I know launching a beta test for a demo seems pretty conservative. However, since this entire process is quite new to me I wanted to control the launch as much as possible. I'd rather slow walk the release and the game have balanced mechanics, acceptable difficulty and most importantly I want the game to be stable. When you release any app to the android marketplace, you literally have thousands of devices at your fingertips. One of the differences between planning an app for android versus iOS is screen size and resolution. Every iPhone 5 in the world has the exact same size screen and resolution. In contrast look at current gen Samsung Galaxy S7 versus Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Not to mention the difference between manufacturers. Or the difference between phones versus tablets. I chose to use Gamemaker Studio as my game development engine because I was new to coding and game development. I assumed that since it had the ability to port to multiple platforms the display would be taken care of. Stop laughing. I said I was new to whole deal.

       The commands and functions of Gamemaker Studio definitely gives the developer the tools to control the view to a point. (It's primarily for 2-D development although 3-D development is possible) As a newbie I didn't know to pick a platform, produce a finished game & support for a time before looking to port the game to another platform. So in the beginning I was making a game for the PC. It didn't need touchscreen functionality. I didn't need to worry about graphic limitations. The reason I switched to mobile platforms in the middle of my dev cycle is because I got intimidated by the art quality that was being used in PC gaming. I get it, you've played Minecraft. Minecraft did amazingly well. Cool. Now go look up how long it took for Minecraft to be developed and by who. I don't have that reputation, time, network or funding to take the chance that I can make a product that proves the exception to the rule. I also didn't have the money to pay a graphic artist to work with me for the life of the project. That's a whole other blog post that I probably won't write, because I believe everyone I worked with did the best they could & that's what counts. I now know how to properly obtain art assets and commissioned art. I am thankful for the process and the people I've met.

       People(and by people I mean those who play games) are intrinsically more forgiving of graphics on mobile devices, meaning that my game art was going to be a major turnoff for the majority of potential customers on one platform, but not so much of a deal breaker on others. As a first time dev, I can't afford the risk. So the game BECAME mobile. That means changing view ratios, view sizes, taking out the lighting system & the amount of objects I can have on screen. It probably added a year of development time because I was new to programming and had to learn everything as I went. But I have overcome and the demo is ready for its close up...kind of. Wish me well.

So it's been almost two weeks since the last post. Here are the updates in no particular order.

My Android beta test should be live soon. Just waiting on the finishing touches of the promotional video to be applied. So far I've only had to fix 3 bugs that I hadn't run across, so that's a promising sign I hope.

I decided to go ahead and launch on the iOS platform as well. Initially, I wanted to handle just one platform at a time, but an opportunity to get a promotional campaign has presented itself. As a small, first time dev I couldn't, in good conscience, pass it up.  

I believe things were going too well apparently, because the charging port on my laptop broke. It doesn't mean I can't use the laptop. It just means I can't breathe in the general direction on the charging port if I don't want my laptop to go dead instantly. I found the part I needed on Amazon, should be here Friday. So by this time next week my baby should be in tip top shape. Was that the reason I backed up all by data into a zip file on my portable hard drive? ...Maybe. Was that the reason I put the last 5 project folders in my Google Drive (I use a rotational save system, because I don't have time to learn Git Hub. I promise I will between April and December.)

So last week, I started the process of becoming an official Apple developer. Since I have my business paper work in order, I choose to register as a business. I had to get a DUNS number and call Apple to get someone to walk me through the certification process. I decided to launch on dual mobile platforms in order to put myself in a better position to help my Alma Mater. More details on that coming soon.  

I know the question that burns through your chest..."How on earth are you fighting feature creep?!?" Well, loyal reader, I have fought it by putting together a prototype of an RPG. I've downloaded the trial versions of both RPG Maker and Articy. I really like Articy. It forced me to consider things that I probably wouldn't have until I was months into the actually programming. RPG Maker is interesting as well. I don't like how euro-centric it is. There was only one skin tone that was acceptable for a character of African descent. However, once I learned how to augment the gradients.png file, that was remedied.

What the idea/story/plot of the RPG?
Does it have to do with the current game?
Will you continue to use Gamemaker Studio?
Will you upgrade to Gamemaker Studio 2?
Will you switch to RPGMaker for the entire production process?
Will you use Unity or Unreal like an adult?
When will you stop assuming I'm asking these questions?

 Tune in next time on "How Being an Indie Game Dev Shatters My Self-Esteem!!!"

So there's a lot of updating that I didn't do between the last blog post and this one.

Summary:

• Fixes: Faulty boss logic, faulty asteroid collisions,
• Additions: Boss fight mechanics, Power-up concepts, level soundtracks, Gameplay Tutorial, Lore Narratives, Ads, Bonus Content  
• Tweaks: Re-programmed existing power-ups in order to balance gameplay, 

I have done a solid week of private QA testing and I do believe the game is ready for a public beta test. The publishing process is interesting. I will have to get a P.O. Box because Google wants to be able to display a way for people to contact my business. I also need to start a reddit thread so players have a place to make comments about the beta. Other than that the process has been pretty smooth. More details coming soon!

It's a New Year! So much to update you guys and gals on.

Positive News: I've found several new ways to get the art & assets I need to complete the game. I've added power ups, an intro & a tutorial explaining the control scheme. I've been able to test on phones and the user interface looks great. I'm close to achieving the ideal gameplay balance on the PC & HTML5 ports. Asteroids are close to done

Negative News: I have yet to achieve a realistic gameplay balance on the Android port.  I haven't updated the HTML Demo on itch.io. I also haven't explored other HTML5  Arcades as I should have. I haven't checked on my Steam Greenlight page in 6 months.  

I found a dialogue engine. Playing with it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ok...I don't have a graphic artist that can consistently give me the art I need to finish up. I'm done with using that as an excuse now. I will code while motivated & make art place holders like I've been doing. It's time to play with the dialogue engine I acquired and make some cutscenes. I'm also going to put BACK the Moon & Mars level art work so I can work on the graphics & checkpoints. The last thing is installing artwork so that players can choose a pilot avitar...Hope to be finished by the end of the summer.

One of the toughest parts of being a indie game developer working on their first game is getting the word out about your game. I would like as many players as possible to experience the game so that I know what gameplay mechanics are enjoyable & what about the game isn't as enjoyable. For example I didn't know my game was visually too busy until 3 weeks ago. I didn't know the game was too hard until 4 weeks ago. Glad I know these things now before I launch the entire game.

Hello everybody. When working on a game at one in the morning, you miss certain things that are obvious when you're working on the game during "normal" hours. First thing is the music on the level would double up when the player died, so I fixed that. I didn't notice because I was playing the game on mute so I wouldn't disturb anyone. Second thing is I did a patchwork solution on the GUI. I still don't know why the GUI would shift after the player ran out of lives, but it's fixed as well. So...I have taken this demo as far as I can. The full game will have more/new levels, sounds, tracks, ships & cutscenes! I'm very excited!

The backgrounds will be less complicated.
The enemy mite class of ships will now be destroyed with 1-hit.
The GUI should be fixed once the player has re-played 

Long story short, I burned myself out. That's one of the major drawbacks of being a one man team. I have to do all the coding. I sub contracted the artwork, but lately the artwork has been coming at a slower pace. Which slows me down and forces me to fight "feature creep". The demo I put out isn't perfect but it's the end product of 3 years of work, so I'm still proud of it. Working until 2 a.m. sleeping for 4-5 hrs and doing it all over for 2 months wore me out. I didn't want to do anything associated with my game development process. I didn't hop on Twitter. I didn't check my email. I didn't login to my HTML or Steam demo hosts to see any comments. I just completely backed off and it was refreshing. So now I'm ready to continue! Here we go!

They are really frustrating to debug, because I can't use the gradients I was using either because the custom colors aren't supported, HTML just inherently doesn't do gradients over large areas or some other mystery that remains mysterious at the moment. It's the gradients that I thought gave the game a little extra polish. The other option is to draw the gradient rectangles using GameMaker Studio...take a screenshot...edit the screenshot in MS Paint or Gimp...save the rectangle & finally port the rectangle into the game. 

If that doesn't seem like a big deal keep in mind I would have to do that for each position of the rectangle as it gets hit by enemy weapons. So we're talking 20+ rectangles, in a separate color scheme for the Laser, Shield & Quantum energy bars, for each available character skin. That's a no. It's too much work for too little pay back. If you want that nuance in the graphics of Aviator Quantum, the HTML platform might not be the most enjoyable experience for you, so check out the working demo on Steam!

​http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=663837373

If you haven't read the earlier posts, I'm a first time game dev, which means that a lot of the subtle nuances of the different platforms are more like what heavy body blows are to a boxer. It doesn't mean that a loss is imminent, but it is wise to take a step back and reassess things. Here is a list of the things that trying to port to HTML has taught me.

Save/Load - Why put a save/load feature in a demo you ask? So I can test that feature with the beta testers instead of releasing the game. I don't want gamers emailing & tweeting me about how the game sucks because their save files were broken, or worse they don't tell me the feature is broken AND they tell other gamers not to give Aviator Quantum a try at all.

Not a big deal to take it out you say? Actually in terms of game architecture it was. I coded an automatic save feature that initialized every time the player died. That code had to be removed. The entire screen that asks the player if they want to start a new game, load a saved game, or delete their save file had to be removed as well.  The score was saved as well every time the player died, that had to be removed as well.

I put some unlockable skins in the game as well as a teaser/reward for playing the demo to it's entirety.  With no save feature, those skins are just teasers now. Do you sense the domino effect now?

Plus all the deletion code & buttons had to be deleted as well.

UI - The code that handled what the player saw on screen was designed for PC users(both Mac and Windows, though getting an Apple dev license is going to be it's own post coming soon) & mobile users. NONE of that code is necessary in coding the HTML version of the information display.

Good news: Not a whole lot of thought process needed, because it was really a whole bunch of deleting switch statements that I commented & formatted on the front end.

Bad news: A lot of the code that I put in to make the game accessible to multiple platforms has to be removed. I'm looking into how to keep the letterbox effect I have because, all the devices that have internet access don't have hardware keyboards. So far, I haven't figured it out. 

Debugging - Debugging HTML is a bit of a chore, because I have to upload a zip file EVERY.   SINGLE.    TIME. Having a notepad helps, but if the game crashes, I can't make a note of every single error in order to fix all of them in one fell swoop.

So why go through all this trouble? Because HTML has the easiest hurdle to clear in getting your game to the masses. Just about everyone in Western civilization has access to the internet. No specialty platform or operating system needed like Steam, Android, iOS, PlayStation...etc. Hope this was educational. Until next time or some other time... 

I'm a first time game dev and I'm having trouble figuring out what platform to launch from. The wonderful thing about Gamemaker Studio is that it gives me so many platform options. Sometimes the worst thing about Gamemaker Studio is that it gives me so many platform options. What I mean by that is when I began this game was a PC game, but I felt like I couldn't make the graphics justify it being on PC. So I switched gears and developed the game with Android mobile & tablet devices in mind. That's why you see the touch screen buttons on the side in my demo videos. However sites like idevgames.co.uk, Steam & itch.io have me rethinking yet again. Now there's no rule against a multi-platform release, but I'm going to be honest. I'm a one man dev team & I don't want to troubleshoot multiple platforms at the same time. Maybe I'll do a Twitter poll and see what happens...Stay tuned!

So I'm going to level with you guys & gals. I've been working on this game for almost three years before I launched this site. So this blog wasn't really going to be a true reflection of the producing process, but it will be a window into the PUBLISHING side of things because that's where I am in the game dev process. The core game is built, if I want to add levels, enemies, cutscenes it's just a couple clicks and some code.  So from here on out this blog will be dedicated to the publishing side of things. Yay!

Hello World! This is the traditional initial greeting when it comes to programming. I have been working on this game since the summer of 2013. It started off a tutorial I found on Youtube. The tutorial was about how to make a 2-D space shooter on this software a classmate was so excited about. That software was Gamemaker Studio & that tutorial will be linked at the bottom of the entry.

When I started I was a noob at programming, art design & game design. All I knew was I enjoyed playing video games. I always had a curiosity about why the games I enjoyed didn't have certain elements, features or mechanics.  I honestly started this journey as a coding exercise so that I could put one more skill on my resume. What ended up happening was the beginning of the game Aviator Quantum.