An indie game based on Winsor McCay's groundbreaking comic strip.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
May update!
6 months ago
– Mon, May 20, 2024 at 10:06:27 AM
Dear Dreamers,
Happy May! As the weather gets warmer, we're kicking into high gear on both the construction of Slumberland itself, and a demo-ready version of Jack Frost's Ice Palace for our upcoming appearance at the Too Many Games Festival in Philadelphia at the end of June. Here are some of the things we've been working on the past few weeks:
Fabulous Flip functionality
First of all, we've given some love to an often-overlooked character in the game, Flip! Those who have played the backer demo from a few months back might have noticed that his swing was a little fiddly to use, so Ben spent some time polishing up his functionality and adding some of his additional animations to make him move more fluidly. In addition to helping players get across long horizontal hazards, his punches hit like a truck! Here's some new screenshots:
Phobetor Phrollics
What's a puncher without things to punch though? We've got some new animation frames for Phobetor, the Nightmare Fiends' Master of Illusions, who is the one corrupting the other Slumberlandians you've seen as bosses (like the Moon). He's based on The Magician from Winsor McCay's original comics.
Phobetor will appear multiple times in Nemo and company's adventure, but fully reveal himself when he and his nightmares attack Jack Frost's Palace (but initially putting all the blame on Flip!) He'll attack with volleys of magic fireballs, teleporting, and later in the adventure, doppelgangers. He'll also have an impenetrable shield that can even withstand Flip's punch and Peony's bombs - I wonder what power our heroes can use to break it...
Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends on display (I couldn't think of any more F-sound alliterations for this one)
Lastly, we have photos from the game's appearance at the Chicago Gamespace Art Gallery, where Nightmare Fiends is currently being displayed next to original prints of original Winsor McCay Little Nemo comics provided by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library at Ohio State!
That's all for now! We'll have much more coming as we continue to ramp up over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
Cheers and many thanks,
Chris and Team Nemo
TooManyGames, Backer Caricatures, & More
7 months ago
– Sun, Apr 21, 2024 at 12:19:26 PM
Hey folks! Adrian here.
We're still hard at work converting our art and animation to a new animation system, as well as some much needed project clean up and refreshing our task board. But apart from the boring administrative stuff, we've also been making steady progress on the game. So that's what we're going to focus on in this update, including news of our next in-person showcase, an upcoming level, backer cameos and more!
TooManyGames 2024
Let's start with the big announcement. We're returning to TooManyGames in Oaks, PA! From June 28th to June 30th, attendees will get to play the game live and chat with us directly!
This won't just be our current backer-exclusive demo, either. We're hard at work on adding an additional chapter to the demo, along with new enemies, hazards, cutscenes and playable character for attendees! As we get closer to the date, we'll have more to announce about the demo and our show plans, so be on the look out for future updates! In the meantime, get tickets for TooManyGames at their website.
Chicago GameSpace exhibition
Speaking of showing the game publicly, the game will also be displayed at Chicago GameSpace from May 17 - June 30 as part of an art exhibition. The current plan is to showcase the game next to prints of some of the original Little Nemo in Slumberland strips that are inspiring levels from the game, so if you're in the Chicago area, go check that out!
Jack Frost's Palace
Speaking of the additional chapter, we've mentioned Jack Frost's Palace before. I'm happy to say that we're currently working on a content pass where we're getting the level ready for our next public demo. This includes working on new enemies, such as this mischievous Snowman character that hides in the ground before sneakily pelting snowballs at our heroes. Just don't think to hard about where he gets the snow.
This is just the latest in a line of monsters we've been adding to the ice level and other areas, so stay tuned for more!
This level will also feature the next unlockable character in the game, Flip! We've had the basic mechanics for the character's swinging and punching for a while now, but we're polishing everything up for his debut number at TooManyGames! After the big makeover we gave Peony for our last demo, I'm really excited to see how Flip develops over the next month.
We're also working on new story sequences as well, which means new characters and NPCs. As a teaser, check out this character Chris made recently that you may remember from the original comics!
Backer Cameos
Speaking of Chris, he's been hard at work creating the custom characters for backers who will appear in the game! We are currently going through those who pledged at the still image (non-animated) cameo level and will be getting on the animated ones soon! They've been coming out great, so we thought we'd give you a preview of them now!
Just a sample of some of our backer cameos.
We are in the process of confirming designs for some of them and reaching out for anyone who has not filled out a survey, so please make sure to check your e-mail or do your survey if that's you! Again, we've gone through the non-animated backer cameos so far and will be starting on the animated ones in the next few weeks.
Conclusion
That's all for this update. Next time we'll have more information on what to expect at TooManyGames and the Chicago Gamespace exhibition, a progress report on the ice level, and maybe some other surprises!
Until next time dreamers,
~ Adrian
New Backer Build
9 months ago
– Thu, Feb 29, 2024 at 06:45:06 AM
Hi Dreamers! It's been a very busy month for us. We've been working hard on the mushroom forest and to get some progression into the game. Since the last backer build we've built out our inventory system and added a bunch of scripting features. We can create multi-part quests now that expand your abilities. As a result of all this though, we have a new backers-only demo that we're proud to share with all of you!
This build features the Mushroom Forest critical path. The goal is to find Peony and help the Mushroom Farmer. There will eventually be a secondary goal here, which is to collect something called "Figments" - but we'll go into some detail about that in a future update. Remember, this is an in-progress demo, so we'll have more to tweak, add, and share in the future.
There are 3 main areas to explore here: the Mushroom Village, the Mosquito Farm (and caves), and the Treetops. You'll probably notice a bunch of nooks that don't have much in them at this point - those will have minor upgrades or quest events in them in more final versions of the game.
We put a lot of effort over the last couple months refining how the game plays. There's some things you won't see as much as feel (improvements to how characters traverse level geometry, for example) but also some other fundamental changes. Peony can throw bombs now, for example - which makes her a lot of fun to play!
There's also a dash now in the game. This will be a (relatively early) upgrade at some point - but for now it's just unlocked. You can dash by double tapping forward, and it consumes magic while you are dashing. Right now characters just play their normal run animations for these, but we will update this in the future with special dash animations.
We also added several more enemy types and two new bosses with more on the way.
I know this project is taking a while. We're working really hard on it and super proud of what we're been able to accomplish so far! Those of you following game industry news will know that game making is in a very unstable place right now, but by taking our time the way we have, we have actually put ourselves in a position to be stable and carry on with getting you the best version of this game that we can (even if it's a longer process.) Thanks so much for sticking with us and we can't wait to show you more!
I'm still going with my weekly Twitch development streams (Saturday Night ~9:00PM EST) - so if you're wanting to follow along you can go to https://twitch.tv/pxlplz
- Ben
January update - MAGFest and new demo soon!
10 months ago
– Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 07:04:29 AM
Dearest dreamers and backers!
Happy New Year from Team Nemo! We're writing this as we are loading in for MAGFest - the Music and Gaming Festival in National Harbor, MD from Jan. 18-21 - so this will be a shorter update preceding a longer one next week with more gameplay details, pictures of our "Nemo's Room"-themed booth, and more news.
A big award nomination - vote for us!
First of all: we've been nominated for a major award from Debug Magazine - an indie-focused print magazine from the UK. We're among their nominees for the "Most Anticipated Indie Game" award, and you (yes, YOU!) can help us get it by clicking the link on the image below!
Please go to https://www.teamdebug.com/awards/vote and vote for Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends to win the award, and tell your friends to do the same! We've also done some new interviews in relation to this nomination, so we'll be sure to share those as they go up. Please make sure to vote ASAP though, there's not much time left!
What's new on the game?
A lot! We've been hard at work on both the Ice Palace and Mushroom Forest levels, building out the spaces and platforming gameplay of the Ice Palace (the action and eye-candy stuff), and building out the adventure elements of the Mushroom Forest (the story stuff, but also even more eye-candy). Here are a few preview shots we have:
Peony stops to take in the sights after a difficult platforming section
Nemo encounters a herd of Bazoos happily munching away on the mushrooms and foliage of the Forest.
Climbable floofs!
New bosses? Why yes, the Forest has 2! I wonder who the other boss could be (maybe it's a team?)
Along with this, we have a new pause inventory menu, a quest system, and some other quality of life improvements in place. Also also, folks will finally get to experience Peony's amazing bomb-throwing ability!
How can I check out this new stuff?
While we've built a lot of this for our MAGFest demo, but what if you can't be at MAGFest? Well, all of this is in preparation for a BRAND NEW PUBLIC DEMO which we'll be debuting after the show. Stay tuned for more news and details about that soon!
Other news
Obviously, we'll be busy in the Nemo booth at MAGFest the next few days, but post-MAGFest, my attention will turn to the backer cameos for the $300 and up tiers. We'll be in contact with any requests for details with those folks (we have a lot of that information already, so no need to contact us first, please let us get started then reach out as needed.)
We'll especially need those backer characters soon, because after those are filled out, they'll be handy for us to build out crowd scenes in areas like our other next priority - Slumberland itself! We've got some cool plans for that as well, so stay tuned!
That's it for now Dreamers. We'll update soon on MAGFest stuff and on the demo.
Cheers and many thanks,
Chris and Team Nemo
December Update: MAGfest & Demos & Snowmen, Oh My!
12 months ago
– Mon, Dec 04, 2023 at 10:14:09 AM
Hey there, Dreamers! Adrian here.
For our December update, we have some exciting annoucements concerning our next live showing of the game and demos of our current progress!
MAGfest Updates + Upcoming Demos
As we mentioned in our last update, we'll be back at MAGfest in National Harbor, MD once again to showcase Little Nemo & the Nightmare Fiends! We'll be showcasing new areas and abilities live, getting the ability to talk on the floor with all of you along with getting your feedback about the game!
If you're not able to make it to Magfest, we also have something for you as well; we'll be releasing our MAGfest demo publicly on Steam for everyone to check out! Like our Nextfest demo from June, this demo will focus on the Night Sky and the Forest. However, we're expanding the forest content of the video, including Peony's new ability to throw bombs we mentioned in the previous update, new enemies, dialogue, platforming mechanics, NPC conversations, quests, and more!
But that's not all; In the weeks leading up to MAGfest, we'll be releasing early versions of the demos for our backers as we work out the kinks. If you're a backer, be sure to keep a look out on our Discord for those updates happening soon. For backers at the Slumberlandian ($75) level and above, we'll also be releasing a demo featuring an early sneak peek at our third level, Jack Frost's Palace.
It's important to note that while we'll be blocking off unfinished rooms in our public MAGfest demo, backer exclusive demos will be open to explore. Some rooms will be empty or unpassable, the camera won't follow into some, and others may not have a room at all! We want to give backers the opportunity to explore the game freely, and we'll keep you posted on the rough edges as we come across them.
We're really excited to show you all the new things we've been working on, so please look forward to it in the next few weeks!
New Enemy Art: The Snowman
Recently Chris posted our in-progress Snowman character you'll run into in Jack Frost's palace:
This happy guy will pop out of the floor from time to time to toss a snow ball at Nemo and his friends. Just... don't think too hard about where he's getting the snow from.
What'sNext
Our main focus for now is making the content in our MAGfest demo as polished as we can in the next couple weeks. We'll also be continuing work on Jack Frost's Palace, as well as beginning work on Kickstarter rewards, including our backer cameos.
Looking past MAGfest, we've nearly finished converting all of our animations to the new system, which became a time consuming, but absolutely necessary update. That means we can move the game to a newer version of Unity, which will be super important for stability and porting the game to Switch in the future. In the meantime, we'll be continuing to flesh out Jack Frost's palace and beginning work on our last major biome, Slumberland, shortly thereafter.
We'll be sharing our progress with all of you here, so please look forward to it! We'll also be posting more updates concerning MAGfest and the demos in January in the weeks prior to the show, so be on the look out for that as well.
