ColorDots Game Dev Blog - build 01

Hi. In the absence of a real name for the game I mentioned in the previous post, which would allow me to start a new blog with the same title, I'm going to just use this space to accomplish the same goal: blogging about the game progress.

The hope, at this time, is to release a new build weekly, probably Sunday evenings, since that's the best time for Joe and I to get together to work on it. So, if you're looking, that's the time to look for it.

The game as of today at build 01, is only about 20% done. There's no UI, there's no art, the mechanics are only about half implemented, there's no story. Lots of stuff still sucks, specifically the fact that the instant that you go over the loss threshold, you lose. That's probably the first thing we're going to fix, because it's freakin' annoying. (But much better than last week's loss condition, which would cause you to just randomly lose every once in awhile.)

Second is level balance, which includes powerups, powerdowns, new effects, dot-spawn speed, and half a dozen other things that are being thrown around. There are a lot of people who don't play FPS games religiously, and don't have the level of mouse-eye coordination that the current incarnation requires. This can't be a game that most casual players get 3 minutes of frustration out of.

Worse, I haven't seen anyone get past level 16, which is... troubling, since that's about 10 and a half minutes of gameplay and then hitting a wall that perhaps no one will ever cross. Getting crazier is ok, but we need it to happen more gradually, and we need to add powerups and other benefits at a rate that allows the player to properly combat the unrelenting tide of dots.

Third, art, sound, and story. A fun game mechanic was enough 20 years ago, but it really isn't anymore. I was going about this on the assumption that the ideal game mechanic could replicate Tetris-style success. However, a friend informed me that one of the most important parts of a casual game was that it gave the player all the flashy lights right away, instead of making the player invest a lot of time and effort to gain them. I figure a 5 minute investment isn't so bad, but it's true, relying solely on the game being fun to click isn't going to be enough. It has to look fun too. /sigh

What's the plan for doing all this? Well, I'm writing a story, which at some point will get fixed by some real writers who are friends of mine. I have an artist lined up, but music/sound might be a problem.

For level balance, I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I'll talk about more when they're actually implemented. We'll probably do all the implementation of new features first, and then tweak them to be fair and then to change over time. Then, we start picking and choosing which effects or abilities are added at which time, and base that on how useful they are under different circumstances.

That's basically what we did last weekend, when it was tough to get past level 5, so we just divided all the numbers by 3. Now level 15 is hard, so we'll probably need a more complex solution. We've just started, though, so I'm not terribly worried yet.

That, I think, is everything at this time. I'll be back with more next week.

-s