid and I haven't heard anyone talk about or take inspiration from them ever 1140
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 08/10/2026kinda shocked that more people don't use popular art trends as inspiration to create their own unique characters and stories, two wizards who start off as rivals and slowly fall in love over time would be a banger story idea if it wasn't based off of a child from a series with a transphobic author 060
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 08/10/2026the recent harry potter art trend that's been going around has got me thinking that maybe we just need more media that features the "enemies to lovers" dynamic, i can understand the appeal of wanting to get married and have kids with your arch nemesis 280
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 05/10/2026as compensation for delaying this update i'm also handing the game out for free on itch, i've added ~200 steam keys to the itch page for people to claim i should've had this update out a month ago, i've just been juggling a ton of stuff recently so hopefully this makes up for it 070
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 05/10/2026more info in the steam news post: store.steampowered.com/news/app/277...store.steampowered.comSolace Inc. - Solace Inc. v1.10 - Makeover Update - Steam Newshey everyone! long time no see, back with another update for Solace Inc! so uhh... i meant to have this out a month or so ago, but I've been pretty busy with irl stuff and also got a little bit sidetr... 183
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Solace Inc. v1.10 is (finally) out now! - major visual & UI overhauls - new arena mode - new recruits & cameos 1296
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 03/10/2026honestly would've preferred to have solace inc up there but i can't control the popularity of my games and i'll take what i can get speaking of which i should probably put out that solace inc update... i put out the prerelease build like a month ago and kinda just forgot about it 070
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 03/10/2026discord finally added one of my games to their database, i'm a real gamedev now 🥹 2264
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 01/10/2026you can browse through all of my games (and maybe wishlist my upcoming stuff) here: store.steampowered.com/curator/4497...store.steampowered.comSteam Curator: AploVVare 042
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 01/10/2026All of my games are now on sale (50-80% off) for the Steam Autumn Sale! Go grab 'em while they're cheap!! 2288
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 26/09/2026tried recreating the weird hand thing mesmer mesmalie does, probably not going to include in-game but i like the idea of bella still trying to figure out how human bodies work so she just contorts them in weird ways 0110
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 26/09/2026just got this in my recommended, great video that brought up a lot of really good pointers about character design and the edits you made to the characters really made a huge difference (especially the high guardian spice girl) 010
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 26/09/2026moon has such a banger soundtrack, it's really cool that they included an in-game playlist maker which made a lot of the "sitting around waiting for stuff to happen" puzzle solutions a lot more fun because you can just hang out and jam 020
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 19/09/2026experimenting with adding alternate poses for portraits to make them more expressive, might try to figure out how to interpolate them so they flow into each other i've also been thinking about the characterization of Quinn more, i think i want her to more demure and classy 051
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 10/09/2026steam page here: store.steampowered.com/app/5201370/...store.steampowered.comAGGRO: Thaumiel Mercenaries on SteamA sci-fi exploration third person shooter about anomalies hunting down and containing anomalies. Command a squad of powerful mercenaries, travel through strange and mysterious worlds, and fight monstr... 051
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 10/09/2026The Steam page for AGGRO: Thaumiel Mercenaries is now available! We need your help destroying the wishlist button!! 34910
Reposted by al palOretal @oretal.monster · 09/09/2026ArtFight attack for @aplovestudio.bsky.social of his character Joe Briggs. #flipnote #flipnotestudio #flipnote3d #flipnotestudio3d #flipnoteart #artfight #artfight2026 2199
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 06/09/2026mesmalie has sort of inspired me to pay closer attention to the visual presentation of my games because that's something it does really well, certain things like character portraits having more expressive poses and stylized UI are definitely things i want to carry over into my future projects 020
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 02/09/2026continuing my chain of making new cover arts, for this one i wanted the background to be a little more abstract to represent them travelling to a bunch of wacky worlds and dimensions i wonder if this means a steam page is coming soon... (foreshadowing) 081
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 02/09/2026yeah i personally view the 30% as your payment for all of the services that steam provides for developers, and if you're utilizing most/all of them it's not that big of a cut comparatively it would be nice if it was a little bit lower though, i think 20-25% is reasonable 020
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 02/09/2026look outside is probably my new favorite example of good eldritch horror, really love the art and the story i'm generally not a big fan of rpg maker games since they tend to be pretty similar gameplaywise but the combat was still pretty engaging and fun 030
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 31/08/2026maybe I should start a dream journal to make it easier to remember what happens in my dreams, it feels like it's a great way to get inspiration for creative works like art and games 060
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 31/08/2026i also remember there being a hub area that was like an old house which is how you entered different parts of the story, and that there was another character who was stalking/chasing me while I was in it don't really remember much aside from that, really wish I could visualize it better 150
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 31/08/2026i remember one part where i was walking around a field/village with an npc at night, and there was another character off in the distance who was following/stalking the player, which ended up being the other perspective later on that lets you get a look at what the main protag looks like 140
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 31/08/2026i don't remember much but i know that when you were playing as her, other characters/NPCs would always get startled whenever you looked at them i didn't know what the protagonist looked like until later on when i was playing as someone else and they slowly approached her, it was a creepy reveal 150
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 31/08/2026last night i had a weird dream that i was playing a low poly first person horror? game that was sort of like an anthology where you play through the same story but from different perspectives this is what the main protagonist looked like 1300
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 30/08/2026steam news post: store.steampowered.com/news/app/277...store.steampowered.comSolace Inc. - Solace Inc. v1.10 Prerelease Build - Steam Newshey guys! long time no see, i've recently been working hard on the next update for solace inc, which you can now try for yourself on the prerelease beta branch! some major changes i should point out: ... 0100
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 30/08/2026A prerelease build of the next Solace Inc update (v1.10) is now available on Steam for anyone interested in playtesting it before it's out (more info available below) 3386
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 21/08/2026also I've decided that I'm going to replace jordan's base design in solace inc 1 with her solace inc 2 version, i like it a lot more i'm probably going to update the cover art of solace inc 2 whenever i get back into working on that, and maybe my other games while I'm at it 140
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 21/08/2026the existing cover art is a little bit outdated (and not that appealing imo), figured i might as well give it a makeover so the game leaves a better first impression i used the solace inc 2 models as a reference, was planning on adding more but it felt a little bit cluttered 180
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 19/08/2026of course i want to keep the sexy aspect because i love sexy monsters, i guess a part of me feels like i'm larping being a teratophiliac for not making my monsters "monsterous" enough @zeblackballd.bsky.social does a really good job at sexy eldritch horror, i might take some inspiration from them 070
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 19/08/2026it's kind of got me thinking about how i design "monster" characters visually, a lot of them are conventionally attractive and pretty mild in comparison to the characters in LO so i've been thinking about if i want to go in a more grotesque/body horror direction for some of the characters in AGGRO 170
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 19/08/2026throughout the game there's only a small handful of characters i would consider to be genuinely evil, the rest are either scared animals who are fighting for self defense or people who are confused and paranoid about what's happening to them, which i think is a fun direction to take that concept 150
al pal @aplovestudio.bsky.social · 19/08/2026finished playing through Look Outside last night, honestly think it's one of my new favorite examples of good cosmic/eldritch horror i really like how a lot of the characters in the game are like "yeah i looked outside and transformed into a huge hideous monster, honestly it's not that bad" 2180
