I played around with GarageBand a bit today. I need some music, and I haven't quite decided on what I'm going to do yet. I thought I had something neat with the synth tool, but apparently I don't know what I'm doing with GarageBand, as the sounds made when recording are clearly different than when just playing around with the instruments. Also, after a few recordings and subsequent undos, GarageBand apparently ran out of memory and complained I had too many tracks to handle, despite there being none. Fantastic. Seems like some garbage thrown together with audacity, the teli and anti-bass is going to have to do:
Maybe playing Gauntlet would help...
I did get some level stuff straightened out today. Here is the newer version of one of the levels mixed in with the tutorials:
It plays decent, gets the point across about dead planets, teaches the player about timing and is aesthetically pleasing. I suppose a puzzle game level can't ask for much more.
I have a few small things to do, like fix the play button artwork (it's a little off) and the tip text (the border is funky since I changed the text size), but other than that I believe it is down to music and levels. While creating each level I'm also trying to draw up a final plan for the number of levels and the 'meta' idea of each. Each new concept taught only needs a level or two to solidify, so I'm trying to balance that with combining multiple concepts together. I said earlier that my game is hard, but I would like to modify what I said. When a level is good, the game is hard. The nature of the beast of these planetary equations is that the systems are stable when everything is in smooth motion, or at least one of the bodies is in motion. Once you start reversing forces (or fine tuning their magnitudes as I hate to admit I've done), things get quirky. The levels that require rhythm and smooth gameplay are the hardest, yet they are also the most satisfying to complete and feel right. I'm trying to find a happy medium, and it's proving to be quite difficult, but the show must go on.
As I near the end of the development of Chromovis, I'm torn. While I am proud of what I have completed, it isn't quite what I envisioned. Perhaps I have more secrets to unlock and something will click, but right now Chromovis hasn't lived up to what I thought it could, nor do I think it will. It doesn't play quite how I wanted, and it isn't the complete package I imagined my first game would be. However, I need to remember that this project was just to serve as a stepping stone. Every developer has to create their first game, and this isn't even what I wanted to do at the beginning, it was simply the result of a compromise with myself in regards to the timeframe available. My original game idea still crosses my mind everyday, and desperately needs to be put into a playable prototype. I think upon the completion of Chromovis and once I get my research squared away I'm going to start fresh with two projects. The first is on the technology I need to develop in order to create the next game proper, with a respectable engine. I'm drawn more and more towards tool development as I read about jobs in the industry, and I feel writing a much more robust and customizable engine with complimentary tools is the next logical step. The second is to bang together a demo of the next project. I feel like an idiot, because I had a few of the parts built but scrapped them when I started to modify my tornado simulator. I suppose it would be better to go back and start fresh regardless. With regards to Chromovis, if I could be done by Friday, it would be a great feeling, albeit not what I expected.
No matter, this is only the beginning.
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