Well, Pizza Manufacturing Facility has been out for a bit and it's about time I made a post about it. Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out and how it was received, daily 5th place ain't bad. Definitely nice having people actually play it compared to my android game has like 15 downloads and like 4 of them were me. I feel I improved a lot over the course of this project especially when you compare it to my android game, missile maelstrom, especially in graphics and sound. There were some games I did between missile maelstrom and Pizza Manufacturing Facility but they'll probably never see the light of day because they're like half finished, were done for classes or gamejams, and were done with groups of people.
Anyways, I always do feel a bit bummed after I release a game. I feel excited too though, getting feedback is always great and I'm always checking the high scores. But, ou really see your mistakes after getting some decent feedback and realize what some comments people gave you when they play tested really meant. It's mostly gameplay stuff that's hard to pick up as the creator of the game because you start out way better than a first time player and know everything that should happen. But, I don't feel I should really fix them because it would mess with the idea of high scores, before the fix may be easier to get a good score than after, and it's kinda part of the game. I feel I should not dwell on it and move on to my project with this new knowledge.
Check it out here:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/661903
The sound track is one of the areas I feel I improved the most over the course of making this game. But, I'm still a bit of a newb at it and am just kind of figuring things out as I go. I would really like some feedback specifically on the soundtrack so I put it up on the audio portal. Check it out:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/642173
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/642175
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/642177
I should really get moving on to my next project, I really haven't done much on it yet. The plan right now is to make an old school style rpg about a prohibition era detective fighting smugglers, old timey gangsters, and that sort of thing. We'll see how that changes as I work on it. I'm going to try using Starling for this new game. I didn't really like flashpunk all that much and Starling has some cool features like actually using the gpu and as a result the ability to write custom shaders. I have done a bit of work on the audio for the game this time using Famitracker instead of LSDJ. Famitracker is really nice because I can use a midi keyboard with it. I might still switch back to LSDJ because I'm getting a flash cart and then I can use the actual Gameboy hardware to make my music for that extra chiptune-y sound. I'm also getting some cool stuff to deck out my Gameboy with. All the cool kids have decked out Gameboys and everybody knows that the cooler your Gameboy looks the better it sounds.
I've heard it's easier to keep motivated when you've got a couple of projects on the go at once. I can definitely see how when you get burned out on a project switching to a new one can keep you productive. So, once I get the ball rolling on the detective game I might switch and try out some 3d stuff. I took a graphics where we used opengl and I thought it was really cool and I have some cool shader ideas. Hopefully I will be productive for the next while since I have graduated and now have lot's of free time. So, maybe it won't take forever to get this detective game done like it did with Pizza Manufacturing Facility... maybe.
