Forensic Friday 14: A Period of Refactors, Setbacks and Progress!? Hauling!
Hello everyone! We are back! After a few weeks of silence. Well I say we, but it’s currently I. Why? Well, I’ll explain later in the post; but do not fret! Progress is being made, by me! I am working as hard as I normally would to keep the game development machine churning and I bring good progress, at least from my point of view! What is that progress? Well….
Refactor Complete #
The refactor is complete! (For the most part. At least enough that no more significant changes will occur). That’s really all I can say on the matter, its hard to communicate how extensive the refactor was but the code base is a lot nicer to work with (in my opinion). So it is indeed a great day for all the refactor lovers out there!
Saving #
Saving was not originally apart of the refactor, but was included since it’s quite an important feature which should be done as early as possible. So I’m glad it’s finally out of the way. We had a saving system already, but it wasn’t very scalable and had some annoying grievances but now it’s spick and span. So not the most interesting news by far, but it did take a week of work to sort out a lot of issues to get it working to a point where new features could easily be made saveable. (There were a lot of issues) And that is all I have to say on that!
Setbacks #
Now it’s probably time to talk about some of the setbacks we are facing. We don’t want to lie to you, so being straight up is always best. This summer is probably not looking like it will be the *“SUPER PRODUCTIVE ALPHA MAKING SUMMER” **that we were hyping it up to be. The reality is that not everyone has the time *currently to invest in Containcorp full time, and it may very well be that some never will. In all honesty the 2 new devs that we brought on haven’t started working on the game yet, and we aren’t sure if they ever will. But that’s okay in the end. This game is a passion project after all, we aren’t getting paid to work on it 9 to 5 at the end of the day, so it’s a hard ask to ask for help on it considering how tedious game development can be, especially for software engineers who have never attempted it before. Anyways I digress, the main point is that I (David) am free to work on the game and will continue to work on it as I always do, but just don’t expect this summer to be as interesting development wise. I wish I could tell you something different but its just the truth. But on a lighter note, since the refactor is done, I can start moving onto working on more interesting things….and the next thing I’m about to start working on is very integral to the game’s core gameplay loop!
Progress!? #
I am just going to interject with a complete side track: A new feature has been implemented. NPCs can….drumroll haul items to regions! Oh the humanity! Truly a terrifying ability. Anyways just doing a quick side note here. Take a look at the video of it in action, also marvel at this NPC who had the weirdest name I’ve seen!
State of the Game #
I am about to start working on scientists! Which I think is interesting to say the least. This includes adding anomalies next! In earlier posts I made it sound like anomalies were super far away things that would only get implemented at the end, but after our complete re-analysis of our focus on development, anomalies are INTEGRAL to the gameplay loop, and thus should be implemented sooner rather than later, and by that I mean as soon as possible. Not every anomaly needs to be in the game, but there should be a framework to easily add them. I am personally excited to start working on scientists which I think have very interesting mechanics that we thought up of (still thinking of more). You can read about how we expect scientists to work in Forensic Friday 12. That’s really all I have to say about that!
Case closed #
I think its time we closed the case file, and log off for a few weeks. I am going on a 2 week holiday next week so Forensic Friday may or may not be delayed (as if its ever on time), but, even though I should be enjoying my holiday, a part of me wants to work on the game during my holiday. Some may say it’s not healthy ecetera, but I honestly don’t care. I enjoy working on the game and its very fulfilling to make progress on it! It’s great to see (at least a few) of you guys continue supporting the game vocally and encourages me a lot to keep pressing. I know engagement with the server has been at an all time low, but as you probably understand by now: development on the game is my first and foremost priority. Writing anomalies is quite a lot of work! It’s very much fun, don’t get me wrong, but also very tough to make good ones. I would rather spend those hours on active development time, since we need all the hours we can get. It saddens me however.
I still am thinking of ways I could fit writing anomalies into my schedule without inducing a burn out (mentally and creatively :/). We also haven’t been doing much marketing for that game which is really a result of 2 things. One a fleeting confidence in the product right now, and two, a fleeting confidence in our abilities to provide what we promise. I don’t want to get too personal but as time goes on, it gets very hard to feel as excited for the project compared to when we first started. It’s almost been 2 years now, a long time to think, reflect and doubt ourselves. I’m sure its natural to all game developers, and we keep trying to push through this lingering doubt. It’s too easy to think “We could spend out time doing something else with everything we have learnt”, and yes we have learnt a crazy amount from doing this project but I don’t think abandoning it for a new one would be a good idea in any reality. After all, out of the frying pan into a fire as they say. Anyways I am rambling now so it’s time I close.
In short, development continues! Case closed!
Thanks for anyone who read.
The Team,
Plasmarc Studios
P.S. Someone remind us to do our tax returns before the summer ends :o さよなら!