joeyspacerocks

The next game is called Spooky Pooky and is a 2D metroidvania platformer. No, seriously.

"Horatio Bones is a curious lad.

Working late one night at the Nefarious Science Corporation he strays into a deserted sector and unwittingly triggers ... The Machine.

The Machine strips Horatio of his fluids and organs ~ he finds himself reduced to a living skeleton trapped in a specimen jar!

The horror!

Thus begins the longest night of Horatio's life as he travels through a dangerous and bizarre world in search of Restoration."

Like QB1-0 this is also being written in C + OpenGL, although because I'm now aiming at PC/Mac/Linux and iOS I'm using SFML to give me an OpenGL context and for Audio + controller input.

More info at http://fistfulofsquid.com and there's a devlog at https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=42130 with loads of techy details.

I generally try and have tasks of different types available for different moods (eg bug fixes, graphics work, marketing, etc). It's important for me to keep the momentum going though and even finishing a small thing is better than nothing.

Some things just require more time/thought though, so sometimes I have to shelve things and tackle them when I have more time.

Sometimes all I get done in 30 minutes is to make a decision about how to do something - this is still progress and feeds into the next spot.

Hi - author of the post here. Just a quick note - don't believe a word of this. I wrote it in 2013 and am now 3 years into the dev of the next game.

It's lies, all lies :) actually it's probably solid advice - the hard bit turns out to be following it.

The missing piece of advice turned out to be - "stay disciplined" ...

Thank you for your comments! Yes, that's the crux of it - you need a hook or something to nudge people into giving cash for it.

I also suspect that I haven't done myself any favours with the trailer or the app icon.

Still, onwards and upwards :)

Yes, ship it!

I ended up shipping without Game Center integration and added it in the next version a few months later. It can be done!

Absolutely agree.

As a developer you need to have frank talk with yourself both before and during development to figure out exactly what the motivation is. Are you writing a game to sell? Or are you writing a game for the fun of writing a game?

In an ideal world the two would be compatible, but ...

For me, well, I'm doing this for fun first, money second. As is obvious from my choice to make an Asteroids clone - highly unlikely that's going mass-market.

So why isn't it free? On the off-chance that some money can be made and I can free myself to do something I enjoy full-time. Just like everyone else I can dream ...

I did a similar thing. Only it took 2 years.

http://pixelated.postagon.com/5g437329d

I win!