Adarakion Developer Diary: Issue 55

It’s probably fair to say that over the past few weeks that focus has been lost a little on our project. I’m not entirely sure why that should be the case, but organisation wise I’ve slipped a little! I guess it’s largely down to not having a lot of spare time to commit at the moment and believe you me, keeping things moving and flowing is really difficult at the best of times, let alone when the time that you can spend on such matters is in short supply.

It’s a fair comment that had we been working on this 24/7 there’s no doubt in my mind we would’ve probably only had a few weeks worth of work left before we were at some form of Alpha stage. That’s a very frustrating thought, and one that I aim to remedy as soon as possible! We are never going to be able to complete this game as quickly as we liked, but with renewed focus and determination we will still be able to hit our deadline of “before Christmas”!

Having seen some progress that is being made on the art side of RoChain Mobile, it’s really stacking up quite nicely. The art style direction we have chosen is quite a bit different from the original PC version, but fits the style and feel of the game quite nicely and it’s also inspired us to work a few other changes into the game. Nothing ground breaking, but just more in fitting with the whole art style of the game which pulls things together quite nicely.

On the code side of things I feel we are developing nicely within the SDK now – I’m learning new tricks and tips which are inspiring me to, in turn, learn more tricks and tips! I’m actually trying to plan my coding a little now so that I can work within the guidelines we have set ourselves. Of course I still get a few pointers here and there (Dev pun intended) but overall I do feel like I am learning a lot. What I do find difficult however is the retention of information. If I am not working on code all the time what goes in one ear pushes some older stuff out the other! My brain seems to have a capacity with a LIFO queue attached which won’t do… I need to go see about one of those Deux Ex upgradey things. Sure, it will make me look a little Borg-like but I can live with that! Sorry, I digressed from learning code to being assimilated… Now there’s a digression you don’t see every day!

So over the next few days/weeks I’m hoping to be able to bring you some footage or concept art for RoChain Mobile to get your opinion! It will be good to get some feedback on our WIP, positive or negative however I am hoping that (or at least, my gut feeling it) that the feedback will be positive and that all of you TSA readers with iPhones/iPods will buy the game!

So I’ll wrap it up there. Farewell and with any luck, significant progress report next week!