Matt Hogan 

@mtthgn
105 Followers
199 Following
601 Posts
Software engineer, maker of half-finished things.
Websitehttps://mtthgn.com
Matt Hogan 3d ago

So, I've been thinking about switching instances. I started on mastodon.social because I didn't really know anything else, but mastodon.gamedev.place seems to be where everyone I interact with is at.

Is switching instances pretty painless? Will I notice any material differences if I switch?

Show threadMatt Hogan 5d ago

Players can sense the common sizes that appear on the screen, so meta sprites can make things feel a lot more natural + less boxy. They can also lead to more efficient OBJ VRAM usage. This sprite could technically be a 64x64 sprite, but it'd take over 2x the VRAM!

#gamedev #retrogaming #pixelart

Matt Hogan 5d ago

The GBA has fixed sprite sizes, essentially combinations of 8, 16, 32, and 64 for width and height. In order to have sprites free of these constraints, you can make "meta sprites" out of multiple sprites. This brings other challenges, like proper horizontal flipping 😅

#gamedev #retrodev #pixelart

Matt Hogan Feb 20
Brianna TownsendFeb 19

from @castpixel on bsky, a free tool for taking a circuit diagram and creating the model for a 3D-Printable mold that you shove copper tape into to create homemade electrically-sound PCB's for dirt cheap with no chemicals, really really really cool

https://castpixel.itch.io/pcb-forge

PCB FORGE by castpixel

3D printable Circuit Boards

itch.io
Matt Hogan Feb 8

RE: https://mastodon.social/@obrhoff/116029803477496494

Building on this thought, I love moments where you buy an old cartridge and there's an existing save file on it. It's a little glimpse into another person's life, akin to words in the margins, underlined passages in a used book.

Matt Hogan Nov 26
Nicola CocchiaroNov 26

RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@synapticsugar/115612806707107229

Agents of Groove is finally out! This is the first game for which I've done programming, design, writing AND music, over the course of *checks notes* close to three years!? I hope it will resonate with someone, but inevitably this is a huge milestone either way, and it'll always be special to me.

Matt Hogan Nov 25
An under-appreciated aspect of RPGs as a genre is how you can fold laundry during all the story parts.
Matt Hogan Nov 8

It's been a while since I got to work on my #GBA game, but I got to sit down today and knock out a rough implementation of vertical scrolling! Here you can see platform snapping to a specific offset, and different focal points for when you're in the air versus on the ground.

#indiedev #gamedev #retrogaming #screenShotSaturday

Show threadMatt Hogan Sep 20, 2025
I think this will help a ton with my motivation and productivity. Up until this point, I've been rather reluctant to work on other sprites because of how much of a pain all the steps are when you're making little tweaks. Now, changing the art is no different than changing the source code: just save the file and rebuild the app.
Matt Hogan Sep 20, 2025

It's #ScreenShotSaturday! I've spent the last few weeks working on parsing aseprite files.

For GBA sprites, there was a lot of exporting steps to go from an.aseprite to a .png file, and even after that I had to manually define things like the size of the sprite. Now, I can derive all of that from the aseprite file itself, saving me export time and less manual definitions :)

#retrogaming #GameDev #indiedev #retrodev #gba #gaming #games #aseprite #pixelart #indiegamedev #indiegame