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[smokesomefrogs]

Just a small update: I made a new video! And I'm part of the Steam Next Fest where people can play the demos of my games.
Have a nice one!






Progress

Wishlist Count: 256
Main Script LoC: 3337
Graphics: 83
Audio Files: 0
Day: 144th

[smokesomefrogs]

I released a new teaser trailer!

[smokesomefrogs]

Since the last real post quite a bit happened! I created a new enemy for example!



I did a bit of marketing yesterday, since the new teaser was a good reason to do it. I saw it helped but not as much as I hoped (14 wishlists over night). Marketing can be really grindy but that's just how it is.

Today, I did something completely new for me (which is weird because I do marketing for games for quite some time now) a press release on gamespress and it resulted in an article! https://thenerdstash.com/retro-dungeon-crawler-sonucido-the-mage-announced/

That greatly helped with motivation The press release could have been better and next time it certainly will be!

Edit: Forgot to mention that I switched from Godot 3.2.3 to Godot 3.3!

Progress

Wishlist Count: 281
Main Script LoC: 3443
Graphics: 87
Audio Files: 0
Day: 154th

[ThemsAllTook]

Nice! I watched the new trailer, and the one thing that stands out most to me is the main attack animation. I feel like there's a lot of room for juicing it so that it feels at least a little bit more impactful. When fighting the second enemy shown, the potion that gets thrown feels great with the impact animation and screen shake. By comparison, the axe barely moves at all - like, imagining if I were holding it in front of me, the way it swings right now would be the result of tilting my wrist slightly while holding my arm and the rest of my body completely still.

I'm imagining some kind of backswing and a much wider arc of movement, maybe with a little bit of motion smear, and at least some kind of visual response from the creature being struck by it other than numbers appearing - like, say, maybe a little bit of knockback on the Z axis? Lots of different things that could be done.

Everything else looks pretty good to me!

[JobLeonard]

I don't think it's the kind of game I'd play myself but it looks really good! The mixture of minimum pixel graphics with lighting works really well somehow, and imagine people who like dungeon crawlers will love this

[smokesomefrogs]

@ThemsAllTook Thank you for your feedback! I still think about juicing the combat more since it's something that most people point out. I don't know how I will adjust it at the moment - I want to tackle it a bit later (since I need to prepare for the Steam Next Fest thing a lot) but it's the weakest part of the graphics for sure.

@JobLeonard Thanks!

[smokesomefrogs]

Hey!

The press release resulted in a couple of articles which made me happy! I never did a normal press release before (I did a lot of other press outreach but never a classic press release) and it worked out better than I thought.

https://linuxgameconsortium.com/sonucido-the-mage-a-turn-based-dungeon-crawler/
https://linuxgamenews.com/post/650467352432066560/sonucido-the-mage-grid-based-crawler-coming-to-linux
https://rpgamer.com/2021/05/dungeon-crawler-sonucido-the-mage-announced/
https://thenerdstash.com/retro-dungeon-crawler-sonucido-the-mage-announced/
https://www.gamequarter.be/nieuws/sonucido-the-mage-deelt-een-nieuwe-teaser

+ a couple of reposts of the press release like
https://roleplayinggameonline.com/daniel-da-silva-reveals-his-classic-turn-based-dungeon-crawler-rpg-sonucido-the-mage/
https://glitchedrevie.ws/2021/05/04/daniel-da-silva-reveals-his-classic-turn-based-dungeon-crawler-rpg-sonucido-the-mage/
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/380826/Daniel_da_Silva_reveals_his_classic_turnbased_Dungeon_Crawler_RPG_Sonucido_The_Mage.php

At the moment, I'm still preparing the Demo for the Steam Next Fest!

Progress

Wishlist Count: 305
Main Script LoC: 3443
Graphics: 90
Audio Files: 0
Day: 161st

[JobLeonard]

Nice! Also, the linux game one is cool - I suspect these types of dungeon crawlers might be relatively popular among the Linux gamers so let's hope that helps out later!

[smokesomefrogs]

I don't know whether they are more inclined or not but since I do most of the work already on Linux it's not a big problem to support it! Thanks!

[smokesomefrogs]

THE FIRST SOUNDS ARE IMPLEMENTED!

This is a big step for me and I increased the progress number to 30%! The Steam Next Fest is near and I shouldn't upload a demo without sounds. I thought it would be harder and avoided it but it is actually quite refreshing and makes the game a lot better!
There are now 12 sounds in the game which doesn't sound (no pun intended) like a whole lot but makes a big difference.
Btw: 7 of these 12 sounds are recorded by me and I want to have a large amount of sounds made by myself in the end to give the game a unique feel.

Progress

Wishlist Count: 309
Main Script LoC: 3459
Graphics: 89
Audio Files: 12
Day: 166th

[ThemsAllTook]

Nice! Sounds are a HUGE DEAL for game feel. It's so easy to underestimate how much effect they can have. I know how intimidating it can be to start with a completely blank audio canvas and figure out how to start filling it out, but I've always found every step of the way to be really fulfilling.

I'm still getting the kinks worked out of my own audio production pipeline, and I'd be curious to hear details of how you approached creating the effects for your game.

[smokesomefrogs]

Thanks! Tbh, there's nothing special about my sound recording haha - just a mic, an audio interface, audacity, my mouth and whatever lies around in the room. I do have some experience and gear since I was an active creepypasta narrator for a couple of years. A few sounds are also old ones I recorded years ago.

[Alain]

I think it is amazing when people record their own sound effects and I'm looking forward to hear more of yours!

[smokesomefrogs]

@Alain Thank you!

--
I had a major achievement in the last couple of days! There is now a soundtrack / an ambience in the game which accompanies the player on his journey.

A friend of mine tested the game and really liked most of the additions. I'll ask a couple more people to test the demo to get some feedback. I really want the demo to make a good and polished impression when the Steam Next Fest is officially online.

I also started to work on the in-game manual and made a pixelated controller which I really like!




Progress

Wishlist Count: 310
Main Script LoC: 3608
Graphics: 91
Audio Files: 13
Day: 169th

[smokesomefrogs]

The level up system is implemented! This is mainly the reason why the LoC of the main script has jumped significantly from the last post. Now, almost all important systems are implemented. The only thing still missing is the save system but I can postpone that a little bit since the demo is priority number one and it doesn't need a save system.

There are a few sounds still missing from the demo and some could be better. But an okayish sound is still better than a missing one, eh? The plan is simple: Get the demo done and then polish, polish, polish!

Progress

Wishlist Count: 317
Main Script LoC: 3867
Graphics: 92
Audio Files: 15
Day: 174th Day

[smokesomefrogs]

After staying in the 3000+ range of Main Script LoC for a long time, today I broke through that and am now at 4015 lines.
Because I hate myself translations are hardcoded and this will likely budge us over the 5000 mark relatively soon for the main/playerscript (although there isn't that much text in the main script, mostly menus and stats)-
After implementing the level up system, I implemented an option to increase and decrease the volume of sounds and music.



It's still not perfect (mute isn't -80 db) but sufficient for now. Getting to 95% is enough to increase the polish-o-meter for the demo.

Progress

Wishlist Count: 323
Main Script LoC: 4015
Graphics: 92
Audio Files: 15
Day: 175th

[smokesomefrogs]

Tomorrow is the 180th day I'm working on the game!
The focus remains on the demo. The death screen is implemented now but I still need to polish death!

The English version should be done tomorrow and I'll update the demo with all the localizations somewhen next week.

To do:

- End of Demo screen/message
- Additions/Replacements of a couple of sounds
- Adding Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, German
- Polishing, Polishing, Polishing

Progress

Wishlist Count: 329
Main Script LoC: 4012
Graphics: 93
Sounds: 15
Day: 179th

[JobLeonard]

Congrats on the half-turn (if measured in degrees)

[smokesomefrogs]

Thanks a lot! Today is the 180th day, half a year working on this game haha

[miroz]

Hey, nice to see another turn-based, grid-based rpg. Never enough of these. I'll follow.
I re-read your devlog, I like how you track the progress with LOC and gfx counts. I might steal the idea