It Takes a Great man...

So... To put it shortly, one week wasted.
Naturally, this being a blog, I can put it as long as I want it to be, so here goes (the next paragraph is an elaborate whiny explanation of what I did wrong. It is completely plausible that readers might want to skip ahead):

I've started working on my Tower defense game, with the wonderful plan to do it twice: once in Unity for Android and iPhone, and once in Flash for... Flash. However, Unity released a beta version which (drum roll) can compile SWF files as well! So my plan changed and I now intend to make the game only in Unity.
However, in the before before time (long long ago), when I planned for two versions, I intended to create an external engine in which I will create the levels for the game. This seemed like a good idea at the time. 
Last week, that's what I created. It's a nice engine. You can plot enemy routes, and create spawn points and target points and tower limitations. I created an infrastructure to insert tower types and enemy types. I was very motivated. And then I realized it is completely useless.
It's useless, because I can do the same in Unity with much less work, and since there is no other version anymore, there is no point to it. In addition, I had to jump through hoops to connect my game to the engine's output. Eventually, I started from scratch.


Last week's work went into limbo, where socks go when they don't come out of the washing machine.

And now, for something completely different. Every now and then I stumble across a game that touches me in a special way. It's a game done just right, couldn't be better. This happened to me yesterday. It's called All That Matters, hosted in Kongregate. The game is beautifully made, the music is simply sublime, it's exactly the right length, and in the right difficulty. It is the tale of a man named Walter, and his family, but the game tells itself much better than I could ever try. It is completely free.
Why are you still reading this? Go play. Now.

Such a Perfect Day

So... I spent my entire day trying to purchase an iPhone. And I failed.
I had a suspicion it would be that way. Contacting service providers, untangling their "attractive" (and completely incomprehensible) offers, struggling with the question of model, memory, second hand or new...
Ugh. This is why I had a Nokia up until now.
C'est la vie. My soon to be amazing tower defense game will hopefully be available in the app store, so I need an iPhone.
I finished with the Unity tutorials, and moved on to the research phase of the project. This means playing tower defense games, and plenty of them. I've toyed around with Defense Grid, Sol Survivor, several games in Kongregate, and got addicted to Kingdom Rush, Which is the best Tower Defense game I played since Plants vs. Zombies.
Research is fun. Next week: Design.

A Bit of Dialogue With Gamers

A few days ago I've raised the rate of incoming mission credits to 1 per hour (instead of 1 per 6 hours, as was before). Ever since I did that more people have started playing the game and some chat has been generated on the Kongregate forum and comments.
I try and react to the complaints or praise that people post accordingly. Thus, a long thread complaining about the game's difficulty curve made me make the difficulty curve a little less steep.
Here are the main points raised, and my general thoughts regarding those points:

1. Please remove the mission credits system - Naturally the requests (or at least some of them) are a bit less polite, but this is generally the sentiment. I haven't decided what to do with that yet.
   The mission credits system, contrary to what people think, is not intended to generate us more money by making people buy more. The system is mainly there to make people return to the game, thus enabling us to create a community of players who return periodically to see if anything was added or changed. This has not worked well as we thought. People generally get annoyed by it and it was a serious turn off for some. I can remove this but it will take some development time, and I need to think if it is for the best.
2. The game seems to be over - this is a complaint regarding the fact that events are starting to repeat themselves. Here is the thing: Misfortune is supposed to be an ongoing adventure. Some open plot threads are left dangling and are supposed to be picked up later (as in some great games like "beyond good and evil" and "the longest journey"). However, the same as with the aforementioned games, this content has not been created yet, and will only be created if the game will be successful enough.
3. We need better weapons/how do we get steam rifle and steam pistol - those separate questions converge to a single answer - the new weapons will be released soon. I am trying to think of a good way to do that.
4. Bugs! BUGS!!!! - I am doing my best to fix them. There actually aren't a lot of bugs. The most serious one currently is that the game doesn't work in Ubuntu

Besides the fun I am having talking to people who like (or don't like) our game, I am 3/4 done on my Unity learning book. Once I am finished with that, we're off to game design!