This past month has been, well, rocky at best. We’ve had a few obstacles come our way that have made us “switch gears” on our approach for the next few months.
First, in the previous post, I had mentioned we would be doing some research on using a crowdfunding platform, such as Kickstarter. Looking at the data of successful campaigns, relative to the numbers I’ve crunch in order to make our project successful, I believe it would be best to spend a little more time getting more of the game complete, so that we can ask less from our potential backers. This isn’t to say that our game is any less valuable or of lesser quality. But based on the data, we want to make smart decisions, rather than impromptu, hasty choices.
Second, Hannah, our graphic artist, has decided to pursue other full time opportunities. We of course will dearly miss her and all of her awesome and hard work. But, we also understand, and have no hard feelings. Hannah is going to get us to our original milestone though, which we are extremely happy for.
Obviously these obstacles in our journey are not the best of news. However, I believe it has made us slow down a bit so that we could take the time to thoroughly think things through. It also made us realize that we should be reaching out for some more help. Therefore, we’ve started working with new people to not only improve the game, but to figure out what’s the best approach for creating a successful campaign. We believe we have one shot at this, and we want to make it count!
Concept Art
Hannah has been working on some really neat concept art. You can check them out below:
Music Samples
Tyler has also continued to compose some tunes. Here are a few snippets:
Overworld (Working)
Epic 01
Demo Song
Regal Woods
Game Updates
I’ve taken a little bit of a break from coding. A lot of the time has been devoted to research and figuring out the business front. But the other part is that I’ve been studying dungeon design in the Legend of Zelda. After all, if we are making a game inspired by the Zelda games, we probably should have dungeons, right? 😀 If you are interested in learning, here is a great start on Youtube called Boss Keys. Here are the highlights that I’ve taken away:
- Dungeons can be grouped into three categories: Find the Path, Puzzle Box and Follow the Path
- Dungeons should each have a unique personality
- Dungeons should have memorable areas, to keep the player oriented; this helps with backtracking
Conclusion
Even with the setbacks, we’ve managed to get quite a bit done! Bumpy paths will eventually lead to smoother roads.