Wow. I’m recovering from a bit of a whirlwind week. Progress on Project 2 has been tremendous over the past few days, I mean tremendous as in “the game now works”! At this point I need to thank the team for all their efforts over the past few days, they’ve all put in some sterling work to get to where we are now. I think it’s fair to say we all feel really stoked about the position we now find ourselves in. We spent so much time building the bare bones code for the game that once that groundwork was all laid, that when we finally put the fun stuff in, it seemed to all come together really quickly. We now need to work on the polish side of things that I spoke about last week – and also adding in various features to bring the game to life.
Once we’ve added in some fun stuff and got the game working with the polish, I think we can safely say we have entered the elusive Alpha phase of development. Then the real work begins as we get onto the arduous task of bug checking. We want this game to feel right, play right and most important of all actually work as intended. It’s our first title, so it’s got to be a decent demonstration of our skills and talents. If we release a bug ridden mess to the world then we really aren’t helping ourselves. We want this to be a real boost for us and Adarakion generally, so we are absolutely determined to get it right first time. Sure we might look at adding bits and pieces after release, but the important thing is that the release is a) working, b) fun to play and c) introduces an element of competition between the players.
So, still quite a bit of work to do but at the same time most of what we decide to add in now will have an immediate impact into the way the game plays. It’s probably fair to say that this is my favourite part of development. I love coding stuff that has an immediate impact in the game. It’s incredibly rewarding to see your work actually playing out on screen, and even more so when it does what you intended it to do!
I’m hoping for an announcement re: firm details of the game soon. The reason I’m being quite evasive at the moment is that when we do announce the game, I want it to be in a playable state and be near to release. What I don’t want is to say “here’s the game” and then spend another 6 months working on it before it gets released – interest will be lost, interest that is going to be VITAL for us in making this whole escapade a success, so PLEASE bear with me whilst we nail a few more bits and pieces! What’s going to be really important to us as a group over the next few weeks and months is that you guys, the guys who play the game, enjoy it and talk about it. We don’t really have a marketing budget per-se so most of what we achieve will initially be down to word of mouth, people Twittering/Facebooking stuff and generally building a fan base. YOU GUYS decide whether or not this works for us (I’m sounding like an episode of Big Brother now) which is why I’m here writing these diaries. I want to keep everybody updated and as involved as possible so that when the game finally does release you’ll have more than just the game, you will have a diary of its development to refer to!
Website update is still underway and looking good – Phil is hard at work with the revamp. I think it would be great if we could coincide release with the new version of the site, just keep things together and also it means that new people to Adarakion get to see the “better” version of the site (which is a bonus). We can also use the launch to introduce new features such as the re-launched forums and tech support, as well as (maybe) offer downloads/patches etc. It just feels like the right time to launch the new site, but no doubt once I’ve seen the final version of it Ill want it immediately. I’m such an impatient child!
Ok, I think that covers everything I wanted to say this week, thanks again for sticking with us, it will be worth it in the end (and no, I’m not yankin’ yer #RoChain)!