*UPDATE* for the purpose of keeping you guys informed on latest developments in regards to this particular videogame that this thread is dedicated to blgaigjklsdngda
Here's some stuff that I've been doing:
1.
Name Change: The only reason the old name was called "The Archer" was because when I made the first prototype, I had the idea of the bow and arrow and so just named the folder "Archer" as a placeholder. I was always intending to change it to something else later. The other reason is because I've found that for me atleast, when I have a name for a game, it tends to guide the design toward the name. So I felt like now was a good time to change the name, because I find myself focusing a lot on making the game purely about shooting arrows, when really I want to make the game more about exploring this cool world. I'm not 100% sold on it, but I think it's definitely a step up from the old one. I foresee the possibility of a final name change towards release, but that's not certain.
The reason I went for "The Secret Land" was because it's a nod to a lot of my influences for this game. Like Eric said, there's the 'Sacred Land' from Zelda, the 'Forbidden Land' from Shadow of the Colossus, and the 'secret' was a nod to 'Secret of Mana' and 'Secret of Evermore'. It also is very much in line with the setting and backstory I've been developing for the game.
Ultimately I think that the name doesn't have to be all that cool, because if the game is good then it will make the name seem much cooler. If you think about most videogame names in a vacuum, they are pretty lame. But we attach a lot of our warm memories of the game to them.
2.
New website things. I'm working on setting up a game blog, separate from my personal blog, to keep track of this game and any other game projects I do. It's mostly up now but still needs some tweaking. I'll post a link when it's ready.
3.
Bosses. I've been spending a lot of time lately developing some cool boss fights. I really want them to be the cornerstones of the game experience (as they are in most games, but specifically I have Dark Souls in mind, also Konjak's work of course), so having them in the bag will be a huge confidence boost for the designing the in-between gameplay. It's also just fuckin' fun. So far I have one 100% done (at least until I get to playtesting phase), and three 25% done. I have 16 slated so far, so we'll see if that's possible.
4.
GML Motion Easing functions. I spent a day reading this awesome Flash book, by a guy named Robert Penner, about how to code motion tweening/easing in Actionscript. Fortunately for the world he made the code available to the public so I went through it all and "ported" it over from AS to GML scripts. I'm sure this kind of thing has been done before, but this particular set is a very complete resource package that will be useful for a long time. So I'm gonna put up all those scripts on the tutorial forum so other people can use them.
That's all I've got for now. I'm gonna start regular updates again soon. Won't be long now!
PS. In order to make Facebook less of a repulsive cyper-wasteland of idiocy and self-indulgence, I've been adding a lot of game designers to my friends list who I've never met in person but just know over the internet. So if anyone is in the same boat as me feel free to add me:
http://www.facebook.com/gabriel.verdon Maybe we can make this world a more enjoyable place for each other.
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