Tuesday 8 October 2013

general status update

- I just moved house and getting an internet connection is taking its time. So I am unreliable right now. As usual.

- OK I know some of you are waiting for 868-HACK to be released on PC. I've not been making much progress on this. There's not a huge amount to be done but I want to get it right not have BAD PORT. I think it's been really good to do this separately, I've fixed a bunch of bugs while only having to update them in one place - maintaining several copies of a game in different places is such a hassle. Probably simultaneous release is Optimal Marketing Strategy but you've got to sacrifice some things when it's just you.

- But hey the response to that game has been pretty great. Some really nice reviews link link link link link, a few negatives but hey whatever I don't expect to please everyone. A bunch of negative comments about the (DRASTICALLY EXORBITANT) price, but it's achieved my goal of being able to afford to keep doing this for a while more which is FANTASTIC (I just feel sorry for anyone who tries to do this without someone to support them for a few years to get to that point). Talked with indie statik about that. Anyway, way cool, thanks everyone.

- Some concerns about whether .SCORE is too strong for single-game high scores? I suspect part of this is because it's part of the initial set of progs available, whereas other high-scoring progs are unlocked later. But I'm keeping an eye on it, it's interesting to watch. I personally pick it up very rarely because it's so risky, and I've had 90+ scores without it. But basically the problem is: a lot of what's balancing it is that risk (enemies spawned on acquisition, and lack of resources later if they're spent on it earlier) and if you just try enough times you'll get games where the risk pays off. This problem exists in the usual scoring system as well, perhaps less transparently, which was my reason for focusing on streaks (for probabilities multiply out to be very small very quickly). Perhaps I should have omitted single-game scores entirely and only had a streak table? Insufficient bravery.

- I've been making a 4-player game, SMESPORT. It started as a stripped-down dotalike for the 7-day RTS jam, but I failed the jam and kept working on it through several iterations until now it looks a lot closer to Hokra, I should write more about this process sometime. It was shown at a recent Wild Rumpus in Texas, which sadly I couldn't make it to. I'll be showing it at Nottingham Gamecity in a couple of weeks (officially in the open arcade on 20th, 21st, 23rd, 25th but I'll be around for the whole time). Hopefully watch lots of people play it and learn things to tune it to be better. Might try to organise a tournament towards the end of the week if people are into it? It's really intense competitive electrosport.

- I'm speaking at Practice at NYU in November. Can't escape academia. Upstart. Something about roguelikes.

- Yeah still doing little things on Helix sporadically. Ugh who knows, no hurry, I'm finding it good for harvesting procrastination energy anyway.

- Not sure if I mentioned BECOME AN ARTIST on here? Made it with mcc for a jam a few weeks back. I'm still finding it pretty useful for making pretty pictures.

1 comment:

  1. For what it's worth I'm glad you left single game scores in. It's good to 'relax' and shoot for the moon every now and again. Is SIPH+ not comparatively powerful for big numbers anyway? Congrats on the success of 868-HACK, it's well deserved. It's the first of your games that I really really struggle to put down.

    As an experiment, I'd be interested to see the single game score tables if you switched SIPH+ and SCORE in the unlock order. I can't see how you'd do that, but ho hum.

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