Pre-Alpha 1.0 Public Release

Well guys, we did it. Last post I outlined MOUNTAINS of work required to get a prototype put together for public release. And in one week's time... we maybe got half of that stuff done. BUT... we got a demo put together, which is the important part. If you have been reading my posts and following the project, feel free to go give it a try. It's a free download and I'd love to get some feedback on it. On that note, I'd like to take this post to share what got done, how development went, and what next steps are for the project. There is a lot that happened this last week and it is really exciting looking at the prospects for this project.

So, what got done? Well, I once again started this week working on the environment. I probably spent a good day working on the background you can kind of see in the images for this post. I messed with some different tools in my editor and got something I was kind of okay with. It definitely isn't perfect, but for a prototype it is okay. Note, I only got the grass, dirt, and cobbled path put together on that day. The building, and tiles did not get done at that time. As has been the case for this project, the art has been going super slowly. It feels like I spend a lot of time working on art, and very little gets done.

This was especially highlighted when I put together the storage chest and shop the next day. (Let's go!) It took me a minute to get into the flow, but once I figured out how I wanted to manage the storage, I was able to get into the flow and throw everything together pretty quickly. After I got both of those working, I tested the basic loop of the game a couple of times. It is always shocking to me how much a little number that goes up and down can change the feeling of the game. Suddenly, the game no longer felt like a bunch of loose parts. Instead, there was a clear order of operations that lead to a satisfying conclusion. That is exactly what I wanted, and is that idea of closing the loop I talked about last post.

Before I knew it Thursday had come, and I had made up in my mind I was going to release the demo on Friday. The environment was still not done, there were a large number of things that needed to be fixed, and currently the game was not in a state I'd want to release it. It was crunch time, and I got to work. I had outlined a number of things throughout the smithing process that I felt was off in the game. The cast wasn't cooling metals correctly, the blades cracked too easily, and there were a number of feedback systems still not implemented that kept someone who didn't know how the game was coded from knowing what was happening. I wasn't able to get to all of these, but I did set aside a couple of hours to tackle many of them. Most of these issues weren't big, but all of them together made gameplay feel a bit clunky. I fixed the cooling in the cast, fixed the math for the blades, and added a cracked blade texture so players knew when their blade was cracked. I also cleaned up some UI stuff and added a mark for what temperature the fuel will burn at, and a number for the temperature of the item the player is holding. After adding all of this, the game felt much easier and smooth to play. For the most part I knew what was happening and didn't have to guess if something went wrong. As I said earlier, there's still a number of things that I didn't get to, but these small changes really cleaned the game up.

Now, I hear you saying, "WHAT ABOUT THE ART?!" Well, maybe not you, but that was definitely me yesterday... Well, I jumped into my art program, threw together a tileset for the floor, and outlined the basic idea for the building. I added some shadows where I could to make it feel more real, then pulled it out and threw it into the engine. This still took me way too long, but at least the basic idea is there. With the time I had, that was all I could do, so the stations, player animations, UI, and so much more still need to be largely overhauled. But, the game looks only slightly less atrocious now. The basic idea is there and that is enough. I think this project is highlighting just how big of a difference my skills in art and programming are. Hey, add a brand new mechanic in your game to change how something works? Half an hour and it's done. But, need some basic art to replace current assets? 3 hours is the lowest I can go, and you'll only get half the assets.

I think this was especially highlighted near the end of the day. I had gotten the project to a comfortable spot, and it was feeling pretty good. But as I do with most things, I couldn't leave it alone. With only a couple of hours left to work on the project I thought to myself, "Ya know... I could totally add two other metals real quick... and add that coloring mechanic I wanted to." Um... hello? You have 2 hours and you want to triple the amount of content in the game you've been working on for 3 months? Well, I went to coding, reworked several things in the project until after about an hour I was at the point I had to actually add colored metals in the game. This is the point that I was like, "oh crap". Each item had a texture component that was referenced by all the UI, but I had expected to simply recolor the base metal textures. (This is the whole reason the textures were gray) For about 10 minutes I debated taking all of my current art textures into my art program, and recoloring them for each metal. I finally decided to just give it a shot with a single UI script. I added a color variable to the item and read it in the UI. It worked! So, now I have to go throughout my entire project and in EVERY UI that I reference an item texture, I also modulate it based on the item color, and in EVERY Item I add a color component. I got it done, and it worked perfectly. That was fun...

Now, with all this, how did it go? Well, the demo is up. It's a rough cut, but it is the basics of what I want. I think art is something that is going to have to be a slow burn of development until I develop the skills to get it done more quickly. But other than that I'm quite pleased with how the game turned out. There is still a ton of tweaking, quality of life improvements, and balancing that I need to do, but that will come with time. The other side of things that I would like to highlight is the "marketing" work that goes on. I put quotes around that term because I'm not exactly marketing, but I did have to update the itch page, set the icon for the project and export it, and setup a feedback form for the game. This isn't necessarily hard, but it does take time, and I think it is easy to forget that in the development process. I think it is easy to say it works in the engine, but forget the goal is for people to play it out of the engine. That being said I got most of that done on Thursday as well and it was honestly a nice break at points from the heavy, critical thinking that comes with game design.

So, what's next? Well, that's where this prototype comes in honestly. I personally love the idea for the game and have so many ideas for what to do with it. However, the biggest question is, "Is it fun?" I'd much rather not spend hundreds of hours on a game and people not enjoy it. So this playtest is to check and see if people like the idea. Assuming that is a yes, I'd like to outline a longer timeline for developing the game into an actual title. I'd also like to open more channels for feedback during the development process to see what people are thinking. The immediate next phase is going to be polishing on all of the issues I have outlined in this post, and adding the alloy creating mechanic. Once that is done I'll release a new demo for people to try that will hopefully be much more rounded in how it feels. From there, I will be working on actually turning these basic mechanics into a game. I'd like to add a shop management aspect to the game that forces the player to balance learning new metals with forging what they already know. I'd also like to get either a tutorial or opening narrative added that informs the player how the game works. These steps will take a lot of time to get made, but I think after that the game should feel pretty great to play and have an engaging loop for the player to slide into. They'll balance the exploration of the game with maintaining their shop and keeping things running.

That said, player feedback is going to be vital to the development of this game. So many things will need to be endlessly tweaked and I will have many decisions that I need much more input on to properly decide. So, if you haven't already, I'd recommend going and checking out the game. Of you have thoughts and want to share them, please do so. The more I understand how other people see the game, the more I can get my head around the full project. Thanks for reading!