Down From Review

Turns out that it didn't get packaged correctly, so I needed to upload again.  Unfortunately I'm not allowed to upload very often so I can't give it another try until next Monday.  I also didn't get as far as I had hoped on my new game since the family got sick over the weekend.  I'll announce it as soon as I get some of the major components working.

Up for review!

March to the Moon is now up for review on App Hub.  If it passes then it will (finally) be on the xbox!

Lots and lots of crap!

Sorry for the lack of a post last week.  Things have been a little hectic for me.  I think we're finally going to get our window leak fixed at the home.  That's going to take a lot of stress off of working on games at home, so that's nice.

I got everything fixed for the Xbox release of March to the Moon and tried to submit it last night.  I kept getting errors and nothing actually got submitted so that made me sad.  I'm going to give it another try today.  But what about the PC version?  Well, there's still a few problems with the website that I'm working on.  As soon as I get it fixed we're going to get some server space and update the address to point to the new site instead.  After we've got an official site up I'm going to start hitting up other places like Steam, Desura, Indievania and a few others.

Back in the actual game design area, I've done some work on Siphon Spirit (remember that?).  Fixed a problem with the loading that was allowing Peter to go and crash the darn game whenever he wanted.  Okay, it was allowing him to crash the game regardless of whether he wanted it to crash or not but ANYWAYS I got it fixed.  I also added a keyboard controlled crash so we can get a debug log whenever we want.  He wasn't too thrilled with that.  Oh well, I aim to please!  But no, that's not all I did!  I also added in foreshadows.  When you cast the reveal spell you get to the next stage of the level, but now you can see shadows of things that will show up in the next stage.  No hints as to which is which though.  Is it a cluster of free energy?  Is it a demonic void?  Cast the spell and find out!

Now, I'm not claiming that I'm the only one doing work on Siphon Spirit.  Peter's been tearing it up getting a ton of art in for the new demo.  The plan is to get the demo done in time for Indie Game Night on Tuesday.  It's getting close... hope we can get it done in time.  On the downside, it looks like we need a new musician.  Crap.


But that's not all!  We've also got my new project going on.  My new artist, Leah, got me some background art and button art which already makes it look way better than March to the Moon.  My goal is to get it totally working in time for Indie Game Night.  It was really looking like I was going to be able to do it, but then Peter wanted me to make Siphon Spirit work right and not crash and have foreshadowing.  Not to mention that I was sick for a week.  I got a lot of the screens done, and I think it's still possible for me to get most of it working, so we'll just see how I'm doing then.  Expect to see an announcement next week along with some early screenshots!

One problem left!

I got MttM to load and save the game quickly now.  Now it's just down to speeding up the loading of the game files and quicken the screen changes.  Unfortunately, I'm sick.  I'm not getting a lot of time to sit at the computer and work on things.  And when I do get time to sit down and work on things I have to do stuff for fixing the windows.  Double checking licenses, researching what different licenses mean, contacting different companies...  it's driving me nuts.

Down to....two issues!

Okay, this feels much better.  Now I can see the whole game on my little standard-def TV.  It was such a pain before when I couldn't see enemies at the sides, or even how much HP I had left.  I THINK that I also have it fixed for HD TVs, but I haven't been able to go check it yet.  Now I just need to take care of a few slowdown issues and I can get it out there.

Peter's been working like a maniac rewriting the beginning of Siphon Spirit and he should have the the new first level done tonight.  The hope is that we'll have a new demo for people to play in about two weeks.

Down to...three issues.

I got the saving and loading working.  Now I just need to make the saving not make the game stop.  One step forward and one step back.  The worst part is that I can only work on it while I'm at home and not cleaning or watching the kids.  That's like 30 minutes a day, and deploying the game to the xbox is pretty slow.  Needless to say, I don't get a whole lot done that way.  I'm hoping to get them released at the same time, but I haven't been able to make much headway on the xbox version.  What to do?

Well, I'm still working on the website.  And the demo for Siphon Spirit isn't done yet.  I'll wait on the PC version until those are ready.  There's not a whole lot to do for the Siphon Spirit demo on my end.  I'm fairly certain that I'll have the website finished before the demo is done, so as soon as I get the website ready to roll I'm going to start on my next project.  It's going to be completely different from March to the Moon and will not the be sequel.  It's a fairly short project and I'm hoping to finish it in 3-4 months.  I'll start on March From the Moon after it's finished and I've had the chance to read reviews and see what changes people want.

Down to three issues

Yup!  Just three things left until I can get it in to be reviewed on the xbox.  1. Get the saving and loading working correctly.  2. Display correctly on TVs.  3. Make the screen transitions faster.

I made some progress with 1. yesterday.  I think I'm really close on it now.  Today I'm stopping by a friends house so we can find out what it looks like on a HD TV.  I'm not cool enough to have one myself.  3. is going to be a lot more tricky.  Hopefully I can get it figured out.  The PC version is done but I'm waiting until we get a demo for Siphon Spirit up to help advertise for that as well.  I also need to finish making the new califergames website.

Sorry for the short post, I'm feeling exhausted :(