This is entry #2 for Blacksmith Dash devlog (check entry #1 here). It’s been three weeks and a couple of days since I started working on the game and it’s finally starting to look like one.
During this week my work was mostly focused on replacing placeholders with final assets. I am not an artist, so this task demands much more energy than usual and it also gets boring pretty fast. Luckily I like to work with art in general, so I could keep the required peace of mind to finish the job. This is what I’ve accomplished:
- Title screen (including logo, buttons and background);
- World and level selection screens;
- Hud;
- Level up stuff (stars, particles, etc);
- Sprites for characters and game mechanics;
Even though I made a good progress replacing placeholders, there are some parts of the game that still need final assets:
- Instructions;
- World selection screen;
- Credits;
When I got tired of working with assets, I managed to implement the score system. It’s working, but I still need to finish the level performance measurement, so players can receive stars after completing a level.
Here are some screenshots of the game:
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- Gameplay with final assets
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- Title screen
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- Leve up
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- Level up! (particles are a really visual improvement)
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- Pause dialog
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- World selection
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- Level selection
What’s next
I still have about 5 or 6 days to finish the game, but the university’s vacation period ends this weekend. It means my development time will be drastically reduced :). These are my final tasks:
- Create more levels;
- Add music and SFX;
- Work on credits screen;
- Polish the UI and all in-game stuff I can;
- Test;
- Create promo material for Google Play and launch!
I reached that point where working on this game is not exciting anymore. Those last tasks are boring, but they must be done. I have ideas for 3 new features, but since the current plan is to avoid feature creep, I will have to wait until the next version.
Last tip!
When you start feeling very excited about your next game and desperately want to spend time planning and working on it, you know you’ve reached the wall. As McFunkypants pointed out, that’s the final boss battle you have to win, so don’t give up.
My plan: the excitement to start the February 1GAM entry will push me to finish the January entry! Following that logic, you will never stop releasing games 😀
