Hello again, my fellow Cubers.
Let's talk about what I did in January.
The Failed Plan
At the start of January I decided to make myself a plan for future, to not take too long, it went as follows:
- Finish Act 1 map by February
- Finish Act 1 by May
- Release a demo in summer
- Polish it up until late summer
- Start work on Act 2 in autumn
Sounds good right? Well, it sounded good to me, but it was too good to be true, unfortunately. You see? Somehow I failed at what I usually don't fail at - Actually, evaluating my abilities. I thought that I could make the Act 1 map easily, and, don't get me wrong, I could... If i worked nearly every day.
Procrastinator's Guilt
In all honesty - I procrastinate, or work on other projects a lot, and that doesn't help with the fact that trying to make something interesting to explore and not get stale is kind of hard. Cube IS my priority, but I don't feel like working on it all the time, especially since there is no real insentive apart from it being visible to everyone on Steam, and people waiting. In all honesty I never really wanted it to be that way, but now I feel like I am obligated to work on it somewhat consistently, and I have to uphold expectations that in actuality don't even exist.
I really just want to be able to work on other game ideas I have in mind (That being an entire channel on my private server), do game jams, and just work on fun stuff without feeling like I could instead be spending that time on fullfiling my, objectively, unrealistic plan. SO, ultimately - The plan is a failure and is getting scrapped.
Can't really do it all by myself
All that not to mention that I am still very much working completely alone, there are 2 other coders - Name and Kenan, but other than them I do most of the coding and everything else. As I mentioned before - I am not an artist, I don't have a "strong vision" for the art, I have a strong vision for the level design, but I can't make models, or textures, not good ones, at least.
Moral of the story
Act 1 will be ready when it is ready, and Act 2 will be starting when I feel like Act 1 is at the point where I am satisfied with it. And it could very well take a year or more before that happens. I could very much do early access after Act 1, but there are still some issues I can't really address until way further into development, so for now it's out of the question.
Also, I know I am talking about my feelings about the game too much, but, in my opinion - It matters. It matters to show my thinking process, and what I feel like when trying to make this, honestly, very large project. And I also need to explain the lack of actual progress.
But there is progress!
Intro level
Most of the time since the start of current version of Cube I have been trying to make the first intro level the best I can, and I feel like I more or less succeeded. It has some very cool (in my opinion) architecture, and it introduces the player to core mechanics of the game (Not ideally, since the controls are not as obvious to introduce, compared to the mechanics they depend on, so I still have to add tips or prompts).
It's quite empty, mostly is just walking, and the visuals are nothing too mindblowing, especially for the puzzle elements. I still want a good way to showcase the connection between different elements, which I can't find a way to do that wouldn't take ages setting up (e.g. Explicit line renderer for every pair of objects).
Options
Yep, I added options. I was overthinking the system in the beginning but it was quite simple by the time I figured it out. It's quite easy to expand as well.
Only thing is missing is actually saving these options, because I don't do that yet. I wanted to make a custom save system, because using Unity's PlayerPrefs is not ideal, and I don't like relying on third-party plugins.
Anyways - Here are the options, quite minimalistic for now, will probably add actual menu later.
Sounds
The hardest part about adding sounds is somehow finding them. i thought I could easily hop on some website and find some sounds, but no, apparently, its really hard, and I had to sift through hundreds of sound effects until I found some nice tile footstep sounds.
And then after that I almost had my ears blasted because of improper option setting (It set volume to around 110 db instead of 20 db).
Conclusion
I didn't do much, and I think the progress will continue at the same rate. But, I feel like I am approaching a good milestone. (That being completing the intro and starting on the first actual level)
Currently I have another project that I am working on with several people, alongside Cube, as well as another game idea, which I will wait out on until I understand how to make a good movement FPS controller.
Also I think I semi-decided on monthly devlog style. No promises there will be one every month, but if I make at least some progress I will make sure to talk about it. As always, there are more updates in the Discord server, though.
Thanks for reading. I will hopefully see you next month!
- x8c8r