Godotcon Boston 2025 was a blast!

Hi gamers!

My last update was in March, and it's now the end of May - what was I doing those two months? Here's a short update!

Godotcon Boston

I recently went to Godotcon Boston, Godot's first ever conference in the US. It was full of tons of indie developers who had a similar passion for the Godot game engine and indie game development in general. This was one of the most fun moments of my entire 5 years as an indie gamedev; I had a fantastic time meeting and talking to so many cool devs. I learned a ton, got great advice, had good food, and made great connections. My throat was actually sore because of how much I was talking to people over the 3 days! I can't wait to go back next year 🥰

Here's a great video by StayAtHomeDev (who I met there and is super nice!) recapping his experience at the conference:

I volunteered to help out Nicholas O. from Essay Games with his workshop on Narrative Design, which was really fun and thought provoking. You should check out his heartwarming game, Bundle of Joy!

I also did a talk, Improving Your UI in Godot. It was my first videogame talk I've ever done, and I learned a lot. Big thanks to Edd for giving me advice, and my friends at Godotcon who were also giving their first talks who I could build a comradery with.

You can find my slides here! It should also be uploaded on Godot's official youtube soon!

Oh, I also did most of the con's signage!

I made multiple signs, banners, a map, and the convention badge! Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity!

I was busy the past two months preparing all of the con graphics and writing my talk, coding a pause menu for it, and creating graphics for my slides. I put a lot of heart into it!

Game Updates

After the conference, I came home and immediately got back to work. I had started feeling a little burned out after working hard on the game for 6 months, but the 2 month break for Godotcon was exactly what I needed to feel refreshed and motivated. I'm on a UI kick after my talk, so I've spent the past couple of weeks on a quest to finish all of the Pause menus, and I came up with some cool new in-match UI.

Status Menu:

As with many RPGs, The Tennis Academy has a stats screen where you can see all of your character's stats, as well as their equipped skills and gear. I was kind of surprised at myself that I was able to finish most of the screen in one day! I think I'm getting the hang of Control Nodes in Godot. The Status menu is almost done, I just need to finish the Partner's side of the screen, and I think it would be helpful to show detailed calculations for each stat (like, if you have 30 Power, knowing 15 of that is your base power, 10 is from equipment, and 5 is from a passive could be useful)

I've also been playing a lot of Expedition 33, and you all know I'm a big Persona fan, and.. well, this happened:

Are you even surprised at this point?

I hyperfixated on that for 3 days LOL. It was fun.

What's next?

I mentioned this last time, but for this year my overall goal is to reach a point where all of the systems are complete. The list is shortening, so I think this may be doable 😊 Even if not, I'm happy with the progress that's being made. I still want to be able to have a demo next year.

For the next month, I'd like to focus on making all the pause menus functional.

• Status Menu (Partner's screen, stat calculations)

• Calendar - check upcoming events, class times, scheduled hangouts, deadlines

• Tenergy Menu - change your special shot/ability/passive

• Journal - character profiles, recap of the story, tennis glossary (maybe these all need to be their own submenus? 🤔)

I think these will be possible in less than a month if I stay focused; I'm getting quick at menus!

Join the Discord!

To wrap this up, I will invite you to come and join the Discord - we can talk about The Tennis Academy and more games there 🙂

https://discord.gg/76chERbdzR

Thanks for reading! -Rawb 💖