That looks like a good start! Well done thus far! ^_^

(As to your profile, if you log in and look at the menu-bar near the top, you should see an item labelled "profile"--that should take you to the relevant section, I think.)

[Blog post (20th of February, 2023)Trailing Ahead]

Blog post (20th of February, 2023)
Trailing Ahead

Summary: In which a trailer is made!

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot is, again, not a screenshot--but rather a video! Specifically, it's an early trailer for the game!





And indeed, the work of the week just past was dedicated to the making of said trailer:

In structure, the trailer has four parts:

First comes an introduction, a glimpse of the game's core gameplay. Next comes the "driving problem": a description of the danger that sets the adventure in motion. Then comes the answer to that "problem", the "call to adventure": that which the player is called upon to do. And finally, there's an outro, showing the name of the game, a tagline and logline, a byline for myself/Thaumaturge-Art, and credit to the game-engine that I use.

And in the making, it might be said to have involved four broad categories of work:
1) Gameplay recording
2) Lettering
3) Music-finding
4) Assembly into a video

(Naturally, there were likely other things done for it--but the above are perhaps the major parts.)

Of those categories, "gameplay recording" was perhaps one of the simplest: while there were some retakes to be made and a few challenges in getting quite what I wanted, I think that it went reasonably well.

As to the lettering, that proved an interesting challenge! In short, it ended up being rendered via Blender's node-based shader-system, with multiple render-layers in some cases--a process that I've used before, but am not hugely experienced with.



The music, however proved quite tricky, as I recall:

At first I searched for a piece that might fit the whole thing--that would, after all, make it easier to have a consistent, coherent soundtrack. And it seemed to me that the trailer-beats that I had in mind should be fairly common, and thus an appropriate music-piece plausible to find.

But, after much searching, I found nought that seemed to fit.

So I went searching anew, this time looking for separate pieces to fit the major elements of the trailer.

And here, at last, I had success I do feel!

As to the assembly of the video, that had its challenges in timing, and arranging, and selection of clips. The music in particular is a Frankensteinian assembly of parts--indeed, even within a single music-track there is some cutting and reassembly.

These various matters took a while--I think that music-hunting took up more than a day by itself--but the task is now done, and overall I'm fairly happy with the resultant trailer! ^_^

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

Perhaps it might help if you were to talk a bit about your game--give potential artists something to become enthused about.

After all, you would seem to be asking for highly-skilled work to be done for free--that's perhaps not a terribly appealing prospect without something else to provide motivation.

(Alternatively, of course, you could offer pay, if feasible--that might gain some interest from artists.)

Well, one idea might be powerups: they provide a dash of collection to the experience, as well as a hint of progression or variety (depending on the specifics of the powerup) within a run.

That said, I do feel that "simple arcade type game" is still a bit vague: "Paperboy", "Galaga", "Breakout", and "Pac-Man" are all "simple arcade type games", for example, but are all pretty different. So, what sort of game, specifically, did you have in mind? Or is that not yet determined?

[Blog post (13th of February, 2023)Things to be Shown]

Blog post (13th of February, 2023)
Things to be Shown

Summary: In which the pitch-deck sees work; a trailer is being made; and a few minor matters are attended to.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot is in fact not a screenshot, but a short gameplay-gif created in the week just past:



The week just past was somewhat a week of creative endeavours, I feel:

As I believe that I mentioned last week, I had previously begun work on my pitch deck for Moons in Crystal, and in the week just past I continued that work.

I will admit, it's proven challenging in places!

With some slides in the deck I had trouble in finding screenshots that might suit and be representative--perhaps especially as the demo has a relatively limited number of environments.

Furthermore, gifs created for the purpose--such as the one shown above, as I recall--proved to slow down editing, and when larger brought the saving of the file to a crawl--and as it turned out they didn't export to PDF anyway. Gifs have thus been removed from the pitch-deck.

The text, too, proved tricky at times: it's not a sort of writing or thinking that I'm terribly familiar with, I fear.

But nevertheless, while it's still a work-in-progress I do think that I've made significant progress! ^_^

And that progress on the pitch-deck was not the only creative work done in the week just past: I also started in renewed earnest on making a trailer for the demo!

Now, this had somewhat begun at the end of last year, if I recall correctly. However, more recently I came across advice advocating that one start (non-story-)trailers with gameplay, not mood-pieces. (And this was supported in at least one example trailer that I was pointed to.) As I had been intending to open with a first-person flythrough, what (little) work I had previously done was thus scrapped.

Beginning again, I set about plotting out my video, recording and stringing together various bits of gameplay, and fitting that gameplay with text that I had previously written but now implemented in Blender.



Further, I took my old video end-slate from A Door to the Mists and adapted it for Moons in Crystal, then inserted the result into the end of the trailer.

There's still a fair bit to be done: offhand, there's more gameplay to record, polish to be applied, and music to find and fit.

But I do think that a decent start has been made! ^_^

And along the way other things were done besides: a minor bug was fixed, some research was done on certain pitch-related matters, and perhaps more still that I'm forgetting!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

Worried it'll escalate the arms race with predatory publishers?

Hmm... I think that I'm more worried about how public sharing might impact me--even publishers not on the list might dislike it. (The list itself is actually public, posted on social media.)

However, note that this affects public sharing...

Sounds like exhausting but ultimately also satisfying work, well done! 

Thank you! ^_^

You probably already have some experience with this, but if not: you'd be surprised how many friends you will be able to help out with those kinds of spreadsheets down the line, especially if you keep it a bit up-to-date.

That would be nice--although to my mind it seems a little too specific to this project for that to be terribly viable; I'm not even sure how much potential it has for my own future projects! ^^;

Some elements might be helpful--some of my notes regarding the publishers to which I don't intend to pitch, for example.

But I fear that much of the sorting comes down to: (A) how I feel that my project fits with their catalogue, (B) whether they seem to offer the features that I want (in particular funding), and (C) how I feel about them overall.

However, the master-list from which I drew--and to which I linked in my previous blog-post--is an excellent resource. (As is a publisher black-list that I found, but which I'm hesitant to link to openly.)

[Blog post (6th of February, 2023)The Week of Sorting]

Blog post (6th of February, 2023)
The Week of Sorting

Summary: In which a single task takes most of the week; a graph is produced depicting some of the results of that task; and the pitch-deck sees work.

This week's screenshot comes not from the game itself, nor even from its pitch-deck. Instead, it compiles some information from a spreadsheet that saw much work in the week just past:



This is going to be a somewhat-short blog-post, as the work of the week just past was dominated by a single endeavour:

That endeavour was publisher-sorting: the process of working through a list of publishers, visiting their websites (and occasionally looking them up elsewhere), and then placing them in one or another category indicating how good a fit for the project and for myself I think them to be.

This process was already begun at the start of the week (as I mentioned in last week's blog-post, as I recall). But the list was long--it had more than three hundred entries!--and the work draining.

But at last, partway through Friday, I completed the task! All publishers on the list (as well as a few additional) have been sorted!

And this is what is depicted on the graph shown above: the number of publishers in each of the categories.

Naturally, there are only a few publishers that I think to be especially good fits--all but one of which, I believe, have at least one metroidvania in their catalogues. There are more publishers which I think might be decent fits, and more still that I think might be okay fits--and a great many that I don't intend to pitch to at all. And then a few that I'm uncertain about for one reason or another.

And with that done, I turned once again to my pitch-deck, both in its text and its art if I recall correctly. That's still very much a work-in-progress, but I do think that it has indeed progressed!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Blog post (30th of January, 2023)Pitch Preparations]

Blog post (30th of January, 2023)
Pitch Preparations

Summary: In which a computer issue complicates both backup and blogging; audio work is done for now; the design-doc sees updates; pitching-text is started; a pitch-deck is in the works; and publisher-sorting is begun.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a very work-in-progress start to a "pitch-deck" for Moons in Crystal!



As you may gather from the above, the week just past was a departure from those before: no longer primarily an audio-week, but instead one primarily given to pitching-related matters, as I recall:

Now, before I begin, I feel that I should note that this blog-post may well miss a few things that were done in the week just past: In the usual writing of these posts, I tend to rely somewhat on the previous week's SVN commit-message as a reminder of what was done--but alas, last week my SVN machine stopped working. :/

Don't worry: I've backed up my work elsewhere for now! But it does mean that I don't have a commit message to look back on as I write this blog-post... ^^;

That said, on to what I do recall!

Perhaps the first bit of news is that I believe that I have completed the audio-work that took up the preceding few weeks! Or at least, my portion thereof: I have a small subset of audio-effects that I still intend to contract out, for the sake of gaining professional quality in them.

As before, this process included the making of further audio-effects--a few of which made use of audio gathered from https://freesound.org--and where called for, attendant implementation.

Said implementation did prove tricky in a few places! Perhaps in particular was the case of placing audio-effects for currents: that involved figuring out how I had previously applied some internal structure within the current-class, and using it to find a closest point.

But in the end, I think that I got all working! ^_^

And with that audio-making done, I moved on to other matters... Specifically, to preparations for sending out pitches to publishers!

This took on a few different forms:

For one, I did a little more work on the design-document, primarily in finishing and polishing the section that covers the "elevator pitch", one-sentence description, tag-line, and so on.

For another, I made a start on the text that I intend to use for pitch-submission messages: greeting and sign-off, "core features", lists of contact links, additional notes, and so on and so forth.

For a third, and as shown above, I began the making of a "pitch-deck", starting from the deck that I used for A Door to the Mists (itself based on the publicly-released Raw Fury deck). This process is very much in its raw, early phases: a lot of design, art, screenshotting, and writing remains to be done, I do think.

And finally, I started the process of sorting through potential publishers.

For this last I've primarily been working from the extensive list given on "Alan's Gamedev Resources Sheet (Public)", with a few additions that I've come across myself.

And let me very much recommend that sheet! It not only lists publishers, but gives a sample of games published by them; provides links to their sites; indicates broadly what platforms they support; and more besides!

(Plus it includes other sheets which list companies that handle localisation, porting, QA, and production, and indicates that an art-company sheet is coming soon!)

From that listing I'm slowly building up my own little spreadsheet. This includes five sub-sheets: one each for publishers of high, moderate, and low interest, one for publishers that I don't intend to pitch to, and one for publishers that I'm uncertain about.

Here below then you can see a glimpse of one such sub-sheet, empty at time of screenshot. (I have no idea how those two columns ended up with dotted lines. But it seems harmless, so I'm not inclined to worry about it. ^^; )



I haven't yet gotten far with actually going through the list of publishers, but I've made a start, at the least!

And I daresay that there were other things done in the week just past besides!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

... Devlogs without a genre in the title won't be clicked upon most of the time, ...

Interesting! I hadn't thought that having the genre in the thread-title might be important to some! (I can see now why it might be so, I daresay, but this hadn't previously occurred to me, as far as I recall.)

(Well, I've updated my own thread's title in response, then.)

[Blog post (23rd of January, 2023)Effective Audio]

Blog post (23rd of January, 2023)
Effective Audio

Summary: In which various audio-effects are made; attendant implementation is done; the list of audio to be made grows a bit; and some effects prove tricky for me.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot is... well, it's a waveform of a sound-file: The work of the week just past remained primarily given to the game's audio. As such, I fear that this week I don't have a visual change that makes for a good screenshot! (But I didn't want the post to go with no screenshot...)



As noted above, the week just past was once again pretty much an audio week, with just a few other things being done besides:

For the most part, as I recall, I spent the week just past in the making and integrating of various audio-effects. There were effects made (or updated) for all of UI elements, environmental occurrences, and enemies and NPCs. (So many effects for enemies! ^^; )

And along with this, there were again various bits of attendant implementation.

What's more, the list of sounds to be made grew a little--despite a few items actually being removed from the list--as I discovered a few things that I'd previously not noticed as calling for audio.

As to the sounds themselves, for the most part I think that I'm content with the audio that I've thus far been producing--at least for my current purposes: the resultant effects may not be ideal (although I do like some), but they should, I hope, serve for pitching.

(That said, should the game receive publisher support and thus funding, I do intend that much--perhaps even all!--of this audio be replaced by the work of an expert!)

Alas, however, there have been a few sounds that have proven difficult for me to produce; in those cases I might end up searching for royalty-free audio to include!

And as per usual, there were a variety of things done in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here: there was a non-audio bug-fix, the removal of some defunct audio-related code, a quick re-exportation of levels due to a minor oversight, and more besides!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

I'm not sure that my answer is helpful, but I... simply find the logs easy enough to read for my purposes.

That said, I am reading them on a computer monitor--I do imagine that they might be less-comfortable on a mobile device, especially if they have large images.

As to a daily routine, I don't really log on all that regularly, but when I do log on what I usually do is this:

I go to "Show unread posts since last visit" and sift through the threads there; those of interest I open in new tabs. Once I've gone through the whole list, or whatever portion of it I'm inclined to look through at the time, I then look through the opened threads one at a time. Finally, once I'm done with that, I return once more to the first page of the "unread posts" list, and see whether anything new and of interest has appeared; if something has, I then look at that, too.

I really like the art-style here! ^_^

And good work on the progress made thus far, I do think! ^_^

As to interest in the game itself, I think that I'm going to keep an eye on this to see whether it looks to be something that I might like (simply as a matter of personal taste)--I'm not yet sure.

[edit]

Nice style. Looks weird that flaming projectiles cast shadows, though.

This is a good point, I do think. That said, the shadows do seem to serve a purpose in locating the projectiles in the world...

So, what I might suggest is that you swap the shadows there for (fake) "lights"--essentially just "shadows" that have a non-black colour and that blend additively, or some other such effect as appropriate.

[Blog post (16th of January, 2023)Making Noises]

Blog post (16th of January, 2023)
Making Noises

Summary: In which a new year is begun; an enemy is switched from melee to ranged; audio-work is attended to; and the game's design-doc is updated.

Greetings and salutations--and happy new year! ^_^

Welcome back to the devlog for Moons in Crystal! I hope that you had some rest over this preceding period, and come into the new year stronger. ^_^

This week's screenshot shows an upgrade to the basic skeletons found in the Ossuary Moon: Their attack is now a projectile one--albeit with somewhat-limited range:



The week just past was a bit of an odd one for me! Between family events and scheduled power-outages, time was a bit more limited than usual, and, confessedly, I was rather tired for a fair bit of the week.

Still, things did get done, both in gameplay (as seen above) and in other matters:

To start with, as per the screenshot, skeletons now have a projectile attack in place of their previous melee attack.

In short, I was worried that these foes were a little too ineffectual: slow, and fragile, and melee-only against a player armed with ranged attacks.

Now, they're not meant to be redoubtable foes, but I still felt that a bit of an upgrade was in order--hence the ranged attack, allowing them to at least now hit from a small distance away.

This did then call for some adjustments to the liche boss-fight, in particular the final stage thereof.

In that stage, the liche holds the player in place and summons a few skeletons. When the latter were melee-only, the player yet had time to kill them before they could attack, despite their close spawning. With their new ranged attack, this then called for placing them a little further away.

But the main of the week's work was, I daresay, given to audio matters: As I recall, I assessed some of the audio that I had; created new sound effects; and considered what effects I wanted to contract out.

Further, some of the changes and additions that were made called for small bits of implementation, or for alterations to the code that I already had.

Audio is, I fear, not my strong suit--but nevertheless progress has been made, I do think!

And finally, I spent some time updating, expanding, and cleaning up my design-document. Gone are some older thoughts, or elements now-obsolete; added are more details on my intentions for the game, and some things previously omitted; and polished and adjusted is what I already had.

And, as per usual, there were a few other things done in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!

That, then, is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

Ah, that's excellent to read! I'm glad to have been of service. ^_^

If you're going for a text-centric approach, have you looked at Twine? That seems to be intended specifically for text-based games, I believe. ^_^

I've started by allowing the frogs to respawn in a cute way:

That looks like a pretty good solution, I think, and cute indeed. ^_^

[Blog post (12th of December, 2022)Fixing and Finishing]

Blog post (12th of December, 2022)
Fixing and Finishing

Summary: In which a demo is completed; an NPC is animated; two codex-entries are become acquirable; in-game text is written; a splash-screen is added; a planet gains topography; points of interest are placed on planets; a planetary puzzle is made; a map gains icons; an ability-icon is polished; linear-traps gain dust-puffs; and a bunch of bugs are fixed.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a (demo-)point-of-interest on the surface of a planet!



The week just past was... a busy one! A week of polishing, and of bug-fixing, and of finishing:

To start with, perhaps the biggest news: the demo is, I think, pretty much complete! :D

Oh, there are a few minor things to do: disabling some debugging elements, further testing, and creating an actual distributable build, for three. But in the main, I believe that it's done! ^_^

Speaking very broadly, the work of the week just past can be divided into three categories: content, polish, and bug-fixing.

In content, first of all there were a number of small-ish things done: I did some final NPC-animating that had yet remained to be done; added in-game means to acquire the last two codex-entries that remained outstanding; wrote various bits of in-game text; and even added a simple splash-screen that's shown before the main menu.

But perhaps the most salient additions to the demo's content were made to its planets:

First of all, for some time both planets in the demo had shared the same topography. So, in the week just past I set about changing that, providing to the second planet a distinct topography of its own.



This did involve figuring out quite how I'd gone about doing so for the first planet--it had been a while, I fear! But I think that I managed, and now have a second demo-planet that I'm fairly happy with. ^_^

On the gameplay side of the planets, I at last added points-of-interest to them.

(Well, in all fairness I left the second planet with only a single point-of-interest. That point explains as I recall that, being a vertical slice, the demo only fully outfits one of the planets.)

Furthermore, I finally settled on how I might handle the puzzle that I intend to offer on each planet.

The goal of this puzzle I've had in mind for a while: to find that planet's "Great Spirit", from whom to gain aid in reaching the endgame.

What I was unsure of was what the puzzle itself might be. I had considered a few options of varying complexity, but what I ended up with was fairly straightforward--and remains within the extant mechanics of the game.

Simply put, the player explores the various points-of-interest, therein and elsewhere gathering clues that unlock new points-of-interest and new options amongst the points-of-interest. These then lead at last to the aforementioned "Great Spirit" in one of the points-of-interest.



And for the purposes of the demo I've set in place an instance of this puzzle. It's a simple one: it has only a handful of points and interactions, and relies on only a single off-planet clue. But I hope that it demonstrates how the mechanic is intended to work.

The next broad category, then, is that of polish.

First the map used for planets has gained icons for points-of-interest. This should, I hope, aid the player in finding their way to the points that they seek.



Second, I touched-up the icon used for the "mana-crystal generation" "metroidvania ability". It had previously been somewhat rough, I fear, and is now I think improved.

And third and finally, I added to the "linear traps" little puffs of dust that appear when they impact an obstacle and thus stop, intended to give that stop a greater sense of "impact".



And now we come to the final of the broad categories: bug-fixing.

And there was quite a bit of that. o_o;

At the start of the week just past, I believe, I had been aware of a single (major) bug, a crash related to save-games.

This I fixed... leading in turn to the discovery of more bugs related to saving and loading, and more beyond that. Aethereal walls were gone after reloading; switches didn't restore their control over doors; at least one encounter reloaded with no options available at all; and more besides!

But in the end I think that I got through them all, and saving and loading seems now to work as intended!

And as per usual, there were tweaks, changes, and fixes enacted in the week just past that don't seem worth detailing here!

That, then, is all for this week--and (actually, this time ^^; ) for this year! Stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

My suggestion is to perhaps retain the bird swooping onto the frog--but instead of having the frog then be caught and carried off, to have the frog jump into hiding. (I'm imagining a cute little frog-face peeking out of its hiding place, looking worried.)

The result would thus still be that the frog is unavailable for play (perhaps temporarily), but it wouldn't carry the same tragedy as a frog carried off to presumably be eaten, I feel.

In short, I think that the bird can fit with the "cute and cozy" feel of the game, but that it's the effect of the bird that is perhaps running counter to that.

Ah, I'm sorry to read of your family tragedy! Strength to you for your journey in grief, and my condolences.

As to the game, that is very fair, I do think!