Game Update
I spent some more time on the key art, and it’s good enough for me to go ahead and push it out for early access. I haven’t seen the character duplication bug in quite a while and so my fingers are crossed that is still good. I’m sure that people will find plenty of bugs when I release. As a bonus for making so many version of the art work I was able to make black and white versions of it for the credits screen. It would be nice to have a little more of some sort of animation, who knows maybe in the future we can make that happen.
I need to get back on my steam works account and start creating different versions of the artwork at different resolutions now. I’m also looking at designs I can do for my logo as well. I found a great game dev channel on YouTube that’s being super helpful as I move through the process. The channel title is AuroDev. I highly recommend this guy.
There are some other polish items I need to attend to before release like making the stages a little prettier, and re-balancing spreadsheets as some classes have proven to have stats that are a little high to make them balanced. The system for troop alignment over the course of the game should also be investigated as it only functions on combat. If troops are under leveled they have a chance of gaining positive good alignment and if they are over leveled then they have a chance to lose it. Some tuning could really help us zero in on it.
At the request of my brother I created a new background for the Force Organization screen. It’s a castle instead of the nighttime floating in the sky by the lighthouse one that I’ve used for the past 8 years. It was pretty fun to see how I could switch things up a bit. I might try and add another one soon. Maybe I can put an incentive with it that ties it to how the player runs their squads in game. I showed it to my brother and he liked it then alerted me to a mobile title that he was worried about being to similar to what I was building. I looked at it and was like… nope just a clash of clans clone like most mobile strategy games.
Personal Update
I’ve been dealing with a lot of criticism and personal attacks lately. It’s come from all sides and it’s not completely unwarranted. It definitely has an effect on me. I really needed allies and I’m lucky to have the support that I do from friends and family. I can only imagine that things will get worse after I release the game although they will be related to the game and not me personally.
Thinking about all this, this past week it reminds me of a line from Dune, “I must not fear fear is the mind killer.” Another way to say it would be that it’s important to be free from outcomes. Unfortunately for us as humans that’s easier said than done.
On a less serious note I had an idea this week. Over the past couple of years fans have felt more and more disenfranchised from some of their favorite intellectual properties as they are taken over and told in such a way that makes fans feel like they are being disrespected. An interesting point was brought up recently in that fans don’t have the ability to use a companies intellectual property which is understandable. So I thought to myself, what if a company did allow others to use their intellectual property for their own ends free of charge?
I feel like this could be a good thing and a bad thing. The bad parts are what companies are continually fighting. Companies have law suits when people sell products based on their IP. Sometimes even when things are close they are infringing and that leads to more lawsuits to protect their IP. It’s corporate interests that drive this behavior, and on some levels protecting the companies income to make sure they can pay their workers is an important point.
On the good side of things having an open IP could be a real force multiplier. There are an infinite number of possibilities to explore in any IP, but there is a limited number of ideas that any one person can create. More ideas and pursuits can increase the brand, even if there are some poor products that are produced. It’s kind of like the idea of how religion works in Dungeons and Dragons. The more people that are a part of it, the more powerful it becomes. Taking the religious example further no one is going to get sued for making commercial religious icons even if some are low quality.
Another major point I would bring up is the idea of IP over multiple parallel universes. In my opinion this allows for more creativity without the problem of dealing with cannon between two different creators work. So maybe I have my IP for Six Aspects that’s my universe and cannon and another person has a different cannon it’s fine and they can do what they want with their universe without consequence to mine. The overall net effect is more stories that will hopefully increase the popularity which is more important for mostly unknown IP.
Some interesting ideas for sure. I might create an IP page in the future to set down all the rules for how I want to handle things. Overall I try to be more open when I’m doing things, but maybe that’s a mistake. I guess you could say that’s why I have been putting a disclaimer on all my “World of Six Aspects” blog entries.
The World of Six Aspects
These stories set in the world of Six Aspects are not cannon but might become cannon in the future.
Kyle’s Story Part 2 Love and Logging
It’s been a couple of months since I started working for the Willowdale logging company. I remember a pretty weird thing happening on my first day. I remember seeing this girl and it was weird the world kind of stopped and everything went white. All I could see was her. She was just getting some equipment out of the depot. I shook it off and kept going about my business.
I found her name out later through some of my new friends. Her name is Jel and she started working here after her family fell on hard times. I’m kind of afraid to talk to her, which is rather embarrassing. I think I’ve built her up to much in my mind. I’m not sure what to do with these feelings. I haven’t felt this way before.
About five weeks after I started working there I was paired up with Jel, and it was awkward to say the least. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. She probably thinks I’m a complete loser. I found it hard to speak because she’s so pretty. The worst part was when one of my so called friends came by just to torture me. He asked, “hey Kyle, do you like Jel?” I blushed and stammered out a half hearted, “nooooo”. She didn’t have much of a response to the situation. She just sort of looked at me like a wounded animal.
Why did I have to get paired up with Jel? This is to frustrating to deal with. I need to just focus on my work for a little while. Why am I so bad with women? I wonder what my brother is up to? He’s always been so confident I’m sure he would have a much easier time in this situation. Back to work I suppose.