Monday, December 12, 2016

Billy Carts Dev Blog 13 December 2016

Yesterday I caught up with the talented Pete Mullins, my co-conspirator on Billy Carts, so we could go over what we've done so far in the game, and more importantly, plan what we have yet to do.

Like many indie game projects Pete and I are working remotely on this one using Trello, Unity Collab, email and Google Drive to share assets, ideas and documents. So it's great to catch up in person every now and again!

As a result of our meeting we worked out that our first priority is making sure the game controls well and feels fun. Pretty obvious really :-) We're not too worried about the overall design just yet - we're fans of iterating rapidly on ideas to see if they work or not and letting that shape the game. Definitely not the approach I would take on an adventure game, but with fast action games it's all about the moment to moment feel.

Yesterday was also a great opportunity to get some first pass assets and integrate them into the game.

We're aiming for a very Australian theme with Billy Carts pulling inspiration from where we live. So I expect a few of my Aussie friends will cringe when they play the game. Make them squirm, I say!

Some of the new assets Pete built include a petrol can (or gas can for Americans) and a coin.
Collectable coin featuring a koala!

A petrol can that refills your billy cart.

Technically Billy Carts are box carts and don't have engines that require petrol/gas - but this is a game and we're prioritising fun over facts :-)

If the game has a positive reception and we're lucky enough to keep building on it post release, we're definitely keen on adding new environments inspired by other countries - particularly some of the beautiful scenery from the USA. So fingers crossed it does okay!

One of the new assets we added in during our catchup was a sharp right turn in the track. It sounded like it would be fun on paper but in practice it slowed down the game play - so we nixed it.

The track is  made up of small segments that are each unique in their shape and include small hairpin curves, dips, hills, etc. and this seems to work well.

So, the next step is to wire up the new assets, see how they feel and tweak them. This is a process we'll be repeating until done, so stay tuned to see where we end up.

Coins in the game!
Cheers,
Johnno


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