Greetings Headcase fans. Um - what do I call you guys. Caseheads? Sure, sounds good enough-
Another week is wrapping up, and that means it is time for another blog summary of what's been going on here in the virtual office known as Headcase Games Productions Entertainment Development. Limited.
Things are alright. A new beta of the game was released to the test team yesterday, we are still waiting to hear some feedback. The game is quite early, it's just past proof-of-concept stage and we are trying to hack away at the deeper logic of the gameplay. I'd say roughly half of that is functional in the current build, and as it is the end result is quite fun. Hopefully it shouldn't take more than another week or so to implement the deeper aspect of the game, that should be somewhat rough but we will then be able to begin tweaking it. Puzzle games (good, addictive ones)require a fair amount of finessing, balancing and tweaking so that they play "juuuuust right." Additionally we are investing a fair amount of elbow grease into the audiovisual components of this project, so it should look fairly fancy when all is said and done. Fortunately the bar for visual appeal has been pretty well-figured-out at this point as far as how these games should appear - and the iPhone is no slouch when it comes to raw power to push good looking software. Yeah it's "just a puzzle game" but that doesn't mean it shouln't look really good!
Things are really busy besides. We are talking with many people about different development plans right now, both as HcG and individually (art/programming/design). There's a lot of different directions you can go with all of those things, use your imagination! Our core has actually been kicking in to help a fellow start-up get their own business rolling, it's a much larger production than our humble little iPhone development but there is the chance of some big fancy production on that end so it is worth looking into. It's been slow building, but it looks like that will all come to some sort of resolution fairly quickly. Aside from that, personally I am thinking of getting into a subordinate design/art role with some other mobile platform work to help generate some income in the meantime, as there's a need for lots of this kind of stuff all over the place right now. My only fear is "don't get stretched too thin!" I want to keep my priorities straight, but it is good to look around and see what other opportunities are going on while things are slow (that is, until our own development needs to ramp up a couple of notches).
I am keeping a sharp eye on the iPhone App scene, it's a twisty road and it's getting more bizarre (and frustrating, in some ways) as time progresses. I understand the App Store is quite a mess and it's getting to the point where it's days as being useful to small devs are numbered. Hopefully we can squeeze in our next release before it's a moot point altogether, but to be honest I am concentrating my efforts on working around the whole App Store reliance philosophy (as far as promotion goes) anyway. There's a lot of other things one can do to get some notice in this world. It is definitely a lot of work though!
Looking forward to the coming week, and seeing a new build come online in a few days - getting excited as the pieces are coming together!
-Ron
Another week is wrapping up, and that means it is time for another blog summary of what's been going on here in the virtual office known as Headcase Games Productions Entertainment Development. Limited.
Things are alright. A new beta of the game was released to the test team yesterday, we are still waiting to hear some feedback. The game is quite early, it's just past proof-of-concept stage and we are trying to hack away at the deeper logic of the gameplay. I'd say roughly half of that is functional in the current build, and as it is the end result is quite fun. Hopefully it shouldn't take more than another week or so to implement the deeper aspect of the game, that should be somewhat rough but we will then be able to begin tweaking it. Puzzle games (good, addictive ones)require a fair amount of finessing, balancing and tweaking so that they play "juuuuust right." Additionally we are investing a fair amount of elbow grease into the audiovisual components of this project, so it should look fairly fancy when all is said and done. Fortunately the bar for visual appeal has been pretty well-figured-out at this point as far as how these games should appear - and the iPhone is no slouch when it comes to raw power to push good looking software. Yeah it's "just a puzzle game" but that doesn't mean it shouln't look really good!
Things are really busy besides. We are talking with many people about different development plans right now, both as HcG and individually (art/programming/design). There's a lot of different directions you can go with all of those things, use your imagination! Our core has actually been kicking in to help a fellow start-up get their own business rolling, it's a much larger production than our humble little iPhone development but there is the chance of some big fancy production on that end so it is worth looking into. It's been slow building, but it looks like that will all come to some sort of resolution fairly quickly. Aside from that, personally I am thinking of getting into a subordinate design/art role with some other mobile platform work to help generate some income in the meantime, as there's a need for lots of this kind of stuff all over the place right now. My only fear is "don't get stretched too thin!" I want to keep my priorities straight, but it is good to look around and see what other opportunities are going on while things are slow (that is, until our own development needs to ramp up a couple of notches).
I am keeping a sharp eye on the iPhone App scene, it's a twisty road and it's getting more bizarre (and frustrating, in some ways) as time progresses. I understand the App Store is quite a mess and it's getting to the point where it's days as being useful to small devs are numbered. Hopefully we can squeeze in our next release before it's a moot point altogether, but to be honest I am concentrating my efforts on working around the whole App Store reliance philosophy (as far as promotion goes) anyway. There's a lot of other things one can do to get some notice in this world. It is definitely a lot of work though!
Looking forward to the coming week, and seeing a new build come online in a few days - getting excited as the pieces are coming together!
-Ron
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