I’m back from my trip to the US. I feel refreshed, and my hunger for American food has been temporarily satiated. It was good to be home with friends and family.
Before returning to the business at hand, I want to briefly mention my brother’s company Vitalitech (he needs links from highly trafficked sites like mine to increase his pagerank). My younger brother is only 20 years old but he has worked diligently over the last year setting it up, finding customers and consistently delivering quality service. I’m incredibly proud of both what he’s achieved and the dedication and responsibility he has shown. He is on the cusp of something big.
Meanwhile, I started work this week on a short-term 4-week contract. This will somewhat limit my progress with the game during this time, but I do need to keep paying bills to continue in my Indie venture. Evenings and week-ends will be used to keep pushing things forward. My mind is fresh and rested, there’s lots still left to do, and I’m excited about the work ahead.
Work Done The Previous Week
I added a new physics feature (with corresponding editor support). This has opened up new types of gameplay opportunities. I like the changes so far, even if it takes the game into a slightly different direction in terms of puzzles. It’s less platform-y and more logical. It’s an interesting mix. This may end up just being a minor feature (or variation on the core gameplay), but I am pretty sure it will be part of the final game.
I tried out a few more test scenarios to experiment with the latest changes. I’m trying to come up with a core set of gameplay scenarios that capture the essence of the overall game. So I keep trying new ones and filtering out the ones that don’t work.
I fixed a few crashes (introduced with the latest changes). And I changed the behavior of my timer system. I’ve gone through several solutions to obtain a system that would always run at 60 Hz. One of the drawbacks of my system is that as soon as the game ran under 60 Hz (due to performance issues), it would begin to lag. A side effect is that if the timer is delayed for a few seconds (like when I load in levels), it can take a long time for the timer to catch up and the lag to disappear. OK, yes, I should fix my loading system so that it runs asynchronously, but in the meantime, I’ve added timer code that deals with the lag more elegantly.
Work Planned This Week
There are few areas to cover this week. I’m continuing to experiment with gameplay based on some feedback and analysis of some of the test scenarios.
I will continue to work on some improvements to the editor (I must integrate some of the changes I made while I was away). These improvements are primarily focused on improving the efficiency of the work flow when creating levels. The tile system is flexible, but not the easiest to use when working with a tablet (as my artist does). I am trying to create a quick selection screen (like this one in the Braid editor). I also want to make it easy to associate tiles with a set of physic shapes, as it can become tedious to have to repeatedly apply by hand the same collision geometry for the same tiles.
I’m still working on the new site. I am looking at using Joomla (having been introduced to it last week) instead of just plain wordpress. Regardless, I really don’t want to spend too much time on the first version.
