More and more polish (as well as other news)

School is quickly approaching, the first day is stated as August 16 (a Friday...?), so I want to be done with the game by then, which is exactly why that was the first launch date. Coincidentally, it will also be my birthday.

With only two weeks of actual development of what I desire to include in the game, I am generally polishing the game. I changed the shaders around a lot to find something I like, in addition to adding some particle effects. The game seems to now have a real "atmosphere" that I like.

I added falling objects that leave behind little smoke tails, I added a glowish looking thing to collectible memories, I added a yellow fire effect to checkpoints so they are now visible (in addition to removing the "checkpoint reached" text), a small dotted line that follows moving platforms to enforce the idea of circulation, and some shards of glass that fall from broken platforms. I also added some fading screens between the scenes so the game transitions better. The game fades to white between levels, and fades to black between menus. Oh yeah, and a rain effect (still barely working) that I think adds some nice ambience to the game.

I have a couple of bugs I want to fix, one is game-breaking, but only temporarily. I know exactly how to fix it, and where it occurs, but I am too tired right now to do it. A job for tomorrow. Everything is just more polish.

As I begin wrapping up this game, I find more ideas of new games entering my mind. I have one idea that I keep dreaming of, but it may be too ambitious for my next project (depending on how this project turns out).

I also changed the HUD a bit, making it less cluttered and such. Also fixed some issues with resolutions. Added in some sound effects. Changed some sound effects, added in some music.

I am glad to be wrapping up this project. It's not that I don't like making the game, I absolutely love doing this, but I want the nervousness to end. I want to be able to relax and be happy that people like the game. Not even that, but I just want people to play it and know about it.

I need to update my profiles. I will probably be doing that next week. Find out how to use my twitter account, update and make facebook page public, update youtube, and update IndieDB. I have a lot of screenshots I want to put out there. Then I need to make a release trailer.

At that time I will also make preorders the full $15, and they will receive the build I have currently have, rather than the beta, in addition to the final build at release. I don't want people to pay $5 the day before release for my game.

My next post will be about why the game was postponed, I promise.

Thanks for reading.