Hi folks, especially those recently joining us for the Steam Next Fest! Hope everyone is finding new titles and fun demos to try out!
I haven’t had time for game demos this week because we’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on Puzzle Spy International. A lot of work last week went into a bug that was preventing Mac users only from saving a game in mid-puzzle. That seems to be fixed but of course broke a handful of other things in the build. I think we’ve got everything under control now. I also recently got a lot of feedback on “Museo Photographs,” the first puzzle in the game (not a spoiler!) from both remote and in-person testers. We’ve been gently tweaking that one to make it a bit easier, as it’s the first puzzle that players will encounter. We also added some more detail to the hints for that puzzle to help out any players who are stuck. This puzzle involves identifying and labeling picture cards, and now there are some additional text clues per card available for whomever needs them.
The other big thing this past month has been finishing both the new Date Announcement Trailer and the as-yet-to-be-revealed Launch Trailer. I had never worked on any video editing before (aside from the PSI Gameplay Trailer) and while I’m reasonably happy with how that first trailer came out, it’s admittedly pretty slow. I wanted the new non-gameplay trailers to be more punchy and exciting, so I chose some faster-paced music that Alex Doty wrote for the game. The Date Announce trailer highlights Alex’s theme for the enemy base, and it’s got a real groove to it. It was so much fun synching up in-game animations to its driving guitar! And while I don’t have editing chops, I’ve been a game animator for years and a lot of those same skills and instincts came into play assembling this. I shared an earlier version with a friend who is a professional gameplay trailer editor and expected a ton of crits, but in the end he only pointed out a small handful of areas for improvement. I will confess to being unreasonably pleased with that result, so I hope you’ll check it out if you haven’t already.
Lastly, Puzzle Spy International (specifically, me, Mike) will be at the Game Developer Conference this year. So on the off chance that you’re there, please come find me! I’ll be giving out PSI postcards and stickers while I hang out in Yerba Buena Gardens for the week. The best place to reliably find me will be at the Thinky Game Devs Meet-Up in the park on Wednesday from 1-3. This is my second year co-organizing it, and as this year it’s officially co-sponsored by ThinkyGames.com and Playmath.org, there should be snacks and maybe even signage! The last few years’ events have attracted developers behind some of your favorite thinky games (YMMV) so it’s always a blast to hang out, talk shop, and gush over some awesome puzzle games. Hope to see you there… Cheers!