Wow it's been over a month since my last entry, I have to make a note not to do that again.

Start off with project updates, the STAR Alpha is about 80% complete, it's in a purely playable form right now, and doing a blind test my brother really liked it and everyone else either went this is neat or meh, so I've still got a bit of work ahead of me to make this game more enjoyable.

I figure now is a good time to set some goals for this next project, and I'm going to base them. The flash version of Castle Underwe has been played just over 3000 times so far, which I think is pretty impressive, but leaves room for improvement, so my next target I'm pushing STAR to be played OVER NINE THOUUUSAAAAND!! times in the first 3 months of it's release. Needless to say I'm probably going to be pushing it a lot harder than I did Castle Underwe, but unlike Castle Underwe, STAR is being built as a flash game from the ground up, and only as a flash game, so it scales a lot better. That and there's roughly 4 times as much content in the game and you can save/load your games so there's incentive for more repeat players. There's also some retooling I'd like to do with the web site, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.
Until next time..

My current project has already passed the python version of Castle Underwe for sloccount, and is pushing the flash version, but still doesn't resemble anything more than a quick demo at the moment. STAR(yes it has a name now, what it stands for will be for a later post), is about 30% complete towards an alpha version according to my calculations, so it's chugging along nicely.

On a side note as I'm too lazy to set up php on this server I registered at http://www.000webhost.com/ to try to revive my signature that's been dormant for years now, but within a few minutes of hosting the signature the site was suspended and is now waiting to be reviewed. Not likely that I'll recommend that to people as right now I'm scared to touch it.

UPDATE: banned from 000webhost.. Not going to recommend anyone use it as I had 2 scripts on before it got banned. Anyhow I installed php on this box, and reuploaded the script. sign the sig

Sorry for the lack of updates, I just got a place with my fiance and there's no internet connection there yet, which is a bummer, but don't fret I am working on something inspired by the success of Castle Underwe, here's a quick teaser shot:

So it's been just over 3 weeks after I did this challenge, and I have to say I had quite a good time doing it, so now it's time to post my lessons learned.
Lesson 1: Always listen to your players
This should be obvious but it is important, as if you're not making the game for the people playing the game, you're not going to have any success with the game.
Lesson 2: Get your game playable as quickly as possible
Getting your game playable quickly will enable you not only to get feedback faster but give you more insight on possible future problems, and gives you more opportunity to identify how to balance the game.
Lesson 3: Don't try to estimate time based on similar things you know
A lot of the first day and part of the second day was lost due to me flailing around with flex, so my lesson here is if you have a deadline, stick to what you know.
Lesson 4: Don't randomly kill the player
I found the turning point of having my testers going the game is okay, to the game is good, happened when I made it so the random monsters were unable to randomly come along and kill the player(there is still the odd chance they get stuck in the tunnel to the safe room, but I kept that in to punish people who hide out the safe room too long). The safe room made a huge difference in people having fun with the game as it gave them a way out of otherwise impossible situations.
Lesson 5: Add something to give your players something to compete over
It's also a good idea to integrate this from the start. The move counter was kind of shoehorned in at the last minute, but it provided means to a competition which upped the number of people who played, and gives the competitive gamer something to strive for
Lesson 6: No matter how simple you make something, some people still don't get it
There was something about this game that people couldn't seem to figure out right away, and I couldn't figure out a way to give instructions without being intrusive. Some people (like my fiance) just don't seem to get it no matter how much I explain it to them.
Lesson 7: Simple games are harder to create strategies for
I couldn't come up with any different strategies other than hit and run with so few variables to work with, so hit & run strategies tend to be the only ones I hear of. Plus I found it hard to come up with a way to easily represent other possibilities like ranged attacks, or faster movement in the game(which was another suggestion I had for the game).
Lesson 8: Python rocks, but Flash gets your game to more people
Even though I feel the python version is more polished, and seems to run faster, and was about 200 lines shorter, the flash version has almost 3 times as many views, here's a pie chart for reference as pie charts are fun(eat your heart out mac users):

Lesson 9: In game ads are more effective than web site ads
I don't know if I'm just executing the web ads wrong, but the in game ads are getting a much higher eCPM, which is resulting in much higher earnings. If you're looking into making money off your game without having to sell it, you should really look into in game advertising.
< Castle Underwe - Final Day

So this is it, my 6 days are up. This last day wasn't a busy one though, to start I gave up on alerting the player when their health runs low, as people usually figured it out their second try when they read the screen, so I'm leaving it as is. I'm also abandoning the payment scheme, as it's very confusing, and I'd rather not confuse the potential players of the game.

Gamewise little changed, my brother broke his guitar so he was left unable to complete any further music, so the only music in the game is at the very end. I got the release up on the games page here, and after spreading the word a bit, Komet from techbums suggested to have the player movement affect the camera only when the player was nearing the edge of the camera, rather than every time the player moved, so that was the only change I implemented today.
With the only change today being a line count one, here's the list:

• convert.py - 19 lines
• underwe42.py - 319 lines
• ego.py - 81 lines
• view_layout.py - 14 lines
• underwe42.nsi - 167 lines
• Total - 600 lines

Wow kind of weird how ended up such an even number, anyhow to see the up to date progress, go to the download page as the finished product is what I did today. I'll post one grand summary along with a postmortem and lessons learned after I get more feedback, so it'll probably be around the end of the week.
< Day 5 | Post Mortem >