The Verdict

Did we get to beta in a month? Yes. And no.

I know I haven't done such a great job updating in the past few weeks, but we have been working on the game. Did we get to beta? Well I guess that depends on how you define beta. Which we probably should have done before starting this endeavor. Are we miles... light years... ahead of where we were a month ago? YES! Is it ready for people to start testing? No. But we're still working away. The beta-in-a-month thing was more of an attempt to keep us on track and motivated. And mostly it worked. I personally have strayed some, getting distracted by books and crafts and comics and looking for a regular job, but I still love this project and want to see it succeed.

One of the things we did learn from the last month is it is HARD to make a video game with three people. We knew it would be, but sometimes when I think about the massive amount of artwork that is still needed (and, oh yeah, some content) it is a little overwhelming.

In other news we went to visit my parents over the weekend. They have custody of our cats, Fatty and Blackie. (Yes, we are very creative with the naming.) As soon as we got there on Thursday we were informed that earlier that week Fatty had died. He had been sick and it turned out he had feline immunodeficiency virus. It's very sad. He was the best cat ever (with Blackie coming in a close second of course) and we will miss him A LOT!

Sir Fatticus Mowbuckle:

An update and an introduction

Things are still moving along pretty steadily. Wayne is fixing things, then breaking other things to fix something else. Then going back to fix the things he broke. Vague enough for you? Rest assured though, there is method to his madness. Or so he tells me!

On the artsy side of things, I'm working on map tiles. So many map tiles! Yesterday it was all about potholes. Today it's about... well, still about potholes. And other street-related objects. My friend Kirsten has jumped on board and created a few tiles for us, so that's super cool of her. Hopefully I can twist her arm and get her to do more. Here's a tiny preview of what we've been working on. (Please pardon the lack of proper grass. But enjoy the viney flowers - those are Kirsten's handiwork!)

Burgers and abilities

Today, while I was sleeping, Wayne fine-tuned collision. This means I can now make models BIGGER than we had originally planned. Awesome! Of course most will stay basically the same size, but now I have more room for animations. An interesting development indeed!

After I woke up (and also after we went to Phil's Ice House for awesome hamburgers - or in Wayne's case an awesome veggie burger), we started in on class abilities. And boy did we get a lot done. There's, like, a color-coded flow chart and everything. We got about 90% of our starter class to a point we are both happy with. Still a couple more ability trees to go though. We also fleshed out some pretty unique ideas for how faction might work. Overall, a lot accomplished.

When we get on a roll like we did today, time just flies by. I looked at the clock and it was about 10 pm. Then the next thing I knew Wayne was yawning and saying he was going to bed. It was 1 am. What?! How did that happen? I worked on this project from about 4 pm until 1 am, except for about half an hour while we watched Soap on Hulu and ate dinner, and another 20 minutes while I went on a coffee run to Starbucks. Wayne put in even more hours than I did because he is crazy and wakes up all early for some reason. The point isn't the number of hours we're putting in though. It's the fact that it doesn't feel like work. At all. I hope this feeling continues for a very long time. And I hope it shows in the game and people like what we are doing. Yep, that's what I hope.

Having said that we will probably take most of tomorrow off (okay at this point it is "today") because it's ROLLER DERBY DAY! The last bout of the season. Bummer! Can't wait til it starts up again next year.

Running into brick walls (in a good way)

Today was pretty productive. Wayne worked on tile interaction, including collision! So now we can run into walls instead of running through them. Swamp tiles now slow your movement. Very awesome. It's starting to feel more like a "real" game!

Fong has been working on lore and let me tell you, what he has so far is awesome! I so want to play this game.

I worked on player character models (though I don't know if you'd technically call them models because it is a 2D game). Fong started these particular models awhile back and I took up where he left off. Not that he left them unfinished, we just needed them in a different format than they were in so I had to change them up some and chop them into layers. I got two sets done, but that is just maybe a fourth (or 1/324th, who knows where it will end up) of what we need for one sex of one race. I haven't even touched melee combat animations and we currently only have one spell-casting animation. So yeah, lots to do.

I also did some research for combat abilities. Now Wayne thinks I'm obsessed with knife fighting. But I'm not. Very much.

Building Character(s)

I've been quiet here on the blog for the past few days, but things are still happening.

Wayne did... whatever it is he does! He coded stuff. Made things work. That's about all I know. I keep telling him he can update here and actually explain the technical side of things but I'd be surprised if took me up on that. So it appears you're stuck with me.

We were having some problems with our little test guy's walk cycle. We got it figured out yesterday and he's walking much more smoothly. Yeah! I've also been stuck on map-building for the last few days, but today I decided to give that a rest. Instead, I got UI components done for three more screens. Now it's up to Wayne to do his thang and put it all together. And when he does... we will have character creation!

Weekend update

I wasn't very productive yesterday (or today, so far). I got a few bits of the inventory screen finished then my brain shut down. Wayne was trying to discuss plot and mechanics and such with me and I finally had to tell him my head just wasn't in it. So we watched Idiocracy instead. Great movie!

Today, after a little bit of tweaking and resizing on my part, Wayne finally got the fancy shmancy round buttons working. Complete with glowiness! I logged into the test version and just stared for awhile. It looks so good so far, if I do say so myself! It's kind of funny that when we were discussing this project a few weeks ago and he mentioned UI, I was like, "That doesn't sound like fun. Do we really need a UI?" But it's been surprisingly the opposite of un-fun. I really enjoy doing pixel-level artwork. Let's just hope I have the same enthusiasm for the actual in-game art. Luckily we have Fong and he is awesome at that kinda stuff.

I was thinking earlier that it might be a good thing to mention that we didn't just start this whole project from scratch a few days ago. Wayne has been working on code for months, maybe even a year or more. It was just being put to use in a different single-player game/demo. Some of the artwork (stuff I haven't posted here) has also been around for awhile. The "30 days to Beta" thing came about as a kind of hopeful motivator for all of us. We have SO very much left to do and I thought we needed a goal. A (mostly, kinda) specific set of tasks to complete in a set (and limited) amount of time. So far so good!

B-Day Recap

We didn't go to the movies because Wayne reminded me it's Friday night and therefore super crowded. I thought back to when my niece and I went on a Friday night a few weeks back and a drunk girl fell on TOP of her. So yeah, we're going to try the movies on Sunday. Didn't have any cake, but I did have a cookie. Didn't play someone else's video game, but I DID work on Mana Punk some more. A lot actually. We now have a new login screen, a credits page, some lovely glowiness for the new buttons I mentioned earlier and the beginnings of an inventory window.

Here's a little sneak peek of the inventory screen. Remember it's a work-in-progress and likely won't look much like this in its final iteration. (For one thing it's all way too dark. For another, I really don't like the hat very much. Definitely needs some work.)

Cake & buttons

Wayne got the whole alt-doesn't-work thing fixed. So it works now. I knew he could figure it out - he's smart like that!

I actually got through the list of things I wanted to do yesterday:
Ability spreadsheet
Other UI windows (Well, this one I at least got started.)
Transcribe notes
Redesign crappy buttons deemed too crappy to live

Today I plan to watch a movie, go to a restaurant and eat their food, drink at least one caramel machiatto, play someone else's video game (that would be EverQuest II), and maybe even eat some cake. Cause it's my birthday! I'm not sure at this point if I'll do any Mana Punk work today, but we shall see. It's fun and I'm nerdy so it could happen.

Until I have more to update, here's a picture of the button evolution.

Caught up and catching up

We finally caught Fong up on the state of affairs last night. He's totally into it, as are we. Of course he has tons of awesome ideas.

Wayne got a lot of the UI implemented, at least cosmetically. He ran into a little snag though. The alt button is being captured and not going through to do what it's supposed to do. (I'm sure he could explain it in nerd terms that make more sense.) This kind of messes up an idea for hotkey usage so we'll have to do some re-thinking there. Aside from that, it's quite awesome seeing work I did last night already being put to use.

I have a long list of things I'd like to tackle today including redoing some buttons I deemed lame after looking at them for a few hours, setting up the ability spreadsheet, and sketching out some ideas for the other UI windows we'll need. I'd also like to transcribe my notes into something more legible and digital so we can share it all with Fong more easily.

Now it's time for lunch, then coffee, then Mana Punk!

(PS - Mana Punk is not the name of the game, though Wayne thinks it should be. I think of it more of the genre. As we get more storyline I think a name will reveal itself.)

UI Snippet

Here's a little preview of some of the user interface I worked on today. This is the upper left hand corner of the screen. Fun!

Coffee and UI

Last night Wayne and I finished laying out a rough UI. Today I'm going back to make sure we haven't forgotten anything, then I will begin actually working on a final product. Well, a final beta product. So a mostly-final-product-unless-I-forget-something-major. You know what I mean.

But first I need coffee.

A little more than a month

Can it be done? Can a trio of nerds with a dream get a game to beta in a little over one month? We'll find out.

Today we outlined some of the stuff we need to have done by launch. And by "some of the stuff" I mean "everything you can possibly think of." The ideas are there, a lot of the code is there, we just need some - ya know - game. Art. Quests. Math. All that fun stuff.

I guess I should introduce us. We are Heather (me!): designer and artist, Wayne: designer and programmer, and Fong (aka Jimmy): designer and artist.

Two of us are married to each other. (That would be Wayne and I.) Fong lives half way across the country, but we have the interweb to help us stay connected. Not that we've spoken to him in a few days. He doesn't know about this blog yet. Or the fact that we're aiming for Sept. 17 as beta launch. Or that we've completely changed the entire concept of the game.

Note to self: Talk to Fong.