Sunrise Sunset Update #5

I knocked out about 2/3 of my Sunrise Sunset left-to-do list this morning. So there goes all the low-hanging fruit. Still, not much left to do. Mostly optimization work & a few bug fixes.

Development progress has been slow, & will probably continue to be for the next month & a half or so, mostly because of school. Finals are next week, then I have a week off (of school, anyway) before summer semester, which will only be about a month long.

So I'm hoping to have Sunrise Sunset finished by the time summer semester kicks off, & I think I can probably have Giraffe Adventures finished by the time it ends. Giraffe Adventures isn't even a game, it's a half-finished browser-based choose your own adventure story. Anyway, it shouldn't take long to finish.

I'm starting to reevaluate what I want to spend my time on once I'm done with school for the summer. I want to learn some new development tools & I really want to start working on some new games. That being said, I also want to finish what I've already started. & that being said, I am so sick of patching up my old bullshit code. So much work, so little reward.

LIFE.

Sunrise Sunset Update #4

I've finally got the music in the game; took a bit longer than expected, mostly because the game is such a bloated mess. The process of testing the game, watching it crash, fixing the one line of code that made it crash & retesting takes like 5 minutes due mostly to egregious loading times. Anyway, here's the lineup (although most of the in-game versions are edited down pretty hard):

Sunrise, Sunset (performed by Anthony O'Kane)
Razorblade Alcohol Slide (DJ Qbert)
Inner Space Dental Commander (DJ Qbert)
Water Theme from Super Mario Brothers (Composed by Koji Kondo)
Testone (Sweet Exorcist)
World Music (Sifl & Olly a.k.a. Liam Lynch & Matt Crocco)
Invasion of the Octopus People (DJ Qbert)
More Than Meets the Eye (The Shapeshifters)
Laser Eyes (Sifl & Olly a.k.a. Liam Lynch & Matt Crocco)
I Don't Want to Live on the Moon (performed (& probably written?) by Jim Henson)
Sunrise, Sunset (from the 1971 film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof)

I mean, come on. This stupid game is worth playing just for the soundtrack.

I have a lot of optimization work to do, some audio gaps to fill in, a bunch of little things. The semester's wrapping up, which means I'll be busy with school, but I'd like to have this game finished in the next couple of weeks.

Sunrise Sunset Update #3

Sound effects are finished & in the game; they're mostly either reused from other games or phoned in with my favorite video game sound effects tool, sfxr (it's free, check it out). It still ended up taking like 8 hours of work because I was an idiot when I programmed this game & totally unrelated objects are controlling each other so it was kind of a scavenger hunt finding where certain events are triggered. BORING. Anyway.

I just got started on putting the music in the game. Here's the song that plays during the opening scene:

It's such a weird & haunting interpretation, I love it. I edited it down from about 5 to less than 2 minutes but watch the video for the full glory. I'm hoping to have the rest of the music in the game within the next week, then it's on to bullshit optimization & polishing work.

Sunrise Sunset Update #2

The health/damage system is in place, officially upgrading Sunrise Sunset: The Interactive Video Experience to Sunrise Sunset: The Video Game. As simple as the system was to implement, because of the broad way Game Maker handles collisions by default & the naive way that past me programmed the game, adding any sort of "make something happen when the player touches an enemy" function spawned a mid-size bug infestation. But I think it's all cleared up now. Here's what's left:

- Sound effects (I plan on keeping these relatively few & simple).
- Music (I'm using other people's music & almost have the track listing all figured out).
- Final touches, balancing, bugfixes & optimization (UGH).

Official release date is one month from today, shouldn't be a problem. As a side note, today was supposed to be the release day for Justin Bieber's Mega CockBlockaz 2 ... ah, well. I really don't regret postponing that one.

Sunrise Sunset Update #1

I'm actually having quite a bit of fun finishing up this little piece of shit game. The ending sequence is finished & turned out quite well; a whole lot of stuff happens over the course of the half hour it takes to get through the game & the ending ties it all up pretty nicely. Be prepared, it is very emotional.

Also made a title screen that I'm happy with & got started on the health/damage system, which is going to be pretty simplistic, should be done soon. I even got started on putting the soundtrack together.

What you can't tell from the screenshot is that the sun & moon are constantly rising & setting, the background color & title text color change to new random colors to the rhythm of an endless loop of "Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof, and random things from the game are flying around the screen, spinning around & changing shape, fading in & out. It's quite a party. Really should have just made a gif instead of typing all that out. Oh well.

Sunrise Sunset Update #0

I just played through the game in it's current state, it's a not-too-painful 30 minute long experience from start to finish. This is, I think, the 3rd game I ever started working on. It's a bullshit platformer, I guess, but it's more of a tourist game. Like, you walk through it & vaguely amusing things happen. Anyway, here's what's left to do:

- Finish Ending (an emotional journey set to the tune of my favorite Sesame Street song).
- Make it a Game (you have no sort of health currently & enemies do no damage).
- Title Screen, Game Over Screen, Etc. (all that bullshit).
- Music & Sound Effects (I'll be using other people's jams rather than writing my own).
- Optimization & Final Bugfixes (easier said than done).

So here we go, about to get blasted on Old Crow & crank out this end sequence. See you on the other side.

OH YEAH I'M SUPPOSED TO BE MAKING SHITTY GAMES

Well, nothing to report, really. I'm using school & work as an excuse, but CockBlockaz is just at that boring point in development & I can't muster the motivation at the moment. There's no way that I'll make deadline even if I bust ass at this point so I'm going to move on & tack CockBlockaz onto the end of the list, hopefully get back to it by the end of summer.

Next up is Sunrise Sunset, which I am none too stoked about working on, either, but it's almost done & I don't care about making it good. I actually sort of like CockBlockaz, which makes the final development stages a slog, but I don't give a good god damn about Sunrise Sunset so wrapping it up shouldn't be too painful.