Kandria
Closing in on Steam
This week I (Nick) will be narrating everything since I forgot to ask Fred and Tim for their respective blurbs. My bad! Anyway, we're closing in on our targets, so things aren't looking too shabby!
Nick - Bugfixing and Steam prep
I spent the week mostly fixing really annoying bugs: 5.1 surround sound now works properly on all systems. There's some more sound issues to deal with, such as crackles when effects are added or removed, but I'll get to those another time. There were other more internal issues with the tooling that required quick fixing as well, and the macOS deployment had broken, too. Anyway, all good now. Not great, but good enough.
Next I went through all the Steam page info again to fix that up and bring it up-to-date. I then started work on all the assorted artwork that is required for a store page:
There's still one more piece of art I'll have to do, namely a big banner that's shown when the game is selected in your Steam library. Given how long the last piece here took me, I don't know if I'll get it done within the week, but I'll certainly try my best to.
Then, I've sneakily started a beta tester programme! On the discord you'll now find a few fellows that have offered their time to help out. The programme will be open for more people once Steam makes their beta testing system available to me. That should allow you to request joining the programme by hitting a button on the Steam store page. More on that when it actually happens, though.
Top priority for me now is producing that pitch video for the mentorship application, and making sure the demo doesn't suddenly go up in flames by the submission deadline. The application does not require a demo, but I think it would be very good to have one ready nonetheless. The Steam page might have to wait another week, we'll see.
Fred - Finalising androids and zombies alike
The first draft of the zombie android enemy type is now complete. There's going to be revisions and refinements in the future, but for now this should do.
For now though the most vital part is to tweak the player animations to feel more satisfying. This means stuff like fine-tuning the frame to frame movement, timing, knockback, hitboxes, etc.
Tim - Getting to grips with quests
Tim completed a first draft of a new questline for the demo, based on my previous work. It still needs to be tested and tweaked a bit more, but that looks to be well on time for the release. He'll also have to help me a bit with the pitch video, to get the text right and all.
Finally Tim will have to fill out the description for the Steam store page and make that look all nice. It doesn't have to be amazing yet or anything, but it should at least be presentable enough to give people a good idea of the project while we're still in development. I imagine it'll need to be updated again once we're done with the vertical slice in March.
Roadmap
Only one week to go!
Record and edit the pitch video
Make the combat at least passable
Add some more rooms
Test the new quest
Finish the Steam page
Finishing the pitch video is the only thing that's absolutely mandatory for the end of the week, so the Steam page and demo release might be pushed back a week if we can't squeeze everything in.