This is it, the final beta. I hope. I’ll need to make sure it works as intended, which is where all of you come in. I’ll need feedback if anything goes wrong, or if something just looks off. I wanna get it polished before the 1.0 release. All the animations and cutscenes are completed, so you can now enjoy the story the way it’s meant to be seen!
Here’s my plans for the release:
It’s coming to both Itch.io and Steam, it’ll retail for $5USD. Yeah, it won’t be free. I spent MONTHS on this and missed a ton of other work that I gotta scramble to catch up on. “But didn’t us patrons already pay you for it?” Not to worry, I intend to get keys to everyone who donated $3 or more since I started development in August. I’m also still waiting for my Steam developer credentials to go through (probably should’ve done that earlier) and I even intend to add achievements as soon as I learn how.
I also intend to add bugfixes after release if needed. And free updates after release, if the game sells well enough. I already have an idea for a new mode.
And to everyone who’s waiting on commissions and rewards, I’m gonna get to them now that I got a build I’m fully satisfied with and will take some time off development to get feedback. I know I’ve been silent when it comes to getting back to you. Sorry I’ve been so selfish. The truth is, I’ve been just having trouble doing commissions, I think it’s due to burnout. I try to sit down and do them, and I just… can’t. I haven’t responded to requests or taken in any new ones for a while either. I’ve been dealing with back pain and depression. I feel like I haven’t really been on the ball since 2022, and I wanna get in a better mental and physical state. I intend to get to everyone soon.
Oct 6, 2023
I just wanna get everyone’s attention because I wanna help a buddy out: @GLWuffie is in a serious financial situation and quickly needs to raise some funds! They’re about halfway to their $4K goal but time is short. Read about it here: x.com They’re raising funds on Ko-Fi here: https://ko-fi.com/glwuffie GL’s been really nice to me over the years and I don’t wanna see them get kicked out of their home. I wanna pay them back as much as I can. GL’s also made plenty of art, animation and games and is worth checking out, but won’t be able to if the bills can’t be paid. You might recognize GL from these pieces:
](https://www.deviantart.com/royaljellysandwich/journal/Hey-Help-me-help-GLWuffie-986598299)[
Those new ‘other’ sites, and my thoughts.
Oct 3, 2023
Well here’s something I haven’t done in a big, fat, gluttonous, chocolate-addicted raccoon’s age: a journal entry. Like a REAL one. So it’s no secret in this circle that a lot of us are concerned that this very “circle” may have an uncertain future as the internet currently seems (maybe) to be increasing in hostility towards us, and is (definitely) declining in the quality and competence as to how the social media spaces we’ve been using for decades (IE: DA, FA, Xwitter) is being managed. DA is taking down art, and DA accounts, particularly kink-based ones, are allegedly being suspended with no explanation as to the offense or which pictures are the offenders. Lots of back and forth arguments and useless hashtags being thrown around over it. FA’s been using confusing and unclear new rules in their TOS. AND TWITTER? Twitter is like a train that somehow keeps derailing and never stops. The fallout doesn’t seem to be stopping just at those site, nor is it limited to just the
](https://www.deviantart.com/royaljellysandwich/journal/Those-new-other-sites-and-my-thoughts-986048682)[
June Update: Vacation, Birthday, Catching up
Jun 18, 2022
Hey everyone, Hope you’re all staying cool in this brutal heat. Just gonna give a quick status update: I go on vacation for a week tomorrow (June 18th) so I’m not gonna be available for most of the week. Might try and do a few owed sketches if I have any time alone, but I want this vacation to be a VACATION. I am also celebrating my (urgh) 40th Birthday on the 24th while I’m away. Anyway, I just sent out the last invoices I’ll be taking until the 26th. After I get back I might have to make a few adjustments to my commission rates in July, but for now I’m going to just relax. See you on the 26th!
](https://www.deviantart.com/royaljellysandwich/journal/June-Update-Vacation-Birthday-Catching-up-919651235)[
Status Update 5-2-22
May 2, 2022
Hey everyone, been a while. I’ve got a lot to catch up on, so I’ll start with what I’ve been up to. Fist off: I quit my retail job in March so I can focus on doing art full time. I was tired of scrubbing toilets, I was overworked and understaffed and I’m sure I can do better with art. So I’m going to be treating this like its an actual full time job. As in, get up and do this on a 9-5 schedule, write down what I do and when, keep track of how much I make, etc. Another thing I’m working on is figuring out 3D modeling. I’ve been dedicating time to learning Blender using tutorials I’m seeing on Youtube, with the hopes it can find me a job. Right now I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near the level where I can do 3D Commissions but I’d like to get there in time. I’m a lot more comfortable with objects and environments but not character modeling yet… Currently I’m experimenting with how to use it to help out with 2D works. Here’s a few examples. I’m also trying out a few new sites to
](https://www.deviantart.com/royaljellysandwich/journal/Status-Update-5-2-22-914916172)
2024-10-18T04:00:00Z v0.8 has been released.
This version, hopefully if no additional problems pop up, is going to be the full game as I intend it with just about all the features I intended to put in added. Anyway:
What’s New:
At long last, a save system! The custom mode is still there, but you’ll no longer need to depend on it to restore progress. If there isn’t a save file, you’ll only see “NEW GAME” on the title screen. If there is, you’ll see “CONTINUE” on the screen. Selecting Continue will put you back to where you were, selecting New Game will overwrite the save.
There’s also an “OPTIONS” on the title page, too. It’s just for sound, really.
Overhauled Tutorial. Now it’s 5 pages, features a Cast page and explains the game a little more in detail. The tips were removed, for the other new feature…
Tip cutscenes featuring the Scientist, where she gives some of the more nuanced parts of the game to your attention. They play on the menu screen between levels, when you wait a few seconds after a win or lose cutscene ends.
The glitch that happens when a target first appears should be fixed.
The extra bullets that appear when the Ghrelin Gat level is 11 or more have a slightly altered position, as it was causing a glitch with Enzyme targets dropping two powerups at once.
Comic Cutscenes now have an intro. No new animation has been added. But there are new short music jingles that play in the intro and outro.
All the different Shopkeeper dialogues added to Theatre Mode.
Known Issues:
I don’t know at this time is the freezing bug still happens. I know I said I wanted it gone in this version, but I haven’t gotten any reports of it happening after the v0.7 release.
Still figuring out the infinite corpse glitch and the dying/lack of I frames after respawning glitch.
Plans for next release:
All art and animation will be done. This might take a while. I want to get more commissions and rewards done, so I’m pretty sure getting the finished game out in October may be too soon. IT should definitely be out by November.
That’s basically it. Version 0.9 is basically going to be everything that the planned v1.0 release is gonna have. It’s probably be just polishing and squashing any remaining bugs.
2024-10-08T04:00:00Z v0.7 is up!
This update adds new gameplay tweaks:
Ghrelin gat level is now capped at lv. 20 and updates faster, lv.11 and higher replaces one of the 10 per second shots with a double-shot for up to 20.
Metabolism now gives a random chance for a single bonus lipid to drop on every hit on a target, with the odds going up on each level upgraded.
Hormone Spike is now upgradable from 10 seconds to 20 like the other powerups. Jackpot mode now does a single bonus lipid drop on every single shot.
Coenzyme upgrades were reworked, and now make it so that it takes less shots to open enzyme targets.
The Cell Wall has a new graphic and does damage to targets on contact
New shop item: Electrolytes. Basically a lipid magnet, attracts lipids from further away.
[quote=“royaljellysandwich, post:1, topic:45335, full:true”]
Hello, everyone. I’m RoyalJellySandwich. You probably know who I am, but if not, I’m a veteran WG/Fat artist who’s been active for a long time: around 25 years! I spread out into merchandise recently, as well as 3D animation. Now I’m getting into indie game development, as I’m always looking for new things to do with my craft. I’ve spent the last year learning Blender and the past few months learning Godot, and now I have a project far enough along to show off my new skills!
GutBuster is a simple, yet challenging arcade game based on Buster Bros./Pang, starring my fan favorite character, Rebbecca Valentine. Your job is to control her inner cell, or Cellecca, in her stomach in charge of digesting what she eats using her acid blaster. The food objects bounce around the chamber representing her stomach as you run around trying to shoot them until they break up, while not being squashed. The blaster automatically shoots straight up as you run back and forth, and sometimes dodge-roll to keep yourself alive. Special targets that drop 5 different power-ups appear to help you out. When you beat, or fail to beat, a level, you’re treated to a comedy cutscene and access to the shop, where you upgrade your gun, moves and items. The higher you advance, the fatter and hungrier Rebbecca becomes.
The game is far enough in development that I’ve publicly released the first pre-alpha demo on itch.io. (along with my other pre-alpha game but I’ll leave that to another thread) and the latest build is on my Patreon as early access for $3+ subscribers, each build is dropped on Itch for free after a month or so (if I don’t forget to, my memory sucks). The newest Patreon demo is 10 levels, and the animation is incomplete, but a finished demo is in the works and I aim to get it done by the end of the month. The full game will be 30 levels (or 40, I haven’t decided) and have a completed story and animation, I aim to finish it this fall.
The pre-alpha does have the gameplay down, mostly, so I appreciate any feedback.
If you’re having trouble I have tips: keep in mind you’re invincible while using the dash maneuver. Be sure to buy upgrades at the shop. It also has a cheat mode under the options menu.
It’s playable right in the browser or for download (browser version has some graphical issues when it comes to shaders, but I think that’s a Godot thing)
I’ve updated the gameplay so that the food will break up in an upward arc, which makes dodging more manageable.
Fixed the shaders on the targets so now they turn redder as they get closer to bursting.
You can pause now, and I included a pause menu with volume controls and chea–I mean, “accessibility options”, including invincibility mode, auto-powerups mode, and shop pricing options.
Rebalanced shop pricing.
Rebalanced powerups, they now start at 10 seconds instead of 5, upgradeable powers now have 6 levels and each level adds 2 additional seconds instead of 1. Hormone Spike/Jackpot mode now is 20 seconds instead of 15.
Thank you so much for posting this here! I have been wanting to play it, but I keep forgetting cause my memory sucks. I have been watching the dev on your twitter and have been super excited to check this out!!
It’s probably because the animation that’s supposed to be playing there isn’t done. I still have some assets to draw, right now I have the office and the lounge scenes, but there’s also scenes in a hallway outside the office and in an elevator. I’ve actually written the scripts for them a while ago.
One thing that is a little frustrating is that if a big chip splits in two while it is coming down, the two smaller pieces become impossible to dodge because they take up too much space on both sides to go left or right and there’s not enough empty space to weave between them. Usually the solution to that would be to not shoot at a big chip while it’s heading downward but that’s not always possible with the gun always firing. I wonder if, instead of maintaining the big chip’s current velocity after splitting, the two smaller chips should be sent upward from the blast so that they can separate far enough to dodge both of them.
Good suggestion. I agree that it is kind of a pain. The targets work on a pre-made 2D Rigid Body physics system, and I had to turn damping all the way down to zero in order for the targets to bounce to the same height each time. I was able to program them breaking apart in an upward arc, but then they’d only bounce up to around the height where the targets broke in half due to the change in velocity, which made dodging them even harder. Good news is, I just figured out a workaround: I simply set it so the object’s Y-axis velocity is set to the same number every time they touch the floor, and after some tweaks, I got it to bounce reliably back to the top. So that will be in an upcoming patch.
It is a standalone .EXE, so it’s not a surprise that it would be flagged by an antivirus. You should add it to a whitelist. I’m looking into other versions besides just Windows, particularly if Godot can create a reliable HTML5 version that’s playable in a browser, so that downloading it won’t be necessary.
Just getting into v0.7 and something I’ve noticed is that the visual artifacts that started appearing for me in v0.6 are still present. I got lucky and snagged the single-frame snapshot of it.
It’s only for a single frame and then the sprite appears as normal. Strangely the enzyme sprite doesn’t appear to be affected, only the food ones. Also worth noting that the defect only occurs when a food item first enters the stage; splitting with the little explosion effect doesn’t have any artifacts.
Hopefully this is something that you’re already aware of.
Edit: I’ll keep updating the existing post with new bugs to avoid spamming.
Seems with the changes to the Metabolism text descriptions, the description is since missing after the first:
A WILD MISSINGNO APPEARS!
That’s definitely an issue I’m aware of and intend to work on. The food targets are actually 3D models made into a 2D object using Godot’s Viewport node, and it seems to have issues when it loads in. It also uses a lot of shaders for the black outline and the “reddening” damage effect. It’s been that way since I first implemented the 3D models, but it didn’t affect the gameplay so I didn’t really prioritize it. I intend for the completed version to actually have the targets appear by falling in from above the top of the screen, so if I can’t fix the glitch it’ll at least hide it. As for the enzyme, that’s entirely 2D so it doesn’t seem to have that issue.
Yeah, ran into that issue, too. Might have to adjust the particle level once it gets above a certain point.
But, quick update, I already fixed the problems from your last post, so a patch is coming. For the target glitch, spawning the targets above the screen so they fall in made them too hard to predict, so I made a workaround the targets spawn offscreen and then moved onscreen after one frame, which masks the glitch without changing the gameplay.
I also corrected/updated the Stat Box (on the lower left) to show the Hormone time level and the Magnet level, plus a slight change to the look.
Yeah I seems the particles were the problem; I added a bit to the bullet splash code to reduce the amount of particles when the ghrelin level is over 10, and after a stress test it seems to have worked. Patch is definitely coming.
Kinda cool to see the cutscene editor as a reward. Build your own dioramas, Disco Elysium style!
That reminds me, I don’t have a screenshot but the cutscene of them talking about tiny people in organelles and the spin-off gag, Boss has a duplicate arm. I would’ve snagged the screenshot but I didn’t capture it in time.
Any chance for a replay button to be added to the static to repeat the cutscene at all?
