We are about to finish the first stage of the next game. Things are coming along well, although there are lots of unexpected breaks and "sudden" errands that prevent us to develop the game for a few days a few times. (Just like Project Dimentia Bodhisattva)

We got the whole idea and plan written out, we also got a number of musics we can use and our team is getting a bit bigger. I have been doing some pixel jobs for a few weeks and I saw we lacked some mandatory components in game development. One of the things is the core gameplay had not been properly defined yet. Most of the time, during the planning phase, we enjoy our idea on the paper and fantasize it to Alpha Centauri. It is the first essential fuel of the game project, but whether the idea will work or not need to be tested.

Therefore, we need an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) to test things out minimalistically with a short amount of time and see if our idea need adjustments or if we need to come up with something else. 

But since our programmer was busy tight with other things and nothing was done on the scripting side, I decided to head on in and tackle on another role myself: I am now taking care of the programming aspect for the project. This is so we can set the gameplay's direction and see how will we proceed from here. Not to mention, this project is due in just a few months. We cannot waste any time. We must do it now. In project management, nasty things always come up and unforeseen prerequisites are often discovered later. So we should get down and dirty as early as possible to discover and tackle such issues out of the way as soon as possible.

So the MVP is implemented and fortunately, thanks to the MVP, we see problems such as keyboard ghosting problem on different keyboards. About 3-4 keys may have to be pressed at the same time given our run n' gun gameplay. (Imagine holding up right and shooting while jumping). If this is a console game, we would not worry about it, as those joysticks are designed to accept multiple inputs at once. Keyboard, on the other hand, may only take in 2-3 simultaneous key inputs at once. This is all different from one keyboard to another, and also depends on different regions of each keyboard. But we think we found a certain sweet region that allows holding 2 arrow keys + 2 other keys simultaneously for all keyboards - hopefully, it will work for all keyboards. But if not, I have already done the script for the joystick input for an alternative possible solution.

In addition, with the MVP, we can sort of agree on a core gameplay, and we have proceeded to create a few rooms for the first stage, as well as inserting the appropriate music and sound effects. In fact, stage 1 should be done in a week or two, I believe. (given there are always unexpected events) 

However I am also still doing some pixels. We got a very very nice pixel artist in our team who is better than me. But the pixel artist also got a lot on his hand for this project too, so when I see it is appropriate to lend him a hand, I will change my role. 

Right now, I am pretty much the "director" leading the project and also doing scripting, some pixel arts, designing enemy's behaviors, designing gameplay, managing sound effects, etc. I really wish we got more people into the team though, but still, the state of the project is already a lot better than the first few weeks when it was started. We got stuff that we can actually show right now and not just idea on paper.

In fact, soon, we will probably be inviting some playtesters to test things out. 

TwinBlazar (^_^)(^o^)