Publisher Blog
029: Vroom Verse is still moving forward, and started a new hobby
Work on Vroom Verse is still ongoing. I'm currently working on completing the first chapter. There are completed stories in the collection ready to go. So we're about 30% of the way completed. This past weekend I started getting into DIY book binding. We might try to print some of our books ourselves as online and convention exclusives.
29-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Vroom Verse
027: Michele wanted to show off stuff
My wife's last childhood room and her paintings back then. "Regardless of the cost, I'll buy the benefit of change"
11-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: IRL,MrsTethered
026: Made some changes to the website
I added some custom CSS and JavaScript to make the website feel more interactive. The comics with Amazon links now pop up with a user hovers over them.
On the Blog page, the images are cropped initially and when the user clicks on them they expand to their full height.
Also, the latest chapter of Planet Ultra dropped on GlobalComix. Check it out here!
11-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Website,Utra-Gravity.com
025: Hystaria Cover
One of the most exciting inclusions to Vroom Verse is going to be Michele's "Hystaria." A novel she started in her youth and has been polishing up these past few weeks. Vroom Verse will include just an excerpt, but don't worry.... I'm trying to convince her to release the whole thing some day soon.
10-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
024: Vroom Verse Credits
We're working on Vroom Verse. Michele and Ash are basically already complete with their contributions. Now they're waiting on me. I'm hoping to be fully completed by the end of Summer and ready for a Fall release. Here are the credits and a little tease on what to look forward to once this releases. We're shooting for 172 pages in total.
10-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Vroom Verse
023: Course correction
We're going all in with comics. The next book will be Ash V's "Imaginary Friend World." Followed by our anthology, Vroom Verse. Which will come out later this year.
07-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Imaginary Friend World
022: Well that's a wrap on that
Game development is difficult, and I no longer feel like that is a viable thing for me to do with the little time I have for creative projects. I just want to tell my stories and I am wasting a bunch of time figuring out game dev. Also, too much time in front of my computer and not enough time around my family. I'm not going to pursue game development at this time. Instead, I am just going to focus on one creative outlet and that is making comics. I already have plans to finish "Vroom Verse" by the end of the year. Then next year, instead of making a game, I'll be turning "Ship Runners" into a graphic novel. Some of which will be an adaptation of a short story my daughter wrote for her favorite character, The Thing.
07-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
020: I re-made Thing, the cute alien, and posted Hystaria
Yesterday, after work, I was asked by the fam to do two things. First, livestream me modeling Thing, the cute alien. (You can watch the stream here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2786339017) and post the first four chapters (plus a prologue) of my wife's book, Hystaria. (Which you can check out here: https://ultra-gravity.com/hystaria/0.html). Both my kid and wife helped designed this current incarnation of Thing. I wanted to make a cover for my wife's book, Hystaria. This resparked her interest in the project that she spent several years writing. I am happy to be able to finally start sharing that story with her to others.
02-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Ship Runners,Hystaria
019: Doing some initial concept art for Ship Runners
I struggled with which medium to choose to do the concept art. The professional world has moved onto all digital, but I love drawing with a pencil and paper. So it's hard for me to want to split from that comfortable workflow. Here is one of the early designs for the VR player model. The idea is that it is a drone robot being piloted by the players as they investigate the wreckage of space ships for assets to collect.
01-Jun-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
018: Restarting development on Ship Runners
I had taken a brief pause on game development to complete work on my latest graphic novel, Planet Ultra 2. (Now available on Amazon btw.) Today I took the first steps of setting up a XR game in Godot using the XR Tools that the game engine provides. I'm having a good time playing in the virtual environment, but now I got to start making a game.
31-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
017: COMICS: Vroom Verse starts production
Planet Ultra 2 is complete, and now it's time for the next project. We might change things up cuz we're all in a comic making/story writing buzz. There is no definite release date scheduled yet other than Vroom Verse will be out later this year.
29-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Vroom Verse
016: COMICS: Final Issue of Planet Ultra Uploaded to GlobalComix
The final issue of Planet Ultra Vol. One has been uploaded to GlobalComix. The final 8 chapters start dropping next Wednesday and will release until the end of July. Once all of Volume One is available on GlobalComix (for FREE I might add), I will start uploading Planet Ultra 2.... but not for free. Maybe $2 per issue. Which is cheaper that it'd be to buy it in print. If you want to check it out, go to https://globalcomix.com/c/planet-ultra to catch up!
29-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Planet Ultra
015: COMICS: Planet Ultra 2 is here!
Quite literally. The first prints of the collected volume arrived today. It is surreal that it took me only 6 months to complete this book. Now I have the itch to make more comics. Which puts a little damper on my game development ambitions.
28-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Planet Ultra
014: PLANET ULTRA 2 Completed
Not related to Ship Runners, other than I finished Planet Ultra 2. A graphic novel follow up to my very first graphic novel released a few years ago. With that being completed I can now dedicate my free time on Ship Runners. I also wanted to share an image that my wife and daughter drew that will be in the publications of Planet Ultra 2. I'll make a new blog post and "Press Release" on Planet Ultra 2 later on this week.
25-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Comics,Planet Ultra
013: Now I am posting this from my prod server
The last posts were in my development environment, but now this post comes from my production server. I'm hosting it on a Raspberry Pi, and it isn't necessary. However, my dev stuff is on Windows, and my prod stuff is on Linux... so it is worth a test.
21-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Software,Project Buddy
012: One more time, just for kicks.
I saw an error in my logs from the previous post. Just making sure I don't get it again.
21-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Software,Project Buddy
011: You know what they say, third time's the charm
Okay, I updated all of my bugs... hopefully this works as intended.
21-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Software,Project Buddy
010: Uh, this is test number two
Luckily, I don't think anyone is reading these at this point. This is test number two.
21-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Software,Project Buddy
009: Created a newer blog updater
This new blog updater is being run from a Flask application that I built to keep track of all my project ideas. Hopefully, this solution works for the future posts on this website.
21-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Software,Project Buddy
008: Color Customization Take 2
I'm thinking if I override my model's texture with a new one in Godot, I can just just modify the "Color" in the "Albedo" section with the HEX code I want to use. For example: Yellow - f5d591 Pink - ff91af Teal - 86f4d2 Red - e40041 Orange - ff702b Blue - 78aad0 Green - 73ffa0 Purple - c688f1 Gray - 888c8e
15-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
007: Trying out character customization
One thing that my kid really enjoys about some video games, is the ability to customize their character. While it's too early in the development process to have something really robust, I have been playing around with the idea of different selectable colors for the jump suits. These are different texture pngs, and I have ideas to simpify this process in Godot with one texture. I will need to experiment more with this after reimporting a more optimized player model.
13-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
006: This is an Automated Update
As in, I used the same tool as before, but I can commit directly to GitHub now without having to use GitHub Desktop to push out the new post. Yay!
12-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
005: Made a new blog updater
Since this website is host on GitHub, I wanted to make a way to update my blog without having to customize my HTML every single time. There might be better ways to do this, but here I am using a Custom Tkinter app I made in 30 min!
12-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
004: The Thing!
Today I modeled "The Thing." My kid is a big fan of the duck in R.E.P.O and they wanted a character like that in this game. Something that could be a pet or an enemy if you disrespect it. It only has an idle animation, but eventually it will follow the player, attack the player, or rest in the carrying pouch held by the player.
10-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
003: First Playable Build
It's just a main menu with a single input to move on to the test scene. Yet it's playable. My kid was happy with the animations and the interaction with the character controller. The left mouse/left trigger punches on the left, and vice versa with the right side. There were some issues with animation timing, but I fixed that in Godot by telling the script to wait for an animation to complete before moving forward.
09-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
002: New Design for Player
After some critical feedback from the family, I decided to try and model a real looking characer. This one is based on a sketch design I did when I first started out creating the concept of this game (more details on that later).
06-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners
001: Development Begins
I did a lot on this day including setting up my project in Godot and throwing in a FPS controller that I made for something else. There was a dummy Blender model that I threw in there for the character. It looks like nothing at the moment... because it pretty much is. However, a journey of a 1000 miles still takes just a single step to get started.
05-May-2026 by @Tethered
Tags: Games,Ship Runners