Game Update
I missed a week of game development with my mentor last week as I hadn’t moved into my house nor did I have internet last week. I managed to get online just in time this week however and we did make some headway on a couple of items.
We primarily worked on updating a sound that happens when the player takes over a town depending on the buff or de-buff that get’s rolled for the player. A cheering sound now plays when the player gets a buff and a booing sound plays when there’s a de-buff. I’m still trying to find solid sounds that will be enjoyable for the player however. It’s impossible to find just the right sound and now I know why being a sound engineer is it’s own talent set.
I think I finally found a good sound for the go button. It kind of reminds me of the horns sounds in the song “Losing It” by Fisher. The baaaaaa horn sound really gives an oomph when I push the button now. I’m not sure it’s the exact thing I want but it seems pretty good so far. The only issue is that when the button gets pressed by the computer because the timer runs out there is no sound. I may need to find a work around for that.
I worked on some text sounds as well. Right now it’s only playing a slight knock sound when advancing text. This is pretty good but it might be better to do the conventional RPG thing and make a beep-boop-beep-boop sounds as text scrolls on the box. The issue is that text doesn’t scroll on our boxes it simply appears. This might go back to one of our tenants which is to make sure that the game play is fast. If we choose to add scrolling text that will make the stages longer. Then again scrolling text is more fun to read, and it might be more engaging for our players than simply having appearing text instead. This might be why that’s the standard you see in so many RPG games. I feel like I need some advice so I reached out to an industry friend of mine and hopefully we can get a phone call in sometime soon.
Other than that I still need to get the capsule art worked out and author some other content like the spell particle effects for the game. It feels like I’m almost ready to set a date for early access though. I hope that the game is fun for people and that someone out there really likes it.
Personal Update
I’ve talked a lot about moving lately and now I’m finally here. It feels very comforting to finally be somewhere that I can settle for a while. Somewhere where I don’t have to say to myself, “this is OK it’s only temporary.” It hasn’t been a completely smooth transition but I’m seeing where things will hopefully be really good here.
When I did the walk around at my house there was a small gecko in my kitchen sink. It was still there when I closed on the house and he stayed there for the following week. Well I decided that it needed a home and so I purchased a terrarium for it and some other supplies. I’m a bit worried about it starving or not getting enough water. It doesn’t seem to want to eat the bugs that I got for it. I’m learning a lot about geckos right now I suppose. I don’t have a name for it, and I’m not even sure if it’s male or female.
It’s funny how you can become attached to such a small thing like that. I suppose I have something inside of me that wants to help people or animals where I can. Still I need to make sure to have boundaries as well. That’s the key thing about being kind that doesn’t get talked about enough.
I’m not sure but the gecko might be teaching me some things about myself as well. Some of my family in the area came to visit and it completely disappeared in the terrarium. It was very confusing for me and I looked for it multiple times. I thought it might have escaped somehow but that seemed like a near impossibility. It turns out that it had burrowed down into the sub strait and I found it again today.
When it happened I thought to myself, “why do I care so much about this thing?” It’s not as if it was my child or something like that. It’s probably related to what Eckhart Tolle talks about in “A New Earth”. He talks about how we as humans associate ourselves with things, when in reality we aren’t those things. I noticed it in myself when I was writing the address for my new house in so many places to take ownership, set up billing cycles or do any number of other things. I started to associate myself with my house. In that way if something were to happen to my house it would be like something was actually happening to me. I’m not my house, but in a lot of ways we all do this. The saying goes, “don’t take it personally” but it’s very hard not to.
Very soon I’m sure that I will be investing in a lot of new things, and associating them with myself. I need to make sure to keep in mind that those things are not me, they’re just things.
As a side note the Gecko doesn’t have a name yet. I’m open to suggestions. My mom wants to name it George. I was thinking Hope or something similar to that. I’ve felt a lot of hope lately in my new home, with my new job, and new life here. I’m very hopeful for the future of my household.