It took a bit longer than I anticipated, but I’ve completed converting all of the puzzles in the game over to the new puzzle panel system I described in the last blog post. I probably could have made this a bit easier on myself if I had more deeply integrated the new system within the old one, but I wanted to keep things as cross-compatible as possible so I more or less have both systems working in parallel.
There’s a couple reasons for doing things this way, one is that I didn’t know how well it was going to work, and so I might want to abort the whole thing partway through. This is much easier if I didn’t break any of the existing stuff in the process. The other reason is that it’s just still easier to design new puzzles using the old system. I can just duplicate a panel and I don’t have to wire it up to anything for it to work. The new system, at minimum, requires wiring up each panel to it’s starting tile.
Going forward, I may choose to more deeply integrate the starting tiles, so that puzzle panels will automatically generate them as needed, and I don’t have to do any particular wiring. But going forward, it shouldn’t ever be as much of a hassle as converting everything was in the first place.
New Art!
I also took this opportunity to heavily revise a couple areas in the game, in order to test out approaches to the art, make something that is a closer approximation of what the game might be like when finished, and encounter issues which I might not encounter otherwise.
Here are a couple screenshots of the “arted up” areas.
Overall, I’d say I’m fairly happy with how the artwork has been coming along. The game seems like it might actually not look terrible, and might have something approaching a unified art style. It is admittedly a bit time-consuming to get this level of fidelity, but I think the results speak for themselves.
Testing
The other thing that I’m doing this week, is another round of playtesting. I’m pretty sure the next development steps are going to involve cutting a bunch of puzzles. However, I want to get a more broad base of feedback so I can make more informed decisions about where I should let certain things stay in the game and what areas might feel too tedious or drawn out.
Apologies if you’ve been on the testing waiting list for a long time. Feel free to hit me up in the comments, or on twitter, if you’re interested in testing sometime soon. (Or if you expressed your interest a long time ago and are becoming irate)
The Plateau
I have to admit, I’ve been feeling a bit wore out lately. I haven’t worked full time on a game for many years, and it can be exhausting. No matter how much you love a project, it will always go through ups and downs.
I guess I would say that I’ve reached a new plateau. There’s a certain amount of satisfaction mixed with depression that hits whenever I hit one of these new plateaus. In one sense, the game is clearly better than it’s ever been, but it’s also clear how much I could still improve things. Reaching one plateau means I now have to plan the route to the next plateau.
I’ve already taken some of those first steps though. One of the biggest ones was making this overhaul to the panel interaction method. I had been putting that one off for a long time, as there were still so many easy wins in sight on the puzzle design. Now I have migrated everything over, and the puzzle design challenges seem daunting in comparison. I don’t lack for ideas, but I do lack somewhat for the energy.
In the diagram of flow state, I’d say I’m more in the frustration section than the fiero section. I feel a bit overwhelmed and stymied. I’m sure I’ll get back into the zone soon enough though.
Taiji 