Little delays and fresh eyes soon

Heyooooo gamers, developers, friends and family. A little relaxation time tonight with a cup of tea and some Pomme music in the background, I decided it's time to contribute another little devlog for my game to let me unwind some more and think about the unfinished parts of Dead Desert.

So I finally landed a new role (job) which finds me super busy and too tired to work on the game in the evenings. Maybe weekends will still be available for a little while but progress will have to slow down.

This isn't forever tho. I always pick my projects back up especially when I already have 2 years invested. So, when will I be back? I think maybe around 3-6 months, depending on how the role progresses. This is good news personally though. If I am tired it means I'm working hard, If I'm working hard it means I'm happy!

So as I welcome my new challenge and focus, I want to write a little bit about where I want the game to be shortly after I come back with fresh eyes.

Alpha Ready

So as I have mentioned in a few posts, I've been in pre-alpha for a while now, with only friends and itch.io playing the game. It's completely free and it is more of a buggy tech demo than a game.

When I am back in full swing it shouldn't take too long to use that fresh feeling to quickly fix issues and add much needed structure and flesh out level and story design. After that I can have the much promised alpha ready, and maybe even see a few people playing the game on Youtube, which is always an absolute delight!

Less Bugs

As the game stands now, actually the bugs aren't too bad... There have been many bug bash passes which have really solidified certain features, mostly the UI, but there are always bugs that remain (mostly AI). 

Everytime I come back to a project I enjoy the bug bashing part. So I wait for it eagerly!

New Art

As the project has progressed and as my tooling has changed, (like Inkscape to Affinity), I find myself developing a personal workflow or style to my art creation. To be honest something I never imagined but something that now makes me look at some assets in the game and squirm. So when I come back I'll have fun re-doing assets that aren't quite perfect. I hope to breathe new "unique" life to the game.

Solid AI

Something I'm always thinking about is AI. It's such a pain. It's so annoying to see it fail and to have to code all the edge cases. But as an AI developer you're always learning. Always thinking and improving. Even while I focus on my new role, I will still be thinking about AI. Thinking about how it interacts with the world and what tricks I can use to make it work.

I often pickup the AI code, or an AI challenge as a "break" from work. I doubt this aspect of game development will stop during my little break from game dev. I love to add new bits to my AI and so that will continue in the background quietly.

Transition to Typescript

Yup. Nuts. 10 years ago I saw the transition to JS and now it's clear the transition to TS is not just beginning but is already well matured. If you don't have an "interface" mindset everywhere then you're missing the big picture. It drives the modern world in 1million ways.

I'm gonna love adding TS and modern implementation to the engine while I pick up little refactors while on my break.

Donc, c'est Fini!

Hope you all enjoy the upcoming good weather, enjoy your projects, success in your challenges and enjoy your free time.

Jammy

My bit for future me muhahaha. En Francais!

Alors un peu du francais par un debutant comme la dernier fois!

Je sais que mon francais est mauvaise et si vous pourriez à me corrigez, pas de soucis, c'est super! Je vourdrais apprendre tous vos conseils/astuces!

Aloooooooors. Pourquoi j'ai ecris si beaucoup d'anglais :(. Je suis bête evidemently. Je vais essayer de recréer en francais quand même !!! xD.

Donc, j'ai trouvé un nouveau poste (? un travail qui est nouveau? google a dit 'un nouveau rôle' )  ca fait pas longtems, et c'est un nouveau challenge pour moi. C'est difficile mais j'aime bien le travail et les personnes au travail du coup c'est un bonne chose pour moi!

Car mon travail est difficule est le travail est dur, le soir je me sens trop fatigue de travail sur mon jeu, du coup j'ai pris la decision d'arrette le development sur mon jeu. Pas à jamais, juste environ trois ou six mois. Aprés je vais retourner et travaile plus plus pluuuuus dur sur mon projet et créer un version Alpha pour le jeu.

Probablement tous les deux jours je pense d'IA parceque c'est interessant pour moi, même quand je suis fatiqué je pense d'IA, donc je pense que aprés je commence de travail sur mon project je vais savoir plus des idées pour l'IA dans le jeu.

Donc, j'espere que au moins 50% de mes phrases sont juste mais probablement pas xD. Pas de soucis.

J'epsere que vous allez bien et à bientôt!

Jammy <3