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Dakota // Syncaroonie

@syncaroonie.com
2K followers 728 following 519 posts

Wishlist my game, Solaire! - store.steampowered.com/app/4441110/… _ Brisbane 🇦🇺 // Game Dev Person _ They // Them _ Banner by @meltted.bsky.social _ Business Contact // dakota@syncaroonie.com

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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 53m
Okie I realised that I can just post boring stuff, currently working on redoing the entrance hall to make it feel a little more grand (Michael rosen is there because I always use him in placeholder textures and he's saying "look out the window!" so I remember it's a window)
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 24/09/2026
I’m gonna go with a plinth personally.
That one frame from fairly odd parents where the dad is like “This is where I would keep my trophy…”
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 03/08/2026
The main design goal of Solaire has shifted in the last few months from "make cool rpg with fun gameplay mechanics that add depth" to "use that to engineer as many scenarios for funny faces as possible" and like I hope there'll be like one or two that people other than me find really funny.
a large blue slime creature recoils in...disgust? agony? I'm honestly not sure at this point...
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 03/08/2026
Solaire broke 30,000 wishlists over the weekend. I don't know where people are still coming from, but I am glad people are excited for the game! Thank you all so much! I'm working hard on getting the demo out soon :)
Wishlist Actions Steam page for Solaire.

~30.5k total wishlist adds, 254 deletions. Total of 30,298
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 24/07/2026
Thanks so much for hosting #TurnBasedThursday! This is my game, Solaire; an RPG where each party member brings a twist to traditional Turn-Based combat! A demo will be available (relatively) soon :)
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 23/07/2026
Solaire's steam page hasn't even been live a full week and we just cracked 25,000 wishlists!?!?!?! HUH??? I don't even know what to say... so I drew a dumb comic instead. Thank you all so much! I can't wait to show you what I've been cooking up!
Header text says "Thanks for 25,000 wishlists!!!"

Comic below of Piper and Claire eating cake. Piper says "Where did they all come from?". Claire replies with "IDK dude, just eat your damn cake"
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 19/07/2026
I'm genuinely speechless it just keeps going up
solaire has 7110 wishlists wtf
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 19/07/2026
....guysss????????
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 19/07/2026
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 19/07/2026
....uhhhh......is that good????? that's good right???
Solaire Wishlist Additions: Today = 4,424
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 17/07/2026
I posted the Steam page for my game, Solaire, earlier! Here's the first trailer I posted on there as well! #gamedev #indiedev #godot #solaire
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 16/07/2026
YEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ok lemme tidy it up and I'll drop the link
Email header from Steamworks saying Solaire was approved!
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 14/07/2026
I might need to tone the spotlights down for epilepsy reasons but here's a preview of the final ui rework for Piper's Psalm inputs :> #gamedev #indiedev #godot #solaire
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 13/07/2026
New profile pic :3 solaire bnuuy
Piper from Solaire belting out a mad solo.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 11/07/2026
🙏(o _ o )
Green text from Steam saying "Your app is in the review queue."
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/07/2026
New Claire form! I tweaked the flavor of one of the early-game skills and I thought it warranted a different form. #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 29/06/2026
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 29/06/2026
Added an analyse function in battle which meant I had to write funny flavour text for all the enemies. (None of these enemies actually appear in the backyard section I just have it set as my debug battle background cause the colours are nice :>) #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 28/06/2026
One of my friends helping out with QA mentioned I should probably move all my text into a big csv for easier localization later on and it's produced just the biggest visual mess. All works great under the hood though.
I ain't alt-texting all of that it's a bunch of localization look up strings that are so long it's screwing with the UI layout.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 22/06/2026
me at my desk at working from home vs me 1 minute after clocking off at the same desk but for twice as long being paid 100% less working on solaire
mr incredible is incredibly depressedmr incredible but he's livin' the dream
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 17/06/2026
Something I don't think I've shown before; some enemies will try to dodge out of the way as you aim at them. There are some enemies that do this to a more extreme degree buuuuut you gotta wait a bit longer for them. Sorry! (Also updated battle background!) #gamedev #indiedev #godot #godotengine
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 08/06/2026
It's actually really simple! I just took a box with the same aspect ratio as the screen and cut it up in blender. Then when you spawn the effect, you take a screenshot and apply it to the mesh, then animate the chunks individually (I did it with code) and render it to a sub-viewport :)
Box mesh with "Display Overdraw" render method so you can see the slices in it. It has a glass-like shatter pattern.The same mesh with a screenshot of the game applies to it and some of the chunks moved around. The UVs were set with the "Project From View (Bounds)" option in Blender.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/06/2026
Early game random encounter in Solaire! #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/06/2026
Been mostly focused on cutscenes the last week or so as well as some admin stuff behind the scenes. There should *hopefully* be a lot of cool stuff happening in late June early July so stay tuned. Here's a little bit of gameplay cause y'all deserve a little treat. #godot #gamedev #indiedev
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 08/05/2026
One of the earliest images I have of the original prototype of Solaire I made in uni (made in Game Maker in mid-2017!) I'm not sure why I used that image of DIO as a placeholder texture but I used it basically everywhere when I was figuring out the 3D elements.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 27/04/2026
I’ve never kept count but it’d certainly be at least seven times.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 12/04/2026
I did the meme. I made a rule not to double up on games (otherwise the whole board would pretty much be Undertale, Persona 3 and Digital Devil Saga). Breakdown in Alt Text.
Favourite Game: Persona 3, no further questions.
Best Story: Utterly impossible to pick but Yakuza 2 captivated the hell out of me when I played it.
Favourite Art Style: Signalis looks so good I bought the game after looking at about two seconds of gameplay footage.
Biggest personal impact: This is probably self explanatory.
Best Combat: Press Turn is my favourite RPG battle system and Nocturne is Press Turn in its purest form.
Overhated: I couldn’t think of a good one for this but I liked FF13 and I think a lot of people don’t.
Underrated: DDS1&2 are peak 2000s ROGs don’t @ me.
Overrated: Diamond and Pearl are the least good Pokemon games that aren’t objectively broken and I think people give them too much credit.
Needs a Remake: I’m not really a remake person but Persona 2 is in desperate need of being made fully available in English in a convenient matter that doesn’t require me to buy a Vita.
Criminally Overlooked: Lost Odyssey is awesome but it being stuck on the 360 just makes it not that accessible.
Favourite Protagonist: 💖 Kiryu 💖
Favourite Antagonist: 💖 Armstrong 💖
Best Soundtrack: Undertale would be here but it’s too influential, Deltarune would be here but we haven’t heard half the soundtrack yet. There’s a lot of other things on this list vying for this spot but Persona 5 can have it; I like da Rhodes.
Best Multiplayer: Halo 3 is peak shooter and I’ll die on this hill.
Not usually my thing but: My brother wanted me to play the campaign and I didn’t think I’d enjoy it but I did.
Balatro: The funny dopamine game.
Best with Friends: this one is a meme because I don’t really play multiplayer games anymore but I played this a LOT in high school.
Best Retro Game: Super Metroid is just a superb game and everyone already knows that.
Nostalgic Childhood Game: Yoshi’s island is the one Nintendo game that makes me soyjack out (Kirby’s Dreamland could go here too)
Game Everyone Should Play: This would be Undertale but it’s not its CaveStory sorry
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 08/04/2026
I’ve seen a few people post about the inspirations for their indie game and wanted to jump on the bandwagon wagon. Here are Solaire’s three biggest influences: DDS 1&2: Gameplay, themes, story Deltarune: Vibes, characters, music Signalis: Art style, overworld/puzzles, general structure
Solaire’s placeholder title screen because I don’t have a fancy box art yet.Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2. These games are great if you like challenging RPGs please play them they’re on the PS2 (and PS3 digitally I think? If that’s still available?)DeltaruneSignalis
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 08/04/2026
Little more cutscene work. #gamedev #godot #indiedev
Claire saying "After it!" as the camera points at a Loupine (wolf enemy).Claire saying "It's getting away c'mon!" as the camera points at her and Piper in a hedge maze.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/04/2026
Spent most of the weekend working on the most fiddly overworld section from the demo (and possibly the whole game honestly) but the logic is all sorted now! Just need to polish the dialogue sections a bit more. #gamedev #indiedev #godot
Piper and Claire standing between some hedges. Piper is saying "Is that right?".
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 28/03/2026
Been working on some outdoor parts of the mansion. Missing lots of details but those will come later. #gamdev #indiedev #godot
Claire stands on a porch around the back of the mansion.Claire stands in front of the entrance to a hedge maze.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 27/03/2026
I was out of town last weekend and sick all week but have finally gotten stuck back into Solaire. Have a funni meme I sent my friend for saying I needed more yellow paint.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 17/03/2026
With the UI rework I unfortunately had to ditch the speech bubble style dialogue boxes, so I decided to go for Persona 5 style portraits with a more standard dialogue box. This stuff is well outside my comfort zone so critiques greatly appreciated! #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 16/03/2026
I had to.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 14/03/2026
Save file character icons. Look at those goobers.
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 14/03/2026
Thanks for the feedback! The green actually means an added resistance, red means an added weakness and white means no change from the character's normal affinity (Null/Drain/Repel use different icons but the same color rules) MegaTen games do this too for passive resistance skills like Null Fire 😀
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 14/03/2026
Added a little panel to show Claire's new affinities after transforming. It used to be in the info panel but in making all the fonts and icons larger it just took up way too much space. #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 13/03/2026
Slowly getting there on the ui polish pass, mostly just need to animate some more paint-splat effects and add some extra juice in certain places. #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/03/2026
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/03/2026
I also did a very rough pass on the rest of the UI just replacing all the default Godot transparent panels with something I whipped up quickly. It'll definitely get another pass to polish it but it's looking a lot more like a real game now. (The big render of Claire is also a placeholder obvs)
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 06/03/2026
Claire can now eat lunch. That's all for today. (That said healing items are a bit irrelevant while Piper is in the party but it's the thought that counts) #gamedev #indiedev #godot #indierpg
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 05/03/2026
Added weapons and armor with the ability to swap them with a suitable item in your inventory. Stat and Affinity changes are displayed in the status menu with nice little coloured highlights like in SMT 4. (and yes once again the ux is still wip 🫠) #gamedev #indiedev #godot #indierpg
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 03/03/2026
Made some updates to Piper's Cleric abilities tonight. You can now pick a known (or partially known) psalm from a list to get a guide of which notes to play. Still some UX to iron out (ignore that I'm mixing PS5 and PC button prompts 🫠) but it's getting there! #godot #gamedev #indiedev #indierpg
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 03/03/2026
Adding some settings and some friends said I should add an option to render the game at full resolution. I have no idea why you'd want to do that as it makes the game look like a lazy HD Remaster, but it's there now if anyone wants it. God I hate that it smooths the font. #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 27/02/2026
One of my friends mentioned that the smooth lerp on the camera combined with the low-res aliased art style was giving him some motion sickness and after some consideration I've decided to (mostly) ditch the lerping cameras and just go with tried and true fixed angles. #godot #gamedev #indiedev
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 18/02/2026
Thank you Valve very cool 👀
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 16/02/2026
um excuse me wtf I didn't put that  there *sigh*
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 15/02/2026
I think I've finally settled on a title for the game but at this point everything is still subject to change. From here on out the game will be referred to as "Solaire" Very rough logo and placeholder title screen though woo! #gamedev #indiedev #godot
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 15/02/2026
Wrote another battle track (for boss encounters!). It was fun reworking some of the melodies from the battle track to try and keep them feeling coherent yet distinct. My friend also said I should use more NES instruments to add contrast so I did that. #gamedev #indiedev #flstudio
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Dakota // Syncaroonie @syncaroonie.com · 15/02/2026
I've flown too close to the sun.
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