lördag 10 maj 2014

Personal improvements on graphics

Currently my body is fighting fever, so suitably I painted a burning sky tile since that's the way I feel at the moment.

It is a strange feeling that 3 months ago I had no idea how to draw a line and make it look like...a line...

Now I can actually make stuff which looks like...stuff! I am by no means a professional and its a long road left until I really feel that I can draw in the same way as other great persons in the industry.

But it goes faster and faster with each month and it becomes better and better, which at the start was so frustrating since you had this picture in your head but you could not actually put it into the picture.

Happy to see that practice goes somewhere.

//Feverish Viktor
The tile

torsdag 8 maj 2014

How free will Rookeys be?

Me and Viktor have been discussing how we're gonna monetize Rookeys. First of all, we know that a lot of people's ears start bleeding as soon as you mention monetization, but second of all, no money = no future games from us.

At the same time, we are two student's with little to brag about. Sure, we have done some games in the past but nothing we can point at and say: "Look, we did <insertnameofawesomegame>, so you should play Rookeys now". Basically we need to build some hype first.

Our solution is to make the up coming release completely free of charge, as well as empty of ads. The release consists of 24 levels and we're gonna update with more content as soon as possible, but until the first update we won't put any ads in there. We believe this is a fair way of doing it, kind of like a test period to see if there's any interest in Rookeys.

Yay!

tisdag 6 maj 2014

The game has been saved!

If yesterday was a horrible day, development wise, then today it all leveled out again. The graphics have been fixed, we have a revamped reward system in place and pretty much all of the sound assets have been implemented.

We still need to do some more level design (10 more levels to make it 24 in total for the release version), but that should speed up now since we can devote it more time. There are some important graphic assets left to draw and polish, but the main ones are done and are looking good.

Otherwise, there's really "only" bug hunting left. Since it's a relatively small game, I'm feeling fairly confident that we're gonna pull this of in time for the Swedish Game Awards hand in at the end of this month.

That's all for today, time to get some sleepy time. Ha de' gött!

Happy Kitten Day!

måndag 5 maj 2014

A very much Monday

One basic rule when developing games and getting close to the release: Don't update your development tools!

We now have a broken game. It is my job to fix it, and I'm already swamped with work so I'll be brief: I hate developing games sometimes.

Sad Panda Day

torsdag 1 maj 2014

Games and Psychology

We've been busy with Easter and all the things that come with it so few updates lately, but here's the more interesting new updates concerning development:


  • Three different worlds are in the game, but only two will be available for release. Why? To be honest, there isn't a practical reason for this, it is more based around psychology. Having two worlds with 12 levels in each makes the player perceive the game as being bigger than if we only had 1 world with 24 levels in it. The third world that can't be access at the release works as a tease or a semi-promise that more content will be added, so you shouldn't delete the game after finishing it! :)
  • Moar graphics! The NPC robots and their animations are shaping up nicely, and as I'm writing this, the main character is getting its final polishing done. Also, later today the graphics for the second world will start. Once again, the reason for more worlds in the game is based on psychology, but you can only (nicely) fool the player so far. We think that more worlds at least demand some different graphics, even if it means some sprites only getting a different colour.
  • We're aiming to have the game ready to compete in the Swedish Game Awards later this May. This means that we want the game to be released shortly afterwards. We can't give an exat release date but now you know around which time it'll happen.

Ha de gött!
//Blazing Bedroom Squadron

Psychology apparently