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[Pizzamakesgames]

Oh no! We lost a devlog to itch!

I think itch's Devlog feature makes sense for them however I love that you an browse all devlogs at once on tigsource ....

Btw OP -- your fist post shows "RIP" which makes it look like the game's dead.. recommend you change to an exclamation mark instead.

Technically the game had a page on itch first.

Honestly, it just gets pretty draining to have to update so many things across the internet for a project you've been working on almost every day for multiple years. I just need a place to throw whatever's longer than Twitter's 160 characters and quickly get back to developing, that's what itch is offering.

Oh and that RIP tag is a joke. The game's called Skullz 'n Skeletonz.

[quantumpotato]

Oh no! We lost a devlog to itch!

I think itch's Devlog feature makes sense for them however I love that you an browse all devlogs at once on tigsource ....

Btw OP -- your fist post shows "RIP" which makes it look like the game's dead.. recommend you change to an exclamation mark instead.

Technically the game had a page on itch first.

Honestly, it just gets pretty draining to have to update so many things across the internet for a project you've been working on almost every day for multiple years. I just need a place to throw whatever's longer than Twitter's 160 characters and quickly get back to developing, that's what itch is offering.

Oh and that RIP tag is a joke. The game's called Skullz 'n Skeletonz.

Yeah I hear you on the multiple places.

And oh... right. Lol.

[Pizzamakesgames]

Okay, giving this little chaotic devlog one more chance at a striving existence, but for that to happen I need to know that there's demand. So, to make it simple, if you wanna see this thread continue, raise your hand!

If, on the other hand, you're fine with me posting the odd gif on twitter and just see to getting this game done and released, keep your peace.

[SolS]

*raises hand*

though if you still feel like posting here drains your motivation too much then I'd say let the thread RIP

[rj]

well im into this so

[Pizzamakesgames]

2 votes in favor, none in opposition. Motion to revoke decommission of the Skullz 'n Skeletonz devlog passed!

As a special unabandoning gift I brought a(nother) rather curious entry to this ever dog-earedly ledger. What'd you say we call this...

Devlog Entry #5.17.08.19

Things have been growing easier! Granted, I'm not quite over the hill in terms of keeping somewhat regular sessions of game development time, still mostly sprinkling some on top of everything I'm doing rather than cutting a juicy piece of a couple hours out of every odd day, but even in those short sprinkles of developing, I get stuff done unexpectantly smoothly.
Doesn't take much to realize that that's probably stemming from having done this thing regularly for the better part of the last 3 years, but it's still very refreshing to be able to get stuff done reliably. Now I just need to do that a little more regularly.

Here's a couple examples of stuff that went pretty smoothly the past few sessions:

A marketplace. version 1 and 2 were both results of somewhat unsatisfying sessions in October last year, version 3 was done in half an hour inbetween actual work at my actual job.



A spooky shadow. basically exactly the way it looked in my mind, had me satisfied first try on a serene Saturday morning.



And an Alley that I had some struggles with but was all the happier for the end result.



Despite my exuberant enthusiam you might notice that none of these pictures show snowy landscapes anymore, which were all scenes from the Prologue. We're now in Bedlam, Chapter 1 of the game. Development will eventually head back to the Prologue for a bit to tend to some branching paths that still need some creating, but before long we will also leave Bedlam behind us and push forward into developing Chapter 2.

Feels a bit like watching a child grow. It's so slow and steady that you just can't notice, but before you know it, you're dumbfounded that it's about to be entering second grade.

[Pizzamakesgames]

Devlog Entry #6.17.08.23

I've been reading a good book. And while I've been hoping to be able to draw some inspiration for settings and situations from it, what it taught me was much more profound. Writing.

So far, I wouldn't say the writing of Skullz 'n Skeletonz was particularly bad, though it missed variety. Every character, including yourself, was talking in a slightly witty, causal way. That still works for every character but yourself, and I won't change any of that, but for the player character's inner monologues, I felt I could do better. Thus, I've rewritten just that for one of the first scenes in the game to showcase what I'm talking about.

old:



new:



Apart from an elaborate description simply being more interesting than getting a response as "Snow...?" while looking at snow, I hope this way of phrasing how you're taking in the world around you would give a nice contrast to the otherwise witty responses you'd get from talking to other characters.

As a little piece of special information: I'm avoiding the use of "I" or "You", to neither give the definite impression of the responses being the player character's inner monologue (I feel cold.), nor an omnipresent narrator (You feel cold.), but rather just say, it is cold.

[RadicalBradical]

Devlog Entry #6.23.08.19

I've been reading a good book. And while I've been hoping to be able to draw some inspiration for settings and situations from it, what it taught me was much more profound. Writing.

So far, I wouldn't say the writing of Skullz 'n Skeletonz was particularly bad, though it missed variety. Every character, including yourself, was talking in a slightly witty, causal way. That still works for every character but yourself, and I won't change any of that, but for the player character's inner monologues, I felt I could do better. Thus, I've rewritten just that for one of the first scenes in the game to showcase what I'm talking about.

old:



new:



Apart from an elaborate description simply being more interesting than getting a response as "Snow...?" while looking at snow, I hope this way of phrasing the responses of taking in the world around you would give a nice contrast to the otherwise witty responses you'd get from talking other characters. As a little piece of special information: I'm avoiding the use of "I" or "You", to neither give the definite impression of the responses being Joseph's inner monologue (A quite ordinary sensation. If I'd be walking, that is.), nor an omnipresent narrator (A quite ordinary sensation. If you'd be walking, that it.), cause I feel like neither is favorable.

Sorry about stray pixels. Screen To Gif tends to do that and I'm too lazy to clean it up.

Huge improvement! The changes you've made definitely help improve the game's narrative! 

[Pizzamakesgames]

Just yesterday, a young unthoughful Pizza was all happy to have been more than clever with his ambiguous phrasing of his inner monologues. Not using the words "I" or "You" would leave the player wondering if it was the player character or some omnipresent narrator behind the descriptions of your surroundings.

Inadvertantly, that'd also mean that the player character would seem like an unbearingly pretentious prick, thinking in phrases like:



So, I think It'd be wiser to go the "You" route, and make clear that these descriptions of your surroundings be actually narrated by some omnipotent presence, lest the player start to despise their very own personification in this world. Leaving us with the following:



Sad, really. I liked to be clever with this great idea of ambiguousness and all, but I figure this choice will do our player character better service, don't you think?

[quantumpotato]

I think you can benefit from using more active voice

"You see the path below you shaped by countless sets of footprints, forming a broad swath lined by heaps of snow on each side."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-prime

[Pizzamakesgames]

I think you can benefit from using more active voice

"You see the path below you shaped by countless sets of footprints, forming a broad swath lined by heaps of snow on each side."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-prime

Ah, thanks for the suggestion, but I gotta disagree!

Not only would I be wasting the player's time by saying "you" twice in short succession, but I would also start almost every response to looking at or listening for a thing with "You", as well as "see" or "hear" or "feel", effectively introducing a lot of repetition to these responses and giving the player incentive to start skipping over the first words of every response he gets. I think starting each response with a synonym of his previous selection does a better job at keeping the player interested.

What's more, while "the path below you" makes it clear that the "you" is directed at the player character, as there's no path below the feet of the person sitting in front of the computer, "You see" might either refer to the player character or the person sitting in front of the computer, as the player is gonna be seeing and hearing the same things as the player character. I don't quite know why this would even be bothering me. Probably because I'd like to be clear about something if I chose to make mention of it, as well as being reluctant to mentioning anything outside the game at all.

[Pizzamakesgames]

Special happy update time!

Today is a wonderous day, as I have managed to squash the final bug of this game. I'm not talking about your regular day to day bugs here, but vile beasts that have been gnawing at my mind for the past years.

Many of these I have slain in the past, like the one that made the game not have any sound sometimes, but this last one had managed to elude me, being responsible for a lot of unsuspected text mishaps over the course of the last year.

After ignoring it for the most part, having been unable to find any solution to the problems it was causing, it showed itself again very recently with only the faintest of signs. Faint as a distant cackle in the dark of the night.



This time I wasn't gonna stop. I would rally every ally I had, use all the tools at my disposal and rewrite our entire dimension if I had to.
In the end, all I had to do was teach my game how to read and do my own wordwrapping.



That's it, then. All the bugs are dead. Now it's time to have fun!

[quantumpotato]

Nice dimension rewiring 
I just found a couple bugs in my game and turned them into features 

Ok, how about this.. as a better example of active voice, with what you're looking at being the doer instead of repetitive "you see":

"Shaped by countless sets of footprints, the path below you forms a broad swath, lined by heaps of snow on each side."

[Pizzamakesgames]

Nice dimension rewiring 
I just found a couple bugs in my game and turned them into features 

Ok, how about this.. as a better example of active voice, with what you're looking at being the doer instead of repetitive "you see":

"Shaped by countless sets of footprints, the path below you forms a broad swath, lined by heaps of snow on each side."

Ah, that's good! Now what if we ditch the "you" to keep our ambiguousness and end up with: "Shaped by countless sets of footprints, the path below forms a broad swath, lined by heaps of snow on each side."

Likewise, it could be: "Covered by tight sheets of snow, thick layers of ice conceal any trace of the ground below."
Though here I'd like to keep the emphasis on the snow, so in aid of that, I'd probably stick with the former version, but switching around the sentence structure like that is a nice way to get some variety if I ever catch too many sentences starting with "The noun", thanks!

[jctwood]

I want to have this pulsating pixel vision.

[Pizzamakesgames]

Devlog Entry #7.17.10.12

Hello! It's been over a month since the last update to this development log, but fret not! This time, it was for all the good reasons.

In the meantime, I developed another little game over the course of a month for AGBIC 2017, called Saturdays.



And as it turns out, taking a month off from this project to develop a jam game using the engine of Skullz 'n Skeletonz in it's current state was a really good move!

See, I was basically stacking stuff on top of eachother over the course of years now, while taking exactly one short break to wade through and refine what I had coughed up, approximately one year ago.
I kept working with what I had made and, unknowingly, got slower and less unfettered in my development as I simply had so much to consider whenever I wrote any new line of code.
Now, when I decided to cut that big throbbing lump of code out of this project and fashion another shorter game out of it, with a very tight deadline for what I had in mind, I had to take this very dull metaphorical knife and cut up my convoluted mess of an engine while applying features I had never planned to implement at the same time, while also not allowing myself to stop and think during all of it, basically.
What I saw when I looked back up from my frantic work on Saturdays over the course of 30 days was a terrible abomination that did run, fortunately, but was about to explode at a moment's notice and impossible to comprehend.

That's when I knew I had to get in there, take my time, turn on my brain and make this a fun engine to work with for myself. Only that now it didn't seem as gruesome a task anymore as it had just a month ago. Turns out, while I had to make this sorry mess do what I want as quickly as possible without having it explode at the other end, I slowly got a perfect sense of it's very basic but horribly entangled structure.
So now, here I am, joyfully hacking away at that giant pulsating knot in the middle of this project, laying it out neatly in front of me and making sure that future Pizza is going to have a fun time working with and expanding it to his wishes.
Meanwhile I'm running into game-breaking bugs that I then remember to have already encountered and subsequently fixed during the development of Saturdays, making fixing those bugs as easy as copy-pasting a line of code, and this whole presumably tedious job an actually really pleasant experience.

On a more ominous note , right before I took that month off to work on Saturdays, I concluded the development of Skullz 'n Skeletonz for the time being with a voice note and a text note. When returning to Skullz 'n Skeletonz, I loaded up the project as it currently was, got to the title screen, thought a bit, tried some things and recorded a voice note with my current thoughts on the project's situation. That voice note ended up being almost exactly the same as the one I recorded, and forgot about, when I was last working on the game. Nice to know that my work on this thing isn't pure random chance and seems to follow a very specific structure that even I can't make out.

Oh and that text note was the following: "I think what's keeping me from solid progress is the lack of a structured engine."

XOXO, Pizza

[Pizzamakesgames]

Devlog Entry #8.17.10.13

Development of Skullz 'n Skeletonz seems to be back in full flow as we're up to a post per day ratio of 1 for the time being.

The boring coding news in short: I'm probably gonna end up integrating the entirety of textbox, effectively the core of my engine, into the state superclass itself, which will be a big change for the structure of the code once more, but this time around at virtually no cost. What this will do is just bring me one step closer to having an easily applicable own little engine contained in a single file as well as a much easier time progressing the development of Skullz 'n Skeletonz.

Apart from that, I'm also gonna create a couple more little superclasses for character and background sprites, which brings me to what I'm here for - since I'm preparing these little superclasses that are going to be responsible for anything any object of a specific type should be able to do, I'm now able to easily experiment with all different kinds of global things that will automatically apply themselves to all objects of that specific type throughout the entire project.

I forgot who it was and couldn't find the post, but somebody suggested easing the animations of the backgrounds a little because up until now they were just linear pingpong animations, making for some ugly jumps in the animation when reaching the last frame on either side and returning back from it. At the time I said that I had so much to worry about that I just didn't have any room to also tend to tiny little details like that, but now I've learned to love the bomb, so of course I have time for that! Here are the results of my experiments with different types of eases:

linear (the way it was):


quad & sine:


smoothstep & smootherstep:


Now there might not be much of a difference to any of these except for all of them VS linear, because these tweens use floating point numbers which I'm rounding to integers, losing most of their easing in the process but also keeping with the chunky retro feel I'm so attached to. Probably gonna go with sine I guess? Either way, I'm super happy to have gotten rid of that ugly jump in the animation upon it reversing at the end of the cycle.

One step closer to perfection, yay!

[Pizzamakesgames]

Hiya!

Since I wanna get somewhere with this thing already and while these elaborate posts about tiny details in the grand scheme of things are nice in a way, I feel like they're not exactly helping improve the slow slow pace I've been keeping, so let's try something a tiny little bit different.

Here's my checklist of things to do:
- Revamp the engine
- Sort all notes
- Clean up assets

I've been meaning to do all that for a while now, and I would be better off doing it all before progressing the game proper, so I'm hoping that by keeping that short list here instead of burried somewhere in my mind I will be incited to just get it over with and progress the actual game already.

Yeah, let's hear it for vigor!

[quantumpotato]

Re: language: you're welcome!

Re: engine stuff: Good work on refactoring.

What is this about "text box and state superclass"? Are you coupling model with view?

[andyfromiowa]

This looks awesome. Bonus points for using the dead project icon.