Blogs - DBalthazaR

After entering the Alpha stages of development for Tessellation Desolation, I have gotten a better idea of the release date for the game. This date is not precise, but it is a reasonable estimate. Seeing how work has developed for this game, the estimate is that the full-game will be able to release around Spring of 2016. This is not definite, and quality will dictate when this release will actually occur.

There are several unknowns preventing a date from being set in stone. Namely, this game will have abstract art and sound. The art that has been presented does not strictly represent what will be in the final game. The entire game might be more reliant on textures than it currently is, or every spec of detail might be of a mathematical model that procedurally applies textures to objects. The art design is still entirely up in the air for the final game.

Concerns about the art specifically have risen from the backlash I received on Steam's Greenlight. I certainly understand that there is some level of quality desired at face value in Steam's community hub. Mostly because this is a direct interface to potential consumers. However, I was mistaken that it was clear that this game is unfinished. Granted, even if it was well described and understood that gameplay is the more polished substance currently, and final art and sound will follow, I doubt responses would have been different. They are the market, and if the market wants to have support given to things immediately ready to distribute, then I will have to respect that. Regardless of what Valve gives as the impression for Greenlight, it is ruled by the community. Of course, everyone had their reason for saying something degrading about Tessellation Desolation, and no general concept I fabricate from observation is going to be definite in why they were so harsh. Even if it were more detailed -- with better art and sound -- they could still just hate it.

Anyway, art and sound are a large concern for an unknown reserve of time needed to complete Tessellation Desolation. Some aspects are well known. I have an artist lined up to produce stills for cut-scenes. It is inspired by my really basic thumbnail that I have been using for the face of this game. Basically some simple art -- more detailed than what I made -- reflecting an inked and colored comic book style that will represent in-game propaganda. Whether or not this propaganda is going to reflect historical representations is not entirely known. It could be made to look modern, futuristic, or even just be strictly relate-able to the game world.

Another concern about experimental aspects concern puzzles. Several puzzles have reasonable ideas behind them, but they all need to be tested. How a puzzle will work, when it would appear, and its difficulty are the things I have been looking at to determine what constitutes a good puzzle in the game. As the only presented material for Tessellation Desolation has been samples of how the game will work, I do not have any really strong puzzles publicly available. Some obstacle based maneuvers do exist in the prototype, but I think they highlight general game mechanics more than being reflective of a puzzle. Though I do find it hard to distinguish some maneuvers from puzzles. For example, in the prototype -- at the end of the level -- there are gaps to spiked beds. One of the gaps is quite large, and while the initial thought might be to go from a triangle to a line to float between all of these gaps, the large one is too far to successfully cross using only these two shapes. The square rotates faster than these two characters, and so before switching to the line, the player must switch to the square to travel enough distance to be able to clear the gap when turning into the line. Overall, I would not call this sort of thing a puzzle though. It is strict to the general mechanics and can be practiced anywhere for a desired speed boost.

Other work has an accountable amount of time. Actually producing an object, a shading program, building a level to test, and decorating a scene(with a known level of detail) has a pretty clear completion time-frame at this point. These construction based activities are what I have used to formulate my guess for a release in Spring. Again this could completely change. I have a lot of puzzles and obstacles to get through before mechanics can be fully balanced. This is to ensure that the gameplay will make sense with the chosen level designs for the full-game. Then bugs will have to be sorted, which is an unknown, but for the scale of this project seems less of a burden than it could be. After this is done, befitting art and sound will be used to invigorate the game. Then a final quality control test to determine what could work better and where, before the final release.

This is my current development timeline for Tessellation Desolation. Not too much has changed honestly. The start of this project was entirely focused on making fluid and interesting mechanics before getting hung up on an aesthetic. So for now, I am just: overseeing mock-ups; producing test samples; building rough final levels; correcting mechanics; then polishing up the crude levels. There is a lot that can be done using simple geometry to make art, and I strongly think what is most suitable will be known better when the mechanics, and level outlines are more final.

Modifying the prototype build I had for Tessellation Desolation was great. I opened up some systems to handle more streamlined development as well as increasing the overall capabilities in the engine. With this work out of the way I am free to experiment with some of the level designs and aesthetics I am hoping to have in the full game. The new demo can be downloaded here: Indiedb.com

As the game develops I will certainly post new information about it, but I will also keep some things hush-hush for the sake of enjoyment when the game is complete. Basically, I would not want tense moments or spoilers to puzzles to be revealed. Not even lone secret areas and how to get to them. The information that will come out will be gameplay specific though. If there are collectibles to find, or more powers and abilities to unlock then that will be revealed as that information is relevant to letting potential players know what to expect from the full game.

The restructuring of some components in the initial Alpha build was quite a weighted load. Mostly because I wanted a playable show piece that better portrayed the geometric world that I want to build. While the original prototype did show some of this, most of its strong points were heavily focused on the mechanics. After having built the mechanics I enjoyed, I was deeply troubled by the lack of a complete experience in the game. So working through these internal handlings and by re-organizing the flow of information I now have a better display of the game world. It is still heavily flawed, but just having some music, and diverse graphical effects does seem to help glue the existing mechanics into a potentially engaging experience.

So with this tedious stuff out of the way I am quite eager to start building some of my more complex designs and arrangements. However I will probably rest for now, and enjoy some gaming.

I spent a large amount of time taking a table-top roleplaying game I developed in my preliminary school years and designing then building a game engine to make a live-action version of that table-top game. While I am saddened by not being able to finish this game in the immediate future I will be glad to return to working on it at a time where further development is more feasible. As such, I am shelving "Project Dane" for now.

Taking on a potentially large scale open-world game as an entry of my work into the video-game market was probably a far stretch. So I have taken to a smaller scale title that I am eager to develop into a full tale of woe and triumph. "Tessellation Desolation" is this title. A platformer that is simple in design to allow for a strong presentation of conflict and interaction models. The name will play better into the game when the story is explained further, but for now I am less concerned about getting into all of the details of the story. I am mostly concerned about making fun and interesting gameplay.

The end goal is a game that will have several levels, showcasing changes in difficulty, forcing adaptive playing methods, and all the while showcasing the state of a primitive world changing as a new society is formed.

This posting really is more a clarification to anyone that sees "Project Dane" and is even the slightest bit curious about it. Currently my work will be on making a complete title from "Tessellation Desolation" to release to the video-game market once it is as complete and whole as it can be. Please check it out and let me know what you think of the mechanics, as everything else really isn't a strong representation of what will be in the final game. That is puzzles are not really present in the prototype, with a few exceptions.

So I have built a game engine, and I am working on building the game to go into that engine. These are exciting times, only problem is I have run out of money from working at a software company. So my pace is going to have to be slower than I desire while approaching the build of this game("Project Dane"). This slow state is hopefully going to be minimal, gotta find work. The next few days I will be unpacking from a recent move, and my spare time will be spent working on a platformer I thought might be cool as well as furthering development of toolkits for Project Dane(I want ease for myself and future modders to modify and construct content).

If the platformer seems to be worth my time I will make a game entry for it, but even so most of my interest is stuck on Project Dane. Releasing a small title is probably a good idea for an entry level into the market though, so this platformer has the potential to be a serious contender for my time. The next few hours of programming will tell.