Switching Gears

Game Update

Moving away from making new features and switching my focus to level design has been difficult. It’s a different mentality to start going through a process to build each stage. I need to be more intentional with getting it done. I need to set aside time to work on it each day.

I’m getting my oldest son more and more involved. He has a lot of great ideas, but a lot of them would require new features. Still it’s good to see him show an interest. It’s something we can share together. I think it will be an important step to help him understand the construct that we have and how to work with it.

Often we think, “if I only had this thing, then this task would be so much easier!” Most of the time having lots of options just leads to analysis paralysis. If I only had more colors, or more sounds, or more tools, etc… I find it’s a lot easier to create with a more limited palette. It pushes me to get more creative with what I’m doing to make something work.

Personal Update

I took a couple of days off work to have a bit of a “staycation” with my girlfriend. I’m so happy for her continued support for me. We did some local traveling when the weather was cooperating. She wanted this weekend to be a weekend of firsts for us.

She took me to a couple of restaurants that I hadn’t tried out before close by on Orange Beach. Very picturesque being on the coastline for lunch. We also spent some time watching a dating elimination show on TV. She said she liked how I would analyze the social dynamics of the situations. Of course I know a lot of times reality TV is highly produced and not real at all but it was a fun indulgence.

I introduced her to Dungeons and Dragons, running a fun game for my friends and her. We worked through the first six scenarios in the Dwarven Forge “Caverns Deep!” modules. I’m happy to say that everyone survived for now, and I think there is enough interest to run the next couple of encounters. It’s been a long time since I have run a game, but I feel like I did a decent job. It’s kind of interesting because it’s a lot of prep work and I’d say they only saw about one quarter of what they could have found. Still I think it was a lot of fun, and my girlfriend did a great job getting into it by adding a lot of flavor to the game.

The Enemy Speaks

Game Update

This week we completed work on a system that will intercept combat and display text. The combat will then continue after the text has been advanced and completed. I didn’t expect that we would get this working so quickly. It’s possible that I didn’t want it to be done. This marks the last feature I promised myself we would build before going into level design to get the game out of early access into full access. I think I’m trying to hold on to what I have again instead of moving forward.

Completing this feature means that I need to go full on into level design, but that means so many things, and it’s been so long that it will take some time for me to switch gears. I feel push back as I make excuses and distract myself with other daily chores. It’s frustrating because I know that this is the best time to be working on this as I don’t have the distraction of my children right now.

I think what I will do is work in multiple passes and try to “batch” jobs. The passes might look something like this -

• Build terrain for each stage along with towns/town names

• Build movement zones for stage

• Choose enemies for stage - build squads

• Build plot line/story for stage including boss character

• Test stages

I think that some of these steps might be done better in a different order however. It’s possible that I should build the plot line for each stage, while drawing a map and setting town names before I start moving things around in the actual game.

I have so much time, there’s really no excuse at this point not to get it all done. I’m spending some time looking into story telling. Often I found that when I would pitch the game I would say, “it has a bad story.” I need to fix this belief by building something that I can actually feel good about. Now that I can have the boss troops, or even other troops speak prior to combat I should have all the tools I need to make this happen.

One side note however. We do not have the ability to have the boss speak to the player when the stage is completed. If we were able to do this it might open things up to allow for recruiting/sparing the life of the boss after they are defeated. Maybe there is one last feature I should think about, but for now I will start re-focusing on level design.

Personal Update

My oldest son and I have started to bond over the game. He’s sending me all kinds of ideas for achievements and combat functionality. It’s nice that we are able to work together like this. Who knows maybe we will build something successful and he will be able to take over the company at some point. He really likes the idea of “Dark Ritual” from last week. He wants to make an “evil meter” that will replace the reputation meter. I suppose that would be possible, but I’m not sure it's necessary. The rest of his ideas have to do with stats like how many enemies have been defeated etc…

Next weekend I’m spending some time with my girlfriend, which will be a lot of fun. She always has a way of encouraging me and helping me focus more. I’m really thankful to be dating her, although we have both had our trials this year. It always means a lot to me when we have time together. Some recent tragedy’s close to us have made us appropriate of the life we have.

Happy 4th of July!

Game Update

We now have the ability to launch any script from text and so I created some functions for future use. Some of them will likely get used in other scripts instead of being directly used from chat. Two of the first functions I created had to deal with adjusting alignment for troops slightly. I created one called “charity” that costs 100 gold and raises alignment slightly. The second one I called “dark ritual” which will also cost 100 and reduce alignment a bit more. As an addition it will also increase the attack power for the troops to make it more enticing.

As a general idea I want it to be easier to have evil characters than good ones. It should cost more to be a “good guy” and it shouldn’t necessarily be a good guys come out ahead in the end situation. I’m not sure if this is the correct way to go but it feels reflective of society. I could be wrong.

The next major upgrade will be the ability to launch dialogue as an interrupt right before combat launches. In this way we will be able to do things like boss dialogue to add more character to the game giving the player a little more to hang on to. The player needs to have information to know why they are taking action as well as the lore of the game.

Personal Update

I got to take some time away this weekend with my girlfriend to go to an amusement park. It’s been a long time since I have been on a roller coaster probably 10 years or so. It was a little bit of a wake up call when I think I had a half black out on one of the rides. I suppose roller coasters are more of a young mans game. Still there were quite a few that I really enjoyed.

Advances in roller coasters being so different makes me wonder how I might need to advance the technology for the game too. I like to think that I’m already doing that by making the game faster, changing the way healing works, and the aspect system in general.

Meaningful Choices

Game Update

Things are really moving along as we finished an update to the dialogue system that will allow me to launch functions from our towns. We can create any function and then type the name into a yes/no dialogue box to make it happen on the yes or the no. This means we can now create choices that will raise or lower money, reputation, and even effect the interacting squads stat lines during stages. That’s kind of a big deal as prior to this we had no way to allow the player to directly impact alignment of troops.

The next major thing to add on will be some sort of boss dialogue system which will allow the bosses to chat with the player before combat starts. This should only happen one time per stage. I don’t think it will be to hard to also allow the player to recruit some of the bosses after they defeat them. We can also base this on some factors and that could change the players reputation as well.

If we can do that then we might also allow players to acquire beasts for their army as well, which would further add to the options allowed when building out the army. I was thinking about creating some sort of invisible wandering monster system to handle this, but the dialogue system might also work.

Stages can be re-played over and over again, which means that players could potentially grind specific locations to change their stats around. In order to balance this I think that I will make gaining one stat reduce an opposing stat. Something like gaining more damage might reduce defense for a troop etc… It should make for some interesting choices for sure.

Personal Update

We set up a date for my boys to return which is good as I do miss them. I really hope that I got enough work done while they were away this summer. I had a list of goals I wanted to accomplish while they are away. One of which is finishing all the levels for the game. I could do better at being a bit more intentional in this area. The last time I blocked out time to do level work it all went to fixing the live version of the game to get the achievements working which was also very important.

My girlfriend is here with me this weekend which has been a very nice relaxing time. It’s so important to be with someone that builds you up and adds to your situation. She does that very well. We talked earlier about how much we appreciate how easy the relationship is.

Having the boys away means we can take some time to clean up their rooms too. I’m so blessed to have a good house keeper to help me make headway in that area. Working every day makes it hard for me to come home and have the energy to tackle their messes. I was also able to frame some nice pictures for the boys that I picked up when I worked the Momo Convention about a month ago.

Happy Father's Day!

Game Update

I keep saying that I’m going to get the achievements working and every week there’s a new problem that comes up. Still I think it’s important to post my embarrassment to keep my motivation high to get it done. I’ll take another look at it this week and hopefully we will get it together soon. The latest issue is creating a second version of the game that accessible from Steam. Something that might have some possible issues with it.

Building the new text system is also progressing as we are now able to pass arguments from the text box to trigger what we want, but we need to build the machinery to handle those things we want to do. For non-technical people an “argument” is something we can put into a function to get different outcomes. I like to think of it a lot like putting coins into a soda machine with a “return value” being the soda we receive from a soda machine.

I need to start plunking away at the levels in the game, setting time aside to do that. I have tomorrow off work and so I need to put in at least an hour or so. Maybe I need to start a new habit to sit at my computer each day. The problem is that I have a lot of competing priorities. Like I always say though it’s important to have enough evidence that you are what you say you are. If I really am a game developer then I will find time to make the development happen.

Personal Update

Good week for me overall. It was really nice not to be traveling for once. I really needed to have this time to take care of some things at home. I had been looking at a lot of shelves for my board games and it got really annoying so I moved on to other things.

Interestingly my neighbors were throwing out a perfectly good shelf unit which worked perfectly for all my Dwarven Forge stuff. It was quite a heavenly blessing. Tony Robbins talks a lot about having an “hour of power” which starts off with some exercise, then goes to gratitude, and finally to daily focus. I have to say this was quite a blessing for me, although I know it won’t be the final product where I will land.

Fathers Day today was such a blessing to be able to spend it with my parents. I jokingly said that I should probably spend it with my dad because I missed the last 22 with him. It’s crazy thinking back about how much family stuff I missed over the years by joining the military.

My girlfriend is at a baby shower this weekend and it’s been good for her with the adults but there are some other entities that seem to have a goal of making it miserable for her. It can be difficult dealing with your own family at times, but it’s important for us all to realize that we get to decide when we want to be happy or bothered by something. We have that control, and so it’s important to go easy on ourselves and set attainable goals for our own happiness. If we say to ourselves, “I won’t be happy until…” then it’s likely we are setting ourselves up for a really bad time which will reflect poorly on us and make people not want to be around us.

My parents gave me some old items from my high school days and there was a journal. This journal was read by my teacher, and so it’s not all my thoughts from the time. Still I remember some of the other things I was thinking that I held back at the time when I read it. I came to the conclusion that I really don’t like who I was back then. You would think that I didn’t have any friends or if I did I didn’t care about them. Very self centered, very entitled complaining about other people not paying attention to me. It was very much a taking mentality. We all have that to some extent.

It reminded me that I need to continually guard against those things, and I should also be aware when I see those qualities in others. Being abundant and giving while still maintaining boundaries is so important. I still don’t think that the young me would have been receptive to those concepts though.

Unfinished Airplane

Game Update

We attempted to put a second “unstable” build on Steam to test the achievements. I’ve been so busy that I wasn’t able to test it until tonight. It looks like the second build isn’t active yet and so I have some more work to do. I’m sure I will get it working this week.

We started moving the needle forward on the advanced text system which will add a lot to what we are able to do in the game. Creating player choice in the stage to effect reputation, troop stats, and other future ideas will do a lot for the game. Once I get everything working I can move on to building more levels out.

Personal Update

The last couple weeks have been pretty busy. I’ve been away so much that I kind of missed my house, and I think I fell behind on keeping things in order. Dropping off my kids, doing the convention, and visiting my girlfriend have kept me very busy. It will be good to refocus for a little while. The to do list is pretty long for this summer and it feels like it’s already flying by so fast.

There were a couple of difficult moments with my girlfriend, but I’m so happy to be dating her. It’s the healthiest relationship that I’ve ever experienced. She often tells me how much she appreciates my patience. I had the chance to meet her family recently, and it went well. It was nice to be depended on to support her in that moment. I think it’s really important to be there in the good times and the bad. Relationships aren’t just about all the good times.

My parents moved into the area recently. It will be good to have them close by as I haven’t lived close to them for my entire military career. As I was moving them in I found something that made me realize something. It was a model plane I had when I was much younger.

I remember asking my dad to put it together with me. I wanted to put an engine in it and fly it around. He told me the engine would rip it to pieces. We never put it together. When I found it in his house shipment I simply told him it was mine and I’m taking it. Maybe it’s a little ridiculous to have something like that unfinished bother me as a grown adult. It makes me want to try harder with my own boys. I could say yes more to my boys.

New Habits

Game Update

Most of this week was spent preparing for my trip to take my boys to be with their mom for the summer, but I did manage to select some icons I think will be great for achievements. I spent my mentor hour looking at a bunch of options this week. Things like this would be easy for someone to point to and say something like, “it was wasted time or we didn’t get anything done.” The truth is that this is time that needed to be spent to get it right in a thoughtful way.

I’m hoping to build some new habits as quickly as possible to become more productive at getting things done. I’ve said before that I wanted to get all the levels built, the achievements into the game, and a new dialogue system which will allow for yes/no options that could effect game play. There’s little excuse to get it done now with the boys away. Still I remember that last summer I built up some bad habits around coming home, watching tv, and going to bed. This year needs to be different.

I’m considering the idea to start streaming my game development time, and possibly some video games too in the future. It would also be cool if I could stream some board games as well. I spoke to my girlfriend about it and what it would mean for the time that we spend together. She seemed supportive and so I will see how I can work it out.

I really hope that I can get my three main goals finished quickly so that I can start adding even more little things to the game. It would be great to get some feedback from players that have purchased the game and so if you have any ideas that you would like to see in Six Aspects I want to hear from you!

Personal Update

It is both a relief and an empty nest feeling to have the boys away for the summer. On the one hand I don’t have to deal with all the crying and petty squabbles. On the other hand having other people around while I’m doing something feels good. I think it’s because I grew up with a big family and often I would be doing my own thing in my room. I would be working on a Lego Castle, painting miniatures, or making my own game to play.

I’m looking forward to this summer with my girlfriend. We don’t have a lot of firm plans on specific events other than to see each other often. It’s a relief to have arrived at a place where we are so comfortable with each other now. I hope that we can keep growing to become stronger than we could by ourselves.

Next week is MomoCON. I will be working the Japanime Games booth which is something I have missed doing for the past couple of years. In years past I have worked for Ninja Division, which is what gave me an in with Japanime. They make some great Deck Builders with Heart of Crown being one of my all time favorites. If you will be at the convention come and say hi! I will be giving away free steam keys for Six Aspects for anyone that asks me while I’m there. I will also try to tweet some fun stuff, and post one or two things to my Instagram. I am Errantsquire everywhere on the internet.

Steam Achievements are a Go!

Game Update

We managed to successfully test our Steam Achievement for the game this week and everything is working! Now we just need to author all the achievements for the game so that players will have something to earn. I have a couple of ideas for some things to add. Here is a list:

• Each Level

• Game Completion

• Starting the game

• Filling out every squad with 7 troops

• Filling out one squad with 7 troops

• Making a certain damage number

• Making a certain amount of money

• Finding hidden levels

• Creating one of every class

I Guess we could go on an on with ideas for a while. I also need to create specific icons for the achievements. Right now I’m using a bottle that is empty and then gets filled. That might work for now I suppose. I’m not sure if I can find something that is more in line with the theme of the 6 Aspects however. I could have some Aspect related achievements too. Something like having all the same aspect on a squad etc…

I’m getting read to work Momo con at the end of this month for Japanime games. I have some new business card ready to go for when I am off the clock with them. It should be a great time to meet some people and work on my elevator pitch. I might do some game key give aways at the convention too.

Personal Update

Visited my girlfriend this weekend. I had to travel a bit to get to her, but it was well worth it to take the boys to a different place. They had a lot of fun at her house while we were there. I’m so thankful to have her in my life, and I hope that we keep moving forward with our relationship. I’m glad I was able to do this before the boys are away for the summer. It was very important to me. I’d say the highlight of the trip was including the girlfriend in a long running legacy game that I have been playing with my two oldest sons.

When we returned home we found that the board game “Cash Flow” and the expansions for “Root” had been delivered. I’m super excited to dive in to both of these. My oldest son couldn’t wait and so we set up a game of Cash Flow and played a couple of turns. I hope that it helps me get more financially smart about the way I handle money.

My boys go away for the summer soon and it’s always difficult. I have a bunch of things on my list to do while they are away though. One of the top things will be getting all the levels built out for the video game along with the all new choice system. There are some other household items that need to be taken care of as well too. I’m also looking to work out a bit more and get back into running.

Steam Achievement Summer

Game Update

Getting closer and closer to making our Steam Achievements work in game. This week we were able to get a test achievement working for the test game in steam. We didn’t see the pop up for it, and we’re still trying to figure out the connections to our game. There’s probably something small that we are looking over with the API.

I need to set aside time to start plugging away at the levels for the game. As a single dad I find that I have a lot of demands on my time, and I’m trying to work out every day now too. I feel tired pretty often by the time I get home and make the boys dinner each night. Often if I sit for to long I fall asleep.

I think I might have lost a little motivation to keep pushing forward. I need to set specific days to focus and get things done where I will throw away distractions for small chunks of time to be productive. I want to start streaming again but I don’t think that I’ll be able to until the summer time.

Personal Update

The boys go away to be with their mom for the summer in two weeks. This year I plan to be a lot more productive than last year. Thinking back I was productive last year too, but my relationship at the time kind of hurt my productivity, and for to many nights I would come home watch TV and go to bed. I need to recognize the habits I’ve formed when the boys are at home are different from when they aren’t here.

Last year I played some D&D at my local game store, but my board games nights kind of fell off. This year I have just met some people at work that want to have an active board game night and so that should be helpful. I’d like to run one of the module’s for the Dwarven Forge terrain that I own.

Things are still going strong with my Girlfriend, this month will be seven months which is the longest relationship I’ve been in since my divorce. We’ve made it through some trials already, and I’m sure there are more on the way. It’s good to have someone that really wants to be supportive and build me up. I need that encouragement.

I’ll be working Momo Con this month and was thinking about making some tee shirts with the company logo’s on the front and the Six Aspects logo on the back. It might be something cool to have to promote my game. I have to look into pricing though to figure out if it would be worth it or not. I really need to get some new business cards minimum.

I’m getting pretty annoyed with all the clutter in the house. I need to de-clutter things and figure out how to organize multiple areas. I’ll be targeting my board game collection, my miniatures painting area, and my retro games area. Eventually I want to fit a pinball machine in the house when I entertain for game nights, but these other things need to come first.

Learning to Sell

Game Update

Still working on getting Steam achievements working in the game. We are maybe a breath away from getting it working which is very exciting! After this is completed we will work on implementing a new system to say yes/no at the end of dialogue which will effect various things in the game like the reputation meter, the stats of troops in the squad making the decision etc…

Spent some time this week personally engaging a lot of friends, and family on the video game. I offered most of them a free key and to my surprise many of them said they wanted to pay for it to support me. It’s always nice to be validated that way. It’s also good to get some selling experience in with people I know before moving into a cold audience. Every sale is money in the company that didn’t exist before so that’s very important.

I spent some time engaging with a marking friend of mine to see what we could do on the shoestring budget that I’m working with. It’s good to make connections with people that can be a true ally for you. You want people that believe in what you’re doing.

I have some target numbers for sales and also for wish lists on Steam now that it’s there. I really want to focus hard to get all the levels done, along with the steam achievements early so that I can move on to polish and maybe one or two new mechanics.

It would be great to add something into the game like a system that let’s the player have a little more control in combat. Maybe give the player the option to run away. I also want to create a system to allow the player to recruit monster type troops into their army for use later. It would be easy to do invisible wandering monsters as well for this purpose. I keep going back and forth on how I want to do items, and I’m leaning toward making them all consumable with a benefit and drawback to all items. I really want people to think when they make item decisions.

It would also be great to have some sort of army wide system like the artifacts in the game Slay the Spire. Maybe if we made some sort of “banner” system for squads. I love old Warhammer and I feel like Standard Bearers, and musicians would be super cool although I would need to get some 3D models specifically for those. Even better would be the ability to have graphics that changed on the Standard Bearer depending on the banner in use. This might be the only swappable items allowed.

Of course all these features are not set in stone, just some things that I’ve been thinking about off and on for a while now. There are a bunch of other ideas I have as well. I hope that the community for the game picks up soon so that I can get a direction for what people want to see things go so I can focus in that direction.

I added a new Policies section to the website which is specifically in place to let the press know about how we will handle Steam Keys for press entities. It’s still a work in progress and so it might change in the future. I guess it’s better than nothing.

Personal Update

Dealing with some various household items lately. Lawn care, HOA fees, special programs, and end of year paperwork. I swear it never ends sometimes. The boys have been stepping up their help around the house when I ask without complaint so that’s been good overall. Sometimes I feel like they aren’t getting enough of my time.

I listened to a motivational speech by Steve Harvey on YouTube this week. I had no idea he was a Christian until I heard that. I also had no idea the trials he went through to get to where he is now in television. I found out that he had a stutter and other speech problems when he was younger, and was homeless living in his car at one point. I’ve been trying to surround myself with a lot more stories like this. The typical “overcoming adversity” story. I feel it’s more encouraging than listening to all the things that are wrong lately. I still indulge in some of that from time to time though.

In Steve’s motivational speech he said something interesting to me. He talked about having a vision board of 300 items. Something to look at every day to focus on. A reason to keep getting out of bed. So I took it to heart and started building my one vision board list on my phone. So far I have a little over 200 items. He wasn’t kidding when he said that when you get to about 75 items that it will get tough. At some point I found that I ran out of things that I selfishly want for myself. I started putting things on the list that were more about my family, girlfriend, and her family on there. I’m not sure what effect it will have, but I’m all for putting things into practice to see how well they work for me.

I think that the idea is that if I look back a year from now I will see how many of those things on the list actually came true. Part of it is just believing I can do something. It’s a way to start combating limiting beliefs that I have about myself. On the gaming front I said that I want to eventually create a local multi-player, and online multi-player game. I also said I wanted to employ 1000 people. I still honestly love paying people and taking care of them. If anything that’s why I want to be successful. I hope that never changes about me. A little more selfish gaming stuff I said I wanted a pinball machine and a Dance Dance Revolution.

I guess we will see how well this works in a year from now. It’s really tough coming up with 300 things. I’m hoping to have it completed soon.

Finally Steam Release! But G2A Grifters...

Game Update

This week I finally released my game on Steam. I did it on the 22nd again, which I rather liked. The launch wasn’t without it’s hiccups though. I thought I had everything ready to go but it turns out that some of the items like the price, and a system match for the specifications became a problem at the last minute. Luckily I had a friend that was trying to buy the game who messaged me. I managed to fix it and launch on the 22nd but it was later than I had originally planned.

It was exciting to finally see a button to buy the game below it. I was a little afraid about what might happen next. I did a lot of tweeting on Saturday and had a lot of responses which felt nice, but it didn’t really translate to a lot of action. I feel like I need to figure out how to promote properly.

On Saturday my game was on a list of new “Turn Based Games” with a small blurb about it that I didn’t write. This made me feel good, like someone was taking notice even without me directly engaging them.

Then something weird happened. I had 3 form submissions on my website by random people claiming that they would “review” my game if I gave them 3-5 keys for the game. I had heard of this before. Basically they claim that they will review the game, but what they really want is to take the keys and re-sell them on some websites. G2A is the largest website that sells keys like this. It’s important to know where your keys are going when you give them away. I feel like it’s a little crazy to give more than 2 keys to a reviewer as well.

I suppose I just need to buckle down and finish the levels and keep moving forward. There are some other features that I’d like to get in as well, but I can’t do that until I have the main meat of the game together. I also need to get these achievements working. My oldest son is looking forward to that a lot and so I can’t let him down.

We did manage to fix 2 bugs right before the game released. We fixed a problem in which the escape button wasn’t exiting the stages. We also fixed the pop up title for the game which had a grey box instead of a graphic to show the game. I expect we will move back to figuring out achievements now.

Personal Update

I’m not sure if I was sick this past weekend or just exhausted. It’s possible I had some mild depression symptoms from releasing the game. It was hard for me to enjoy things or want to get out of bed. I kind of expected this to happen so at least I was aware of what might be happening to me. Still I managed to do my normal things like board game night and pizza on Friday, some lawn work on Saturday, and church on Sunday. I would like to have been more productive but had a hard time.

I say it again and again to people, but I needed to take my own advice this time. You will never win the comparison game. There will always be someone bigger and better. I did some comparing of my game to people in a similar boat. I don’t know their full situation but it was a bit frustrating to see that they had more reviews for their game and a successful Kickstarter around the time I started on my project. Their game hasn’t been released yet which made me feel good until I realized that they are already far ahead of me due to the publicity they have compared to me.

It’s hard not to care about people noticing the things you do. It’s hard to keep working when you feel like you should be further along than you are. You start to think that you will never get there no matter how hard you work. It’s difficult to be free from outcomes in that way, which causes problems.

I can’t give up though, I have a handful of people that believe in me, ones that want to see what’s next. That has to be enough. It is enough for me.

Happy Easter!

Game Update

We managed to get Steam to run in a script this week which is a step forward. It threw an error when the Steam client wasn’t running but cleared itself when it was good to go. I should probably put the game on my Steam non-development account with a developer key to make testing a bit easier. I think the next step will be creating out first achievement and testing it. Other Steam integrations will need to be tested as well.

Last week was busy with work etc… I’ve barely had time to breath lately. I need to start working on the next stages, but it feels like I might be getting in my own way of doing it. I should remember what I read in the book “Atomic Habits” and find time to do it for just one minute, then go from there.

After we get the Steam achievements working it will be down to building levels and maybe seeing what we can do about creating in client resolution settings, instead of using the Unity launcher to do that. Beyond that I still need to build out the dialogue systems to manipulate numbers, and trigger a yes/no decision.

Personal Update

Easter was this week and I was so happy to have my girlfriend and her kids visiting me this weekend. I hosted an Easter Egg Hunt for my local family members and so they got to meet them as well. We spent a lot of time on the beach this weekend, and the weather could have cooperated a little more.

My parents are moving to the area which will be nice as I only spent time with them sporadically over my time in the military and for a couple of months when they helped me transition. It’s kind of crazy the difference between the housing prices where the live compared to here. I suppose the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” says it best when it talks about how money really is an idea and it’s all about what you think something is worth.

My son has a field trip this week for his school. I’m lucky that my work schedule will allow me to attend it with him. The school needs every child to have an adult with them, which is kind of crazy if you think about it. I can’t imagine that a lot of parents would be able to take off work for that, and even in two parent homes if they have a younger sibling they are saying that they can’t bring them with. It seems pretty narrow to me.

The game release on Steam is around the corner, and I’m glad that some of my friends say that they will support me with a purchase. It’s nice to feel validated in that way. I think I’m still bracing for impact as the date approaches. Hopefully I can get some momentum started and build out the rest of what’s needed for the full release.

Even so, the landscape for games is such that I want to add even more after release, but time will tell what will get done and what won’t. Every time I look at what I’ve accomplished, I’m very pleased with it. I have an industry buddy that hates the aesthetic that I have in the game. As I look at it, it just feels like it’s different than the other games that are out there, which I like. I kind of wish I had better trees in the game though.

I’m hoping to relax and re-center this week to focus on the next steps. The boys will be away for the summer soon which will hopefully allow me time to catch my breath a bit.

Achievement Difficulty

Game Update

Doing my best to integrate Steam into the game to add achievements before the Apr 22nd launch and I’m having a hard time getting it working. It would seem that the script for integration with Steam is written in C++ and so we have to use what’s called a “wrapper” to access it using the C# library that is native to Unity 3D. The issue right now is that it’s not finding the library in our scripts properly which is making things rather difficult.

Once we do get the achievements working we will most likely have low hanging fruit ones like finish the game, finish the level, damage, healing, discovery, etc… It will be nice to have stuff like that working, and I think players will really like trying to “catch them all”.

In more positive news the game is fully ready for release. We have cleared the final Steam quality control check which was held up as we had claimed partial controller support. This can only be claimed if the game was compatible with an X-box PC controller or something comparable. I took this claim away and we are good to go now.

Personal Update

I spent most of the week agonizing about my taxes, but I found a solution which was a major load off. If that weren’t enough apparently my lawn made some of the neighbors frustrated so I’ve had to re-double my efforts out there. It’s taken a lot of extra energy to take care of it and I’m not sure when I’ll have it all done exactly. With Easter coming up next week it’s likely I won’t be getting much done next weekend. The terrain outside my house is irregular to the point that my lawn mower blade needs to be replaced which stopped my work in that area for the time being. The boys helped with the seasonal stick gathering as many branches fall off the trees each year due to rain. We collected 6 large bags of leaves, and there’s plenty more to gather up. I’m hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon so that I can get back to focusing on the game to get the remaining levels built.

Easter weekend is next weekend, and I’m so happy I get to host it this year. I’m going to have a lot of family around, and my girlfriend will get to meet my parents. The only drama I expect will be from my five year old.

We already have plans in place for taking the boys to their moms for the summer, and things have worked out for me to work a convention in Georgia called MomoCon! This will be my first convention from before the pandemic, and before my time in Austin in 2019 when I chose to work on my video game. I still remember back then I set my hopes and dreams on living in Austin and maybe working for Blizzard Entertainment eventually. My how the times have changes and I have to say I couldn’t be happier with the way things have worked out here in Florida. I still love Austin, but it wasn’t the right place for me to be. I’m sure I will visit there again soon though.

1984

Game Update

Steam sent me an e-mail to make sure I was ready for release on April 22, and that reminded me that I needed to test the build in the Steam Client. There is a section in Steamworks that designates where the files are located to execute the program as well as the data. I thought that the folders that I designated might be wrong. It turns out I had reasons to be suspicious as it did not work the first time. It was an easy fix however. I felt a lot of joy to see my game start up when I pressed the play button.

I also managed to implement a quick update to fix a bug. It was pretty impressive to see the speed at which it updated the files for the game. It occurred to me that after I get all the stages built, and the steam achievements implemented for final release I might want to have a classic version, and a plus version of the game that I can keep adding more features onto.

Last but not least I managed to get my very first two steam keys out to my number one beta tester (my oldest son), and my musician. He tried it on his Steam account and managed to download the game and run it with no issues. It was such a great feeling to see everything working properly. I can’t believe how far I’ve come.

Personal Update

This past week I had taxes on my mind most of the week. I had to pay for my Florida business licence which seems to be similar to how a drivers licence is handled. That’s interesting to me as in Texas there isn’t an annual fee to re-up the licence there.

I had to walk away from my computer all week as my office became a room for my girlfriends daughter, and her friends. They had their spring break this past week and wanted to visit the beach. They went to the beach every day which got a little tiresome for me. There was some additional drama which came out later, but overall I’m happy with how things went. This was a big test for my girlfriend and I and it was the first time that she met my boys.

After getting my office back I was able to push out some more work on Six Aspects, and I returned to my personal tax return. More problems occurred, and I’m working through them. I hope to have them resolved on Wednesday. If that weren’t enough my neighbors are annoyed that I haven’t cleaned up my leaves and so I have some yard work to do to get things back into shape. I suppose when it rains it pours sometimes.

I finished the book “Cash Flow Quadrant” and transitioned to the book “1984”. It’s kind of an odd choice for me as I typically only read self development books. It felt a bit indulgent to listen to something that’s for entertainment. Then again, the book is so dark that maybe it could be classified as more of a future warning.

So far I would say there are some parallels between 1984 and what’s been happening across the world after the pandemic. It feels like a lot of freedoms are being taken away from regular people. The book talks about the “Thought Police” and televisions that might monitor citizens while also pushing propaganda. I can’t help but to draw a parallel to what I see in social media, and some “fact checking” outlets. The idea of a crafted narrative seems to be very predominant in both cases to me. I pray that we maintain our freedoms.

If anything I would say that the book gives me an idea about how I might craft the Empire for my video game. Giving them some sort of tyrannical rule, and what that might look like. I’ve been toying around with the idea of a magical device like a TV or cellphone that could be used for propaganda. It could be powered with magical lightning.

Some of the ways that information is controlled in the book are interesting. The idea that facts and figures are made up, or even heroes. Having an entire propaganda army to push out a message. Controlling information by banning the ability to write records down. Erasing people just on the hunch of suspicion against the empire. That part reminds me of “V for Vendetta”, which I suppose might have had its start with “1984”.

I suppose the question is how far would I want to take this if I went with this oppressive of an Empire. Originally I was thinking of making the Empire a little sympathetic, but maybe it’s more interesting to go darker like this. I’ve been listening to story telling techniques and one of the things that I heard over and over was the idea of a plot twist or surprise that comes at key moments in the first, second, and third acts. The surprise needs to change everything, and so given the religious bend to Six Aspects I thought maybe I should do what Final Fantasy Tactics did. Maybe have the church controlled by a Demon or something.

I’m trying to remember some of the plot twists that stand out for me in video games, and Final Fantasy 7 comes to mind. (Spoilers ahead) I would say that the 2 that are highest on my list are finding out that Cloud (protagonist) is actually an experimental soldier and Sephiroth (antagonist) was also created in the same way, and when Aerith (love interest) is killed by Sephiroth. Both situations change the goal that the player is trying to accomplish.

Thinking some more about one of my all time favorites which was trending on social media this week. Chrono Trigger has some major plot twists that work well too. The first one would probably be the discovery of time travel. The second would be finding out the end of the world when the dormant alien Lavos destroys it. The third would probably be when Chrono (main character) dies and his friends have to use time travel and a dummy stand in to bring him back.

I guess I had a lot more going on than I originally thought, and so hopefully things will settle down soon so that I can focus on release and creating new stages for Six Aspects.

The Most Expensive Game I own

Game Update

Productive week in which now that I’m focused on the goals to get us to full release I have a way forward. Fixed an issue in which troops were targeting the front row even when the opposing squad is flanked or in a back attack situation. The good news is that fix will be in for the steam release in April.

Looking forward to working on the stages in the game. It’s been quite a while since I’ve sat in the level design chair. I remember spending a day or two on each stage to organically tell some sort of story. I’ve also been spending some time on my commutes listening to narrative story tellers on YouTube. I think I’m picking up a couple of things, but I’m not sure if any of it will work with the way I’ve designed my text system. We still have no way to include specific characters.

The only other thing that’s occupied me all week has been learning how to do taxes for my business. It should be pretty simple as this will be the first year that I might actually make some money. I don’t expect to make enough to overcome the cost of the game however.

Personal Update

Things got a little rough for my relationship over the spring break, but luckily we managed to work things out. My mom always said that six months was when she knew that a relationship was going to go the distance or not. I’m really happy that we worked things out.

I’m Christian which means that I believe in a spiritual realm that impacts our physical one. It sounds crazy but there were so many negative things happening to people I knew over spring break that I think there was some spiritual warfare going on. It feels like something dark has been going on across the country for some time now, but I digress.

It makes me wonder if any of what I was feeling could be translated to something in Six Aspects. I feel like there is a lot that can be added after the full release. Who knows what a spiritual war under a country at war would even look like though.

Maybe two or three weeks ago I realized something. You see I started moving into financials during the pandemic. I really started to enjoy stock trading. The thing is I spent my life buying things that don’t really pay me (liabilities).

The book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” made me realize that I needed to buy assets (things that make me money). The more money I can have compounding the better which means things like my old card collection, old video games, etc… would be better off in stocks or other places that make money. Often I say to people, “I can’t exactly go to my old card collection and ask it-hey can I get some money for dinner?” The thing is stocks do that so I think I’ll just start collecting those like I collect anything else.

I’ve always been the type of person that collects things. I collected Lego, cards, video games, board games, miniatures, anime, etc… Honestly at this point in my life I have more than I could have asked for as a kid. It’s one of the things that has made me the game developer I am today. All that experience when I was younger.

So I started looking. Looking at what I might be able to sell to transfer into assets. Some pieces more expensive than others. Then it dawned on me. The most expensive game I own isn’t one of my out of print board games, or one of my treasured SNES RPGs, it isn’t even one of my tournament decks. The most expensive game I own, is the game I’ve been working on for the past eight years-”Six Aspects.” No matter how it does in the market I think I’m OK with that.

Steam Release Incoming!

Game Update

It’s finally happening! We are releasing the game on Steam Early access on Apr 22. I can’t believe this day is finally here! I had some hiccups with getting all my files in order but for the most part it seems to be solid now. My artist also managed to get me some images to fix the Hero and Logo capsule images.

Moving forward I will be focused on building the levels out first and working on the dialogue in the stages. I probably won’t add a lot of new enemy groups to the game right now during testing, but in the future I will probably build out some new squads after a first pass.

I have narrowed the text additions down to adding just a yes/no dialogue option at the end of a text chain which will do things like adjust the reputation, gold, or stats on troops making the choices. It would be nice in the future to do things like check for items (which don’t exist yet), check for specific party members, or recruit enemy troops but that will have to wait.

Focusing on a minimum viable product will be step one and then we will see what we have time to add on after that. I don’t think that any of the add on features that I’ve set aside for now will need something specific in the stages which will help.

Personal Update

Had a rough week. A triumph and some set backs. Still praying through a lot of it. Today especially I’m really focused on my girlfriend as things have come up and it’s become a bit complicated. I suppose that’s just how relationships are sometimes.

The boys are back now and I feel like this time I was pretty productive, almost managing to get all my taxes done which is a good feeling. I have a couple of items to double back on, but overall I’m in what seems to be good shape.

I’m not sure if I’m making headway with the hospital or not as I had a pretty gruff conversation with them this week as well. I spoke with some other people that use the same hospital and they are also having a lot of issues which probably means the problem is widespread. Honestly when it’s this bad I tend to blame the leadership.

New Systems Old Systems

Game Update

Things continue to move forward with the Steam release. Right now the major speed bump are a couple of items that I’m correcting for Steam to get things in line with their requirements. I moved my EULA text which was in the wrong section. I found out that the Library Hero and Library Logo need to work together. Specifically the Library Hero image is a background with the logo being a foreground element that will slide a bit as the background image moves around. I have to make some more modifications to my images to fit the correct pixel requirements.

I am continually looking at what features I want to include in the final version. I have a list of features on the early access part of the Steam Page and I’ve gone back and forth on what to do next. I’ve thought about at least 14 major features that I could add, but I’ve also thought about adding nothing new and just focusing on finishing out the other levels in the game. I think this week I’m going to focus on working on stages. I might even decide to steam some of my development sessions.

I’m looking to release on 22 Apr next month for Steam. I will be submitting my Steam page soon in order to get it reviewed. I was surprised with the turn around time on submission last time. They promise 72 hours and they had it done in 24 hours.

Personal Update

Although Steam has been very responsive in taking care of business I can’t say the same of the medical system that I’ve had to deal with for my autistic son. It’s been five months now and they still haven’t been able to fill out one piece of paper for my insurance. I even printed the insurance document out for them and walked it in. I’ve been noticing a lack of customer service across the board in many areas. I’m not sure if it’s fatigue from world events, or if that’s just the norm for where I live. It’s true what they say that sometimes all you have to do is make something a little more difficult and people will give up.

My kids are away this week with family which gives me a break and I’m hoping that I’ll take more advantage than I have in the past. I’ve found that when the children aren’t around a lot of my habits that are triggered with them aren’t in place. Often I found myself making dinner watching TV and then going to sleep. I’m more aware of it now thanks to the book “Atomic Habits”, but being aware is really only step one.

Last weekend my girlfriend came to visit and we had a relaxing weekend. I’m very hopeful for this relationship. I feel like it’s going in the right direction. I feel like we need to do some work together next, because most of what we have done lately has been the fun parts of the relationship. Things can be different if we are focused on working together on a task. Next month is a major landmark for us as it will be six months which is a very big deal for me. I haven’t had a relationship go longer than six months in a while.

I was at church on Sunday morning and although some people may not understand I felt like God was speaking to me about my video game. The last time He spoke it was about joining the praise and worship team which went well. It was strange to me because it felt like He was saying that I needed to move in the direction of creating a new dialogue system mechanic. I couldn’t stop thinking about it during the service. Maybe it was just because I’ve been more focused on getting my game done. I don’t think I want to say much more about this system accept that I might be calling it a mantel or capsule system. It will raise troops from the players ranks to become the heroes that will interact and build story around.

Next Steps

Game Update

I continue to work on the list of the features I want to have in the game for the final release. It’s easy to succumb to feature creep and think that I want the moon. Sticking to my pillars for development helps a lot here. I’m leaning toward upgrades to the dialogue and trying to figure out some sort of main character creation. I’m still not sure how I want to proceed.

Steam is coming along, I wanted to get my store page up this weekend but I got busy with other things and didn’t get to it. I might try to do something after writing this blog entry. Working night shift kind of killed Saturday morning, and I had other pressing things on my to do list that day. All the main chores for the weekend are completed and so I should have a couple of hours during the daytime to try and get things done.

I’m closer than I have ever been to releasing on Steam now. Once I have the store page up it will take a minimum of two weeks to release and so I will need to look at timelines for steam and other releases to try and time it just right. I also want to have some more content in the final steam build and maybe some steam functionality like achievements working. It’s a lot more complex than every other platform I have put the game on so far that’s for sure. Speaking of which I also put the game up on itch.io.

The aspect system is something I’m continually exploring. I’m looking into giving each troop a buff to a key stat that is in line with their personal aspect. That should be a a pretty simple process. The more I play with the aspect system, the more I start to understand what it is at a core level which informs decisions on how to use it. I started to think about how it would relate to the populations in the cities and the various regions in the game. I also started to think about how the various factions would use aspects to worship the same deity and what kind of arguments this might create to divide the people.

I have thought about not adding any additional features to the game and just building the rest of the levels for it. This might be OK, but I have to think if I don’t change things up now and then the game will get stale. Still it would make completing the game a lot simpler.

Personal Update

Gearing up for the spring break week by coordinating with family to take the boys for that time. There have been some logistical difficulties but I think that I have it mostly figured out. I also get to see my girlfriend that weekend and I’m looking forward to that again. It will be good to take a break from working to just focus on relationships for a while. I should be able to get a lot done that week as well with the boys away.

Still navigating Twitter, and it feels like I’m making some headway but it might be to soon to tell. I took some time to purchase a game called Queenchantment and try it out. It’s in early access and although there is some polishing to be done with it, it does do a good job at being a tower defense game. I like the aesthetic of the game which gives me vibes of the card game Boss Monster. One of the interesting things about the game is the amount of constructs you create which get destroyed very regularly. They need to be rebuilt quickly which isn’t the same as other tower defense games in which often you only need to build something one time.and then upgrade it from there for most of them.

Aftermath and Next Steps

Game Update

Releasing took a lot out of me. I’m glad that I took time off of work and that I happened to have the presidents day weekend to help out with an additional day. I worked all weekend to make sure that everything was lined up for the best release I could provide. Spreadsheets were scrutinized the most during the process. My oldest son helped me a lot with testing which ensured that players could finish part one of the game. I was less active on social media and twitter as I was focused on getting everything ready.

On release day I did get some interest, but it was about what I had expected. Another interesting thing happened when I finally got my authorization to put the game on Steam that morning on the 22nd. I had a real dilemma as I could have released there as well if I rushed it and worked all day. The problem is that the chances of a mistake being made were pretty high. I decided not to do it.

After releasing the game I finally set myself to the task of creating the trailer. It went a lot faster than I thought that it would and I’m very happy with the result. It feels good enough for now, and I think that it shows off the game well. The soundtrack that my musician created helped out a lot too.

This past week, and during testing one thing was bugging me about the game. I had noticed that on the force organization screen the attack numbers weren’t quite reporting correctly. I checked the spreadsheets yesterday and found the issue. It would seem that I was reporting all five rows as the value that was in row 1. Luckily this wouldn’t effect combat, just what the players expectations for attacks might be.

Moving forward I have more stages to build, but before I do that I think that it’s going to be important to build in a system that will be better for dialogue during the stage. I need to start turning more to story and really figure out what this game will be about. There’s a lot of world affairs right now that might subconsciously work their way into the plot-line.

I’m starting to think more and more about how I can create random enemy squads, and possibly even random stages. I do have a way to load random stages on a single stage click, and so that’s a start. Worst case scenario I make a bunch of random stages and find a way to increase their difficulty in some way related to the players actions.

I’m not sure when I will get the game on Steam but I have started the process of adding assets to the page, and writing out the descriptions. I will probably wait at least a month or maybe try to hit the next big Steam indie event.

Personal Update

Things are still going well with my girlfriend, although there were a couple of bumps in the road this week. It’s been four months already since we started talking which is kind of crazy. I should see her again soon when things line up for us. She’s been very supportive which is so important to me.

After releasing my game my attention turned back to my family and I have a renewed fire to try and get some things handled with my boys. They have been slacking in quite a few areas and it’s time to bring the proverbial hammer down. Sometimes I think I’m to hard on them.

The value of twitter still remains to be seen. On the plus side somehow in this past week I gained 100 followers which is pretty crazy. If this keeps up I will pass my old record which was around 1300. A tweet came up in my feed which kind of lends itself what I think it might be though. It feels like most of the people I’m engaging are indie developers that are doing amazing work, but not actual customers. I will say that I’ve had some solid connections, but I don’t think they are my target audience. One good thing is that my hashtage #SixAspects seems to have started to get picked up by twitter now as it auto-fills it for me and now says about 100 tweets, instead of less than 100.

Maybe something will happen on twitter eventually but I’m not sure. I’m considering setting up a bot to do some work on there for me, but I like having an organic account. I only really use it when I’m relaxing watching TV, eating, or walking on my treadmill, etc... Right now it’s the kind of publicity that I can afford, and maybe I can consider more when I get closer to the full release.

I think one of the main things to understand with Twitter, or social media in general is what it does to your brain. It creates the same response that gamblers get. We keep scrolling because we are randomly rewarded. Also I saw a tweet where someone was frustrated with the amount of interaction they were getting. I understand that twitter can hide your tweets also if they don’t like the things you’re saying, just like other social media platforms. It’s a bit disturbing to me the things that these platforms can do to push an agenda. I guess that’s something else I can put in my video game maybe.

In order to keep sanity on social media I’ve taken to doing the following.

• Give 99 and take 1 - this simply means that I do my best to find ways to engage in meaningful ways to add to and not take away from others

• Same team mentality - figure out a way to make things a win win for everyone in the interaction, if I feel my interaction would have low value I don’t do it a good example of this would be how I interact with hashtags like #screenshotsaturday . I only reply with my project if they ask, otherwise I only retweet them.

• Reply as much as possible, when I have something that is of value

• Only use social media when I have nothing better to do, if I have work/chores/human engagement/etc… those things take priority

• Freedom from outcomes - I don’t have expectations for people to reply, follow, retweet, or my posts to have high engagement - I don’t check my metrics often

• Abundance mindset - I feel value inside myself and I abundantly give what I can without expectations, if it isn’t well received that’s no big deal I’m to abundant to worry about someone else’s problems

The final countdown!

Game Update

Working all week and weekend to get the game out the door. My oldest son has been a huge help in doing the testing. It’s the 11th hour and so I’m trying to make sure that everything is as good as it can be. There will be more changes after release but this needs to feel like as complete an experience as I can make it.

We added in new enemy types for the dragons and golems. That extended the time it took to get things going but it was well worth it. They aren’t fully implemented with their animations and spells but that’s ok because they are minimally in the game. I had some wonderful face art for them from my artist and I wanted to make sure people got to see it. The dragons look so cute!

Lot’s of spreadsheet updates primarily to add more squads to the game which in turn means that I have to add them into the stages. I added about fifteen new squads to the game as I noticed that there was a lack of seven person squads, and then after doing some testing with dragons and golems I made some squads specifically focused on them. I’m very happy with the results as the stages now have more enemy variety instead of just ratmen, giant snakes, and the occasional humanoid squad. It adds so much to the game and I can’t wait to add even more in the future.

I also want to allow players the ability to recruit some of the monster type troops into their army. I think we will be building a feature in the future to allow players that by encountering random troops in stages. I’ve already had an idea in which I place no 3D graphics and a single enemy as a wandering monster which can be recruited. I will have to add a button to combat that will spawn for these wandering monsters and allow players to persuade them which will have a chance of failure. I could base it on alignment possibly.

The only thing left to do is a video trailer for the game and get it uploaded to the websites where I will sell it. It will definitely be on GumRoad and possibly some other websites. I’m still having issues with my new EIN as it looks like it wasn’t submitted for the type of business that I need it to be.

Personal Update

Taking time out for my girlfriend off and on this week. I already miss her but I will see her again soon. I’m also carving out time to watch TV with my boys at dinner time. We’ve been watching a lot of “Step by Step”. I like the wholesomeness of these old shows, but it’s also obvious that there is some agenda in the messaging as well. It’s important to actively watch what you take in to your mind. I did a lot less with social media this week. Not much else to say as all my focus is on getting this game out the door.