Dying To Live – Developer Diary #2
Just a quick update on progress made over the weekend:
Team Members
– I contacted the game jam artist, Ola Rogula, owner of dolldivine.com, to see if she wanted to help out with some new art for the game and she has agreed. Yay!
– I’ve also contacted a musician who I’ve worked with before to see if he’s interested in making music for the game and am awaiting a reply.
Coding
– I created a Label class and made my existing Button class support it. This was so I could add a version number to title screen.
– A while ago I added a mute all (music/sound) toggle via the M key and I’ve now properly tested it.
– Set the music volume to 60% to ensure you can hear in-game sound effects.
Music
– I changed title music which was placeholder. This new one is placeholder too though, but it goes better with the other new placeholder music I have chosen.
– Added placeholder in-game music which keeps going through all the levels and game complete music. I made all this stuff in Fruity Loops about 5 years ago. Got tons more like it.
– Made sure all music mp3s loop with no gap in Flash. I use this thing to make it work.
Also I spent lots of time this weekend investigating all the iOS devices out there and which ones I plan to support for future games. I made a blog post about it which you can read here.
I’ve uploaded the new version here. Have a listen to the music.
That’s it for now.
November 6th, 2012 at 7:49 am
I really like that type of game. It has potential. Allthough one thing I noticed is that you can’t do anything wrong if you die often enough you can just walk through the exit, so that’s not really challenging. Maybe you should introduce some limitations. Like limited lives or limited time to complete the level.
Do you plan on self distributing that game?
November 6th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Thanks. Well you can get stuck if you die in the wrong place. Have a rating (Gold, Silver, Bronze) based on number of deaths could be worth adding and possibly a time limit. Depends if I want to go the puzzle route in which case time is less important.
I want to get sponsorship for a Flash version first, then I’ll decide if I should do a PC/Mac download.
November 7th, 2012 at 3:19 am
Hehehe, I believe all Friendship is Magic fans are familiar with Dolldevine.
If your musician is a no go, I can think of a couple of guys who do game music. This guy: http://www.walzmusic.com/ & this guy: http://c418.org/
Invest in Android & Kindle Fire too; there’s a lot of people who outright refuse to buy Apple products for personal/moral reasons.
I like how you can use both the arrow keys or WASD to move him. Can you make [space] an alternative jump key please?
The music works for me because I like techno/trance.
Well, here’s a question I have. Will you have like 100s of levels with each harder than the last, or will the final product have longer more convoluted levels?
November 7th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Thanks. I also know a lot of musicians. Might even use my own (which is in there currently) or make some new stuff. I’ve personally found Android sales to be low compared to iOS but if a game does well enough on iOS then I’d port it.
Good point about Space, I think I used a key because my space bar is a bit big and feels less “tight” than a regular key. Anyway, added it now for you.
For the Flash version I was planning maybe 25 levels of the same size. If I made a PC/Mac downloadable then I could make it scroll and have bigger levels. Then again it’s good to see everything on the same screen…
November 8th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Very cool concept. Love it! If you polish it and make more levels it could be a lot of fun on mobile platforms. Is it done using monkey?
November 8th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Thanks Joe. Yep this is with Monkey. Not sure how to make it work on mobile as it’s a platformer. Would need a virtual joystick and they are horrible. Could make it automatically seek the exit and you have to jump (one button only) at the right time to die or something.
November 23rd, 2012 at 1:52 am
Hmm, how many levels would the game have to have to have a 1-4 hour play time?
November 23rd, 2012 at 10:19 am
Based on the current time to complete a level of 1 min max, a LOT!