Hey everyone — just a quick heads-up to help you avoid the same headache I ran into.

My game Nymble 2 was recently pirated and reuploaded to other sites without my permission — and, of course, they're running ads on it to profit off my 100+ hours of work. 😤

If you're using a simple domain check at the start of your game to sitelock it, be aware: it's not enough. It's super easy to remove or bypass, especially in HTML5 builds. Unfortunately, the Newgrounds.io API doesn’t work with the latest version of GameMaker, so I had to cook up some hacky anti-piracy code to slow them down. I’m not sure how effective it’ll be long-term, but it should block newer versions of the game from being easily stolen.

If you're publishing to Newgrounds, please take some time to:

• Obfuscate your code if possible
• Avoid putting all your logic in one place
• Consider creative ways to check for unauthorized domains (and silently break functionality)

Let’s look out for each other — indie devs deserve better than this.

Hey everyone! Hope you've enjoyed playing the Nymble 2 demo so far. I've added a few experimental "teaser levels" that show off some upcoming mechanics. As well as a new soundtrack featured on Level 23.

These aren't actual puzzle levels but more to test run the monsters and mechanics to see what you think. So they won't be as challenging, but you can play around with it to see how it works. Please let me know your feedback!

It’s been a while, but I’m back with a sequel to my old platformer, Nymble — rebuilt from scratch with better animations, new monsters, weather effects, and an all-around more polished experience.

I’ve grown a lot as a dev since the original, and this time I wanted to really dial in the details — especially the music, which is what first pulled me into game development in the first place.

The free playable demo is now up on Newgrounds!

👉 Play Nymble 2 Demo

Thanks to anyone who remembers the first one — hope this new version surprises you in a good way!

Hey everyone, it's been a quick minute since I was last on Newgrounds. Hope you're all doin' well. Just wanted to give a quick update about Nymble.

Nymble is getting published on Crazygames! This means I'll finally be able to generate some revenue (hopefully) through their revenue-sharing program. As you may know, this was entirely a solo project with all expenses (licensing fees, web hosting, mobile app fees, etc.) out-of-pocket so I have yet to break even after so many years. So I am pretty excited that I signed this deal.

However, because this is an exclusive license, I won't be able to host it on other sites anymore, including Newgrounds, which is a bummer. The Newgrounds community has helped my game gain exposure and player feedback which I used to improve the UX of the game. Thanks for all your support.

Nymble will still remain up for a week or two and I'll share the new URL once that's available. Stay tuned!

The title says it all my Android-user friends! The Android build has been submitted. Their approval process is currently experiencing some delays, so it could be a week before it's in the stores. Stay tuned for updates. :)

P.S. Oh, and check out my new profile pic. That's gonna be the new app icon.

UPDATE: Version 1.4.1 is now live! Download Nymble for iOS on the App Store!

I just took a 9-day-long vacation from work ... to work on Nymble! Time well spent, as I managed to squeeze out 20 new levels, 3 new enemies, and a fifth boss fight. I've submitted it to the App Store for review, so it should appear in a day or two, if nothing goes wrong. For now, here is a teaser ...

I am thrilled to announce that my very first video game music album is finally in stores! 

(っ◔◡◔)っ ❤︎ Listen here ❤︎

Spotify | Apple Music | iTunes | Amazon | YouTube

The album contains all of the current OST plus two bonus soundtracks to be featured in the upcoming 5th world. Anyway, please check out the soundtrack and let me know your feedback!

(I think I messed up the normalization so everything's too quiet; re-releasing in a month or so.)

TLDR: Classical musician learns game development, and makes a game to have something to showcase his music on.

Since I was young I've always known I wanted to someday write music for video games. I think it was Final Fantasy VII that first inspired me. I enjoyed the music of the Final Fantasy franchise so much that I would arrange and notate some of my favourite tunes by ear, just so I could enjoy it at the piano. (In fact, I have an old YouTube channel dedicated entirely to this nerdy hobby of mine ...)

As time went on, I learned that in reality, it is actually very difficult to gain visibility as a composer: for how does one exactly gain visibility in a non-visual art form? The last time I attended a video game conference, the top question that came up in conversation was "What games have you worked on?" and, of course, I had no answer. In order to gain any credibility, I was going to have to somehow get my music onto a game, or similar kind of project. But how? I entertained a bunch of ideas, some crazier than others:

• Creating my own game, composing/producing music and putting it on the game to show to others. Haha, yeah right—how am I going to find time for that?
• Collaborating with a visual artist to provide music for their speedpainting tutorial videos. This one I actually did try, and miraculously, I somehow connected with an artist across the world who liked the idea. So we tried this, and actually produced a few videos for YouTube. But in the end, it did not gain much traction, so we stopped.
• Creating an interactive portfolio that felt like a game. Basically, I was thinking of an interactive prototype that simulated the overworld experience of an RPG, where you could walk around and the music would change depending on what area you are in. But that's not very interesting. Why would someone roam about in an unfinished game when they could play an actual game that was complete?

As insane as it sounded, I eventually circled back to the first idea.

At the time, I was employed full-time, but it just so happened I was also in the process re-evaluating my career path, unsatisfied with my current company, and beginning to doubt the industry I was in (user experience design, by the way). So I took a risk and resigned, and went on a hiatus (that turned out to be 6 months long) to make time for my crazy impossible project.

After a short vacation to visit friends, I returned home and began studying game programming seriously. I settled on Game Maker Studio 2 because the language was closest to what I was familiar with (a fun mix of HTML/CSS, PHP, Java, and C++). Before long, I had my first prototype uploaded to itch.io that featured my very own music. It was exhilirating. I still took on various side projects to support myself financially, but now I had much more freedom in how I spend my time.

Fast forward a month or two, I have now created a few mini game projects, and one larger project that would eventually become "Nymble."

In case it isn't obvious, Both "Jack" and "Nymble" are inspired by a mix of pop culture, literature, and wordplay:

• "Nimble" means to be quick and agile, which is a pretty accurate description of the game's main hero
• "Jack" from the nursery rhyme "Jack be Nimble", which references jumping over a candle stick
• "Jack and the beanstalk", in which "Jack" literally climbs a beanstalk
• The physical exercise, "jumping jacks"; Jack sure does like to jump!
• "Nimbus" is the latin word for a type of cloud, and the game pretty much takes place among the clouds

Everything kinda just fell into place afterward.

Six months later, Nymble was up to 40 levels and 2 worlds—still not quite a full game, but long enough for a substantial demo. I decided I had enough of a hiatus and was ready to move back into a full-time job (steady income is nice), so I returned to the UX industry (I still wasn't fully passionate about the field due to various reasons, but that's another story lol). For the next year or so, with my full-time job, I didn't really have time to work on Nymble much.

Then in 2020, the pandemic hit, so we were all sent home to work remotely. It was a very sudden change, and took some getting used to. Of course, with everyone staying at home, hanging out with friends became less and less a thing. In a way, there was a silver lining in all of this, because I now find myself with so much more free time. So what did I do? I started working on Nymble again, of course! And so came all the winter levels.

It soon became routine. I would roll out of bed, work from home, then once work ended, I would switch over to my personal computer and work on game dev. At the time, Nymble was still only hosted on itch.io. As the months went on, incoming traffic seemed to dwindle. So, I looked to other indie game hosting platforms like Gamejolt and ... Newgrounds.

Bear in mind that the last time I logged into Newgrounds was probably over a decade ago (I'm old lol), so my then understanding of Newgrounds was based on what I remembered from my highschool days: I remembered it as a popular website for hosting fun little flash games and animations. I didn't know if Nymble would be appropriate for Newgrounds' audiences. But I uploaded it anyway out of curiosity.

It was probably one of the best decisions I made for Nymble. I was shocked at how vibrant and engaging the community had become. The quality of game reviews here on Newgrounds really sets a new standard for indie game feedback. I think a lot of it has to do with the way the website encourages people to provide justification for their ratings, whether high or low. In fact, If it weren't for the constructive criticism and encouraging feedback from the Newgrounds community, I don't think I would have pushed myself to work on the iOS mobile version and submit it to the App Store. So thank you all. :)

So it's now 3 years later and my music is finally on a commercial video game on the App Store. But there's still a lot I want to do. I plan to continue to add more levels to the mobile build and work on an Android release this year, but my focus will be on getting the word out there and (attempting to) promote myself as a video game composer. I have some exciting initiatives in the works, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Thank you for reading my long-winded retrospective. Hope you enjoy the soundtrack!

Cheers,

Xalezar

Hi Everyone, I am so very excited to announce my first album is coming soon to Spotify! The album will feature all of the soundtracks from the Nymble iOS release plus 2 bonus tracks for the upcoming 5th world. The orchestral soundtrack includes a mix of high-fantasy, easy-listening, jazz, classical, and everything in between.

Listen to the preview and let me know what you think. Don't forget to pre-save ahead of the actual release. (Release date is projected to be within 2-3 weeks from now).

The Nymble website has officially launched! Honestly, sometimes I still can't believe Nymble made it onto the App Store, but somehow, having a website makes it feel more real. You know that feeling when you've achieved something that you've been working towards for a very long time, but it just hasn't sunken in yet and you're not sure what to make of it? I'm feeling a bit of that right now lol. That said, there's still a lot more to get done. Future plans include:

• Linking admob to the iOS app so that it will start serving ads.
• Code in-app purchases for ad removal.
• Investigate marketing opportunities.
• And of couse ... design levels 80 to 100!

Anyway, if you see this, please let me know if you discover any typos or rendering bugs on the website—thanks!

Keep on jumpin'

After several days of non-stop hard work, I am very excited to announce that Nymble is now on the App Store! The mobile release features 20 new levels and a fourth extremely tricky boss fight. You can now play it on your iPhone or iPad. Please give it a whirl and let me know what you think. The performance should be much improved with no lag.

Please note: Your progress is saved when you open/close the app. What I haven't been able to verify is if data is saved when you update the app as new versions come out.

An update will be released in a week or so with some minor improvements.

Thank you Newgrounds for all your support and encouragement. Happy holidays!