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Live the carefree days of summer as a boy, collecting and trading baseball cards.

Report RSS Dev Update - Sounds, Checklists and Game Clock

This week I've started to add sound to the game, implemented team checklist cards and began working on a game clock.

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There are three big things I've worked on this week that I'd like to show you. First off, I started to add sound to the game, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy Game Maker makes that possible. I picked up a few sounds from freesound.org with a Creative Commons license and really like how they turned out. Right now you hear the insects-buzzing sound of a hot summer day as you walk outside, a distant train now and then, and the knock on your friend's door.

Second, I've started to add time-handling functions to the game. I do not want this game to give you any feeling of urgency, hence there is not a running game clock in real time. Instead, I've approached it via a more abstract method. Certain activities take a fixed amount of time -- walking to the next block, trading cards, mowing the lawn, etc. When completing certain activities, you will see the clock advance a determined amount of time.

You can see here the date and the time as you pull up the inventory tool. I'm planning on moving the sun down and changing the sky color as well so you don't have to keep checking the time. The whole point is just to make you moderately aware of the time without stressing out about it. The summer is only so long and you try to complete your collection before it's over, but other than that, I don't want this to be a timed game.

Third, and biggest, are team checklists. After the season's set is generated, the checklist cards generate themselves and will automatically track the player's collection, once owned by the player. Then, when you flip a checklist over, you will see the boxes penciled in for the player cards that you own.

I'm still trying to decide if I like that the game checks the boxes for you or if I should come up with a way for the player to fill in the boxes themselves. I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions you might have.

Finally, here is a video demonstrating these three new features. Make sure you have your sound up to hear that warm summer day :)


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