Dev Diary 22: Road to the Demo

The next few months represent a new phase in the project. After investing a lot of effort in the infrastructure, in the technology, and in prototyping design ideas, it’s time to put a demo together. My next major goal is to have a demo ready by the end of March. Milestones 3 and 4 will help guide me to that goal (and I’ll be discussing them in more detail in the days to come).

Aside from being the obvious next step towards producing a video game, the demo is going to serve several purposes:

• Firstly, and most importantly, to help me evaluate if the game is any fun. I’ll be sharing the demo with trusted friends and industry pros to get some honest feedback.
• Secondly, to pitch to publishers. My ultimate aim is to release this game on a console. To get there, I will need to woo publishers. The demo is the most important tool for this process (although not the only one).
• Finally, to evaluate where I am with the project, and where I want to take it next. This will also depend on external factors (meeting with publishers), but the potential of the game will be thoroughly assessed at this stage. I will then decide how to proceed with the game for the rest of 2009.

More importantly for you, the reader, is that once I have a solid demo put together, I will finally be ready to start unveiling more of the game publicly. This means concepts, screenshots and videos will start trickling out in the next few months. I’m really looking forward to that stage!

I am excited about this period of the project. It’s make or break time, and I’m loving the challenge of creating a game from scratch.

Work Done Last Week

I did a lot of planning for the next milestone and on the new features of the editor, and a bit more on the design. I’ve been trying to simplify the editor as much as possible, while providing as much flexibility and freedom as I can. It sounds like a contradiction, but I’ll go into a bit more detail in another post.

I mostly did coding work on the editor, and a bit of work iterating the design.

Productivity was mixed. The week started off really slow, but things improved as I went along. I’ve entered my mental crunch period, and will have to stay focused and disciplined these next few months.

Work Planned This Week

I’ll be splitting my work again between the editor and the gameplay/design (probably a 75-25 split). This week is a big push on the editor side. I do not expect to get all the features I want polished and done, but the minimum so that levels can be put together. My focus from then on will be primarily on the gameplay.

I am also slowly making some progress on the art side, but I cannot discuss the details of that just yet. Let’s just say that things are looking promising.

Related posts:

1. Milestone 3 and 4: The Demo
2. Dev Diary 27: First Playable Demo
3. Dev Diary 26: Six Months Later
4. Dev Diary 39: The Hunt for an Artist