It’s been a month since SEGE.

I’m going to admit, this makes me sad in more than a few ways.  I’m not one of those folks who likes to jump on the web and whine on social media (or a blog, for that matter) – but I promised myself and you that I’d try to do a better job in terms of posting here…part of that is sharing how I’m feeling.

I’m sad because:

• The have been NO posts or press after the event.
• Barn Brawl won two awards, but there’s no official record of it.
• My iteration pace has slowed dramatically this month.
• I’ve been working on the game’s final UI; I hate UI.

Radio Silence. 🙁

I’m pretty bummed about this one.  While I know I have NO RIGHT to expect a media blitz, I’d be lying to you if I said I only entered Barn Brawl in the 2026 SEGE Indie Game Circuit for the challenge.  It was a huge challenge to my skills as a game dev, and I enjoyed every moment of the event.  The feedback and validation I got from the players, staff, and other devs at the show was 100% worth it!

But…

I’ve built a multiplayer party game.  That only works if groups of people come together to play it on a couch or online.  The attention we got at the event (and winning TWO awards) gave me hope that people would talk about the game and help generate an audience of interested players.  Online matchmaking depends on a decent size player base, so community building is vital to the game’s success!

At a minimum, I figured a landing page or feature for all of the games and winners would be up on Fake Portal.  Something we could link from / to that proves I didn’t make up “Fan Favorite” and “Fake Portal Staff Pick” awards for myself and AI slop a few trophy pics, you know?  SEGE replaced their entire 2026 site…so there’s literally NOTHING OFFICIAL left showing we were even there.

And yes, I did reach out…to the Fake Portal team, to the folks at SEGE, and to the Wizard’s team directly.  No response anywhere.  It’s saddened me quite a bit, and taken some of the wind out of my sails (so to speak) as far as excitement and motivation goes.

What about the other devs?

I’ve been in touch with a few of them: all have had the same experience.  We’re pretty deflated.  

The silence is what worries me most.

SEGE’s silence I kind of understand.  They are a small team running a few different events, SEGE just finished, and they are either busy with another event or on a well-deserved break.

It’s Fake Portal and the Wizard I’m worried about.  These guys have been a HUGE VOICE for indie game advocacy, and that voice has been silent for a while now.  The “Indie Shoutouts” on FakeWizard videos stopped became sporadic about a month before the show, and have now stopped altogether.

My ticket asking to add Barn Brawl to Fake Portal sits unanswered; clicking on it leads to a server error page.  Worse – Benji submitted Super Space Crystals to FakePortal back when he applied to the event…his ticket is still unanswered, too!

I hope this isn’t a sign that they’re pivoting away from Fake Portal.  I get it: controversy gets views…and there’s a lot more controversy in critique of famous IPs and the Film & AAA Gaming industry.  Bills and staff need to be paid.  I just hope this isn’t a sign that he’s giving up on his advocacy efforts.

The scene needs influencers to speak out as he has…”great games are out there and being made – here’s where to find them.”  FP and the Wizard were doing the good work!

I tried to log in and snag a screenshot for you guys, but it looks like their server is having issues (or there’s a Cloudflare outage).  2 of my 10 clicks got me through on the site, so I gave up.  If it’s a DDOS attack, hammering it with my requests won’t help them get back online.

What I’ve Been working on:

UI.  I’ve been in UI Hell.  I hate working on UI; I hate drawing it, programming it, debugging it.  It’s my least favorite part of game development.

Now that I’ve ranted like a spoiled brat, I’ll tell you that I settled on a vision for the look and feel of the game’s UI, mostly driven from the broader world I’ve set the game (and a few other game ideas) in. 

I love “retro.”  There’s a certain charm and nostalgia in the way we did things with computers back when they were an “emerging technology.”  They were awkward; yet magical.  The same is true for any new tech – AI’s a good current example, but this isn’t the place for that conversation.

Anyway, I’m old…grew up in the 80’s and 90’s.  I witnessed the adoption of computers into homes, schools, and businesses; was in college during the birth of the Internet & web; was in Grad School when social media came about.  So I dove deep into a little nostalgia.

In the world of Barn Brawl, tech is late 90’s – cell phones were status symbols for the rich, computers had monitors.  The internet was a slow-loading, hand-coded DIY mess of pixelated graphics, frames, and jerky basic animation.  I researched some of the old sites from back then (sadly, we didn’t have the storage or think to archive it back then).

I fed what I could find into an AI prompt and had the LLM generate a few ideas for me.  Don’t worry: I’m not copying or letting it generate the artwork.  AI is a great brainstorming tool when you have an idea and want to see multiple perspectives…a great resource to keep you from developing tunnel vision and not opening yourself up to possibilities.

This is one of the ideas it came up with.

VERY late 90’s with the low-res graphics, blocky fonts, and frame-based page construction.  Aside from the obvious AI image blunders, it gave me some cool ideas for the game’s UI, which I’ve been drawing and implementing!  My plan is to unify the game’s UI and the official Barn Brawl website with the same design feel, giving a little extra immersion to the game world (especially since I REALLY want to make more games in this world!)

That’s it?!?!

No – I also took care of implementing online login, matchmaking, and game lobbies.  I can’t really go much farther without implementing a UI, and I didn’t want to build it twice.  I’ve also had a busy couple of weeks at work and weekend events around town.  I’ve not had as much focus time for drawing and coding as I normally do.

I did spend some time working on our Discord server – and helping our friends at Super Space Crystals test an alpha build of their game!

Pics of the UI as soon as I have them!

Steam Wishlists Have Stalled…

We’re still sitting at the same wishlist count as my last post – likely due to the fact that I haven’t updated my Steam Page.  No updates or user activity = Steam doesn’t show it to anyone new.  Definitely need to get more screens, gameplay, and descriptive content up there SOON.

Back to work!