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August #1GAM: Failure

Month #2 in the “One Game A Month“-Challenge. For this month I started working on a turn based tower defense game, just seeing how combining this two ‘genres’ would work out. It got to the playable prototype stage, but it’s far from a Minimum Viable Product.

What went Well:

  • Tracking Tasks Online: We started to use Trello to track tasks, and I think it is a massive improvement over text files with tasks synced over Dropbox. For a small team it has enough features but is still simple enough to not be a hassle to use. We will see how this will work out in the months to come.

What went Wrong:

  • Scope Small: It’s like a running gag, but it seems like software developers just really like to either underestimate effort, or overestimate their capabilities… Either way, the scope was again too large for one month, I have to learn to really change my mindset, lower my expectations and think smaller. I could have probably cut a lot more features to make the scope more manageable.
  • Learning New Tools Can be Taunting: I intended to learn to use Overlap2D, a visual ui/level/content editor, for creating the UI and importing it to libGDX. I had to jump through some hoops to get it to start on Linux, then toyed around with it a bit, and also read some documentation, but didn’t really know where to start, so I postponed it for later, but never got to it again.
    I’m still interested in using Overlap2D to make creating UI easier, but I really gotta plan in some dedicated days just for learning how to use and integrate it into my toolchain/workflow.
  • Sleep Well: Previous week I never got more than 6 hours of sleep, causing me to be sleepy by the time I got back home from work in the evening. But I didn’t want to go to sleep because I didn’t to much Game Dev the last day, but I couldn’t work efficiently, because I was exhausted from sleeping so few hours, which caused me to waste hours I could have better spent sleeping, continuing the cycle the next day…
    Essentially a whole week was lost through this. Few hours of concentrated work are better than many hours of working while desperately trying not to fall asleep. So do yourself the favor and go to sleep!

News

In Other news, we finally set up our twitter account, now we just gotta use it. We will probably be tweeting about game-releases, blog posts and stuff under the handle @aawesomestudios. (Yes, that’s the maximum length for twitter names. Yes, any similar/shorter names have already been taken.)

We have been at the Game Dev Days Graz. It has been an awesome experience, talking to other game developers, playing their games and listening to all the talks. Maybe next year, we will be there showcasing our games. Who knows.

For the next month we are going to focus on polishing up some older games.

 

A month, a game

Finishing a game is difficult. Whether it’s an unfinished prototype done in a day, or an abandoned project that has been dragging on for months and eventually falls victim to feature creep. I keep on doing all this work, but still have nothing to show for it.

That’s why I decided to join the One Game A Month Challenge. I think it’s a really great idea to set yourself deadlines to not lose your goals out of sight and stay motivated to push forward. The games don’t have to take a month to complete. Some will be made within a few days for a game jam, other times I will finally complete a half-finished prototype that’s been lying around for months. The challenge is to complete a game by the end of the month, no matter how I get there.

Dealing with Failure

I often toyed with the thought of joining the challenge, but this time it’s serious. Starting with July I vowed to make a game every month. That’s right, it’s already August. Of course I start off by missing the first deadline. I’m still unsure how to handle the failure situation with this challenge.

  • If I just postpone it to next month’s challenge, it’s no real deadline, and it will keep on growing the same way as always.
  • If I just stop working on it by the end of the month, it will stay an unfinished game like all the other prototypes.
  • If I just release it unfinished, well… then it’s not a finished game, and that’s not point of this challenge either. (Still, trying to reach an unachievable “perfect” state has to be avoided.)

This time I decided to go with option 1. I keep on working on it for another week, because that’s what I felt was still needed. Meaning tomorrow I should have it “finished”. But this approach is with its pitfalls, because I caught silly me trying to add in more features as I felt the pressure of the deadline moving away, although the features already present weren’t finished yet!

Starting this month I will try the following approach: If by the end of the month, the game I’m working on still isn’t finished. I stop working on it, and I’m not allowed to work on it again, before I haven’t finished another (preferably smaller) game the following month.

Worst case scenario: I’ll keep adding to my heap of unfinished prototypes, rather than working for months on projects that lead nowhere. Best case scenario: I’ll actually start to finish games.

Documenting the process

I plan to write at least one blog post about every month’s challenge, about the game itself, the things that went well, the stuff that didn’t go well and lessons learned. No matter if I actually finish the game or if I fail.

I’m also planning on taking an active part in the community. The Gamedev community doesn’t seem to live anywhere in particular but Twitter seems like a good starting point to share progress and post announcements to and such.

Goals

The goals I want to accomplish by joining this challenge:

  • Learn how to tackle larger games, by finishing smaller ones first.
  • Learn how to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to actually finish games.
  • Learn to fail faster.
  • Learn to effectively fight Feature Creep.
  • Learn to accurately estimate Scope and Effort of planned Projects and their Features.

There are many guidelines and tips for reaching this goals, now the only thing left is actually executing them.

Next Steps

Next steps include setting up a twitter account and deciding where I’m gonna host my monthly games. (Itch.io and Gamejolt have been great so far, but maybe Newgrounds could be the right place?)

 

This actually turned out waaaay longer than I expected.

Retrospective of 2015

What, we are already over two months into 2016? You mean 2015 is already over? Wow, it’s really easy getting into the mental-trap of saying: “I’ll post some progress update later, when I really have something to show.”  Another week passes, again nothing happens… And suddenly the year is over!

2015 was a pretty exhausting year for me, I had many months where I just couldn’t bring up any motivation for game development. So, what did I manage to do in 2015 besides moping and starting game prototypes that led nowhere, let’s see:

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~February: I found some time to participate in MiniLD #57 with the theme “Reverse”. Created a reverse Match-3 game. It’s playable, but mostly proof of concept. (And couldn’t get the web-version to work.)

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~March: Made a quick joke “game” called Infinitris. It’s tetris on an infinitely large playing field. I was motivated to finally test out chunked maps, which allow for (nearly) infinite worlds, and it works pretty well. There are so many possibilities this could be going, but it is a fun toy as is.

~Juscreen_1457547820.85.jpgly: Participated in the IndiesVSGamers Game Jam, hosted by GameJolt. The theme was ‘Arcade’ the time limit was 72 hours and the ambitions were high. Therefore the game “Space Scrap” was born (naming things is hard), a shmup were you assemble your spaceship from spare parts lying around on planets while under constant time pressure, fleeing from a supernova. The original 72h version plays and looks horrible, but I’ve been working on it on and off, and it starts to be a really kick-ass game. I’ll try to focus on it next, getting it done soonish.

That’s my first game hosted on GameJolt, and I have to say: I like it. It makes adding highscores and trophies a breeze and provides a clear and professionally looking game page.

thumbnail_small.png~August: Participated in MiniLD #62 with the theme “Final Boss”. Created a simple platformer, where you play a robot with a sawblade, using it to attack, defend, cling to surfaces and push yourself around. Had lots of boss ideas, but only managed to implement two of them. It’s unhandy to play with keyboard, but plays fluently with a gamepad.

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~December: Participated in LudumDare 34, which had a tie between the themes “Two Button Controls” and “Growing”. Didn’t stop us from ignoring both of them, to create a random RTS about managing your Space Colony and sacrificing your people to calm the wrathful gods. This is absolutely missing a proper tutorial, so playing it can be confusing, and trying to win is a real challenge.

So, that wraps up 2015. With a post only over half a year late, I hope,that in the future I manage to convince myself to post progress updates more often. Now go play some games!

Survived Ludum Dare 31

The last few days have been intense, but we present to you: Hyper Soccer

Hyper Soccer GameplayIt’s what happens when you let placeholder graphics get into the final game, but there simply isn’t time for everything. The gameplay turned out fun, that’s what matters most (to me at least).

The Theme for LD31 was “Entire Game on one Screen”. Nothing really inspiring, but at least I managed to make a game that follows the theme for a change.

Hyper Soccer Grapple Match

It’s a local-multiplayer game with gamepad support. Play with as many friends, as you have gamepads!

So, go grab some gamepads, call some friends, and enjoy the madness that is Hyper Soccer.

Web-Build and Making-Of will follow later.

 

Release of “Hello, Alien!” – For real this time

So, now the “Open-Beta” has ended, and “Hello, Alien!” is ‘finished’. Or at least, development on it has stopped for now (except for bugfixes of course).

What if you make a game, and nobody shows up?

“Open-Beta” went relatively…. well, let’s not say bad… we’ll just call it underwhelming. The same holds true for the October Challenge. Apparently nobody will show up to a party, if you don’t tell anybody. (Who knew, right?)

At least we can boast 207 views and 38 downloads. (While nearly all of the traffic comes from ludumdare.com, the only other site I’ve posted about the game.)

I just understood the importance of marketing. The next step will be to try and get the word out. I’ll have to investigate on some good ways to get some people’s attention. I heard twitter is good at those things…

In other news

We are currently working on a small game started for the MiniLD #55 last weekend. Just testing out some things I usually neglect (trying out some nice shaders) and it seems like it will finally be playable in the browser (rejoice). I just hope we finish in time before LudumDare #31 will start this weekend. Also let’s hope the theme won’t be ☃.

-Anton

October Challenge Completed (more or less)

We just released our first game, Hello Alien! on the itch.io store. It’s totally free and it’s available for Windows, Linux, OS X and Android.

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Open Betas are cool

However, as you might have noticed, we “released” it in an open beta mode.

It is functionally complete. Yes.

But some things look weird, the controls are difficult and there are not many levels. There simply wasn’t enough time to polish everything to the level I would have liked. Therefore it will be in an open beta phase during November. This gives us more time to continue improving it and incorporate user feedback. By the end of November it will be released for good, and we will hopefully have something we can be (even more) proud of.

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First step done

Now that we have created and published our game, we’re just gonna wait until the money rolls in. No, but seriously, to succesfully complete the October Challenge, we still have to make a dollar. And I personally think that’s already pretty optimistic, but we will see how that goes.

-Anton

Ludum Dare 30 Aftermath

Ludum Dare 30 ended and the results are in! And we did BETTER THAN EXPECTED, at least better than I expected. Woot! Out of 1045 jam entries, our game Hello, Alien! scored surprisingly well:

Position Category Rating Relative Position (from Top)
#23 Fun(Jam) 4.02 2%
#39 Humor(Jam) 3.82 4%
#47 Overall(Jam) 3.94 4%
#57 Theme(Jam) 3.90 5%
#106 Innovation(Jam) 3.62 10%
#154 Audio(Jam) 3.55 15%
#175 Mood(Jam) 3.51 17%
#295 Graphics(Jam) 3.58 28%

This are the best results of any Ludum Dare I’ve entered yet. Our game seems to be a really fun(ny) experience! Big thanks go to Florian Kager, because he did a great job creating the music/audio for the game. I still can’t believe it, I’m utterly happy that people seem to like what we are doing!

Another reason to celebrate: We published the first revised Post-Compo version, with old bugs fixed, new bugs introduced, three new levels and finally a (hopefully) not sucking way to rotate objects.

Next goal will be bringing ‘Hello, Alien!’ to a mobile device and I really want to add more levels and more ways to manipulate the laser.

-Anton

Ludum Dare 30 – Hello, Alien! – Post Mortem

This Ludum Dare we created a little puzzle game, which we called ‘Hello, Alien!’ and you can go play it here.

Gameplay of Hello, Alien!

About the game:

The aliens have been living happily in their connected galaxies, until an asteroid storm disconnected their interplanetary connection based on laser satellite technology. Help them to restore their connection, by using mirrors, splitters and bombs.

The good things that happened:

  • LAZORZS! The laser effects turned out to be pretty neat, and it’s really fun just playing around with the lasers. (Thanks to this laser creation guide.)
  • Artstyle: I tried out various artstyles and came to the conclusion, that pixelart is what I suck the least at. So, I’m happy I decided to create pixelart and stuck with it.
  • Teamwork: Although Florian (Sound and Music guy) had a lot of other things going during the weekend, he managed to create some sweet music and sound-effects, so that I could focus on other tasks. We had a pretty fast feedback-loop so that iterations over created assets were quick and painless.
  • Dropping the lose condition: In the first versions of the game, you would lose the level when you grilled those nice aliens and you had to restart the level, undoing all your hard work. But killing the aliens is the most fun part! And it’s a god damn puzzle game, there is no need to ‘lose’ the level. There are states of the level that mean the level is solved, and everything else just means it isn’t solved yet. On the other hand it will certainly make sense to add some sort of element that the laser isn’t allowed to hit, before the level counts as solved. But it shouldn’t need a complete level restart, just some repositioning of the necessary game elements.

The bad things that happened:

  • Unnecessary (Failed) Optimizing: I wasted some hours reworking (“optimizing”) the laser raytracing code just to fail at one small bug. It turned out the first sloppy code was good enough in the end.
  • Last minute level design: I created some levels during the second day, but a lot of the third day was spent refining them as tutorial levels. The last hour before submission was used to quickly create more ‘non’-tutorial levels, and were quite hastily put together.
  • Level Editor Lacking Usability: Also the editor for creating the levels was made during the weekend, and some features were really clunky to use and/or not fully implemented. So creating levels was a really tiresome progress. This further slowed down the ability to create more levels for the game.
  • Did not finish art assets: I did not manage to rework all the graphics for the final version, so the planets and buttons don’t quite fit aesthetically into the rest of the game.

Ludum Dare was certainly a fun experience and gave us the feeling of actually having accomplished something (even if not much).

So, the next thing we will do, is to polish our Ludum Dare entry and add all the features we would have liked to add. For the post-compo version, we would also like to get it on Android, because we figured, it would make a neat mobile game.

-Anton

Plans for Sommer 2014

Business or not, it’s important to have short-term and long-term goals. Also telling other people of your goals makes you more likely to actually try and achieve them. So, what could be a better way of telling everybody than through a public website?

Future projects

We will participate in every upcoming Ludum Dare just for the fun of it. This also includes the next Ludum Dare 30, which is on the weekend of August 22nd to 25th.  Ludum Dare always provides an excuse to try creating something new, and is a welcome variation to everyday life.

Current project

At the moment we are working on refining another Ludum Dare entry.

I participated in Ludum Dare 29 and entered a small game called ‘Below Earth’. It’s about running around in a cave and throwing around bombs to blow sh…stuff up. We decided to further develop and polish it, so that it could count as a full game. We would like to be finished with it before Ludum Dare 30 starts. For no particular reason, but you have to set yourself deadlines to stay motivated.

The current downloadable builds (and the original LD entry) and the source code of ‘Below Earth’ are available on Bitbucket. Free for everyone to download and try out.

We will talk in detail about this project and its progress in future blog posts.

-Anton