Secrets among friends

So, there are some very exciting things happening with me at the moment. Some of them I can't yet talk about but hopefully will be able to shortly. 

First. There is a secret project in the works. I'm working with another indie game development team and it's going to be fantastic. Hopefully I'll be able to reveal more about this very soon.

NovaraX is being developed but at a much slower rate to make time for the new project. Brian (@StudioWaveland), who's doing music for the game sent me the first track. It's got a great sci-fi feel and it gives the game a great mood. 

I had some inspiration for another side-project. It's a single-screen arcade style platform shooter. I decided to work on a protoype and share it with you. I think I'm going to take this prototype further so I'd appreciate any feedback you have. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28484936/planet_builds/build_0.0.1/index.html

In personal news: my gal-pal got a job in Bronx, NY so it looks like we'll be moving to the greatest city on earth. I'm very excited about this. Living in NY has been something I've always wanted to do. Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet some other NY-based game developers. We'll be moving in late July. In the mean time I'm going to soak up the Virginia sun, fresh air and mountain views. 

That's just a short update about what's going on with me.

Regarding the secret project; I'm sorry I can't tell you more but I'll just say, if you're a fan of my previous work, you will like this.

... but it does have happy endings.

After a full month of living at my parents house (while my dad recovered from pneumonia) I'm finally back home in Virginia! My dad made a great recovery and was released from the hospital just a couple of days ago. Thanks to everyone who sent me kind messages! It was definitely appreciated.

Living back home with my mom is something I've tried to avoid since I was old enough to leave home. But, I'm glad I spent that time there helping any way I could, while the family was in need. Plus, my 5-year old sister got a chance to play-test Treasure Adventure Game. She quickly became a big fan and would ask me to let her play it every day. She also told me she wants to make video games when she grows up -- Awesome!

Since I've been home I finally had some time to spend working on TAG. I jumped right into where I left off: the most complex boss fight I've done yet. Luckily I was able to pick it right back up and things are going pretty smoothly so far. Progress on TAG will now continue at a steady pace, and I hope to have the game finished this fall.

I've decided that I'm going to be using Unity for my next project. I'm absolutely in love with this dev-tool. It's been a little daunting for me in the past, because I have a limited amount of experience with scripting/programming. But, over the past month I took any free-time I had to watch tutorials and read everything I could find about Unity. The absolute best tutorial series I've ever seen on the subject is by Walker Boys Studio (link). It's as detailed as a full college course and I'm convinced that once I'm done with these videos and labs I'll be ready to create my next game in Unity.

Life is not a Game...

August will mark the 3rd year I've been developing TAG. My goal was to have a finished game available by the end of August. Even though the game is so close to being done, unfortunately, an August release is not going to happen now. When a project takes three years to complete chances are that some real-life event will occur that will delay progress, and that's exactly what has happened to me. Before I get into the details, I just want to assure you that TAG is still well on it's way to completion. It's just going to take a little longer than I had hoped for.

Two weeks ago my dad was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. I just moved away recently, and wasn't around at the time, but my understanding was that he waited to go until he could barely walk on his own. That, combined with a heavy smoking habit, has really done a number on his lungs and it's really adding to his recovery time. As I'm writing this he's currently recovering from a tracheotomy that was needed to help him ween off of the respirator that's been keeping him alive. 

Because of all this I've been back "home", helping out the rest of the family as much as I can. I've hardly had time to even think about TAG. Not to mention, I don't have my computer, notes and the rest of the resources I need to continue working on the game. TAG has been close to an obsession for me for these past three years. I hardly went a day, or maybe even an hour without thinking about it. It's amazing how all that can change so quickly when life demands your attention elsewhere. 

I believe that there are always positive things that come out of even horrible circumstances. For example, I'm learning a lot about what it means to be an adult, as well as a son. Also, since there is a lot of down time:  waiting around at the hospital and babysitting and what-not, I've been trying to take advantage by doing a lot of reading and researching about Unity 3D. I've been wanting to get into it for a long time but was forcing myself to wait until TAG was finished. Now that I've got to find ways to stay busy, and distracted I'm taking the time to learn and I'm really excited about the possibilities of using Unity for my next project. 

I know this post is pretty "rambly" and of a personal nature, but I wanted to let every one who is following the progress of TAG know why I haven't been active lately. Oh, and that reminds me, the "baddie naming" gimmick, from the last post, worked out great! I got so many great names so far. I want to thank Stefan "bitowl" Hanßen, William "Skywilly" Bertin, Patrick "Ezekiel" Ezechiele, Simon Kaizen and Peter Stock for their name suggestions. All of them will be included in the game's credits. There are still some baddies left to name. So if you want to give it a shot, refer to the last post for details on how to help out. 

Thanks again to everyone who has expressed an interest in my silly game. It will get done, I promise you all. It  will probably only be a couple more weeks before I can get back to a normal life. I think it's realistic to say that Treasure Adventure Game will be ready for you to play sometime this fall. 

Virginia is for Gamers.

I am now a resident of the beautiful City of Staunton, VA! Our move went about as smoothly as could be hoped for. My Volvo is making a slight whining noise which is concerning. But, on the positive side: people here are ridiculously friendly, and I haven't seen anyone picking through our garbage (how novel!).

My job situation is still uncertain. It looks like I may be doing remote-access work for my previous employer, but things are still up in the air.

Now, on to what really matters: Treasure Adventure Game. I started a long over-due spread sheet to track bugs.

 

The bug count started out at 161 but I've already dwindled it down to 72. (And to be honest, these are not all bugs, some were things I left intentionality unfinished due to laziness). There's not a single thing on the list that in unexplainable, which is also very reassuring.

In music news: I believe TAG is now up to around 20 original tracks, all from the talented Robbie Ellis (follow him on Twitter). He's currently working on a track for the factory - think 16-bit SNES music meets heavy metal guitar.

Until my job situation figures itself out I'm trying to use my extra free-time to get TAG as far along as I can. I'm still optimistic that a end of August release is possible. The game has been getting some positive internet hype lately (which I'll talk about in the next post), and I really don't want to disappoint by having to delay the release.

Nearing the end... but also new beginnings!

I spent today celebrating my girlfriend's success in the world of academia. She received her PhD after 7 years of dedication and hard work... and it paid off! She got a job at a prestigious university in Virginia. So... after spending the majority of my life in the Rochester, NY region I'm going to leave my full-time job, pack my belongings and relocate to the beautiful city of Staunton, VA. This could mean great things for my life as an indie game developer. While I will be job searching in VA, at least for the time being, I'm going to have a lot more time to dedicate my games. TAG is getting close to completion, and although it will still be released as freeware I have bold plans for a future commercial project. Of course, a lot of my plans are based upon how well TAG is received by the public. I hope you all love it as much as I do.

Here's to a fresh start in Virginia!

On another note. I discovered how to do some more interesting 2d dynamic lighting effects in MMF2 and decided to revamp the entire game with this new knowledge. It took me about a week of work but the results were worth it. Here are some before and after shots. What do you think?