Entry #7 - Gaining momentum

Boi, a lot happened lately...

Continued work on concepts

There was a lot done in terms of concepts, main thing is professions. As you level up your characters, you can choose particular professions for them, which unblock new buildings, improve some stats etc. So here are some of them:

In total there are 10 professions, each of them has a completely different look. I must say that I'm really happy with the results.

3D Model

I've finally found a 3D artist that created a basic character model for me (so no profession, just a plain simple character).

Tattoos / veins might be a bit too bright but at least at night it makes them very visible and easy to find.

Map

To make the map a bit more friendly for playtests, I've started using brushify for landscape. It's clearly not meant for this type of view as it's very heavy even on small levels and tends to butcher my framerate. So I've decreased the quality quite a bit and now it's almost bearable. Things that are meant for a close up 1st or 3rd person games dont really scale for long distance tactics view. It was a very quick, 1-2 days work. Just to make it more presentable before the proper level artist starts working on this.

Other changes

• Characters have now proper animations for walking

• Different workspots support different work animations, right now there is one default that is used everywhere but system supports easy customization. Default looks like this:
  

• Some changes to how characters action and state are presented

• Started working on temp workspots that look a bit nicer then just previous boxes I had. You can see one of them in the video above

• A lot of refactors and bug fixes

Long term plans

At the end of March I've decided to give myself some soft deadlines. The closest one is announcing the project on Steam. My first idea was to do this sometime in June. But seeing how things are going, it might be pretty hard to achieve.

Intro video

Having a Steam announcement on the horizon, I decided to change my priorities a bit. Right now, I will mostly focus on making the game as presentable as possible in this limited time. One of the cool things I need for this, is intro video. I want to make a parallax video, that will be ~2min long that will introduce the story and general atmosphere of the game. It will also help a lot in informing the style and feel of other elements in the development. Like maps and workspots. I've contacted my tested and trusted concept artist to check if he could do the illustrations for that. We've created some miro board with the plan and started working on it. I can already tell that it will consume much more time and money than I expected but I think the final result will be awesome. Current state is that we have storyboards mostly done, I have some contacts with people who can make montage and voice acting for the video. I'm really excited about it, it can be the first part of the game that can actually shown to a wider audience without the "but you know, its temporary, just some prototypes" notions.

Other people involvment

Moving faster and faster with the development, I've reached out to several people that might get involved in the project soon. Mostly regarding video editing, level art and marketing. They've been testing the game, giving some good feedback and... we will see. Once the work on the trailer gets a bit more advanced, we will discuss some form of cooperation.

Final thoughts

I'm happy. The project gained a lot of momentum, I have a decent plan how to move forward and it's the first time during the development when I can quickly make changes that immediately improve the reception of the game. It's a really satisfying moment in the project.

I've also realized how much I've learned about the game development and how much new stuff I need to try everyday. Remember, that I'm a full time gameplay programmer for ~8 years and I'm doing this project in my spare time. Yet I feel it's the most productive I've ever been. My attitude to the day job changed a lot (frankly speeking probably for better for my employer) and I don't feel as stressed as when I was working 100% on one huge project that I didn't even own. Even If I had to close this project now or if it didn't sell any copies - It's still worth it. Life is good.