Wow it has been almost a month since my last update!? Time really flies if you got multiple projects going on … AND live and work in the middle of a house renovation ! I can tell you it often feels like I’m juggling a thousand things a day getting games completed, updated, bug fixed, and making sure our construction workers don’t screw up ;)
I’ve been putting time into getting Meganoid 2 updated with all the new content it was supposed to get close after release (but Gunslugs got in the way of that plan). So I’m now close to updating it, giving it a full 100 levels and 100 reversed levels, new graphical changes, and a very cool soundtrack done by Gavin. The plan is to also release a desktop version for pc/mac, which I’m a bit nervous about: entering that market.. but I think it could work very nicely with some of my games.
And.. of course.. Heroes of Loot! Not a day goes by without somebody asking when it’s released on facebook or twitter. Pretty safe to say that I won’t be making the June date, and not really sure if releasing mid-summer will be the smartest move for this game, but I’ll first try to finish the work and then decide on the best release date.
I’ve been redoing the interface, might still make some tweaks, but a lot of the stuff really works well now and looks great. A lot of works has also been put into getting some animations done, these function as a comical intermission but also simple hints about gameplay changes or functionality that gradually gets added as you play.
The dungeon will now also level-up… say what? yeah.. the dungeon itself will level up as you become a better player. So you start with a dungeon at level 0, also known as a bit of a tutorial and getting to know the game, and as you manage to complete each dungeon, the difficulty will become higher. So it might be boring at the start for some players, but it will eventually end up at a difficulty level fit for an Orangepixel game ;)
This does mean some players might not even get to see all the monsters and challenges that the game has to offer, but that’s part of the challenge and charm. This game does things differently, and it will be interesting to see how people react to that.
So right now I’m at that painful part of completing a game, where all content is basically done but it all has to be tied into one full game. Doing a lot of QA to make sure that animations get triggered correctly, enemies and quests all work in sync (often had a quest to kill a specific monster that wasn’t even introduced yet or was already gone since it only shows at lower levels). It is basically playing, replaying, and replaying the game some more as small changes are made after each session. Sounds like fun, but it can be a messy thing code and organisation wise!
