Dear peoples of the world. Please join me in this rather plump update. We’re almost 3/4 of the way through 2025 but this will suffice as a mid-2025 update.
Bru & Boegie: METEORITE
My latest animated Bru & Boegie adventure is finally finished! I started writing it 5 years ago in 2020 thanks to some development funding from NFVF, then it took a couple years to get production funding from NFVF, and in this year 2025 it is completed! By the time I was finished with the animatic the length of the short film ran 20 minutes, but I whittled it down to a neat 10-minute short – unfortunately leaving quite a lot of cool stuff on the cutting-room floor but it was already a pretty ambitious project. I animated the whole thing myself in TVPaint, Mind’s Eye Creative kindly helped me with the admin side of things, and a bunch of friends (Sheldon Bengtson, Martinus Van Tee, Pete O’Donoghue, Wayne Simpson and Louise Pyper) contributed script passes, voices, sfx & music to the project.
I’m in the process of submitting the film to various animation and film festivals on FilmFreeway.com, but good grief a lot of them are expensive – $30 – $40 a pop, with no guarantee of inclusion. I’ve been submitting to the free ones, but I’m sure they’re inundated with entries. I may think of a plan B, like proposing a cool feature for its public online release.
If you’re involved with an animation festival and would like to consider Bru & Boegie’s inclusion, please get in touch!
Bru & Boegie: Episode 1 – Get da MILK!
My main focus this year (besides a month or two getting Meteorite over the line) has been learning how to make games, and after making a little test demo to get a hang of things I made my first point & click Bru & Boegie game. Its itch.io launch went great, and now its upcoming Steam launch has been where all my work energy’s been going. Steam is the world’s biggest online market place for buying games. I’m taking things kind of seriously because it’s a great opportunity to learn the ropes of what goes into making, marketing and releasing a commercial game (especially understanding how Steam’s fairly sprawling backend systems work), but also because I feel like I have a lot on the line here having decided to use the entire year to focus on my own projects and self-investment.
The game will take part in Steam’s NextFest which begins in October, an event that features upcoming game releases and one that Steam directs a lot of audience attention to. During NextFest the demo will hopefully get a bunch more plays and eyes on it, and importantly hopefully get more wishlists. Then the full game releases for sale for $4.99 at the end of October shortly after NextFest ends.
What is a Steam wishlist? Wishlists are like Steam’s magic beans currency that determines interest in a game, and in general a lot of a developer and publisher’s focus goes towards gathering wishlists from the public as these tell Steam how often to ‘surface’ a game leading up to its launch. Low wishlists indicates to Steam that there’s not much interest, while a lot of wishlists might lead to front page featuring and being ‘surfaced’ more often and for longer, leading to more sales, which is in Steam’s best interests as they take a 30% cut of sales. It’s yet another online popularity contest but I think it’s pretty fair and democratic, they need some way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I’m holding my breath a bit – it’s a short game, and I think the low price point is fair, with a compelling-enough narrative to keep pushing the story through to Episode 2 and then Episode 3. I mean, I really hope it works out!
I’m in the process of getting the game’s English language translated to Simplified Chinese. I’ve done some prep work on the backend to make sure the systems work and it seem like it does, so hopefully once that’s done I can update the demo to include Chinese as an option, the full game will have its Chinese translation ready to go by launch, and the Steam page’s translation will be ready. I may consider more language translations.
Bru & Boegie: Episode 1 – Get da MILK! Original Soundtrack
I’ve released Episode 1’s soundtrack on pretty much all music streaming platforms. I got permission from Wayne Simpson (who made most of the music for Episode 1) to release the OST, and it’s already made its way onto YouTube Music and Apple Music. The soundtrack will also be for sale as a standalone DLC on Steam for $1.99, once it’s been approved by Steam.
I really like the game’s soundtrack – it features the theme song that I wrote, ‘sung’ on and played drums for, and for which my neighbour and buddy Guy Zack played guitar on and my bro mastered. The rest of the tracks are background music from the game itself, which are very pleasant, well produced and performed by Wayne Simpson, an independent musician from Cape Town whom I’ve never met but have enjoyed working with.
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mBX1GvDqmLuUoh5A71XOXLJ766JxDYO3U&si=2sf_7aicBj48iSjb
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/za/album/bru-boegie-episode-1-get-da-milk-original-soundtrack/1836462698
Bru & Boegie: Episode 2 – Get da SUGAR!
There’s been some work going on in the background on the second game that follows on from Episode 1, but not as much as I’d have liked. I’m amazed at how much work preparing for the Steam release of Episode 1 has been. Regardless, Ep2’s story structure is in place and should allow for a lot of fun and jammin’. My plan for this is to get a really nice demo to release on itch.io and Steam so that people can play something while I make the rest of the game, and I can start gathering wishlists for the game in the background. There’s also some prep work going on for the final game / ‘Episode 3 – Get da COFFEE!’ Will Bru ever get to enjoy the coffee he so desperately seeks? We’ll have to wait and see. Fortune favours the bald.
Bunny Comix Vol. 1
One of my most popular pages is this Bunny Comix post/page. I started drawing Bunny Comix a couple years ago as a purely ‘creative impulse passion project’ thing. It seemed to resonate with quite a few people, probably because it was just a human connection thing. So, I’ve decided to compile them all into a little bookie. The cover is temporary for now. The book’s mostly already laid out in Affinity Publisher, and I want to design a cool cover for it.
Marriage
I’m getting married! Very stoked. Louise and I met a couple years ago, and we were on the same page for a lot of things – life, spirituality, etc. So, we’re tying the knot it a couple of days. Will be a very small wedding with mostly family. A huge moment for both of us.
New Discord
Louise has very kindly set up a MIKDOG Discord sever. There’s not a huge lot happening in there now, but if you use Discord and would like to join to discuss the Bru & Boegie games or animations, please do.
That’s it for now, thanks for reading and staying involved.
Got the music on while reading! Thanks for all this interesting update – and may Bru & Boegie pick up steam as they go adventuring ..
PS Deliberate typo? Fortune favours the bald?
Thanks for the kind words! Lol, yes, deliberate re ‘Fortune favours the BALD.’
So many things! Super proud of all the work you’ve done, looking forward to seeing how all the new things evolve and grow ☺️
Yay!! Also can’t wait to get married to you!! Super excited to do life with my bestie 💜
Hey, thanks Louise! Yes, very exciting times for both of us! 😁❤️