Sprint 16 – It’s Not Built For Shoes – Retrospective

Sprint 16 – It’s Not Built For Shoes – Retrospective

IT’S NOT BUILT FOR SHOES

Week of April 30th, 2017

OVERVIEW

This was a pretty lousy week, if I’m honest. You ever have one of those days where it feels like you do a ton of work, only to you realize you don’t have a whole lot to show for it? Imagine that, but it’s all week, and you have an idea for how it went.

Dunno why, really, just one of those things.

This coming week includes a full moon – meaning a new release! – and I’ve felt completely taken by surprise. Has it been a month already? What the hell! Only 4 days to go…so, I best get back to it.

SHOW & TELL

Sprint 16 – It’s Not Built For Shoes – Planning

Sprint 16 – It’s Not Built For Shoes – Planning

IT’S NOT BUILT FOR SHOES

Week of April 30th, 2017

WARP DOGS’ CORP LOGS

  • The state of our WARP CORP continues to hold steady at ~pretty ok~
  • The Extinction-Level-Event (ELE) is holding steady at ~41 weeks away. Rad!

Not much new to add on this front – money is continuing to be spent, but not too much. We still have just under a year to figure this stuff out, and I’m still feeling confident we will.

For the first time in like a decade we’re getting a tax return back, and its substantial enough to make a blip on the ol’ WARP CORP charts above. That’ll come some in the summer. Between that, various retirement accounts and other sources of income, I think I’ll be able to keep on trucking until an eventual plea for money in the form of a Kickstarter. Ah, but before that I need a game worth backing, right? Well stop making me type this and let me get back to it!

SPRINT GOALS

I have a few different analysis-related goals this week. I’d like to get together a “Lore Bible” of sorts – for myself! I’m picturing an Excel sheet of sorts that lists every character, their personality, relationships, places in the world, and so on.

I’d also like to finish up the public roadmap that I’ll be sharing over Trello – I’m committing to getting that out this week, actually, so look forward to that.

On the coding front the plan is to continue with ‘core loop’ items. This week I’ll definitely focus on player housing including furniture placement, upgrades, and lots more. Finally finally, I’d like a more robust dialog system (one fed via an external file instead of the hardcoded version I have now)

So, could be a busy week. Let’s get to it.

Sprint 15 – April Showers – Retrospective

Sprint 15 – April Showers – Retrospective

Hurry up and announce a Pikmin game for Switch already

APRIL SHOWERS

Week of April 23rd, 2017

OVERVIEW

It was another good week. I’m switching some things up on both the development and story fronts.

I’d like to make my development even more open than it already is. To this end, I’m moving off of KanbanFlow and back to Trello which has more robust ways of sharing things. The idea is to make my entire roadmap public so that you can look at what’s implemented, what’s coming up, and you even vote on things you think are most important.

Here’ s a lil preview:

On the story side of things I’ve been rethinking some of the themes and overall tone I’m going to explore. Nothing much I can talk about now, but in short: things are going to be more fun and less gloomy.

More to share soon!

SHOW & TELL

Sprint 15 – April Showers – Planning

Sprint 15 – April Showers – Planning

Hurry up and announce a Pikmin game for Switch already

APRIL SHOWERS

Week of April 23rd, 2017

WARP DOGS’ CORP LOGS

  • The state of our WARP CORP continues to hold steady at ~pretty good~
  • The Extinction-Level-Event (ELE) is holding steady at ~42 weeks away. Neat!

Not much new to report here, truth be told. Just keeping my head down and working hard. I still haven’t decided if I’ll do a May release or if I’ll plow ahead ’til June like I did with the combined March / April release.

Though it’s a bit far away, I’ve also been making plans for how I’ll handle PAX Prime. I’m in Seattle and can definitely afford to go there, so I think I’ll make it my first public outing for the game. Like everything in my life these days it’s equal parts exciting and terrifying, so I figure I should get a head start on preparing.

SPRINT GOALS

The goal is to continue on ‘core loop’ features for the next week. My success – or lack of progress – will probably dictate if I do another release soon. I’m happy with how the Pink Crow release turned out, but I’m still embarrassed by how barebones it it.

Sprint 14 – Take Your Time – Retrospective

Sprint 14 – Take Your Time – Retrospective

Persona 5 is a hell of a game

TAKE YOUR TIME

Week of April 16th, 2017

OVERVIEW

Another good week.

Much of it was spent on creating villagers to populate Luckstone with. A lot of these have existed in my head for some time, but I hadn’t had the skills to bring them into pixel form. Don’t get me wrong – I still lack those skills – but I know enough now where I don’t feel super embarrassed about it. Check below to see everyone!

Beyond that I added a shop and shopping mechanics, plus some weird and tangential stuff – like scratch tickets you can buy at the store. I also began work on a female main character – a long overdue task I’ve been putting off on account of my inability to make good looking characters.

There’s also been a lot of Persona 5, which is a Good Game. So, maybe go buy and play that, huh? You’ll see a lot of Persona influence in Village Monsters…daily activities, personable monsters from all walks of myth and legend, and maybe even anime waifus!*

*no

SHOW & TELL

Sprint 14 – Take Your Time – Planning

Sprint 14 – Take Your Time – Planning

Persona 5 is a hell of a game

TAKE YOUR TIME

Week of April 16th, 2017

WARP DOGS’ CORP LOGS

  • The state of our WARP CORP continues to hold steady at ~pretty good~
  • The Extinction-Level-Event (ELE) is holding steady at ~43 weeks away. Neat!

I mentioned in last sprint’s retrospective that the week of a release is always incredibly motivating – the same can be said for the week after.

I haven’t had much feedback on the release I put out last week…to put a finer point on it, I’ve had actually no feedback. Like, at all. That’s probably not good, but I also don’t think I can read too much into it.

Things are going fine from a financial perspective. Not much to say – same as before

SPRINT GOALS

With much of the systems nailed down I’m now shifting focus to more “content” – things like creating villagers, populating different screens and other areas to explore, iterating over what I already have, and so on. Frankly, it’s been a ton of fun, but I am having a harder time finding a rhythm to the whole thing.

Technical stuff has a clearly defined endpoint – the thing works, the bug fixed, and so on. Not so with creative stuff…I could iterate over his fat dwarf forever, but should I? Probably not.

Anyway, the main goal this week is to start mapping out and working on the main gameloop. I have systems, but nothing really fits together yet. A few thoughts on how to tie it all together:

  • A shop in which you can buy and sell stuff
  • A house in which you can furnish and display items in
  • A quest system (what I’m calling ‘Mysteries’) to drive you forward

I think it’s possible to at least get started in all 3 of these before the end of the week