Dev Pile: Moonshiners Lore Update

I’ve said that part of the problem with Moonshiners’ development, and why I resist the use of generative art in it, is that I want the conversation about Moonshiners to be about immersing in its world and playing within that world’s spaces. Most of what I’ve been writing on it in this blog has been the name of fully fleshing out and realising the mechanical complexity of the game, and even as-expertly-as-possible collapsing the art needs (which yes, I have done more of). What I haven’t done much of, not lately, is pen down the lore I have to fill this space. This is a reasonable part of the mechanical structure of the game! I need the lore to cohere to the demands of the mechanics, and that’s why beyond the broadest sense, I haven’t really done any of the hard definition that I would have rathered to do.

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Dev Pile: Moonshiners V4 Prototype

You know, considering the amount of effort this post is going to represent, it’s pretty funny to me that I’m probably going to be really scrounging for a word count. Anyway, I have been working on improving my playtest kit of Moonshiners. Back in April (April!), I spent a day making a print-and-play version that could be easily put on sticker paper and then playtested from there. And… well, I’m going to give you full-resolution versions of those images here. Right here. Just after the fold.

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Dev Pile: Catch-Up Mechanics in Moonshiners

I’m working on playtesting with Moonshiners and reflecting on things I’ve seen in it. You like playtesting notes? Course ya do!

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Dev Pile: Moonshiners Playtesting Notes

I have this spread across a few locations, but! I was able to take the latest version (v3) of Moonshiners to a family gathering and did some play testing with it. Now, part of the point of this play testing is to reflect on feelings I have in the experience, not to, in any way, represent the other people’s opinions. That is to say, no direct quotes, no names or faces of anyone involved in the play testing. But it was a play testing session and it was delightful to finally feel this ‘feature-complete’ version of the game under people’s hands, especially because finally, I was able to see how I felt about things when there was a tension between what I was experiencing and what others were. A lot of the play testing thus far, after all, has been done with either a much simpler version of the game, or, well, me playing with myself. That sounds vulgar. You know what I mean.

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Dev Pile: Moonshiners Prototype Notes

Imagine me pulling the rip tab on a drink and sculling half of it in one go, except because I’m in my forties, this time the drink is a bottle of fridge-cooled water. It’s late at night, I spent all day making a new prototype for Moonshiners, and these are some notes of the latest version based on handling the interface of the game with all the information on it, at the scale that the final game is going to be, for the first time.

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Dev Pile: Moonshiners Case Study – Prototype Construction Challenges

In the process of developing Moonshiners I have made four different prototypes. Each of them has suffered ignonimous fates and as I write this, I am looking around my house for scraps of each remaining form.

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Dev Pile: Moonshiners Case Study – Drafting Part 1

In my thesis, I am working on a series of case studies explaining games and their development. Their playtesting and their production is part of this, and once I’ve made the game’s prototype, I reflect back on the process. How I do this is by starting with a plain-language, general-reference kind of version of the case study.

What’s going to follow here is a template of the process, developed in making Lysen Co, and then the first section of that text template filled out. I dont’ imagine this is going to include much new information if you’re absolutely keyed into how Moonshiners works.

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Dev Pile: The Actual Moonshiners PnP

I did it, I finally did it. I wanted to do it weeks ago and I’m going to complain about that a little bit, but I finally, tonight was able to sit down and get all the files together despite the slow loading times and all it took was lowering a significant quantity of my standards and accept that getting it done was so much more important than getting it done perfectly or prettily.

Content Non-Warning: This is a version of the Moonshiners Print-And-Play that doesn’t involve any generative art. You can look at it without being shocked or surprised.

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https://press.invincible.ink/dev-pile-2025-44-the-actual-moonshiners-pnp/

#moonshiners

Dev Pile: Art Direction Guide

In the last post I talked about the problems of using generative images, but I did use them. This week, I’ve put together the results of reflecting on those, which is specific art direction to consider those character artworks in a way that I can present them to an artist in a way that’s useful. Ready? Go go go.

This is going to be a post about generative images, but I’m not going to include any. This is because I don’t think you, the audience, want to see it, and also, the point of this post is art direction. You don’t need to see the art to know this process is about reflecting on that process of what to ask for in art.

Plus, you know, every time I put gen images on this blog there’s just such a disclaimer to do.

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https://press.invincible.ink/dev-pile-2025-43-art-direction-guide/

#moonshiners

Dev Pile: Not Showing My Cards

It’s important to have a plan.

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https://press.invincible.ink/dev-pile-2025-42-not-showing-my-cards/

#lysenCo #moonshiners