Michael Uncategorized

Getting the Word Out

Over 10% on the Kickstarter campaign!

This past week I’ve been pretty single-minded in my goal of spreading the word about the game. It’s tough, especially since I’m an unknown indie dev trying to enter a saturated market. I did one interview that has yet to be published, have responded to most of the emails sent my way, and I’ve posted in a couple of forums. Certainly not good enough. Will have to start contacting media folk if I am to really put the game out there. Oh, and one fan is making a fan forum for the game, so that will likely spur some interest. A friend of mine is also going to be making a proper trailer for the game, and another friend is using just spreading the word around.

Thank you to the guys at /v/ for nearly a thousand visits!

My work on the game itself has been limited to bug fixes that correct issues with clipping into the scenery and save functionality in the webplayer.

Also, went to an indie-game and Unity3d meetup at Jagex HQ in New York City. Was a fun time, and I learned about some of the mistakes other developers have made in the past (topic was Post-Mortems).

That’s the story! Will get back to work now.

Michael Against the Wall

Checkpoints

The next release of the game will now have a functional checkpointing system. This functionality was pretty much already implemented with the general save scripts, just a matter of saving under a new file name, time-stamping the file, and knowing when to access it.

When the player dies, they can load their last save, either the Quick Save or the Auto Save. I’ve considered removing the quick save as it may break immersion. It may be frustrating to fall off the side of the world without the option to save… then again, it would make the experience all the more harrowing with one less safety net. Anyway, the checkpoints will be placed in logical locations, or fire at the completion of certain events. For the latter type, it will only save when the player is standing still on a brick, and no bricks are moving. Wouldn’t want to save the player’s progress in midair, after all.

Also, I’ve enlisted some help in creating art assets. Hopefully this will speed progress for the game along.
There is also a bug with the… city-to-forest platform where the player can fall through it. Will fix that one up. I also need to concentrate on the bug where the player clips into moving bricks!

Will be in south Jersey for the next 24 hours, so obviously there will be no progress until I get back. Ah, and I still cannot start Kickstarter, Amazon has not made the micro deposits to my bank, so I do not have the necessary verification to go ahead. I must be patient!

Michael Against the Wall

Kickstarter Campaign Prep

I’m about to launch a campaign on Kickstarter.com to get some support for Against the Wall. I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into this project so far, but progress is slow when you’re not working on a team. I need to contract out the art production in particular. I’m a programmer, not an artist, and while the assets I’ve created so far have been passable for an alpha version, they won’t really cut it on a final product. Also, I’ll need a composer, a sound designer, and probably another programmer. I say probably because while I can handle the amount of work that is required to complete the game’s coding, I may want to speed things up by delegating some of the work to another person.

Also, I should mention some of the changes that I made for yesterday’s update. I’ve added trees to the mix (pictured below), a small forested area, and green bricks. Eventually these bricks will have a mossy organic looking texture to indicate, that either they are alive, or infused by some grass-like organism. The gimmick attached to these bricks is that they do not like being touched, and will retract back into the wall if you step on them or brush against them. This can make things very difficult if you need to move vertically through them, and tricky if you need to move horizontally over a group of them.

Against the Wall - Forest

I spent two days of this week on an… event, that will take place in the area of the settlement. This event serves as a transition between the settlement and the forest.

The new version of the game also includes the aforementioned optimization that allow me to freely modify the world in-game, or change the seed for the random generator, without much consequence.

Up next: Lava bricks, timed bricks, crumbling bricks, and either a castle setting or an airport. There are also dozens of tweaks, features, and bug fixes that I need to implement. Stay tuned!

Continue reading “Kickstarter Campaign Prep” →

Michael Game Builds

Against the Wall (Alpha 0.33)

This update fixes the quick save/load functions in the webplayer.

This version of the game adds trees, a large forest location, green “organic” bricks that retract into the wall when touched by the player, and an event that occurs at the far end of the city.

Follow me on twitter for updates.

If you find any bugs or have problems running the game, please contact me.

[Download not found]
Continue reading “Against the Wall (Alpha 0.33)” →

Michael Uncategorized

A Few Minor Tweaks

I went ahead and whipped up some passable looking tree models and added them to the game world. They look like ordinary trees, save for the part where they reach out horizontally. I’ve also added a few surprises that I hope will add some more color to the world.
The third leg of the player’s journey, at least for the alpha version of the game, will be a small forest. The forest will introduce the player to “organic” bricks, that for now will be colored green rather than textured. Their gimmick is that they retract back into the wall when stepped on. Traversing a series of them in a row can be very hazardous.
I’ve also added slightly better textures to the settlement and tweaked the generation code some more. Hopefully the game will not be too choppy for folks on lower-end machines.

Michael Uncategorized

Procedural Progress

I spent the last few days coding something that hopefully no one will ever notice. It’s tough to explain, but basically procedural generation now reads for player and designer created bricks and then builds around them. The practical result it won’t take as long to finish the game, as I can modify the procedural code without having to redo everything I’ve designed.
I felt like a rock star when I finished this!
Also, I’ll be creating a Kickstarter.com page in the near future that will hopefully get some donations. I’m not an artist, and I need help fleshing out the game world with designed artwork. More than anything, I need someone to help me in this area. It would also be good to contract a sound designer, concept artist, and a composer. More than donations, I could use help from anyone who wants to pitch in. If you know someone who has talent and can lend a hand, let me know!