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[Jake Riley]

Quackers.

[Jake Riley]

I just released a post on my website discussing a couple of this game's characters, and in the post, I shared the musical themes I made for those characters, which I'll share here too. These are the first songs I'm revealing for this game, and two of the game's earliest tracks I conceptualized several years back. These aren't the final products of the songs, as they're temp tracks using the SGM soundfont. I'll eventually use better samples.

Below is the theme of a duck character named "Quackers". There's not that much to say about him, he's generally just a funny character you mostly meet in level 1 who likes to play instruments, like the accordion concertina. He doesn't talk, only quacks, so most of his humor is visual. There is one hilarious scene I came up with involving him and another character. I don't want to spoil it though. Just wait for the demo. Here's the song:

https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Quackers_Theme_Beta.wav

Below is the theme of a squirrel character named "Corny", short for "Cornelius". He's actually one of the main characters of the game. His role in the game within the game is that of the antagonist, as he is in the cartoon commercials it's based on. And as the characters point out, he's a pretty "lame" antagonist at that. He likes to act more sinister than he actually is. Here's the song:

https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Corny_Theme_Beta.wav

Feedback on the songs would be appreciated. If you want to see more information and artwork of these characters, below is the blog post covering them. If you're wondering about the huge gap in-between this blog post and the last, I explain why in this post. There are a few reasons. Maybe one of them being my good old depression flaring up to cripple me again lately? Here's the post:

https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/2023/12/12/misc-character-showcase-2/

There's also a bit of new development info in that blog post as well.

[Ofihombre]

Hi Jake Riley, I have already listened the tracks, and as feedback I only have very few things to say, but not negligible.
For the Quacker's theme, The melody should sound more accordion-like, and it also lacks moments with some percussion.
And the melody from Corny's theme, It must be less MIDI.

[Jake Riley]

Hi Jake Riley, I have already listened the tracks, and as feedback I only have very few things to say, but not negligible.
For the Quacker's theme, The melody should sound more accordion-like, and it also lacks moments with some percussion.
And the melody from Corny's theme, It must be less MIDI.

I've considered adding extra instruments to Quackers' theme before. However, after I experimented a bit, I felt it made it sound too complicated. As controversial as Ludwig's "less is more" philosophy is, I think the simplicity works in this case. I might add to it later if I change my mind, though. You could actually be referring to the moments that lack the tuba instead. That is intentional. Also, I don't really know what you meant when you said it should sound more accordion-like.

As for Corny's theme, you mentioned it sounds like a MIDI. While it's not using MIDI instruments, it is using SGM samples, which mostly aren't that great. Those instruments are actually placeholders. I plan to get more realistic-sounding instrument samples for the song and the rest of the game's soundtrack. Part of why it sounds MIDI-like could also be the song's audio mixing, which isn't the best, but that's okay, as it's a work-in-progress.

[Jake Riley]

Please read: https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/2023/12/20/video-game-programming-job-offer/

[Ofihombre]

Hi Riley, I have already read your blog and I understand your situation.
Working on a big video game isn't easy at all, at first they are illusions, with many ideas, but as the months go by, you collide with reality.

Regarding your decision to change the engine, I also understand it, Unity brutally botched its decisions on September 12 (2023), and although it finally modified them and the previous CEO retired, long-term trust was lost.
In fact, I also felt very upset right when the news broke, and I had to pause the Randy & Manilla game for a week and a half.
After all this, I still continued with the project, but I was still uncertain about whether or not I could finish it.

I had originally planned to release it in Early Access due to my current financial situation, but after seeing the controversies of Unity, and also the unstable situation of the general video game industry, I get the feeling that a project like Randy & Manilla isn't viable, and could possibly be canceled.

The good thing about your case is that it has only been developed for months, it is a game designed to be in 2D, and mostly your progress was on the artwork and some of the OST, so an engine change would apparently not be so complicated.

But in my case, with Randy & Manilla, it's much worse. A more advanced and much larger project, graphically more complex,
with 60% of the project already done in a period of 4 years, and an engine change would mean a complete restart of the project (redoing the basics, level designs, characters, scripts, etc.).

In case I had no choice but to restart it for a future period, at least the changes in the new Unity terms gave me some time so that its cancellation doesn't feel cut off and in vain. I would be thinking about releasing a last free update that feels like the best approximation of what its final version would have been (At the end of the day, everything I made of the game would have been nothing more than an extended pilot episode, for some reason when opening it he says it is "An experimental game project").
But well, We'll see what Unity will do in the future.

You also ask for help translating your game into other languages. If, for example, you want your game to be in Spanish, then great news! I speak Spanish natively, so if I had the opportunity to collaborate with you, I would translate the dialogues.

[Jake Riley]

Hi Riley, I have already read your blog and I understand your situation.
Working on a big video game isn't easy at all, at first they are illusions, with many ideas, but as the months go by, you collide with reality.

Regarding your decision to change the engine, I also understand it, Unity brutally botched its decisions on September 12 (2023), and although it finally modified them and the previous CEO retired, long-term trust was lost.
In fact, I also felt very upset right when the news broke, and I had to pause the Randy & Manilla game for a week and a half.
After all this, I still continued with the project, but I was still uncertain about whether or not I could finish it.

I had originally planned to release it in Early Access due to my current financial situation, but after seeing the controversies of Unity, and also the unstable situation of the general video game industry, I get the feeling that a project like Randy & Manilla isn't viable, and could possibly be canceled.

The good thing about your case is that it has only been developed for months, it is a game designed to be in 2D, and mostly your progress was on the artwork and some of the OST, so an engine change would apparently not be so complicated.

But in my case, with Randy & Manilla, it's much worse. A more advanced and much larger project, graphically more complex,
with 60% of the project already done in a period of 4 years, and an engine change would mean a complete restart of the project (redoing the basics, level designs, characters, scripts, etc.).

In case I had no choice but to restart it for a future period, at least the changes in the new Unity terms gave me some time so that its cancellation doesn't feel cut off and in vain. I would be thinking about releasing a last free update that feels like the best approximation of what its final version would have been (At the end of the day, everything I made of the game would have been nothing more than an extended pilot episode, for some reason when opening it he says it is "An experimental game project").
But well, We'll see what Unity will do in the future.

You also ask for help translating your game into other languages. If, for example, you want your game to be in Spanish, then great news! I speak Spanish natively, so if I had the opportunity to collaborate with you, I would translate the dialogues.

I was originally considering just getting one translator who works with many different languages, but after you suggested translating the game in Spanish, I realized if I hire multiple translators, the process could be done faster. I'll let you know when the game's ready to be translated.

[Ofihombre]

Sounds great. I'll see about it once I read your next notice.

[Jake Riley]

Anyone done see my NEW ©1983 profile picture? Eeh? Eeh? Ee-GET READY Y'ALL!!!!!!!

[Jake Riley]

Well then, you may have noticed if you visited this devlog lately that the images have disappeared for a few days. That's because there have been complications with my website, which is where the pictures are pulling from. I pretty much lost my blog for a time. I'll elaborate in my next blog post, which has been postponed by a good bit because of this predicament. My website's next post will arrive in about a week. It would've been here now if it weren't for my site having problems. Hopefully, my site won't go down again.

In the meantime, here's this!

[Jake Riley]

This is what video game enemies do in their free time.

[Jake Riley]

Here's the musical theme of a character named Gene the Simpleton.

https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Gene_Theme_Beta.wav

It was an exercise in making a song that sounds intentionally bad, but not completely unlistenable. Remember, this is just a temp track using placeholder samples. The finished version will sound better. Well, as better as it can be.


I just released a post on my website talking about Gene, alongside discussing the enemies that will appear in the demo and how they'll work. It is a lot more insightful than just showcasing characters, so please check it out. If you want to see art of Gene and more, please read it. Here's the blog post: https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/2024/02/07/misc-character-showcase-3/

[Jake Riley]

I made an Instagram page and a DeviantArt account dedicated to promoting this game.

https://www.instagram.com/jakerileygamedev/

https://www.deviantart.com/jakerileygamedev/journal/My-Atari-Themed-Game-About-the-1983-Game-Crash-1020486819

Instagram might just be the least nice place I've promoted this game on so far, so... Wish me luck, I guess...

[Jake Riley]

Two months ago, I released a blog post asking for help on this game and shared a link to it on this forum and other parts of the internet. Later, I realized that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to just give a link to a post on my website rather than reiterating the job requirements here. Some of you might not be so comfortable about a random guy relying on you visiting his website for info. Possibly a little suspicious. I know you might not want to risk your computer getting a virus (even though my site is safe). I'll give you excerpts from my post.

"Here is the list of requirements I need for potential programmers:

You need to have worked on at least one game before.

You need to know how to code a 2D platformer, but should also be versatile in what kind of stuff you can program for games.

Preferably you should know how to program for a GameMaker project.

I want at least one of you to know how to bug fix. Both of you would be ideal. [I need about two coders]

I think that’s everything."

"I also want to have all of the game’s text translated to a slew of other languages, so that Randy’s Crazy Mission! could have as wide of an audience as possible. This is also a video game translation position offering. I want to get someone who can (professionally) translate English to a bunch of other languages too. With that said, please consider applying.


On a somewhat related note, I want at least one of the people I hire to look at the game’s script and see if it needs improving. I have a weird writing style, so bouncing-off ideas with someone could help. If none of you consider yourselves to be good at telling what decent writing is, I might possibly get someone else to solely help me with improving the script."


"My email address is [email protected]. To apply for the programming position, you need to email me your resume of games you worked on. For the translation position, you can show me the games or other projects you’ve converted to other languages, and tell me all the languages you work with.


It will be a while before anybody can do real work on the game, maybe around a few months. I have to finish outlining the demo. That doesn't mean preliminary work can't be done right away though."

I would still like for you to read the whole thing if you're willing, so, again, here's the post: https://jakerileygamedevblog.com/2023/12/20/video-game-programming-job-offer/

While I'm currently learning more about programming, I still probably won't become great at it anytime soon. So, I am still desperate at this point. I want to release the demo and gain an audience for this game as soon as possible.

By the way, I was originally going to have this game's programming be done in C# back when it was running on Unity, but upon researching GameMaker after downloading it, I found out the engine doesn't seem to support C#. It can only use its internal coding language (GML). So, you'll need to know how to program within GameMaker. Also, someone already reached out to be the potential Spanish translator for this game, so keep that in mind. Though I originally thought of just getting one or two translators who can work with many different languages, I later changed my mind. If you can translate English to any other language, even just one, please consider applying. Like I originally said, it will be a while before real work can begin, but you should still apply now.

[Jake Riley]

Translation update: Japanese, French, Greek, Polish, and Italian translators have been picked.

[Ofihombre]

I'm glad you're getting translators for your game.
I hope to try it one day.

[Jake Riley]

I want to better clarify something I didn't get across well at first regarding getting programmers. When I said it will be a while before work can begin, I mean it will be a while before the "commitment" part of the job starts. This is due to me needing to finish my outline for the demo. That doesn't mean preliminary work (basic stuff that doesn't require following to the outline) can't be done right away. I have edited the blog post and excerpt to include that.