20 FEB 2021:
It's coming together nicely!
This week I made the new settings screen which is shown above. What I like about this design is that you can view ALL of the settings on one page (the original version had sub-menus and back buttons that didn't always work properly).
A most welcome surprise was figuring out how to get the text centering feature to work after all!
The "Intro" of the game is now almost back to its original state. When I run the program it goes like this:
Basic Controls guide (while game assets load in the background)
Settings screen
Opening animation
Start of main game loop
I still have some work to do on the settings screen and the opening animation, but once that's done, the "foundation" for the game will be set and I can start on the fun part: Putting the enemies back in!
Fun fact:
24 February was the release date of the very first Scrapship demo -- it's been almost exactly a year that I've worked on this project! I realize my progress is a bit slower than some indie game developers I follow, but I'm just happy that I'm still going. I usually start projects, get burnt out and then never return to them again. So daily small improvements has absolutely been key to my progress so far.
As I look back at the condition of Scrapship last year and compare it to today: MAJOR improvements.
Something special for those that have followed me this far:
A lot of indie game developers here on Itch.io ask: What are "typical view / download" rates for my game?
Of course that varies from game to game, depending on the quality and genre. Shmups or Shooters may be one of the most traditional types of games to make, but they're not as popular as FPS or platformers, etc.
For an unfinished space shooter I think these are some really good numbers. Keep in mind that some of these views and downloads are from the same people since I was releasing new demos every month.
What do you think about these stats? Are they more or less than you expected? Please let me know in the comments below!
Thanks for reading and have a good rest of your weekend!