{"id":275902,"date":"2025-05-08T21:15:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T21:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/08\/solo-dev-two-kids-one-wacom-tablet-the-making-of-the-abandoned-planet\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:08:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:08:34","slug":"solo-dev-two-kids-one-wacom-tablet-the-making-of-the-abandoned-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/08\/solo-dev-two-kids-one-wacom-tablet-the-making-of-the-abandoned-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Solo Dev. Two Kids. One Wacom Tablet. The Making of The Abandoned Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Between wrangling a full-time job and parenting two young kids (including one born smack in the middle of development), I built <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/games\/store\/the-abandoned-planet\/9MTQ0NSC8L2P\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Abandoned Planet<\/a><\/em> from a tiny corner of a Florida bedroom that doubles as office, nursery, and general chaos zone. Picture a Moleskine notebook taking up the last bit of empty space on a small desk, each page scribbled with little hand-drawn rooms and arrows mapping every corridor, while my toddler occasionally \u201chelped\u201d by crawling over my laptop. What I optimistically pegged as a one-year passion project stretched into two and a half years of solo dev hustle\u2014coding, drawing, animating, composing the soundtrack, and even conjuring a semi-functional base-7 number system and a bespoke alien alphabet to pepper through the in-game journal and subtitles.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"937\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/xboxwire.thesourcemediaassets.com\/sites\/2\/2025\/05\/image-7e3ebd733f81f3245ec8.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-208910\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Every pixel in <em>The Abandoned Planet<\/em> was drawn on my Wacom tablet. I poured over the detailed pixel-art, the frame-by-frame animation, and the eerie soundscape. Movement feels delightfully retro\u2014four-way D-Pad navigation\u2014yet polished with a certain snappiness and dynamic touch. As you progress through this alien world, you decipher cryptic glyphs and pick up bizarre objects. It\u2019s 90s-style adventure nostalgia, reimagined for the modern gamer.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"937\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/xboxwire.thesourcemediaassets.com\/sites\/2\/2025\/05\/image-6faf606b392d8e8d0ef3.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-208911\"\/><\/figure>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Modern Yet Retro: <\/strong>Immerse yourself in gorgeous pixel art enhanced by a sleek, high-definition UI.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Quick Gameplay:<\/strong> A responsive navigation system which gives a nimble feel to the gameplay.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Classic Point &amp; Click Adventure:<\/strong> Leverage your items and the environment to awaken ancient totems, power up forgotten devices, and journey boldly into dangerous territories.<\/li>\n<li><strong>An Expansive World:<\/strong> Five Acts with over 300 unique areas to explore.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Haunting Animated Cutscenes:<\/strong> Dynamic, yet brief, cutscenes intersperse the gameplay, enriching the narrative.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fully Voiced:<\/strong> Enjoy the game in 11 world languages, complemented by complete voiceovers in English\u2026and a unique alien language!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"937\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/xboxwire.thesourcemediaassets.com\/sites\/2\/2025\/05\/image-3e27f3b8810185002252.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-208909\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>While <em>The Abandoned Planet<\/em> is a standalone game, it fits into a greater saga following <em>Dexter Stardust: Adventures in Outer Space<\/em> and hinting at more spacey escapades to come. Every puzzle twist and every scrawled alien symbol traces back to my crowded bedroom-nursery office, which kept development delightfully unpredictable. If you\u2019re craving an adventure that\u2019s as much about exploring a lost civilization as it is celebrating the odd joys of solo game creation, splash down on <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/games\/store\/the-abandoned-planet\/9MTQ0NSC8L2P\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Abandoned Planet<\/a><\/em> for your next weekend escape.<\/p>\n<div id=\"msp1746636590662\" class=\"\">\n<div class=\"ms-product-badge mspb-large\" data-product-id=\"9MTQ0NSC8L2P\">\n<div class=\"mspb-primary-image\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/store\/apps\/9MTQ0NSC8L2P\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/store-images.s-microsoft.com\/image\/apps.55078.13808462894436206.b79919ff-3380-47f1-980d-7ab46ae57d3c.43ff1730-b02f-47c5-869b-0470d5d2ca54?w=400&amp;h=600\" alt=\"The Abandoned Planet\" class=\"skip-lazy\"\/>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"mspb-details\">\n<h2>The Abandoned Planet<\/h2>\n<div class=\"mspb-secondary-details\">\n<div class=\"mspb-left-container\">\n<p>Snapbreak Games<\/p>\n<div class=\"mspb-rating\">\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t<span>\u2606<\/span><span>\u2606<\/span><span>\u2606<\/span><span>\u2606<\/span><span>\u2606<\/span>&#13;\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t<span>\u2605<\/span><span>\u2605<\/span><span>\u2605<\/span><span>\u2605<\/span><span>\u2605<\/span>&#13;\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"mspb-msrp\">&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t<span>$14.99<\/span>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t<\/span>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t<span>$13.49<\/span>&#13;\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mspb-right-container\">\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\tWhen a wormhole tears open in space, an astronaut is hurled down and crashes on a distant planet. But where is she? Where are all the inhabitants of the planet? And how is she going to get back home? Solve the puzzle and piece together the mystery in this 2D, pixel art, first person, point and click adventure.<\/p>\n<p>Inspired by games like Myst and Riven with a dash of the LucasArt adventures of the 90s, The Abandoned Planet is sure to scratch that old-school, adventure game itch.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Beautiful chunky pixel art<br \/>\n\u2022 Hundreds of locations to explore<br \/>\n\u2022 Classic point and click adventure<br \/>\n\u2022 Fully voiced in English<\/p>\n<p>Text localized into the following languages:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 English<br \/>\n\u2022 Spanish<br \/>\n\u2022 Italian<br \/>\n\u2022 French<br \/>\n\u2022 German<br \/>\n\u2022 Japanese<br \/>\n\u2022 Korean<br \/>\n\u2022 Portuguese<br \/>\n\u2022 Russian<br \/>\n\u2022 Chinese Simplified<br \/>\n\u2022 Chinese Traditional\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.xbox.com\/en-us\/2025\/05\/08\/solo-dev-the-making-of-the-abandoned-planet\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Between wrangling a full-time job and parenting two young kids (including one born smack in the middle of development), I built The Abandoned Planet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}