Well…

Posted by oddbob on May 9, 2007 · Lovingly Filed Under Development Log 
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…I didn’t finish on time :(

Beast Invaders 3 got wrapped about 6 this evening and in order to bang it out the door, its somewhere around a tenth of what it should have been and what I wanted it to be thanks to possibly the worst dev. time I’ve had.

Its been a bit tough finding time to code as it is, but I was pretty much on course for a nice cruise to the finish line - then my computer went bang. So, over a week of dev. time down there, but managed to pretty much pick back up from where I left off. Unfortunately, after slinging the demo out last week, I got a wonderful dose of cryptosporidiosis which not only knocked me pretty much out of the game but ensured my body wasn’t entirely keen on keeping anything down in either direction for a few days. Completely screwed my already wobbly sleep pattern too.

So instead of the best part of 2/3 weeks development time I had to bang the rest of the game into shape, I ended up with somewhere less than 48 hours and still feeling sick as a sick dog for those.  Then, to add insult to injury, bless his cotton socks, baby decided to have one of those days as I’m trying to put the finishing touches to it.

Damned if I wasn’t going to get something out there, though.

Despite all the head banging and disasters thats befallen the development time of the game, its a shell of what it should be, but at least there’s something out there for Markie to whack out for Retrovision and its probably still 400% more effort than I think most people would have gone to for him, so I’m pretty proud that at least I got something finished and done for him.

A lot of stuff didn’t make the cut sadly. All the bosses I had planned, there just wasn’t the time to code them up and get them in the game - so the assault waves that should have led to the bosses just lead straight into the next phase. The amount of different enemies and waves is a good 80% down on the amount I had planned to put in with lots of recycled sprites. The highscore code and the joystick stuff decided to kill itself too close to the deadline to fix so I just ripped it all out. There’s only 3 levels and they lack the structure and co-ordination of the first. And I’m not entirely unconvinced that there isn’t a bug-ette that creeps in midway between level 2 and 3, but I’m too tired to go and check right now.

…and I’m not even going to mention the quick hackjob of a front end…christ, its ugly.

I know I’m not exactly selling it up here, but after the past few weeks I’m kinda worn down on the whole thing and somewhere between relief that I at least got a game out for the deadline and disappointment that the game I wanted to come out from all this didn’t. It is, however, rolling back to before it all goes a bit uncoordinated - a nice solid foundation to pick up from. Which I fully intend to do.

For the rest of the week though, I’m going to chill out with some doodling, then consider the next step. G-Force needs a good seeing to and at least I know thats straightforward enough, then perhaps I might start stripping back BI3 to the bare bones, get some less lazy graphics in there and one quick theme change later and the addition of the stuff I wanted to put in… ah, just thinking about it cheers me up. Guess thats a plan.

And Friday, I think, you’ll be able to see if I’m being too hypercritical or not about BI3 for yourselves.

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Speak your brains

3 Responses to “Well…”

  1. the2bears on May 10th, 2007 1:16 am

    Chin up there old bean, the build I played the other day was absolutely ace :) Finish it as you planned, it’s your best work so far (in my opinion).

    Bill

  2. Sokurah on May 10th, 2007 8:34 am

    Hey, it looks excellent from the pictures we’ve seen, so I’m looking forward to trying it out sometime after tomorrow.

    If it’s really “that bad” I hope you get ’round to fixing it later on though. Personally I’ve been meaning to revisit all my own games and do some updating, but I can never seem to find the time - there’s always something more interresting.

    Still, this is about you, and I hope BI3 turns out to me a minor classic. Hell, if it’s only 50% of what it looks like, it’ll be a winner. ;)

  3. Richard Phipps on May 10th, 2007 11:12 am

    I reckon the flashing colours killed your PC and your immune system! ;)

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