Before I Start
I'm going to do this Recap a bit different this year, the past years I shared a bit about the development of each game and soem doodles of the game. This year I have been sharing those in every release post so if you'd like to read those you can read those here:
December 2024: Tomato Clicker and Simon's Food and Such Drive-Through Update
January 2025: Post Pablo + Mid-January 2025 Update
February 2025: Post PBJ + Mid-February 2025 Update
March 2025: Post Monkey + 5 Year Newgrounds Anniversary + 300 fans + Mid-March 2025 Update
April 2025: Post-Shrimp + Mid-April 2025 Update
May 2025: Post Tennis + Mid-May 2025 Update
November 2025: Post Ghouli + Mid-November 2025 Update
As for the rest of the post, I am going to go month by month talking a bit about what happened and talking about all 9 games that Mellow Minds released this year
Post 2024 Recap-Pre 2025
I released a scoreboard and new medals for Simon's Food and Such Drive-Through, I had intended for these things to be in the game since the initial release but I was a fool back then. I also added new medals, scoreboards, the hard mode, and new tomatoes into the 3rd and final tomato clicker update, this update had been planned for 2 years ago but i lost my motivation. It had been weighing on me for a while but then one night (inspired by @Octopus9000 work on Mighty Tanker Power Wankers) I had decided to just get it over with.
January 2025
Pablo Post-It's Journey Home released and got Daily 3rd (the highest Daily a Mellow Minds game had received at the time) and Frontpaged. I had been working on it for about 2 months, I learned how to click and drag things in gamemaker and had an old project that had the code for platforming so I mashed them together. @awesomeROXAS, @ApeJones, @TheRedWeirdo, and @Octopus9000 came up with alot of the gameplay elements, I only made the post-it notes. Pablo Post-It had been a character we created long ago, although he went under a different name back then. His game was also almost completely different before we decided on the puzzle platformer.
February 2025
In February I released Eat Peanut Butter and Jelly, didn't expect much from this game, in fact I felt the game was quite shit before I finished it but this game surprised me in becoming the first Mellow Minds game to turn a profit! That's right, Eat Peanut Butter and Jelly won $100 from Newgrounds monthly top games of February 2025!!!
March 2025
In March I released Monkey Business, this game was also completely different from the finished product at first. I had planned to drop this game later in the year as a top down tycoon game rather than a clicker tycoon game. This game is a combination of 3 tycoon game ideas I had, a theme park tycoon, a monkey tycoon, and a restaurant tycoon. I have loved tycoons since I was a child playing roblox. Even as an adult I spent alot of time playing fortnite tycoons. For this game i had to learn how to save progress, this has been something I have always wanted to learn and I decided to learn it for this game.
April 2025
In April I released Pistol Shrimp, this game (as of writing this) was easily our most popular game. It popped off, receiving Daily Feature and Frontpage within the first hour. I am a huge fan of short and sweet top down shooters so I wanted to make my own. For this game i had to learn top down movement, top down shooting, and enemy spawning. Also in April I got to do cover art of @jamestly song iMPERFECT_CELL from Wiggin Out. Had a lot of fun making it and go listen to Jamestly's music
May 2025
In May i released Point Break Tennis Champ, this game was the first game I've programmed that works on mobile. I wanted Tomato Clicker to be mobile friendly when I first made it but that never happened. For this game I had to learn how to make the game properly fit the phone screen size. May was also the month when A Walk in the Woods was released. @Octopus9000 worked on this game, I only did art for the UI and Medals
June 2025
In June we didn't release anything, this was when Low Poly Day was and we were working on something for it but that didn't drop till later. This was the first full month that it had been since I moved out of my parents house into the new place. Summers are always uneventful for me, this is usually when burnout sets in for me and I'm unable to do much. This month also marked the 3rd anniversary of Mellow Minds with the release of Tomato Clicker on June 27th 2022. I wanted to do something for it but we were working on the low poly day game at the time so I set that aside
July 2025
Burnout continued, no games worked on. I participated in the Undertale 10th Anniversary Art Collab but that wouldn't release till later
August 2025
Near the beginning of the month is when we finally dropped our low poly day game, Scooples' Sweltering Scurry. When we started on the game I was playing a shit ton of Wii U games that I had and Captain Toad Treasure Tracker was one that I got sucked into. I played the hell out of that game as a kid and loved playing it as an adult. I got to learn how to make low poly 3d models with blockbench and had a lot of fun doing so, I wish to use it for future project both game and art wise. At the end of the month I got to participate in the Castle Crashers 17th Anniversary Collab. Castle Crashers had an even LARGER part of my childhood, so did all of The Behemoths games. I was really happy to participate in this one.
September 2025
In September I started working on another game project that was meant to drop on Halloween but I started work on a different project later. This month the Undertale 10th Anniversary Collab dropped, Undertale was a huge part of my childhood and I still luv listening to the music to this day.
October 2025
In October I started work on Ghouli Hunter and meant to drop that game on Halloween but I missed it by a long shot, I had intended for the game to be for 2 different game jams and missed both of their deadlines. I started way too late and had spent little time actually working on the game that month so it was entirely my fault for missing the deadline.
November 2025
In November I had intended to drop a different game for Thanksgiving but ended up working on Ghouli Hunter for so long I just decided to save that game for later. Near the beginning of the month I had participated in the Kanto Art Collab, I luv pokemon alot but I was never a huge fan of Gen 1. Eventually they grew on me though. Later in the month the Newgrounds Fishing Collab 2025 by @CJspellsfish released. I had submitted my part of the collab long ago so it was cool finally seeing it come out. For the rest of the month I started development on my last game of the year, a game for christmas.
December 2025
As of writing this December has only just begun so I have no idea what the rest of the month may bring. As for the Christmas game I'm working on, I am shooting for a December 20ish release date. I'll write more about the game in my next post but rest assured it will be out before 2026 and I hope everyone likes it :)
2026 Precap
Only one game that I shared last precap was released, that game was Pablo Post-It. The other 2 games fell through but I hope to release them one day. As for the rest of 2026, me and the mellow minds team are hoping to get at least 1 game on Steam this year. I will be sharing more about this at a later date when we finally are ready to announce what it is. I'M SO EXCITED, my dream is finally starting to build up momentum.
Other
You'll hear from me again near the end of the month when I release the Christmas game, in there I'll share doodles and talk about development. I would like to thank Newgrounds for a great 2025 and I hope for an even better 2026. I would like to thank all the collab organizers for organizin gthe collabs I participated in this year, and I would like to thank all the cool people I met over this last year. I luv you all :)
