Tuesday 28 April 2015

Survive the Development

Saint Riccy has been marked, and appears to have gone over pretty well. At this time I have no plans to further develop it, but may do so later.
I will likely showcase it in May to friends back home, to get feedback. That'll be its next step at the very least.
I will likely not be showcasing any survive the music remake however, as I've hit a predicament that I'm certain isn't new or unique.

When I made survive the music the first time, I was making it for the sake to prove I could. It had a plethora of issues, most stemming from lack of player cues and floaty controls. As well as being visually bland.

Now that I've started working on it again, I'm finding myself almost afraid to try again. I've done a bit of fixing to the controls, (Has a land animation, character is slowed down to not be a blur on screen) but I'm hesitant to start the actual remake.
I feel like once I've made it, it'll have the same issues as last time, or new issues.
It will probably be doomed to sort of...suck.

I'm finding my weakest skill is design. I can write alright, I can code passably, I can draw kinda and I can make a somewhat catchy set of tunes. But my design...well..
It took 3 years, but I see why I'm not meant for architecture.

So in summary, we're sorta back to the drawing board. So business as usual.

Thursday 16 April 2015

Project Complete!...??

I now have another project that joins the ranks of Survive the Music. Though this one doesn't require a redesign...!

Saint Riccy has finally been finished! Though I typically exaggerate the work time, It is without a doubt I've put in at least over 24 hours of work on this project.
It is a visual novel game, though plays through with only 1 arc (all I had time for). It has characters (outside of my usual 6, oh my!), sfx and music ("Being with her" as the main theme, couldnt get other music to work...sfx all credited and such though!), and backgrounds. (credited and photoshopped, beautiful. Also massive. seriously they contributed like 28MB of the project, its nuts. Shouldve done lower resolution. Hindsight.)

It's been handed in for the final project, the teacher asked me to present it in class. (Which I did! Public Speaking got me all over dat noise.I read it like a book, tried to do voices and such) He seemed really impressed with the writing at least. We shall see how it scored with other categories in time though.

I learned lots from SR. First thing I learned: Writing takes time. My original schedule for the project alloted 24 hours to write the story. I ended up taking around 15 days. (Inspiration was tough, giving this project the time of day when I had like 6 others to do was what was the killer.)
Second thing: Flash doesn't do so hot with memory. My backgrounds were high res, which ate memory for breakfast. While trying to add music, the compiler crashed, making it so I couldn't actually export the game, meaning no game...almost led to no Saint Riccy.
I ended up undoing and scrapping the music, for again, lack of time.
Third thing: Time is the biggest thing. I knew from the get-go that SR would be a time sink, but because of how I'd procrastinate (Which was caused because I'd do many other projects, then want to relax, which would suck time away from SR...was a vicious cycle. They assign more little project crap, I do em and want break. Lose more SR time.) I ended up having a really bad sleep cycle this past week for attempting to rush production.
On that note: I've now had experience on rushing production of a RO game. Not exactly a good thing, but learning what that's like is good.
I did find that the due date actually really helped. I crushingly wished to have it bumped back, so I could make SR better, but because of it being in stone, it made me have to prioritize things like crazy and really focus on what I could get done at minimum without sacrificing quality.
I think I'll play with due dates for RO games in the future, see if that translates into more content.

Now, as for the project itself...It's too big for publishing to Newgrounds. (50Mb/20Mb)
Depending on the mark, I may rework the backgrounds, maybe try to add decision routes (aka pick a or b and a goes to main line, b goes to different side route that could connect or end its own way)
and maybe add music (haha) so that it would pass for a publishable work. (Technically it already is, but I'd prefer to publish it in its 'best-I-can-get-it' form)
Else, I may upload it online somewhere else and link it here or on PTE. Haven't decided.

As for RO projects coming up now...still thinking. So come back soon!

Monday 6 April 2015

Saint Progress

I gotta admit, having the due date has really helped put fire under me and get things rolling.
That said, quality-wise I worry if I'm skimping due to time constrictions.

The biggest issues I'm finding is writing and image inconsistancies, and accuracy errors.
Though figuring I'm writing about a situation I've never been in with information that is vague at best, the clarity is a bit doomed. I can't exactly find a person who's been in it either, and am not really sure I'd want to. I'd feel weird just prying someones experiences for my game.

Problems aside, Saint Riccy is making strong progress. It's still behind schedule as of this post, but It's approximately 30% done. And that progress was made in 3 days at about ~26 hours, so I'm doing not too bad.

Of course with 10 days left and a rather rocky final week ahead of me, things will get interesting.
I should probably go work on it now...haha...

Also if you're here from PTE, know that I plan to work on the remake of Survive the music after schools end. I doubt it's going to get any recognition ever, but at this point I think I can  comfortably admit Ric Olzow Stuff is a hobby.

I gotta get a real job. Maaaaaan.
#DreamsDashed