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[melos]

thanks, graham toast L trip! the link things are a good idea but that's so much more work...it would be very good idea though, if i could figure out a way to manage them with the query strings at the end (using numbers for each person I email). eh. might be worth it for the full release!

and yep I'm updating the press thing as I get them.

----

Got a few more today. One person is putting a video up. Two people said they'd do writeups and I'm waiting on them, and one super big youtube channel asked for a build with some extra content they could show. i hope they show it!!! would bring a lot of people in

which is why i'm kind of flustered. we have a number of dungeons that are basically ready for human consumption, so I first had to pick which of those I was even going to show...I picked it, and basically crunched to polish and bugtest it a little more. jon had to do somet things to and he has classes...anyways, we got it done, I added it to the secret press demo...it has my memory architecture fixes too from yesterday night...god, so many awful bugs.

then john polson from indiegames.com mentioned a bug I had. oh god. luckily I had fixed it earlier today, but I just pushed out a fix for it. john's really nice and that was a great thing for him to have done.

Things seem okay. all public download links are updated, I emailed that one big site back..

got a few more articles today. http://www.anodynegame.com/#press even a brazilian site! pretty neat-o.

even though this is fucking stressful.

I also emailed maybe 10-15 other people yesterday. I have 15 or so left today, but I really want to play the secrets of grindea beta fora  little bit.

[Graham-]

yeah, you can always do more work.

..

Are you saying you're giving out different builds to different people to show off different parts of the game? Or are you just sending them videos? Or are you updating the demo everyone gets?

What did your original demo have and what did the requests want to see more of?

[melos]

yeah, you can always do more work.

..

Are you saying you're giving out different builds to different people to show off different parts of the game? Or are you just sending them videos? Or are you updating the demo everyone gets?

What did your original demo have and what did the requests want to see more of?

I made a single demo for public release.

then this one youtube channel asked for another stage, so I  polished it up a bit. i'm still not comfortable with that level havinga public release, so i'm not sending it off to everyone unless they specifically ask so (didn't want to bloat the press emails with "well, if you play past this point...") allthough mabe that's a good idea? who knows...

[Graham-]

I'm not sure.

I'd keep the extra level only for those who asked. Wait until you're comfortable with it, then include it in another press release later.

It's better to get the press in bumps. They've already decided to look/not-look. Save extra content to justify trying to get their attention again.

[melos]

I'm not sure.

I'd keep the extra level only for those who asked. Wait until you're comfortable with it, then include it in another press release later.

It's better to get the press in bumps. They've already decided to look/not-look. Save extra content to justify trying to get their attention again.

yeah, good idea. we have a few more to email, then some following up, then finishing the game...

[melos]

oops, slipped my mind to post in this for a bit.

I have a few other sites i might e-mail. Probably will follow up on others a bit now that I have some positive coverage (indiegames, pcgamer, indiegamemag, etc).

i was pretty pleased that the indiegames.com reception was positive, since they tend to be notoriously mean spirited. i even got a positive amanda_chen comment!

the reception tends to be "nice-looking, solid zelda homage". I guess i'm okay with it being called a zelda-homage, because that's what the demo comes off as. but i'm hoping htat it will be more than that - but that can only come from playing the full game..for various reasons we couldn't do all the sorts of reveals in the limited scope of the demo we had so far. hmm, oh well. i dont know.

er, anyways...

today was a bit of relaxation...i played a lot of jak and daxter 1, some secrets of grindea, and did a little bit of marketing stuff. no coding or music. Ended up putting in a few hours of deisgn - been drawing out outlines of areas for jon to use in drwaing the places.

I guess i'll get back to sfx at some point...need to do a lot o f those.

[melos]

found a new lp of the demo. pretty amusing:



no new articles today. did a bunch of follow ups though, and I think there should be acouple of playthroughs still popping up (heh i misspelled that as "pooping") . hopefully a few more articles? might do a news post on indiedb soon but i need some new screenies and all. I guess i could use the areas we have in that regard. plenty to showww

spent today structuring out the areas. I think have 7 left to do. only really unsure about 2 of those, the rest i just need to churn out.

then, moving onto well,everything. m yes

[melos]

Finally got 4-5 areas into word form. I have 4 left. And then we program. And compose. And draw.

Did a few e-mail interviews today. That was sort of fun. Should have a new IndieDB post up, but for those following this there isn't much new. There's also a SSS post at Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/10a4um/screenshot_saturday_85_my_little_gamedev/c6boo2n but again, not too much of interest if you keep up here.

Also got new frames at the eye doctor. I don't really need them, but my parents insist.

Should have new pics soon. Jon's working on some cool stuff.

[melos]

Made some SFX for a couple of hours today, we made some big design decisions today...and have our road map to the finish line.

I can taste the game being done. Almost.

Here's a picture.


Are you cool?

THEN CLICK ON IT.

[melos]

We've been accepted to publish on Desura and GamersGate. Pretty neat. Going to look into GOG and Indievania and a few others.

There's also an interview of Jon and I by RegretZero (taylor whaley) over at gaming irresponsibly http://gamingirresponsibly.com/interview-with-anodyne-creators-sean-and-jon

[melos]

So I'm pretty satisfied with this song.

http://soundcloud.com/seagaia/anodyne-ost-roof

It only plays on a few screens in the game

[melos]

Hm. Figuring out stuff with Desura. The people there patient despite my lack of knowing how to do anything. But it works great! (The installation). Hopefully our page goes live soon so I can make a news update.

Anyways, I did a ton of music yesterday (I think 8-10 hours of work, I forget).

Want to link to one but soundcloud uploading is borked.

Spent this morning panicking over arranging the game because this big youtube channel responded to my e-mail follow up (Guess they didn't get the first...)

[melos]

okay, got a new laptop with the moneys i saved this summer. finally got my toolchain installed after wrestling with git bash.


ANYWAYS


I'm apparently giving a workshop/talk/i don't know at my school in a few weeks. What do you think would be interesting to talk about?

I'm obviously going to brainstorm on this, my initial ideas are

-How we have been going out trying to make our aesthetics work
-The design of the intro of the game

but I'll be looking at other talks around the web and so forht

[Graham-]

what's the audience at your school? game dev kinda people?

  git bash, also emacs

[melos]

what's the audience at your school? game dev kinda people?

  git bash, also emacs

it's going to be pretty much the general public that is interested in games (since they read about the thingy and then come to it) - so possibly a few gamers, but 99% no game devs.

 it's part of this weekend-long opening ceremony for our new fancy pants arts center. so I thought maybe talking about the aesthetics might be appropriate since it's something most people might be able to understand.

in retrospect, maybe talking design on the intro sequenec might be too heavy. ubt i'm not sure what would be lighter o_o

[Graham-]

I would talk about the core feelings you want to convey (in your game), then explain how you delivered those.

[melos]

I would talk about the core feelings you want to convey (in your game), then explain how you delivered those.

yeah, seems like a good idea. even if they get lost on the more game-y stuff, they might be able to relate to the art and music and see the benefit which a game medium brings.

[Graham-]

Just cut videos of gameplay mechanics, then talk about how they make you feel. You can be a boxer and talk about how your own right hook makes you feel. If you do that people will get it, boxers or not.

[melos]

Just cut videos of gameplay mechanics, then talk about how they make you feel. You can be a boxer and talk about how your own right hook makes you feel. If you do that people will get it, boxers or not.

yeah that's a good idea. It might be a little strange being so creatively open in front of lots of strangers (i'm used to pretty academic talks) but it will be an interesting experience.

[melos]

Okay, I decided that I will touch on a bit of everything. I'll be talking about aesthetic choices - how we chose the art and music for areas to fit into the overall picture, and more specifically how they help to create an atmosphere, and then some discussion on the workflow with creating the game (probably manipulate some variables for fun, change some art assets on the fly etc), and then touch on the design of the introductory segments.

That is, if anyone shows up

As for dev, I made some sfx this morning. that is all I will be doing today anyways...