iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Holiday break night 3 on side project... Added collision window events, actual collision detection, and a very simple stagger reaction blend tree. Using some fine Synty models and Synty/Kubold animations. Need to do some actual blending between locomotion and combat stances obv. #solodev #indiedev

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Taking another day off from real work... Side project getting basic ragdolls. Need add some force parms on actions. Very early rn. Using the XML data setup that I like; anything I can avoid putting in prefabs or SOs goes in old school text data for ease of use/diff/inheritance. #solodev #indiedev

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

What do game devs do on holiday break? Side projects! Rewriting event handling to make upcoming combat easier (combos, etc.). Bought an asset off the Unity store (Quick Animation Events) that gave me the exact anim event interface I want (as a non-artist). Lots of tool time saved! #indiedev

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Been remiss posting about our game. Need to rectify that 😆

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Had a great time at Kill Bill Whole Bloody Affair. Enjoyed all the changes on a first viewing. Need to see again.

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

WIP partial tech tree for new @lastkeep.com faction. Showing the fine code that displays the name of the techs if we don't have icons yet. Very useful during dev. We've got new PLAYTEST/DEMO (not with this faction ofc) out: store.steampowered.com/app/2929040/... #indiegames #strategygame #indiedev

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Had a REALLY good day cranking out content and bugfixes. Fixed 18 items. Several of the "how did we not see this giant issue?" variety. Unfortunately we also played the game, which generated another 21 bugs and tasks. -3 net today. Doh. #indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com #roguelite #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Welp. This was a LONG day of data wrangling to completely replace all our unit enhancements (rolled buffs on each squadron instance). This was after 4 days of building techs and relics😂 I'm am officially gassed on buffs for this week. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #indiegame #strategy #roguelite

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

So many little numbers to fit in such a small space. Still trying to get it all in 😆. Rollover (not shown) does make it a lot more parseable obv. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #indiegame #roguelite #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

Q: Why is that Scout ship not buffed by +20 like the text says? ...2 hours later... A: Because I let us try a "new way" when I should have just said no. My fault 100%. Now rebuilding all health data in @lastkeep.com ahead of key milestone. What can go wrong? #indiedev #roguelite #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Slogging through giant text pass on our game @lastkeep.com. There is a LOT. More than I want, but still not as much as we need. I am certainly no fulltime text-person😀Doing it in bursts but it's still a bear. How do you all approach these kinds of tasks? #indiedev #roguelite #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Demoed @lastkeep.com at the SIX demo day. 10 hours on my feet hits different than 28 years ago when we did it for Age of Empires at Ensemble's first E3. But we learned a lot about how our game today. How it appeals to folks and how it doesn't. Improvements to make! #indiedev #strategygame #roguelite

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Reposted by Dave Pottinger

Fleetbreakers Game @lastkeep.com · 29/08/2025

We got a chance to hang out with the great folks from @seattleoba.org last night in Seattle. Thanks to everyone who stopped by. If you're in town this weekend, swing by our table at SIX on Sunday @seattleindies.bsky.social. #six2025 #indiegames

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Always cool to meet new folks on here!

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Nothing quite like spending hours rigging up new UI (new code, data, refactoring old code to pump the new calls, etc.) and then having it compile first time. Awesome😀 NARRATOR: It was, in fact, not awesome. Many extra hours were required for it to actually work. #indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Finally changed some XML parsing on @lastkeep.com today. Relics are comprised of techs, but refs were by name to tech instances in other XML file. Gross, but we put up with it forever. Now the techs can be inlined. So much nicer to have the data in one spot. Easier to edit. Less bugs. #indiegames

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Been chasing this bug on @lastkeep.com for several days. AI units intermittently attack. Can't repro locally. I think I found my uninitialized variable (doh). Testing fix now. Shouldn't have taken this long to find, but some optimization make it trickier to find. Nevertheless, fingers crossed.

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Been on a bit of a break posting various updates on @lastkeep.com Will probably get back to that soon. We've been cranking away on feedback from the demo. Fired up the side project recently. Kinda effing around with a complete restart to fix/redo some large things. That's going to be a lot of work

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Rough week at work last week. Weekend was a nice break. Got some todos done around the house. Superman was better than we expected. Dinner with son and his GF. Had the first good ice cream in Seattle (Husky Deli).

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Check-In Explainer Day 19: We made the PDCs and Drones inherit the buffs their employer received. While awesome overall, this caused a bunch of invalid/unintended buffs for said PDCs and Drones. Now fixed. #roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

#roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike @lastkeep.com Check-In Explainer Day 18: Adding better explanation text so folks know tradeoffs if they "accidentally" blast through preface dialogue. Story or not, it's critical for folks to know what their choices will do. And, um, ignore the typo😀

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Check-In Explainer Day 17: Another long awaited UI fix: Showing the delta values when a squadron has cost buffs/debuffs. This immediately makes the econ relics pop as so much more valuable. Don't get credit for buffs you can't see! @lastkeep.com #roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

@lastkeep.com Check-In Explainer Day 16: MOAR FPS. Some simple removal of needless calls for things that can't ever move and a redo of how some distances are calculated. Now minefields run much faster. Oh, yeah, now we have minefields turned on again😀 #roguelite #strategygame #indiedev #roguelike

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

#roguelike #strategygame #indiedev Check-In Explainer Day 15: Adding a new station to build: Bombard Turret (though it will get a fancier name at some point). Good for shooting the stuff in the back of an enemy attack and taking out bunches of little ships with its AOE damage. @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Check-In Explainer Day 14: Adding a new relic: Mirror Finish. Chance to reflect damage back to attacker based on the amount of armor. Works great, but not too jazzy yet with just the programmer VFX and text flyoff 🤣 @lastkeep.com #roguelike #strategygame #indiedev

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Check-In Explainer Day 13: #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame Finally getting some cleanup on a few options settings. This one is good for SteamDeck battery usage as it throttles down framerate when we're on main menu. Woot. @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 12: After some extended play on @lastkeep.com, we decided to make some perf fixes for Next Fest build. We haven't needed many specific perf fixes yet (due to some decent tech planning perhaps?), so there was some easy low-hanging stuff #roguelike #indiedev #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Fired up Unity6 for some side project musings. Didn't get very far. Out of practice for sure, but man, I still do like C# plenty.

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Still getting settled in the new place. Not everything fits in the garage yet, but getting closer once we do another round of selling some cabinets I don't need after paring down the tools. Saw Ballerina with K today. Way better than I expect. Wick-worthy certainly.

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Our big Next Fest demo update is out. Loads of new content, all new tech upgrades, new difficulty ramp, and tons of polish. #indiegame #roguelike #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 11: Final build notes for Next Fest build. We'd made our prelude easier to help noobs get through it, but it turned out it was TOO easy. The enemies died too fast to see how combat worked. Fixed a little crate frustration, too. #roguelike #indiedev #strategygame @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 10: @lastkeep.com This was almost a terribly embarrassing bug. More than a week ago, a bad XML merge got pushed that deleted some important text data. Even with all the testing we do, just randomly found as we were 2 bugs from ZBR. Whew! #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 9: More polish on the attack facing stuff. Here's an early version that shows that attacking over the asteroids will raise the figure 8 pattern for the scouts (the faint upward lines). Obv not enough yet, but we'll get there. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 8: MOAR NextFest polish! A much needed Nexus (ship inventory) improvement: Sorting things by rarity within the various buckets (ships, mothership abilities, relics). #roguelike #strategygame @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 7: #roguelike #strategygame We are starting the last week of polish changes for Next Fest!!! @lastkeep.com We have a 'Victory Mode' after each mission so you can mop up resources, collect any crates you missed, etc. Jason (cofounder/AD) riffing on how FX look in that mode.

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 6: @lastkeep.com #indiedev #roguelike #strategygame We have perm upgrades in our roguelike. We were hiding it to streamline start of game. After some feedback of "where are the perm upgrades?", we're turning the button back on from the start. Feature still locked at start tho.

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Check-in Explainer Day 5: Polishing up our attack facing. The scout squadron attacks in a figure 8, but you can spin it around the target to control the direction. Timothy's been at this new feature for a while. Coming online just in time for Next Fest! @lastkeep.com #indiedev #roguelike

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

#indiedev #roguelike Check-in Explainer Day 4: Jazzed up sector map with a few extra zones on top & bottom. These usually get colonies (investment/unlocks for the run), which helps differentiate the rush vs. boom choices during a run. Obv needs re-layout for "You Are Here" text. @lastkeep.com

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

@lastkeep.com Check-in Explainer Day 3: We don't unlock resource extractors for a bit, so we added some 'compensatory' resource crates until extractors are unlocked. But that broke a very cool econ relic. Added a couple of extra effects to fix that. #indiedev #gamedev #roguelike #strategygame

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

@lastkeep.com Check-in Explanation Day 2: Going through the game adding rarity colors on all the places they should be. With our roguelike base, it's very useful to know which relics are better than others, though obv you still need to pick smartly for your current run #indiedev #gamedev #roguelike

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

@lastkeep.com check-in explanation Day 1/1 This is a change to our Scout unit special ability... We're changing how their attack pattern works, so knocking ships back with their special is actually detrimental (QA's word not mine). #indiedev #gamedev #roguelike

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Here are some key dates in our Steam NextFest plan: May 19–23: Play our Alpha demo on Steam May 30: Press preview June 9: Exclusive Steam Next Fest demo Wishlist & follow @fleetbreakers on Steam now! #steamnextfest #indiegame #strategygame

A nifty pic of Admiral Torval and demo dates for Fleetbreakers

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Cranking away on updates to our demo for Fleetbreakers @lastkeep.com We've gotten a lot of good feedback, excited to share another version here soon. Side project remains sidelined given the focus on Fleetbreakers and our move to Seattle (which has been great overall).

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

This is the big news. We have a demo (alpha really) up on Steam. We're looking for feedback and starting to get the buzz rolling. Give it a go and let us know what you think!

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Dave Pottinger @dcpottinger.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

New name for our game! Some other exciting news coming *very* soon, too.

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