VNgen is a visual novel and animation engine for GameMaker Studio . Using a custom scripting syntax, it is designed to produce premium content quickly and easily on a wide variety of platforms. It is currently being used to create both first-party and third-party indie games of multiple genres. If you value my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon . Your support will play a critical role in the ongoing development of these and future projects. Stay tuned to the end of this post for details! I'll be honest: VNgen had a rough launch . Days turned into weeks, things came up, and I had my head down trying to get through it all without breaking something in haste. But it did launch, and you can now download VNgen 1.0.2 for both GameMaker Studio 1 and 2 RIGHT NOW! GMS 2 users can even try VNgen for FREE with the trial version, so what are you waiting for? Reception so far has been extremely positive, and I appreciate everyone's patience as 1.0 and post-launch fixes rolled...

For the past year-and-a-half, ThinkBoxly has been exclusively a devblog of my progress on developing original commercial content like VNgen. If you've followed me during that time, you've probably gotten used to the absence of editorial and feature-style posts (if you were ever aware they existed around here at all). But this is my blog, dang it, and I get to write what I want*. And as you can probably guess from the title, today's topic is hardly unrelated. Valve, it's time we developers had a little talk about Steam. (*Also, VNgen is out now and I don't have anything newsworthy related to post about its development at the moment—because it's done! If you're a developer, you should totally check it out.) Unless you've been living under a USB pet rock , you're probably aware of the sharp decline of Steam over the past couple of years. Once the darling of every PC gamer and every maker of PC games, at the hesitant hands of Valve the storefront has ...