Week Six - Devlogs

After reading 10 Things I Learned In One Year of Keeping a Devlog by J. Kyle Pittman, the two points that resonated with me the most were the mention of further aspirations and the point about the game still being fun and exciting.

I constantly am shooting big and having to tone down the scope of my game or rework mechanics I cannot figure out. It is easy to forget this is a common problem people have, and being reminded that even a professional developer struggles with this in projects with multi year timelines is both oddly comforting and terrifying to me. 

When working on projects, I often get caught up in making them and trying to get them done with my busy schedule that I sometimes forget how fun it is to make them. This is one reason I appreciate having to write devlogs or present about my projects for this class actually. After almost getting burnt out working on a project until the very end, writing or talking about it is actually an opportunity for me to remember how excited I am about the things I did, how fun I think my end product is, and how proud I am for completing it. 

Unfortunately I still feel behind on this project, but forcing myself to get 90%+ of the mechanics in the game this week was great. I implemented a different version of painting than I was hoping for, but it works. I made some more of the necessary textures, and I implemented very rough instructional text. I am happy with these changes but the two big things I did this week were creating the general sequence of the game, and improving my building system. Now players start by digging holes, then building the structure, then painting it, and they must complete each task in order. Additionally my new building system requires players to start building in the holes, and then limits them to only place pieces that are connected to other pieces of the structure. I am proud of how this turned out as there were a lot of little problems in implementing this more refined building system.

Next I am going to do an art pass and make the game look as good as I can get it. Then do a sound pass and put in background music and sound effects. Then finally do a overall polish of the game's systems and mechanics until I have to submit. I am little worried about the art, but I am prepared to compromise the vision I have in my head in favor of artistic assets that are doable for me to create.