It's Saturday night and you're...
In the Lab
Welcome to the first installment of In the Lab, a look into what we do, and how we get it done. So far this week, we've had a big jump ahead towards reaching Alpha in 2 weeks. Even though there is still a ton of work to do, we're getting to where we need to be. Let's take a look at what we've got done in the last couple days.
One of the bigger items to brag about is the implementation of our new functioning level editor. Written by our own Justin Sharma, the new level editor functions much like the old one did with a few new features. Aside from greater ease of use, the biggest feature of the new level editor is its capacity to edit levels with no size limits in either the x or y axis. This means we can now design and build levels as big as we want.
New finalized art is beginning to find its way into the game. This really helps with the progress of our builds, team morale, and most importantly for play testing as it eliminates the obvious response from surveys coming back saying "...needs better art". Along with some of the finalized art is the beginning of our particle implementation. Having used particles extensively on our last game Catacomb, we've found getting particles in our game just as easy, despite having them function differently from our last game. Take a look:
As you may have read in Music Monday, the audio for Oswald is coming along very nicely. A studio session last week featuring Dustin (Oswald's voice actor) and the King brothers (audio lads) has resulted in almost all of Oswald's dialog being recorded. Hopefully after our next late night studio session this Saturday, we can finish up Oswald, and move on to Razzle, Dentz, and Congo's dialog. Keep your ears open for more sneak peeks of some tracks, sound bites, and maybe even an outtake video.
So what's on tap for this week you say? Well for starters, we're looking at developing tutorial levels, finishing collision, audio engineering, enemies, and the framework for Bondye, Oswald's home. Not to mention play testing, bug fixing, troubleshooting, and all the other great things that go along with building games.
On a final note, yesterday, our mentor Mack Flavelle challenged us to pitch a game concept based around the theme "Ponies and Spoons". After a very entertaining round of pitches from 5 members of the Sleepless Game Studios team and Mack himself, a winner was chosen. If you have a idea for a game involving both spoons and ponies, leave it in the comments and let us know what you've got in mind. Don't forget to track us at Sleepless Game Studios or the Oswald project itself, or follow us on Twitter @SleeplessGames.
And that's what's going on, In The Lab.
