Soooooooooooooooooooo I'm doing something a little different this week. I tried my hand at recording a relatively short podcast. As I have probably mentioned in previous blog entries, there is a vast spectrum of things I want to do. I would list them all but it would be quicker for me to simply say I just want to create things.
Having finished DIMB (for the most part) I had some time to think about what I wanted to do next. I definitely want to make another game as my "main" project. But considering DIMB took me something like two years to finish, I'd like to have some intermediate medium that I can contribute to on a more regular basis. Podcasting seemed like a good place to start. I didn't want to kid myself and say I'd be able to write out, film and edit a video every week, because I won't. Podcasting on the other hand doesn't require as much of a commitment. That isn't to say it's easy, or can be done in a trivial way. Podcasting has challenges of its own and still requires a commitment if you're going to do it regularly. So I want to try and do a podcast once a week. Topics are planned to range between game development, gaming news, the industry, and game reviews/discussion. For this weeks test podcast, I talked a bit about developing DIMB, the game To The Moon and a bit about the Nintendo Switch. Listen to Game Ramble #1 here: https://soundcloud.com/danny-colclough-253740304/game-ramble-podcast-1-29012017
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Written text cannot begin to describe the enormity of my failure to keep this website updated. With changing jobs, companies and priorities, it tends to happen. BUT! I have an update, and I want to talk about it.
Back in April I finished the bulk of the gameplay of DIMB. The challenge levels themselves plus the Boss fight plus the in between break rooms were all done. All that was left to do was the intro to the game and the ending. Both took longer to write and confirm than I would have liked. But it turned out that finding time to implement them properly would be an even bigger challenge. Once I moved from the UK to Spain in June, my time became even more scant. The first two months at the new job I was assisting production of a large mobile game. After the first two months, I started leading production of this large mobile game. I had no life. No time. No energy. I had nothing, as everything I had was being put into my job and this massive mobile game. Eventually, after a particularly dreadful bout of flu, I decided to resign with a heavy heart. Whilst I love the team I worked with, and love the game they will eventually ship, the working situation simply wasn't for me. In October I started a new job, which is the one I am currently at. I'm still in Spain, and whilst this new position isn't as high pressure as the previous one, it does come with it's own set of difficulties. However, it has afforded me the time to finally finish DIMB. In truth, there were only a handful of minor issues to fix and things to implement for me to actually call the game complete. This handful of things to do took two days of full time work to resolve. And that's it, the game is done (in my eyes). There are some remaining problems which I will list below, but the game itself can be played from start to finish with no major issues.
At some point you have to call it a day on whatever it is you're working on. Waiting for it to be perfect will cost you more than releasing it with some flaws. And for perfectionists, releasing it when it is perfect is a day that will never come. I know the shortcomings of this game. But it doesn't matter to me. This is a game I designed, programmed and released. This is the starting point for the next game, and the game after that, and the game after that. DIMB isn't a game that will set the world on fire. It was never meant to be that. It was a test for myself. "Can I start making a game, and finish it for once?" Many people start making games, but very, very few ever finish them. I didn't want to keep on being one of those people. I have finished making a game, and it's available to play now at GameJolt! The most important thing for me is that now, if I'm ever at some lacklustre gaming event, and I have a tag around my neck that says "Danny Colclough, Game Designer" and someone asks the question "So what have you made?" I finally have an answer. Hey remember that time I used to update this blog once a week? Good times.
Yes I am still working on DIMB. No, I haven't worked on it a lot lately. This is because in June I got myself a job. It's a producer gig for a large mobile games company, working on pretty awesome games. However, it did mean I had to move abroad which complicated matters slightly, but I'd wanted to travel more, so this seemed like a good compromise. Adjusting to the more sunny climate has been one of the more pleasant challenges that have come with the job. The reason I've slowed to a crawl on DIMB development is because I started at the new job just as the studio was going into crunch mode on this latest project. So I've been working crazy hours trying to not only get up to speed with the project, but to also make sure it is finished on time. All that said, I haven't stopped work on DIMB completely. It seems a shame to abandon it when it's so close to the finish line. For the past 2 weeks or so I have been focusing on the ending. Although I had a rough idea of what the ending would be like, I never actually sat down to flesh out all of the details. That was job number one. It took longer than I wanted, but I got the dialogue and final moments all confirmed and written up about a week ago. This week I have started implementation. In these final moments of development on the game I have grown to really hate the way I coded everything. It is so messy. One change reverberates throughout the entire code base and leads to bugs in the most obscure of places. So implementation has been slow going as I try to figure out where I can make the changes and additions without breaking the rest of the game. And one final problem has come about due to my own laziness. After spending a few weeks away from the game, it's amazing how much you forget about how you made it. So every time I've tried to implement something new, I've had to spend double the time just trying to remember how to do it. But, progress marches on. The ending is about halfway implemented, and implementation should speed up as I refamiliarise myself with the game. Hopefully, the ending will be done and implemented before the end of the month! And then the game will be finished. As in, truly finished. Ok, so this post is definitely, definitely late. It was due. As in, me being late writing a post was due, not the post itself. I mean, it was, but- nevermind.
So it's been two weeks since my last update, and I've only barely sort of done some work. Real life, as ever, has come to the forefront and taken up the majority of my time and mental energy. But that isn't an OK excuse, and never is. A number of small updates have been made to the game, mostly visually, but it's all moving in the right direction. The risk at this stage of development is getting stuck doing these kinds of small updates for too long instead of focusing on bigger, more important tasks. The two biggest tasks still remain - implement the new intro, and implement the ending. Progress has sort of been made on both these fronts. The new intro has been sketched out on paper, so I know exactly what needs to go where and at what point. In all honesty, this is probably what I should have done first, rather than write everything out. But I show no signs of learning my lesson as I spent a good chunk of the past weekend writing out the ending, which I was basically happy with. Funnily enough I actually felt weird writing the ending. As I've said many times before, this game is not going to be some epic masterpiece meant to capture the hearts of millions. It's a HTML5 mini-game that could probably be finished in a half hour. That said, writing out what the final bits of dialogue and actions would be, I felt a sense of closure and satisfaction I didn't expect. God help me if I ever write something that has actual emotional weight. A number of small art updates were also made, including the very specific addition of closed doors at the top of each level. In the game, as you moved from one level to another, you exited through a door. But when arrived at the new level, there was no door in sight. I felt that showing the door you just walked through would help make the game feel a bit more connected. Another small change that I made was making it easier to exit a level after completing it. It's a small change that makes a big difference. On the PC, where I make and test the game, it's easy exiting a level as I have the precision of a mouse cursor to click the exact point I need to. But once I start testing on a mobile device, I am reliant on a fat finger, which is less accurate. And at that point it becomes more difficult to exit the level. Making the exit area slightly larger helps resolve this crucial problem, and makes the game as a whole feel smoother. My end of April deadline for finishing all code looks like it may be missed at this point. I'm disappointed in myself for letting it happen, but as long as I keep pushing forward, I think I'll get over it. I can't tell if this weekly post is late, or if it's within the week I was meant to post and I'm just doing it later than usual. It's probably late. Either way, here it is.
So I've been back in the UK for almost two weeks now and have been busier than expected with completely non-dev related stuff. My new goal/objective is to be done with coding completely by the end of April. With just about three weeks left in the month, that makes for a pretty tight deadline taking into account all of my other responsibilities. But I cannot allow development to continue spiralling on, especially considering this game is not intended for sale or to make money at all. The biggest thing accomplished this week was two fold - the new introduction and tutorial was written and finalised (but not fully implemented), and new end game graphics were provided and added. So the end game no longer looks like it was design by some flipper handed child with a broken crayon. The introduction and tutorial proved to be a bigger challenge for me than expected.Trying to get across the basic story, objective, controls and structure in a quick, straightforward manner can be difficult. Making sure the intro isn't too long that people lose interest is the top priority. Teaching the player the controls and the objects, is the second priority. I managed to come up with an intro that I was happy with on paper, and started implementing it. Hopefully I'll be done with it soon so that I know whether or not it works in-game. Next was all the new art and animations for the end-game sections. Chris, despite now being situated on the other side of the planet, has still been plugging away with new backgrounds and sprites. And all of the new art has been awesome, even with me not being helpful and giving very little idea of what I thought would be needed. So, over the next week I hope to get the rest of the intro implemented into the game, and after that will be the ending. The ending still needs to be written, but the finish line is in sight. Almost. This post is a day late, but considering I spent all of Sunday travelling, dealing with turbulence and ultimately throwing up, I'd say it's understandable.
After 27-ish days in the Philippines I am back in the UK, and I'm eager to get back into the swing of things. That said I didn't exactly slouch whilst on holiday, as I managed to finish the final levels of DIMB! As I mentioned in my last post, I was close to reaching my goal of finishing all of the levels that would be in the game. A few days later, it was done. After many, many play through's and bug fixes, I was happy with the final boss challenge. It's by no means incredible, but I think it is a suitable challenge within the context of the rest of the game. With the game ostensibly complete, I turned my attention to the connecting elements: the intro and tutorial sequence, the intermission rooms, and the ending. The intro I already had in place was made months ago, and was only ever meant to be a temporary solution. So I started going about completely removing it and replacing it with one that would be more streamlined, better written and more interactive. After ripping out the old intro, I started writing the new one, but I quickly fell into a malaise. Something about reaching my goal of finishing all of the levels left me without motivation to move onto the next big tasks. The same thing used to happen to me at university. After finishing a big piece of coursework that had undoubtedly shortened my life expectancy, I always fell into a slump. My brain turned off and my body craved anything deep fried. So I allowed myself to do nothing for the last few days in the Philippines. But now that I'm back, I have no excuses not to do any work. Or not to exercise. Or to eat healthily. Basically, now that I'm not on holiday, I intend to get my shit together. Before I left for the Philippines at the start of March, I had set myself one goal: finish coding all of the main levels. That didn't include additional things like menu's, dialogue, story bits or any kind of polish. Just the actual levels that make up the challenging part of the game.
With nine days left until I fly back out, I am fairly comfortable that I am going to reach that goal. I have completed 67% of my tasks for the final Boss room in DIMB (according to Trello). One more day of finishing off the remaining tasks and making sure it plays ok, and all of the games levels are complete. After that is done, the polishing and fine-tuning stage starts which I imagine won't be as mentally straining, but will definitely be just as time consuming. I got a taste of that this week, when I spent a day noting down every single minor presentation/gameplay issue in the current build, and then trying to find ways to correct them. The number of niggling little issues was infuriating, but fixing the whole myriad of them was deeply satisfying (sort of). The big push this week was to get the Boss levels finished. And they almost are. The amount of trial and error involved in making the Boss levels fun, challenging and unique is insane. And I'm pretty sure the levels I have made aren't even that great. But I just want to be done with it at this point. On the art side of things, Chris has continued his smash streak and sent over new level art pretty much every day this week. Two thirds of all the levels have their final art in place now, with just the final challenge and Boss rooms now needing art. Although writing this out I've just realised Chris probably hasn't even seen what the Boss levels look like. I could write and whinge about a million other little things but the bottom line is this: We're almost finished! The game will soon be complete, released to the masses and probably instantly forgotten. But that won't matter because the next time I'm at a gaming or developer event, and I introduce myself as a game designer, I'll finally have something to back up my lofty claim. Looking forward, once the HTML5 version of DIMB is complete, I will be turning my attention to porting the game to Android immediately. There will probably be a hundred and one more issues to face getting the game on Android, but that's to be expected. And it is totally worth it just to get the game onto the Google Play Store. Any ways, it is late and hot in the Philippines so I will sign off for the evening, and just leave you with some new screenshots of what the game currently looks like. Here's a philosophical question: If a dev blog talks about the complete lack of dev work that has happened in the preceding week, is it actually a dev blog?
I'm on Day 10 of my Philippines trip, and work ground to a complete halt last week as I visited the lovely tourist destination of Boracay. Voted as having one of the Top 10 beaches a few years ago, it has since become a hot spot for holiday makers all across the planet. And what does this mean? It's a complete tourist trap that is essentially the Ibiza of South East Asia. That's not to say it wasn't a lovely trip; on the contrary it's possibly the most beautiful place I have ever visited. The beaches were white, the skies were blue and the water was clear; postcard perfect. The views were spectacular, the people were friendly and the food was plentiful, there was almost nothing to complain about. Except for the internet being a broken pile of failure. But then again, who visits an island paradise just to re-check Facebook for the seventh time that minute. But to get back on topic, as a result of this island getaway, very little work happened on DIMB on my side. Chris, however, has doubled down on the art and animation side. I realised earlier today that over half of the levels are now essentially art and animation complete; so we're now over the hump and in theory more art work has been done than there is to be done. Which is an exciting thought. Despite not wanting to get bogged down in bug fixing, that is exactly what has happened over the past few days, with niggling little edge issues biting away at my soul like demonic bunny rabbits. So I'm working on several little bugs instead of finishing the Boss levels because I'm scared to commit to that larger piece of work. And on a related note, I'm still trying to figure out the final final Boss challenge. That is something I definitely need to figure out. And one last thing I want to whinge about is all the little tweaks that need to be done whenever you think you've just about finished with a level forever. The number of small modifications I've had to make to several levels that I thought wouldn't need any more attention from me is downright absurd. And it doesn't exactly strengthen my resolve to finish the game. But no matter; Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. That's some US Marine Corps talk there, and whilst I'm not exactly the biggest proponent of extensive military culture, I do like that motto. Constant commitment to not just sit down and give up, but to figure out steadfast solutions and ensure what needs to be done gets done. If you'd rather view my waffling in real-time, follow me on Twitter: @Dannyish No. Freaking. Way. A third weekly dev blog in a row? Madness.
To be honest this dev blog is a bit late but I've been travelling for the past two days so I'll allow myself to be tardy. I'm in the Philippines for the next month where the internet is just about as useful as the contaminated drinking water. This last week another big mile stone was passed; Chris finished and sent over the "Scanner" and "Mine" challenge animations. This is a big deal since that now essentially completes the art and animation for the actual challenges. So that means the majority of animations needed for 25 out of 30 levels in complete. Adding in the "Mine" animations was fairly trivial; just replacing the stand in art for the mine and resulting explosion with the correct, nice looking stuff. There was one issue where the death animation for DIMB wouldn't play correctly after the explosion, but it turned out just adding a slight delay to the animation fixed this. Three of the five boss rooms are complete - that's two challenge rooms and the first boss stage. The second boss stage is taking shape now (it's a bit more difficult with a more complex mechanic) and the third boss stage is still in concept. Trying to think up a satisfying but challenging and thematically relevant final boss stage is harder than it seems. And that's before coding and play-testing and realising it's all pointless. I'm in the Philippines for four weeks, and intend to be done with 99% of the coding by the time I get back to the UK. Whilst I love DIMB - that is I have enjoyed working on it and I'm super proud that both Chris and I have stuck it out for this long - I want to be finished with it. Considering the length, depth, play time and overall complexity of the game, it really should have been finished in three to four months, and not dragged on for close to a year. If you'd rather view my waffling in real-time, follow me on Twitter: @Dannyish Another week another dev blog. Even though it's only week two, I think it's a valiant effort.
This week was mostly bug fixing, the most fun part of game development. The bugs that got fixed weren't even sexy dramatic bugs or anything, they were proper dull things. Like the "Skip Dialogue" button not actually skipping dialogue. Besides that we managed to add in more art work and animations, namely adding in the complete locked door/unlocked door animation. I had to re-structure some of the rooms to fit the new doors as their dimensions didn't exactly match the place holder block sprites I had used up until now. I also had to mess about with making the locked doors depth dynamically change depending on the players position. In GM: Studio, an objects depth dictates if it appears in front or behind another object. The locked door is one of the few instances where it needs to be both in front and behind the player at different times. The code is relatively basic, but it didn't work for what felt like an eternity (it had been about 15 minutes). It turns out the issues was actually due to the sprite's origin point being completely out of whack, so it always thought the player was in front of it. So with some quick tweaking that was sorted. I realised I didn't mention in last weeks dev blog that I'd added in the second room of the Boss challenge. The Boss encounter is made up of five rooms; three actual encounters with the Boss and two challenge rooms in between encounters. The first encounter and the first challenge room are now both complete. My aim is to get at least another encounter and another challenge done within the next week. And finally, I got a laptop now that can allow me to work whilst out of the house, and it has already proven itself invaluable. There is something strangely calming about bug fixing on a train. |
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August 2022
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