It’s an exciting and stressful time at the moment. We are closing in on a playable version and that means testing. We’re going to start with a lot of testing on our own to weed out early bugs and get an overall feel for the game. Of course it’s also very important that we don’t get beaten when we soon invite other people to test so we need to get better at it.
Usually when it comes to the final presentation which is around three weeks away, it’s a power-point presentation with a trailer and some points explaining what people produced. This year it’s been changed, we haven’t gotten the exact details on how it’s going to be but there is talk about an expo. Which I love but at the same time it means we need to have a presentable and playable game that doesn't bug and can impress a bit because people from the industry are invited. So it’s time to hurry up and start polishing.
The reason I like the expo idea is because
it’s simply not as boring as the usual “here’s a power-point showing what we came up with and here’s some footage that might represent the game but you have no idea how it plays or if it bugs”. An expo forces the different development teams to actually be done on time, allows everyone that wants to get a feel for the game and chat a bit with the developers.
Instead of the classic final presentation we had a “milestone presentation” to let all the teams and more importantly the teachers see how far everyone had come right now. I feel that our presentation went great and in that presentation was a small gameplay trailer. Let me therefore present to you the first trailer for Breakwater.
After the presentation we had a small meeting and agreed that it’s time to feature freeze as soon as Friday. To feature freeze means that you stop coming up with new stuff for the game and just polish what’s already in. If there are no bananas to use as environmental props there will be no bananas in the game. This has really made the group hustle. No more sitting around drinking coffee and chatting about if the current hue of green on the grass is just right. Things need to be implemented and they need to be implemented now. At the same time as this brings a bit more stress to the group it feels good to see the pieces come together and I really think we will (fingers crossed) be done in time.
You find more about the game at:
facebook.com/breakwatergame
instagram.com/breakwatergame
twitter.com/breakwatergame
