I’m late in the week again with this update, a trend I will rectify beginning Monday. There’s lots of work to do so I will keep this one short.
Having another person other than me now directly involved with the project is forcing me to change how I work, how I manage my time and how I communicate. It also adds an extra sense of responsibility and pressure, but it is a very interesting challenge. I have to ensure that I both manage expectations correctly, and continue to push the project ahead at a steady pace.
One thing’s for sure: I have to be pro-active in how I address these issues. It’s now more important than ever that the game direction, my goals and the planning are clear. There is a palpable excitement in the project right now, and I will do my best to maintain such energy.
Work Done Last Week
A lot of my time was spent working closely with the artist as he learned to use the editor tools.
I also spent a lot of time fixing various bugs. There have been several issues that have cropped up on the artist’s pc that I have been unable to replicate (he has Vista, while I’ve stuck it out with XP). Some of the issues are small and annoying, and others are actually hampering his work. Upgrading some of the core libraries has helped address some of the problems, but others remain.
I’ve also fixed some lingering issues with the parallax system and the camera tracking. The camera tracking in particular works quite solidly. My plans to change it to a more configurable system are still on, but for now, the camera is no longer hampering our work.
I’ve been continuing to extend the core mechanics of the games. I started working on a new feature which should open up some new gameplay possibilities.
On the art side, the artist has been spending time “implementing” one of his concept images in the game. The goal is to understand how the editor works, what art assets are required, and what issues arise when trying to bring a static image alive in the game world.
Work Planned This Week
I will continue to work on this new gameplay mechanic, introduce it to the build and evaluate how it affects the rest of the gameplay balance.
I will also work on “undo” functionality in the level editor. I originally planned around this feature in the first iteration of my editor, but it has since gone out the window. I am hoping to be able to resurrect some of the architectural code.
I will do more work on the design and some more key puzzle scenarios. Parallel to that, I will focus on level design to produce useful test environments for the artist to work with.
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