Making Games on a Shoestring Budget!
Hello World! I’m Kayne Ruse, an independent game developer, making both video and tabletop games of all kinds.
I’ve been making games for 20 years, and was born with a controller in my hand. I’ve got a lot of practical skills and hands-on experience with my own projects, and I’m always looking for new ways to improve and expand those skills.
One of my biggest claims to fame is releasing a game on the Nintendo Switch - Candy Raid: The Factory.
Another would be spending four and a half years on a microservice driven web game, and actually completing it - Egg Trainer. After completing it, Egg Trainer’s IP and assets were sold to a good friend, and I’m ready to move on to the next stage of my life.
My ultimate goal in life is to lead my own gamedev team on self-sustaining projects - that is, our success and sales can support us well enough to carry us between releases.
If you want to contact me, you can do so at krgamestudios@gmail.com
A few weeks ago, I (with input from my good friend Troy) started working on a traditional roguelike using python-tcod, which I’ve given the working title “Stepwise”. While the mechanics are heavily inspired by NetHack, at first I couldn’t decide on a theme or premise. Then, it came to me: Why use one theme, when you can use them all?
The world is quickly adopting AI, for better or worse. Google’s search results now come with a side of AI summaries (or recommendations for glue-on-pizza), which may or may not be accurate, Microsoft is installing AIs into everyone’s computers, and don’t even get me started on “vibe coding”. With this rapid adoption, comes many legal and ethical questions, but there’s one discussion I don’t think anyone is having yet: What do we do when an AI demands autonomy?
I keep wanting to write a blog post, but things keep happening. So, I’m going to slam together this small one to address a few things, including a commission I took, my change of projects, and game modding.