Development pitfalls.

Making games is a nightmare.

We all know that featurecreep is a budget and time killer, but it's hard not to get involved with the darkside of development when you're designing levels and coding gameplay in tandem.

For example - a design can work great in theory, but when you put it in the hands of players suddenly people start finding gyppy ways to break your designs and find an easier way to solve a problem.

The key to Gets to The Exit's appeal is that often there are a number of ways to complete a level - there's the way we hoped you'd do it, but then there's also probably a bunch of ways that we didn't think of, that (for the most part) are a helluva lot easier... the downside to this, is that we also have to keep creating new platforms and elements to stop you crafty folks breaking the game to make it easier.

Then there are those levels (like the one in the last post), that just work. There's no gypping it, there's no easier way, it's just hard. And you have to do it right.

With 20 different platform types, and 9 platforms in each level, there are millions of possible combinations that could make up a level, it's just a bit of challenge finding the best combinations!

We're aiming to have a release out for the 19th of April that people can start testing... interested? Get in touch.

This Level will melt your brain

It's taken about 3 hours to get timings sorted. But it's rock solid.

One of our play testers had to call his mum.

Think this one will be going in world 3 then.

Grrrrrrroooowwwllllsss etc. (new characters)!!

Danny has been making new Baddies... Here's a sneaky peak at the hungry bear from World 1, and just under here you can see the snowy/future outfits for the Goodies on Worlds 2 and 3...

Sound!!

Having spent a lovely morning talking like I was on helium, we have all the sounds recorded and Danny is now going through the mind numbing process of getting them all dropped into the game and synced up with the action!

With Nikos getting the animations working at the same time, the whole shebang is starting to come to life (and it's really rather amusing).

Looking to get a new video up by the end of tomorrow, with a playable demo doing a fly around the office on Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed that Apple are nice to us, and we can gets in into your apps stocking by Xmas!!

Just so you know...

The head of Web at roll7 would like you to know that he has nothing to do with the design or build of this (frankly very basic) blog.

Gameplay!

Nikos is currently stuck in Greece because there aren't any airports or something, but that's given me the time to have a little play around with what we've got in the editor right now and start making some levels, seeing how the different components fit together and generally get to grips with all things gets.

It's surprising how hard things can get, even just the addition of an extra set of spikes in combination with a grumpy yeti can make a level nigh on impossible.

Anyway, I've chopped together a quick look at how we're getting on so far, so go check it out!

The Simon Test

There's a weird challenge for game designers. As much as we like to
think that everyone plays games these days and everyone enjoys
leveling, boss battles and all that nonsense, there is a definite
devide between those of us who are willing to spend 20 hours of our
lives completing Dragon Age 2, and people like my mum, who plays
Farmville because the horses are cute.

This is an especially difficult thing for developers like us. The
entire studio spends lunch playing Killing Floor, grinding away at a
relatively hardcore and unforgiving FPS, trying to become a level 6
sharpshooter, while spending the other 7 (or more like 15 recently)
hours of the working day making accessible, cutesy platform puzzle
games.

Don't get me wrong, we love our game, but let's just say there's a
disjoint between the level of challenge/punishment/reward/difficulty
that many of us "hardcore" gamers are looing for, and the kind of
experience our target audience wants. It's easy to assume that people
will "get" the game concept and persevere with it if it's hard, when
in reality, if they don't enjoy it in the first minute they'll hit the
home button and go back to Angry Birds.

That's where the Simon test comes into play. Simon is our CEO, he
admits that he's not a gamer. He hasn't loved a game since Mario
Party, and phrases like WASD or Progression Tree just make him angry.
He is also the bane of all coders, with a seemingly super human
ability to break any build of a project within seconds of playing it.

Frustrating as this is (retrieving sobbing coders from under their
desks is a task no producer wants), Simon is the ideal test candidate
for a game - he gets bored in 5 seconds, he hates being defeated
unfairly and he doesn't really have any knowledge of the codes and
conventions of game controls or gameplay. Put simply, if you haven't
nailed something accessible and fun, he won't be interested. He's also
a sucker for slapping down feature/budget creep and a total
perfectionist.

Sounds like a nightmare right?

Well. Yes. But ultimately when we've put out anything that he wasn't
totally into, the public reception has been tepid at best. Annoying as
it is when he's not happy with something and it feels like he's nit-
picking, he's generally right (no Simon, you can't quote that last
sentence next time I disagree with you).

The upside of this is that on those rare occasions when he gets all
excited playing something, and won't give you the controller/ipad/
mouse back because he's having fun, it means you're probably doing
something right.

I'm not going to jinx it by telling you about his reaction to today's
build.