IGF

My IGF submission went off pretty smoothly last week. So now my game is officially competing with 588 other indie games! You can see the full list here: http://igf.herokuapp.com/

I’m sharing that list with games made by friends and former colleagues (NEO Scavenger, Card Hunter), games that I’ve already played and love (FTL, Papa & Yo, 10000000), games that I’m looking forward to (Kentucky Route Zero, Incredipede), and no less than five games by Michael Brough (I really like his stuff too). It’s pretty exciting to be a part of it!

If you happen to know any IGF judges please tell them to give Spaceteam a try!

Time Off

After the IGF crunch I decided to take some time off to decompress, and I’m glad I did. I spent a few days relaxing, running errands, and finally getting to the City of Gold in Spelunky! :)

Going Public

It’s time. I have a video, screenshots, a better website in the works, and the game is almost done. I’m preparing a press kit. I’m making a list of websites that might want to write up/review the game. If you know any journalists who write about games please point me in their direction!

I’m still aiming for October 31st for App Store submission, but there are still a few things left to do.

I’m waiting for Apple to change my address in iTunes Connect before I can finish signing all of the legal/tax documents.

I’m getting low-memory crashes on my 1st gen iPad after playing for a while, which is probably going to require reorganizing some code.

And I want to add one final feature, which is to amend (or replace) the Translator Malfunction anomaly. Instead of using an alien language, which turns into a guessing and memory game, I want to use symbols, both on the panels and in the instruction. So, an instruction might be:

[# IGF

My IGF submission went off pretty smoothly last week. So now my game is officially competing with 588 other indie games! You can see the full list here: http://igf.herokuapp.com/

I’m sharing that list with games made by friends and former colleagues (NEO Scavenger, Card Hunter), games that I’ve already played and love (FTL, Papa & Yo, 10000000), games that I’m looking forward to (Kentucky Route Zero, Incredipede), and no less than five games by Michael Brough (I really like his stuff too). It’s pretty exciting to be a part of it!

If you happen to know any IGF judges please tell them to give Spaceteam a try!

Time Off

After the IGF crunch I decided to take some time off to decompress, and I’m glad I did. I spent a few days relaxing, running errands, and finally getting to the City of Gold in Spelunky! :)

Going Public

It’s time. I have a video, screenshots, a better website in the works, and the game is almost done. I’m preparing a press kit. I’m making a list of websites that might want to write up/review the game. If you know any journalists who write about games please point me in their direction!

I’m still aiming for October 31st for App Store submission, but there are still a few things left to do.

I’m waiting for Apple to change my address in iTunes Connect before I can finish signing all of the legal/tax documents.

I’m getting low-memory crashes on my 1st gen iPad after playing for a while, which is probably going to require reorganizing some code.

And I want to add one final feature, which is to amend (or replace) the Translator Malfunction anomaly. Instead of using an alien language, which turns into a guessing and memory game, I want to use symbols, both on the panels and in the instruction. So, an instruction might be:

](/img/blog/wp-images/2012/10/SymbolInstruction1.png) …or:

…or maybe even:

(These symbols all come from The Noun Project, which is a really cool site)

This is a pretty low-risk change (I basically just need to add the new symbols to my font), but I think is has the potential to be a really interesting new game mode as people try to describe and recognize the symbols under pressure.

I’m planning to have one final group playtest soon to try out the new symbol mode and to see if the achievement for finishing Sector 20 with 4 players is actually possible… stay tuned :)

The project is definitely starting to feel like it’s in the finalization phase. All the pieces are in place, I just need to tie up the loose ends in preparation for my deadlines!

Deadlines

The first deadline is this Wednesday October 17th which is the submission deadline for the Independent Game Festival. This is a big deal. The game will be played by various people from the industry and press, and if I get nominated then I’ll get some great exposure and a free pass to the Game Developer’s Conference in March.

The second deadline is October 31st which I’ve set myself as the final release date. Pretty soon I’ll make an official announcement and start some publicity.

So what’s left for the game itself?

Connection Issues Still Abound

The latest playtest exposed some more networking problems so I’ve borrowed an extra iPad to test with. It’s been helping a lot and I’ve fixed a bunch of the issues preventing multiple Spaceteams from playing at once. Getting an isolated game going is usually no problem but I want to make sure it works in environments such as conferences and parties, where larger groups might all try running the game at the same time.

To Apple’s credit, I’ve been running 3-player games where:

• one device has only Bluetooth enabled
• one has only Wifi enabled
• and the third has both

Somehow they can all talk to each other and the game runs fine. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by this.

Final Achievements

After getting some great feedback I’ve started building a list of Achievements that I think will be interesting and challenging. Now I have to hook them up to Game Center and make sure they’re recorded properly. Some examples:

• Pair of Aces: Finish 3 sectors in a row without missing an instruction (2 players)
• Shaken Not Stirred: Complete 5 instructions while shaking

In-App Purchases

I’m also homing in on the final offerings for the Upgrades store, each of which will cost 99 cents. I still have to hook these up officially to the App Store:

• Achievements: the ability to unlock achievements in Game Center
• Ships: a new skin (or pack of skins) for the ship, threat, and control panel
• Outfits: a pack of new outfits/accessories for your (random) Spaceteam crew members

Here’s a sneak preview:

This gives people various ways to donate, and it will be interesting to see which is the most popular option.

I’ve also been spicing up the game in small ways, such as adding the occasional predetermined “mundane” command to the panels. Now, interspersed with the technobabble, you’ll hear things like “Fluff Pillows!”, “Backup Hard Drive!”, or “Entertain Dignitaries!”. It’s a small change, but I love it.

In my last post I mentioned that I was considering offering Achievements as a reward for unlocking the full game. This seemed reasonable: if you enjoy the game it’s nice to be able to track your progress and have goals to strive for. They have some value.

But when I tried to come up with a rough list of potential achievement conditions, eg:

• Reached Sector X
• Avoided Y Asteroids
• Wiped Z Gallons of Slime
• Completed N Instructions

–I realized that they’re all just different ways of marking linear progress. Or in other words, if you just play the game enough times you’ll eventually get all of them. It’s still a way of recording your progress, but it’s kind of boring (not to mention that this kind of reward can often decrease motivation).

I think the best kind of achievements are the ones that force you to play the game in a different way, and usually result in interesting discoveries (eg. something along the lines of “Beat without killing anyone.”). The only thing on my original list that vaguely fit this description was:

• Performed X Near-Death Saves

A “Near-Death Save” is when you’re one instruction away from losing the game (red flashing lights), and you complete it successfully. This will probably only happen a couple of times if you’re playing normally. However, if you purposefully try to surf just ahead of the threat as it closes in, then you could get theoretically get 20 or more Saves on a single level. I think that would make for an interesting challenge.

I’ve been trying to come up with more, but the game just might not be deep enough to provide many options:

• Beat a level without touching a single control? (you would still have to give instructions to your teammates while ignoring the incoming ones)
• Hit 50 asteroids in a single game?
• ???

Or, maybe this is an indication that I should forego achievements altogether and offer different game modes instead that provide explicit challenges (eg. an Anomaly on every level, or a “no fail” sudden death mode).

Any ideas?