DEVLOG 004
Okay, let's talk a little bit about schedules (exciting huh).
I've mentioned previously that crowdfunding is something I've been considering, and I've finally reached the decision that it's the right way to go for Mable. There are several reasons for this:
- I work on games in my spare time and I don't have a lot of spare time. What I do have a lot of is game ideas that I want to play around with. Crowdfunding is a good way to find out if there are enough people out there interested enough in this game to keep working on.
- One of the reasons I don't have a lot of spare time is family, the tiniest member of which is just about ready for her own bedroom. That means I no longer have an office, so crowdfunding would also give me the money I need to invest in portable gamemaking equipment (a laptop).
- There's always the (pretty small I think with this kind of game) chance that the campaign will really capture people's attention and provide me with a living wage while I work on the game (with enough in reserve to follow it up with a few failures too). I know it's more likely to fail but it's nice to dream
- Above mentioned failure isn't a bad thing. I'll be ready to move on and can probably get by with a crappy laptop for making my prototypes and jam games on.
- It forces me to have a deadline, which I need with this game, and really focus on what is essential and what will make the game move forward.
- There are probably lots more reasons that I can't think of right now.
So, with all of that in mind I am aiming for a kickstarter campaign launch date of the
22nd February 2016.That gives me
9 weeks to get this thing ready for public consumption. How the hell am I going to do that!? Well, here's the schedule (these are the latest I hope to have these done by, so some things I'll aim to do earlier):
Week 1- Sort out player health/damage system
- Improve visiblity of sword (when dropped) and magic use
- Finish off the design of website
- Arrange for production of sound and music
- Formalise level design process
- Recode enemy behaviour
Week 2- Art for caves area
- New levels design 1st pass
- Reorganise folders in GameMaker
- Diamond bar in top right for levelling up
- Enemies drop diamonds, hearts or nothing
- Collecting diamonds fills up diamond bar
- New water
Week 3- Art for foggy swamp area
- Press list/youtube list preparation
- Art for castle entrance
Week 4- Art for mountainous (vertical) level
- Fix the bottom of the wood background
- Set up presskit() on website
- Prepare a press email
Week 5- Final level design and create levels
- Playtesting!
- Look into getting a trailer/video made
- Plan Kickstarter rewards (how the ffffff do I do that!?)
Week 6- Prepare screenshots etc for Kickstarter/press
- Contact press
- Plan out ideas for Kickstarter updates
- Prepare art for Kickstarter
Week 7- Register as a business
- Design and draw some promo art (what do I need?)
- Work out budget/goal and what will be stretch goals or just part of the pitch
- Start creating Kickstarter page
Week 8 - this is now 'nice to have' stuff if everything else slips
- Ensure all of the sound is updated
- Ensure menu system is working properly
- Update effects for sword landing (also Mable landing?)
- Thunder storms
- Level decoration pieces to add variety to levels in same area
Week 9- Redo art/animation for the enemies that are staying in the demo
- Proper Mable death animation
- Some kind of cloud when changing form
- Art for abandoned mines area
- Art for falling through the sky level
- A boss reveal animation
So, as you can see there's quite a lot to do and I'm not likely to get it all done. My plan is to update here weekly with what the tasks were for the week just gone and how I got on with them, then look at the week ahead and how that fares against the schedule.
If anyone has any advice, I'll take it!
Week 1: The Plan
So, let's have a closer look at what I'll be doing for the week ahead. I'm only in work 2 days, will be having 3 days of solid family time leaving me with 2 evenings and 2 full work days to get this lot done (I'm sure I won't actually get that much time, it's Christmas! All of a sudden I'm
not wanting Fallout 4 for Christmas...)
Sort out player health/damage systemCurrently Mable dies with one hit, yet she has a health bar. The plan is to make it so you can take several hits before dying. Not only is this more forgiving, it actually allows for more interesting gameplay because you have a gradient of success and a gradient of tension. For example, passing a challenge without losing health feels better than taking a hit. Facing a challenge with only a sliver of health left feels much more tense than that same challenge with full health. Could take a post to go deeper into how this helps with level design but you'd all be more bored than you already are
Improve visiblity of sword (when dropped) and magic useThis is still unclear. It's just something that's been bugging me for a while that I've not really sat down to fix. It's going to be pretty quick to fix but I want to get it in early so I can get feedback and tamper with it.
Finish off the design of websiteI've made a start on this. I've got an old site that has not been updated in a long time, generally because it's really faffy to update and I don't like the design. This is probably a couple of hours work just to get finished off.
Arrange for production of sound and musicI'm happy with some of the sounds, but I really need someone to take this off my hands now. It's something I've been thinking about for a while and just put off making a decision on, but I want it to sound as good as it can come the Kickstarter. I know who I want to do this, but I want to make sure they are available to do it in the timescale I've got here and then I'll let you know.
Formalise level design processThis is just for myself really. I want to have a checklist to make sure that I haven't missed out on any of the considerations when I'm designing the levels. It's not very exciting, but I want a living document that I can add to and look at older level designs against too to make sure they fit in with what I'm trying to achieve.
Recode enemy behaviourThis is so that I have more control over their placement and movement in the game. Currently all of the enemies have a very heavy reliance on the random number generator, meaning that it's difficult to code in a specific situation such as a patrolling enemy stepping on a button to make a barrier open and close intermittently, for example. Or enemies arranging themselves helpfully in a line so you can slice through them all at once and feel awesome.
And that's it for week 1. I'll be back in 7 days to give you some excuse as to why that's not all been done! I'll make sure there's some pictures for you
Until then, then.