Hey Folks!
Been a good while since I posted in here, and for good reason!
When I shipped this project back in 2017, I was absolutely sick to the back teeth of the project and didn't want anything to do with it (Understandably after 5-6 years on and off developing it).
Two years on, a recent deal with a web portal has bought be me back to the project. I was apprehensive to opening the source files, both for compatibility issues but also on how janky my workflow would be compared to now.
In retrospect and two years of building games, here's my findings;
- I was insane to try and localise: Whilst it was a useful experience going through the localisation process, trying to do it for Narcissus took a huge chunk of time and I have no metrics for how many people actually changed the language. Based on the extremely low number of people that disabled ads (which was hidden in the same settings window), my inkling is a low number.
Icons would have been much easier, but I insisted on ignoring conventions for artistic integrity. Admittedly, there are old examples of the icon designs in the project (and they all look garbage) so for the time text may well have been the better option.
- Profoundly sloppy workflow: My work used to be such a mess (Even compared to now!) naming conventions for many objects were copy of copy of copy of copy of actor, long abandoned assets were still kept in the project. With a couple of days tinkering, I've managed to shave nearly half of the number of actors out of the game, the level select being the most significant (reducing it from 53 actors to 4).
- Device Orientation: Despite the consensus that most people would play portrait, I insisted on building landscape orientation. This took an eternity to get right (and made much harder by positioning based on the different languages). This was a useful learning exercise but I haven't since bothered including this functionality in any of my later games.
What do I have to do now?
- Game breaking bug on the main menu: Flash and HTML5 keep crashing and I haven't managed to pin down the specific reason yet, hopefully something I'll fix today.
+ Delay on unpausing: Like with Break N Take, having a 3-2-1 delay once you've unpaused the game to let you get your bearings.
+ Get the game controllable with keyboard inputs
- Change the way buttons are placed on the screen horizontally (fixed figures rather than proportional to the width of the device)
- Potentially try crunch the soundtrack down to a smaller size
+ Endings of levels are currently inconsistent (And show behind the scenes, needs fixing)
- Experiment with snazzier particles: When Narcissus was launched, I had a limited knowledge of particles, so maybe adding a tasty fluttering effect or increasing the number of particles to make the trail nicer
- Transition between levels involves a grey flash as the overlay initialises, fix that
+ Focus lost, game pauses
- See if I can get it to scale to various device scales
+ Build alternate UI functions for mobile and update with ads
- Re-position pause button (because having it in the middle of the screen is stupid)
+ Add popup text for language indicator
Stay tuned for more updates soon!
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