Seashine // Refresh & harmonize

The graphics of a game rarely age like fine wine. Players get used very fast to new technologies turning something looking great in 2015 into something they find ugly in 2023.

Upgrading the graphics is very expensive and/or time-consuming for a studio and the game needs to be successful years after the release, or still have a good potential, for the visual upgrade to be worth it.

But it’s not all just about visual quality. When you work like me on an 8 year old mobile game and still want to work on it, to keep its beauty and cohesion, add more depth to it, a refresh is not an option.… Continue reading

A need for creative seclusion

Last week, I decided to end the development of Seashine after a long discussion with my wife where we both agreed Seashine had done us far more harm than good.

We both felt relieved.

The following days, I felt empty. I thought I just needed time to process. But it was not that. Something was wrong.

Waking up with the idea of not being able to create new lifeforms made me very sad.

Was Seashine really the source of the long-lasting psychological distress, the exhaustion and the countless burnouts?

I love creating games. How come Seashine keeps destroying me?

So many things I love

I’m a PC gamer.… Continue reading

Seashine // A roadmap to V2

The May 2023 update has fixed many technical issues in Seashine. Upgrading the game to the latest standards was clearly not a piece of cake.

If making a game like Seashine is much harder than what people usually think, maintaining such a game is also a constant fight, especially on mobile devices where hardware and regulations change so fast.

The game now runs smoothly on recent devices. Once again, I want to thank all the beta testers for helping me solve some of the remaining issues.

Now that a big technical barrier is lifted, it’s a good time to share with you a roadmap of what to expect next.… Continue reading

Seashine // The future zen mode

Image of one of the upcoming zen jellyfish.

Years of private messages, feedback and reviews made me realize how important Seashine is for so many of you to fight anxiety, panic attacks, or depression. This has been one of the major motivations for me to keep working on Seashine despite the dark times I’ve been through and the hard things I’m still facing because of my muscular dystrophy.

However, some players ask for more regarding this aspect of the game. One of the oldest requested features for Seashine is the possibility to explore the depths without a fading light forcing you to keep moving, a zen mode.

I had mixed feelings about such a game mode.… Continue reading

Why the silence and what’s next?

Early on in my game creator career, I decided not to reveal much of my private life.
But because of the long silence in the development of Seashine’s big update I have to explain a little bit who I am and what happened / what is still happening to me.

Screenshot of a code snippet

2020 has been a very bad year for so many of us.
COVID-19 wasn’t the main cause of all the mental and physical suffering I struggled with this year, it was a secondary issue.

My year started with a coronavirus unrelated tragedy which, a few weeks later, was followed with me, pale and trembling, in the emergency services of my local hospital, hoping someone would come to tell me that my wife, despite her severe blood loss, was not going to die.… Continue reading