Category: Dev Journal

Progress updates on the development of my games.

In Need of Restrictions

The word “paradise” is derived from the Avestan word for “enclosure.”

This fun fact enters my mind every so often on a project.  With modern technology, just about anything is possible, and I don’t usually notice at first the cost of all of this possibility.

Today’s case was writing music for Escape Goat.  I used Impulse Tracker to compose the score for Soulcaster I and II, and since then I’ve moved into Renoise.  It has higher sound quality, runs in Windows, and can load most VST instruments and effects–something I haven’t had access to until now.  And I’m blown away, you MIDI sequencing folks have had it made for years–dozens, hundreds of free virtual instruments and effects.  Many of them sound as good or better than hardware I paid dearly for ten years ago.   Can you believe this is a free instrument?  Listen to that quality.

I went on a spree grabbing as many free 80’s style synths and effects that I could find.  I came away with about 20 instruments, at least 10 of which were of excellent quality.  I could score the whole game with just one of these.  The GTG-FM, linked in the above video, is just as capable as a Yamaha DX7, an instrument that went for $2000 new back in the 80’s.  And this is just one instrument.  I have in my virtual arsenal a synth collection that would have cost a fortune back then.  Cause for celebration!

The only problem is, I can (and did) spend a whole night just auditioning the built-in sounds on these guys.  They can do such a variety of sounds.  Though I started working on a song, it ended up as a love-fest of synth presets.  Not much work got done on the actual composition itself.  The problem?  Too many great sounds.  The solution?  Force a limitation of them.

It took some time, but I whittled it down to a collection of about 20 instruments and samples I’m going to use as the signature sounds for Escape Goat.  I’m only using 3 of the virtual synths.  This way I’ll spend less time finding the ultimate bass sound and more time writing the song.

The open desert is scary.  Build an enclosure.

July East Bay Indies Meetup

Tonight was the East Bay indie developers’ meetup in Berkeley at Au Coquelet, an intimate gathering of about ten locals, about half of whom didn’t come to last month’s gathering.  It was an awesome time.  To those of you who couldn’t make it, another one will be held in the last week of August, so follow me on Twitter if you want to be informed!

Meetups like these are essential to me. Working alone is a great way to get stuff done, until I reach that stage where I feel like I’m floating off in orbit. After enough days go by without real professional interaction, I start to raise existential questions about game development, my career, my life, and that’s just never helpful. Talking to other devs is really inspiring and energizing, and gets me back focused on the small, individual tasks that actually get the project done. It’s also great to have playtests planned ahead of time–when I know I have to show the game in 3 hours, it changes the way I work. I’m much less likely to be chasing a weird bug down a rabbit hole, and more likely to put in a quick fix to get through the day (often the better approach in the long run).

So where do we stand with Escape Goat? I’ve got pretty much all the gameplay bugs fixed and features locked, and the file system for user created levels is also pretty solid. (I don’t have a sharing system in place yet, that’ll be explored next week.) Since I’ll be having a playtest party this weekend, tomorrow is going to be a good day to remake the levels from scratch again. I’ll browse through the previous versions of the game and harvest the best room concepts and puzzles, and string them together in a logical way. I also haven’t explored a lot of the puzzles that use the later mechanics and abilities.

Also on the radar for tomorrow is a chat with long-time comrade and audio sorcerer Matt Piersall.  I think I need some advice from him on how to design the soundscape for this game.  The music is not a problem, but this game presents some unique challenges in that field and he’s going to have the answers.  I know this.

Also, tomorrow I get to see Mary for the first time in a week!

Finding the Hook for Escape Goat

One of the great things about living and working in the Emeryville area is the local game development scene. Case in point: this afternoon, at the local coffee shop I ran into none other than the Chris Hecker, developer of Spy Party. We had spoken before briefly after a talk he gave at UC Berkeley, but this was the first chance I got to really chat with him.

Chris is the nicest guy ever, and was gracious enough to give me an hour out of his work day to check out Escape Goat and give me some feedback on it.  Laptop only, and I had left my 360 controller at home.  Chris happened to have one on him. Preparedness.

I got some great feedback on “initial impression” details such as the tutorial and mouse summon controls.  The real value was in Chris’s perspective as an uber indie artist (he might even say perfectionist?) which is a new role among my playtesting group. (To contrast, an actual quote from my friend Ryan: “You’re giving them too much for $3. Get this thing out the door.”)

Continue reading Finding the Hook for Escape Goat