It’s been a little while since our last post, so we have some esplanin’ to do! To put it mildly, we’ve been busy. We started as a one-man operation (now there’s five of us, more or less), and we have a complete ‘vertical slice’ which is a playable demo (with near final everything) that really helped us learn about our process and game.
Note, these shots are from the swamp area of our game – the final game will have a whole variety of environments to explore.
Speaking of the vertical slice… you may have seen other devs' post-mortems discussing what went right and wrong during game development. We did this too, but way earlier in the process. Doing this early helps us make a better game.
Right
1) Attractive and distinct visuals. We really feel like our game doesn't look like much out there, and is already looking nice. We’re not done improving visuals – but this is one place where things are clearly not broken.
2) Efficient tools for rapid iteration. We were able to build over an hour of experience in a few months with our tiny team. The time we put into our new design and tools are paying off!
Wrong
1) Overly organic process. Lack of planning around the direction of the game meant we spent too much time finding the fun.
2) Puzzles aren't duct tape. When things weren't working, we often said “just add puzzles.” ‘Puzzles’ are not a fix when you can’t articulate why (or when) something is broken. Also, puzzles are too general a term for much of what we’re doing.
Next Steps
We’re tearing into production now and are excited about sharing more in posts ahead. Speaking of which… we intend to post a lot more regularly going forward. We want to include you in our process and give you some insight into how our crazy-brains work!See you next time!
