Topic: A Development Thread for a Game funded With Bitcoin - page 2. (Read 4661 times)

I did a pure bugfix coding session. I discovered a lot of drawing bugs that are now fixed. I still have a couple more to go.

watching

A report on the game: http://kibabase.com/articles/the-city-stage-2-development-report

I finish all the milestone goals for "Stage 2" of development. What a journey! I am letting the weekend ferment the game into a polished and unbuggy but unfinished game while also giving me time to write a report.

Phew! I am glad that I have the grit to continue for more than 2 month in development. Time will tell if I will spend decades developing this game.

Primary work is on the combat system today. I should be finishing it anytime now. Once that is done, I will put in the final piece for this particular milestone.

Cool, thanks!

I wrote some initial non-comprehensive draft about the game and what you're seeing. There will be more information as I update it.

http://kibabase.com/articles/the-city-game-design

http://kibabase.com/articles/gameplay-description-of-the-city

You need to post up an explanation of what everything is/does.  I have no idea what I am looking at when I load up the game or start clicking things.

Correct me where I am wrong:
H = the unit you are controlling
Black = ??
Circle = some sort of safe zone
Blue square = crystal mine
Triangles = crystal stockpile

So right now, is the whole point just to gather crystals?  What will future goals of the game be?  How will you win/lose?

This could be a bug, but I need steps to replicate this bug or ortherwise I can't fix it.

It seemed like it locked up. I couldn't move around (I figured out using a,s,d,f earlier) or anything. You should also place the instructions in a clearly marked location, I just figured it out by pressing buttons.

Does it keep going to the blue square and going back to the circle and making triangles? If so, we can conclude it is gathering crystal stockpiles.

My game is harder to understand because both I didn't work very much on making it understandable and because it's a game where you don't directly manage units. It will take time for me to figure out how to help players understand what's going on.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I will write a post on the overall version of the game. Maybe this will help get funders on board.

Also, I forgot to mention that I applied for a researcher position for a charity. I doubt I'll get the job, and I estimate a 90% likelihood of failure to get the job. We will know in an estimated 1-3 weeks, because I have to complete an unpaid test research project. If I manage to somehow snag the job, I can still continue to work on this game even if it is in reduced capacity and my situation will be far less fragile. It's better to having written the game, rather than not at all.

Maybe if you provide some idea of what it will look like in the end. So far I have just been confused. My H ran into a blue square and then made a circle then I couldn't do anything.

I am thinking of raising the price of development considerable or changing my business model to beat back the cost of maintaining my existence in the world. I paid 300 dollars a month to rent my own room from my parents. I also pay some money for cheap hotdogs and the occasional starbuck coffee, car maintenance, and so on. This mean I'll eventually lose all my saving in the process of creating this game and I will have to look for a real job again.

If I could get at least 300 dollars a month, that mean my burnrate will decrease to a level in which I will be slightly losing money. While it won't make me profitable, it will at the very least increase the longevity of my ability to work on this project. If I found a way to make myself slightly profitable, this will let me maintain my project indefinitely. It won't do much to increase my ability to survive emergencies, but it will help maintain my current lifestyle atm. It meant that I can dedicate my time toward this project and build my magnum opus, the video game that will encompass my life's work. It is my dream to be able to do this, but if I need to put food on the table, I will have to set aside this project of mine or work dramatically less each day on this project.

So how do I reach this 300 dollars worth of bitcoin goal?

We could continue the previous model of spec driven development. Each development stage, I promise to achieve a certain set goal and once funding is done. However, if I added a lot of things for this stage, I basically overwork myself. This is the currently the case. I have not gotten any new funding since more than one month ago because there was so many features that I need to achieve before asking for more funding.

I could go toward another direction. Instead of completing milestones before asking for more funding, I ijust aim for weekly goals. If I achieve my goal for that particular week, I would simply add more stuff to work on. Otherwise, I need to scale back. Users can see the progress I am making on a day to day basis, assuming I didn't forget to deploy. Users are free to donate as many bitcoin as they like. Perhaps users can get little extra something if they donate enough bitcoin, perhaps a drawing or a short story. This could be a way to improve my writing or artistic skills! I am basically imitating the Dwarf Fortress business model, except that I have a much tighter feedback process. Donation usually peak when a new version of dwarffortress is released, which can be very occasional. I, on the other hand, pretty much release new versions to the public frequently. I think this business model suit me a lot better than the business model I am on now.

I am leaning toward the second business model. It's more suited to my style of development. What do you guys think? Do you think I could feasibly achieve my goal or do I have to get a real job developing website for clients?  I think the biggest question is how many people are willing to support my effort. I don't have any loyal fans yet because my game doesn't have much for people to have fun with. It may be a long time before I can achieve even a minimum of 300 dollars a month in bitcoin.

The combat system now have a proper dodging maneuver when opponents attempt to strike you. You can test them in the scenario "combat" in test arena. It's not completed though, because I need to add disabling effect to dodging when units' leg are injured.

Units are now color coded by gender to help better distinguish between units.

The redrawing bugs are almost gone. This give me a chance to focus on fixing all the bugs that are cropping up in the system.

Tomorrow, I'll fix some of the last remaining redrawing bug and getting the combat system finished for this development stage.

If you want to read up more on what I am doing, head to the game's project page where I post even more detailed development logs.

Click on the game, anywhere. Press return/enter to select.

Well I can't seem to get beyond new game and test arena...

There is more than just two menu options, but it's still not much of a game.

The only thing I see now is a black screen with 2 menu options, not much of a game

Been working all morning to fix issues related to FPS boosting breaking how objects are drawn. Camera and menu system are fixed. There are still more display issues to go but I am getting the hang of it.

Now, I will take a break and then work on something else before coming back to this project.