Balancing Life, Work, and Fists 🐍✊

Game dev is always a journey — and sometimes that journey comes with juggling real life too. Recently, I started an exciting new role at SpaceX, which has been an incredible opportunity and challenge. It’s kept me busy outside of game dev, but don’t worry — fists are still flying, and development on Snakes with Fists is rolling forward strong.

Lately, I’ve been focused on polishing the UI and making sure all the new menus feel clean, responsive, and consistent with the retro brawler vibe. One big part of that is the Character Buff Menu — the screen where you can update stats and customize your build. While the visuals were starting to come together, the real challenge was connecting everything on the backend so those upgrades actually affect gameplay in meaningful ways.

This means linking stats like attack, defense, and speed directly to combat flow — making sure a buff isn’t just a number on a screen, but something you feel as soon as you throw a punch or dodge an attack. It’s the kind of behind-the-scenes work that doesn’t always look flashy, but it makes the difference between a system that feels tacked on and one that feels essential to the game.

As Snakes with Fists grows, I want every choice you make — whether it’s how you fight, what buffs you pick, or how you spend your health-restoring finishers — to feed into the bigger rhythm of the game. That polish is what will make the demo really shine when it finally hits Steam.

Thanks as always for following along on this journey. More fists, more polish, and more fun to come. 👊🐍

— Joe