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[One-bit Punch]

Cutting it out actually wasn't so bad, it was definitely more good than bad. A huge relief and the final game will definitely be better for it.

a good lesson is just minimize, minimize, minimize, cut back. seems to wokr well for design overall but also i've noticed it helps a lot in music too. probably art in general, hm.

This is such a good advice. My current game started out pretty small and eventually grew beyond control. Working on it became so stressful I began to wonder if I should just call it quits. One day I came to my senses, threw away lots of stuff and then trim, trim, trim.. until I get what I really wanted.

Best of luck with the next stage of development and I do hope both of you can afford a bit of well-earned rest and recovery time!

[nimbusstev]

I think you made the right call. I made nearly the same identical decision when working on my project, Quest For Funk. I had this grand idea that involved alternating between two completely different types of games, with the actions in each effecting the opposite games. I spent over 200 hours of development thinking it was a great idea, but the more people that I had play the game, the more I realized that it was overly complicated and didn't make any sense. Eventually I decided that it just wasn't going to work, and instead of essentially making two games, it would be beneficial to just make a single, more polished title that wasn't so hard to explain to people.

It's tough to see those hours of work go to waste, but if it helps set the stage for a better game, it's not really a waste in the long run. I think you've found a type of game that you really excel at with The Ocean segment, and so focusing more on that is a good move. I'm super excited to see how it turns out!

[kittakaj]

Thanks for all the support!

For the sake of my pride, I'd like to emphasize that this was a choice made for design reasons first and foremost--we would have made this same choice even if it didn't cut any time off of development. The scope of the project as a whole hasn't really changed from our initial plans, it's more that everything that the concept of Even had to offer we're exploring in The Ocean instead.

Anyway that doesn't matter, it's just me reassuring myself. I like to think that we didn't bite off more than we could chew--just that we're chewing in a different structure than we originally thought! But you all are totally right that it just makes sense as a practical decision as well.

[melos]

Yeah, we actually didn't cut anything out. Nothing significant we made we cut from the game except an idea we didn't really work on, so there wasn't any present-time 'waste', so to speak. (We spent a few hours brainstorming about Even a few times and I coded some things early on but that was the extent.)

[melos]

Even the Ocean, as it stands now, I think is just the maximum scope we can handle. If we finish it, then we could handle something harder I think (and be able to finish faster, perhaps). But we'll probably be doing smaller projects for a while.

[kittakaj]

Yeah, I can't really imagine just randomly making a bigger game than Even the Ocean, even as our next "big" project. I feel like we don't have much to gain thematically and a lot to lose practically by making any bigger sort of game. Although we both sorta want to do some take on the JRPG way in the future, maybe.

[melos]

yeah idk. jrpg-ish something could be neat but without the fluffy stat building (blech). idk waht it would be. we'll make something else next idk what...

*the future*

[saluk]

Fluffy stat building... but that's my favorite part! JK. Kinda 

Oh and Sometimes you have to head in one direction to find the direction you are supposed to head, so good move on the Great Refocusing of July 2014. Pretty fortunate to be able to make such a drastic change without really losing much work.

[melos]

Thanks saluk! Yeah it is lucky and nice.

Jon sent me a bunch of dialogue stuff today, I did a little music and a little writing.

[melos]

some music~
http://tindeck.com/listen/icty

[MallowyGoodness]

Just read the big announcement, heavy stuff.

I support and understand the dropping of Even, but tbh I still kinda hope you visit that idea sometime in the future (especially after reading the book Jon made that started that whole thread of the project).

The potato will be missed.


It is very interesting how the project has grown though. Lots of big changes that have reshaped the project multiple times, all very interesting to watch play out.

[melos]

I think we've made enough progress that I could take a real attempt at a theme song for Even the Ocean. In my head it needs to encompass the narrative ups and downs, main themes, smaller themes. I'm planning on using some motifs i use a lot elsewhere to help guide the composition process, the way I'm writing this song is a lot weirder. It involved having to figure out the first 30 minutes of the game's music order, and then all the main music to some degree in other areas.  Then I outined some ideas into a document of how the song would progress, using other themes int he game as guidelines (abstract themes/musical ones.)

Er anyways, this song will be sort of long but it kind of has to be. it'll be exciting when it's done!

here's maybe how it starts
http://tindeck.com/listen/dlmd

---

And yeah, thanks Kiri. It would be neat to do something similar to Even later. Probaly would be AFTER we do other things after Even the Ocean, though!

And yeah I think this is the project's FINAL FORM...probably. Well, likely. esp. with the music/art stuff that's happening now, and design stuff, it's slowly getting to a point where making many changes is probably not possible to do in a decent way.

[kittakaj]

I think Even will make more sense to explore in smaller vignette games, similar to the chapters of the book. The general idea behind Even was for me to reflect on various narratives and types of narrative that I grew up around, which probably form some deep part of the way I interpret the structure of my life. I'd been nervous or unsure for a while, actually, about the idea of making Even a "real" character with a long-ish/continuous story and world of her own, didn't seem to quite fit. So this is a relief, but it's nice to know that Even/potato will be missed!

Had a weird week where I helped with a big move and made some beds and a side project game. Will be releasing it later on itch.io probably, but you can get a sneak peek here:

http://kittakaj.github.io/

Back to the writing board soon. It was nice to take a little break to finish a thing, since EtO is so long.

[melos]

Hi all, just got back from a short family trip to springfield for the illinois state fair. well most of the trip was seeing our grandparents in semi-rural midwestern town bloomington,il, but we did see farm animals etc.
 

i just got back, still working on that long theme . I also have a short game idea i might make..thinking about player-created goals while avoiding tropes about consumption...hmm.

[dukope]

Cutting it out [...]. A good lesson is just minimize, minimize, minimize, cut back. seems to wokr well for design overall but also i've noticed it helps a lot in music too. probably art in general, hm.

Cutting stuff is the best tool for figuring out what defines the game and what makes it good. The more you cut, the sharper that definition becomes. I love cutting stuff. My past self was an idiot anyways - he wasted countless hours on the stupidest stuff. I have no reservations about throwing his work in the trash and making it easier for me and my bud, future self.

[melos]

Lucas Life Lessons!

That's a good point. I'm not that good at it yet but I think I've been getting better over the course of ETO with design and the like... Esp. with music (still getting there), throwing out even measures you just wrote can be helpful. I have this tendency with music to try to fit anything I write in, but usually that's not good...


---

I finished a draft of the ETO theme song. Here's the end of it. I need to go through it later and EQ some stuff to make it clearer and work on section transitions, but the meat of it is there!

https://soundcloud.com/seagaia/eto-theme-previewhmmm

[kittakaj]

I'm having a hard time thinking of how to name places, settlements, etc. It's like... weird. No matter what you do it tends to feel really obvious? Like if you try to avoid using structures/words from real human languages it feels really obvious that you're just making shit up like "DURGADORR" or something... it's just like... of course it's gonna sound weird and kind of silly because the whole point is that it's intentionally not based on real stuff which would sound normal.

But naming things in humany-language ways also really sticks out... and brings up all kinds of questions about why you'd name a certain area with a certain language inspiration... lots of baggage.

I guess I'll do the made-up ish one but also stick to a lot of just literally descriptive English words for place names (like "Nightmare Gully"). Similar problems with naming characters... made up names are easy to just sound silly... but names from real cultures are tricky also. Have to be careful with that.

edit: the other funny thing is that phonetic symbolism and whatever totally affects even made-up stuff... like I could probably pick apart DURGADORR and find that there are plenty of real-world roots and connections and relations that affect the "feel" of how it comes across.

[melos]

jon made a bit of main story dialogue today. i got the name entry working and saving for that working...and hooked that in and polished the title sequences a bit, too. fixed some sound effects...etc. it feels nice. soon, we will be able to play a horizontal slice of even the ocean from start to finish, albeit broken. but that will be nice. i remember when we were at that point with Anodyne somewhere in Q4 of 2012.

~memories~

this reminds me of an awkward photo we took at gdc with some other devs. i dont know why

[melos]

new vid ~

[melos]

I will respond to that question soon!


Jon typed up more main dialogue and gave some areas OFFICIAL NAMES! nice to have better names than "Shore" and "Canyon". etc.