Hey everyone, how’s it going?
A bit later this week but time for another quick update on the last weeks progress:
- Get the different glow colour affects working and if not decide on a way forward – I finally got this sorted, and in time for #screenshotsaturday. It felt great finally achieving this as I felt without this aspect to the game it would probably look a bit dull overall. I plan on doing a tutorial at some point to cover how to get this effect.
- Work on character animation – I managed to get a lot done on the character animation, but half way through the week I came across the idea of procedurally handling the animation. I think this is going to be a better approach especially as the game has a minimalist look, so I’ll be continuing the work this week.
- Start adding sound – I managed to narrow down some options for music and sound effects. The next step will be to start using these in game to see how everything fits together.
- Begin formalising the level designs – I’ve knocked up a load more level designs. I’ve had an idea of progressively changing the levels to add to the overall flow of the game. I’ve also manged to sketch out a the format for each of the worlds and how the mechanics are going to be introduced.
- Start looking at ideas for world bosses – I’ve got a solid plan for the bosses in the game now and I’ve got a good amount of work done on the first boss.
- Add YouTubers/Twitch streamers to the press list that have covered related games – I’ve added all the possible sources of contacts to the press list now. The next step is just grinding the net for those e-mail addresses!
I really feel like focusing my efforts this week instead of trying to spread my work has been really beneficial! I managed to cover a lot of ground on the development of Glow and I can now start to see when I may be able to target for a release.
One thing I did notice however was that as the big chunks of the game started to take shape, I was starting to find it difficult where to focus my efforts. It’s starting to feel like I have a lot of lose ends that need tying up before I can move on to the next step of creating an alpha version for testing. This made me realise two things:
- This is probably the prime reason why so many games never see the end of development. Tying up the lose ends is not as fun as developing the big chunks.
- I need to take a slightly different approach this week to get past this hump in the road.
So with that said my approach this week is to take a step back and look at the main parts of the game that are holding me back from getting it into an alpha build state. These are the tasks I feel are distracting too much from being able to progress the game design:
- Refine the movement – I’m starting the realise the character movement needs some refining as currently the movement takes away from the challenge of the game.
- Refine some of the designs – I really feel like some of the designs of baddies and power ups is a bit disjointed form the look of the game, so I want to tighten those up.
- Get a solid behaviour programmed for the first boss – boss design is quite new to me and is going to take a lot of trial and error.
- Finalise the view size – I personally feel the uncertainty of the view size I will be using is distracting a lot of the design decisions I’m making.
The intent it to follow these in the order they are listed as I believe that they will feed into each other nicely. I also plan to continue the marketing side of things, but currently that’s just grinding the net for e-mails so won’t take much thought.
Take it easy!
Stav