Happy 35th Birthday Samus!

Today is Metroid's 35th Anniversary!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMUS!

It also happens to be the 5th anniversary of AM2R being released. To celebrate, let me share a (non copyright infringing) story in this universe with you:

PLAY IT HERE

AM2R is 5 years old as of right now. Seeing people recommend AM2R as a way to experience Metroid 2 in anticipation for Dread is really humbling. I'm very grateful for all of this. 

The legal situation hasn't changed, I'm not developing, updating or distributing the game. Nevertheless, the community has managed to add new content via patches, mods have been developed, and the speedrun community is still very active. The game is still alive and relevant.

What happened during these last 5 years? Well...

• AM2R received a DMCA takedown notice, development and distribution ceased
• AM2R was nominated for Fan Game of the Year at the Game Awards, for a couple hours
• AM2R was featured at Pixel Museum in France
• Awesome youtubers that I admire played the game
• People created lots of AM2R fanart
• Several Metroid themed marathons featured AM2R 
• Very talented fans reverse engineered the game, and have added insane features like widescreen and multiplayer
• I got a job at Moon Studios as a Game Designer

That leads to today's celebration. I'm sure you imagined my next Metroidvania to be unveiled when you saw that countdown. Five years ago I chose this date to celebrate Metroid, by showcasing the culmination of my work during the last decade.

These last four years, most of my time has been focused on Moon Studios. You can enjoy the fruits of my labor, and the work of the rest of the awesome team at Moon by playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It's a beautiful game, and I'm really proud of what we achieved with its level design.

I'm still learning tons every day, working on a new unannounced project at Moon. I also have my fair share of small personal projects, and that's where Skippy came from.

Skippy was built in a couple weeks for this anniversary, using a framework I'm developing for another, bigger project. Hopefully, if everything goes well, I might be ready to share more details about it in the not so distant future. It's going to be pretty unique.

I work as a game developer full time, and I still find the process of learning really interesting. I'm making sure that for every new skill I research, my time and effort doing so contributes towards something special. 

Something that someday, I'll be able to share with you.

That process takes time, but time flies anyway. Five years have just flown by since the AM2R release, and it feels like it was yesterday.

If you like Skippy, let me know and I’ll do my best to add more content. But if this kind of game isn't your cup of tea and you're in the mood for something more Metroidvania-ish, I invite you to try out GBNoid, my entry for last year’s GBJam. It’s short, sweet, and challenging at times. 

PLAY GBNOID

Also, a huge shout out to my good friend Darren from Shinesparkers, a brand new Metroid tribute album just released today. Go give it a listen, it's GOOD.

HARMONY OF A HUNTER RETURNS

Thanks again for all the support. You guys are awesome!

Feel free to follow me on twitter: @AM2RGame - @DoctorM64