I’m here, at my desk, with Unity open to Archmage Rises.
The first thing I did was make sure it still compiles and runs so I can work on it.
It does. 😅
From Nov 19 to Dec 31, I still kept having meetings with the potential investor/publisher and he and I both hoped that the money would come before year end, but it didn’t.
We’re moving forward on the game regardless.
Power of Two
Some good news: I don’t have to do it alone! Michel and I have come to an arrangement where he will work full time (4 days a week) programming on Archmage. Michel has been working on Archmage since 2019, he brings a wealth of experience having worked on most of the major systems.
Where to begin?
It’s been a while since I worked on the game. Of all the things we could work on, where to begin?
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
The first goal is to do something tangible: for you, for me.
I think putting out a small update in a short but reasonable amount of time, like about a month, will help build momentum. So that’s the goal.
But what?
In my consulting/contracting work I’ve been advising the client about game loops and how important it is to answer “why am I doing this?” every 5 seconds, minute, 10 minute, and 30 minutes. Uh… advice I need to apply to my own game! 🤦♂️
Miyamoto famously said, “Just walking around needs to be fun". (Fun is better translated “engaging” or “interesting”). So if we rephrase as “Just walking around needs to be interesting” and pull in the famous Sid Meier quote “A game is a series of interesting choices”, I think we might be onto something.
Map Events
I have to confess something: I’ve never liked the way the game plays at the map level. The exploration, resource gathering, the tracks, tracks, and more tracks… It just never felt right.
Good news is our senior designer Mark already came up with a new design to make map exploration way more interesting with Map Events.
What’s a Map Event?
Campsite Event, Resource Event, Traveler Event, Lair Event, Quest Event, Monster Patrols, etc.
We were in the middle of implementing the first prototype of it.
After some discussion with Michel (and Mark), we think this is the best place to start. Michel was halfway through making some tooling for the feature prototype:
Internal demo of the tool for making Map Events, never intended for the public, hence the background music and bandicam logo 😁
My goal for today was to come up with a plan and let you know what we’re doing. So far, mission accomplished!
I will write another update next week Friday.