Spenny

Hey, so I don't know what you consider beginner, I would at least assume after working through two courses you are certainly working with some pretty effective base knowledge. If your end goal is employability as a programmer, it would probably make sense to look into C++ courses and algorithm courses (abstract computer science). C++ is probably the most arcane yet widely used language (in games too) and the abstract comp sci stuff is the meat of programming interviews. I like C# a lot, but it's design is generally for ease of use to the programmer, and in my experience, C# expertise hasn't been the shiniest thing on a resume. Learning another language and learning abstract CS will echo back and make your C# skills stronger.

This main character looks like a pretty cool boy.

Yeah, totally had to consider that when making this decision. I think you end up trying to decide between two design philosophies. The one, which is emblematic of PC games, is the expose everything philosophy. Sure some of it is a bit hard to access, but if a player wants, they can get in there and customize the game to their liking. The other philosophy, reflected more by console games, and especially mobile games, is to really only provide one experience. No you're not going to please everybody, but you do your best, and the experience is consistent. I wouldn't argue either of these is better, just have to decide what fits best with the game. To me, having a deeper camera system, accessible to the players who really want it, is antithetical my aforementioned thoughts on accessible design. I want Monumental Failure to be very "what you see is what you get". In this weeks devlog I write out some thoughts after having seen a post mortem for the game Valley. Read it here.

This week's devlog: How the camera works.

On a bit more of a personable note, we've had our first push back on release date. Originally we had a very lofty goal mid October, giving us room to miss. We've shifted our "version 1 complete" goal to mid November, then we just need to figure out a release date that isn't going to be trampled by a notable AAA release. In general, I'm feeling better with this plan. It's going to give me the time I need to design the game, and a bunch more to do bug fixes and optimizations. I have 3 new levels designed, and the speed in which I can do that has basically reached its maximum. Recently I completed implementing almost all the games UI, options menu being the big TODO still on the list. This feels great. I have all the navigational conveniences you would expect from a game, and in my testing I'm feeling better about playing the game. There's still polish to be done, and some additional features might create more UI, but it was a moment of contentment for me.

We've been maintaining a devlog on MonumentalFailure.com. Last week, I wrote about some Unity plug-ins I've been using. This week, I wrote about designing for accessibility, and how my Dad is helping me test the game. I'll put that text here as well:

Bangkok - 13oz Sangsom with 1 can sprite, on ice, in a plastic bucket.

Sean and memes? I'm in podcast heaven.

Mother of the year. Mother of all time. MOAT

Canadians put ketchup on Mac and cheese and we have universal health care. Clearly we're doing something right.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2044985/deconstructing-a-canadian-classic-tracking-the-origins-of-kraft-dinner/

Cut yourself up some hot dogs and you got a meal!

We're making an effort to write more dev logs. I'll x-post them here, but they will all appear on the official site. This week ITERATION & POLISH aka THE LIGHTING WORKS NOW

It's a bummer about the rejection, and, it's maybe cold comfort to hear it, but I can really relate to the overwhelming nature of the solo dev. I think there's a lot of naivety in too how much work on a game is iteration and polish, it's grating work! Doing it alone doesn't make it much better. It's tough! Spending some time with small things sounds like good therapy.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's some screenshots of today's good news. A shout of Woohoo! And a sigh of relief. Steam is such a make or break for indie games. Not getting greenlit would have spelled out an early death for this project. You can see from the screenshots that the overwhelming majority of traffic came within the first 48 hours. Here's where our analytics said our traffic came from. I have to assume most of the traffic came from regular steam users browsing greenlight. I set the campaign live around 10 am EST. Evening for Europeans, start of the day for the Americas. We stayed on the first page of Greenlight for about 24 hours. I think having a gif that quite explicitly shows gameplay was a good idea to pull people in to the page, but, this is hardly a scientific conclusion. About 75% of the comments on the Greenlight page were positive. Great to see that support this early. Very happy to share this good news with you all, thanks for sharing and promoting the campaign, and most importantly, THANKS FOR VOTING!

Good thing, you would have made yourself appear quite silly. It's an ooey gooey chewy acronym. GOOOOOOEEEEEYYYY

Hey guys, Just noticed that on your page on the "Past Broadcasts" image you have the link set to https://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/manager/past_broadcasts but it should be https://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/profile/past_broadcasts . Should be an easy fix Thanks for checking out Shadow and Colossus Felt a bit sheepish about my "check for updates" message at the end, oh well, jam quality!

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Also, thanks for retweeting, sharing, and what not. Our greenlight has been going quite well so far, I would be quite surprised if we are not actually greenlit. Thanks for voting!

I mentioned this in Slack, so I'll put it here as well. I was given an opportunity to make working on this game my full time gig for the next few months, meaning I quit the job I'd been at the last 4 years. A huge privilege to say the least, but also a huge "put your money where your mouth is" situation. I couldn't sleep knowing we would be launching the Greenlight campaign this morning. I'm certainly planning on sharing our Greenlight results, just like Dinosaurssssss did. My fingers are crossed!

It's been a while since I've updated what is happening with this game, now, officially called Monumental Failure (thanks to those who said they liked the name). This period of quiet was not due to inactivity, quite the opposite. We have been busy preparing Monumental Failures branding, demo, and Greenlight campaign. The "We" there is important too. My girlfriend Jess has signed on to take an active role in the development of the game. Together, we've branded ourselves Scary Wizard Games, follow us on Twitter. Monumental Failure as a name I had conceived of quite a while ago. Most people I mentioned it to found the pun to be clever enough. Developing a logo, we wanted to focus on blocky, ancient, stone carved fonts. 'Monumental Failure" is a massive amount of text to fit into something sleek. Instead, we went for a stack of blocks, evoking the monuments the game will focus on. The broken column ads some pictographic imagery, turning a text treatment into something uniquely ours. Because Shtone Hemge had already been released as a thing, I figured I needed to post an updated, on brand revision of the demo. What should have been a simple revision turned into three weeks of work, as I completely replaced the UI and added split screen multiplayer. In an unsatisfying way, the experience of the game the player receives is pretty much identical to the game jam version. Behind the scenes though are some huge improvements which will help me hugely going forward. Grab that demo here. Finally, ho-lee-sheeeeet, GREENLIGHT! This feels like the first real test of the game. Not much to say, just please go vote! We're really excited to have announced about what we're working on. More updates soon!

I memed mccree for you

There's something about the art direction in Titanfall that really speaks to me, and those two trailers are getting me the same kind of hype that the Titanfall 1 trailers did. 2016 year of the grappling hook.

Those are pretty rad looking menus. Interesting process you have with flat colouring start.

The exciting conclusion!

​This game wanted more patience from me than i had, but all in all it was certainly a well realized vision the evokes the loneliness of driving.