Level 1 Finally Done!!!By Stevie on 07.05.2010
Comments (12) Okay, so I'm a month and 5 days late of the deadline I set in the last post, but after 16 months of work I'm finally done the full first level of Straight Bullyism!

With nearly all of the programming done for the game (excluding fixing bugs I'll be running into in later levels), and a fully functional first level, the other levels will be much easier/faster to develop (except they have more missions/cutscenes). I'm hoping on average each level will take no more than 3 months to do after this, meaning I'll be able to release the first 5 levels sometime in 2011. I'll then continue making another 5 levels, and release each one as I finish it. As I said on Snubby Land (my portfolio), here's some official stats for the first level...

• 2:45 of fully animated cutscenes
• 5 different enemies (4 regular, 1 boss)
• 87 instances of enemies
• 6 items
• 3 special attacks
• 3 missions
• 9 rooms

I've also got all of the pages of this website in, and now I'm just working on slowly getting more and more text in the Info section (the rest are mostly done) as I make the game. Go ahead and look around, there's already a lot of spoilers and stuff (linked below is a full mission cutscene).

I've got a pretty good idea of what I want the rest of the game to be like, and I've got a lot of new enemies and cutscenes to animate, rooms to draw, etc., so I should be starting the second level within the next few days. Once the 2nd is done, then I'll really have made some progress. Having finished the first, I'm super motivated to continue working... although it's really stressful because the game is getting so massive, there's so many things to keep track of... it's just really overwhelming.

Whenever I work, I keep track of the hours I put in (I try to get a monthly average of 4hr/day). A few days ago, I was trying to fix a bug in the saving/loading of the game, and ended up spending 6.5 hours in one straight session before I finally fixed it (setting a new session record). I've had tough bugs before, but wow. I thought of a good analogy for fixing a bug though... it's like if you were jogging through the forest for exercise, and you got lost. So you kept jogging to try to find your way out, and just couldn't get out. And you knew if you stopped and rested, you'd forget which ways you already went, so you just kept on jogging and jogging until finally after 6.5 hours you find your way out. That's what it's like.




Anyway, hopefully my next post is when I have level 2 done...

Website Launched! Game not!By Stevie on 03.25.2010
Comments (6) Hey everybody, I hope you're all anticipating the release of Straight Bullyism (here's a small preview) as much as I am. Now that I've got the website done, I can now focus 100% on finishing level 1 of the game (since I do this full-time). Since I've decided to have a new boss for every level, this will take probably 2 months max. MAAAAAAX. I'm very motivated at this point to just try to just work on level 1 non stop, I've got enough loose ends tied up that I'm just focusing on fight animations and cutscenes. I will give a daily report of what I've done on SB in THIS THREAD. This will also help motivate me.

The only pages that work right now on this website are the Blog and Forum. I will be periodically adding things to other pages as the game gets done. For now, please sign up on the forum (no email required, just name and password) and post comments on my blog entries, and well as topics of your own... you know how it works. Also, you can join the mailing list (on the right) and get an email when I post a blog entry (like this one). That way you'll know exactly when the game is launched, for example.



That's about it for the website. Here's the deal with launching the game. I'm hoping it's not going to take more than another 6 months, but that's for probably 5 levels with a boss each, plus 15-20 minutes of cutscenes, so it could easily take longer. I also have the option of leaving the game at a cliffhanger, and making more levels later (after I regain my fuckin' sanity from working on this for 13 months so far). However, I aallssooo have the option of releasing the game after like the 2nd or 3rd level, and then have people join the mailing list if they want to know when the others come out. However, that may limit the potential of people telling their friends about the game for example (even though it'd be a good hour of play at least), and I'd be worried I'd lose the initial boom of traffic a game is supposed to get when it is launched. Ideally, I want the game (and this website) to be HUUUGE. Maybe best RPG Flash game?

The format in which the game is going to be played is this... the full game I've found out (the hard way) is FAAAAAR to big to fit into one file, so it's cut up at main points and you just click through to go to the next file. This means, any website (such as Newgrounds) can display the first level of the game, but to continue playing you jump to StraightBullyism.com in a new window and continue playing. This ain't that bad because it helps me get more traffic (not purposely though, it's impossible to link files together on a site that isn't yours without them recoding the site), and it means I can make the game as BIG as I want. And it's going to be very big.



This is all assuming I can fit even the first level into one file, let alone the last level (because that will have more special attacks, enemies, etc.). I am having enormous issues with file size, all described in frustrating detail in this blog. It seems there is no solution per say, other than optimizing it as much as I can and cramming it to the brim, hopefully the brim is acceptable and not too limited. Also, on this website the intro and first level will be in different files, but I'd want to combine the intro with the first level if another site had the game. This means I'd need to make room for another minute of animation, which probably isn't going to happen. So other sites might not get the intro.

Though filesize is an issue, I will at the very least be able to have the first level done without a problem, so I don't have to worry too much yet (after spending months worrying and optimizing things). I WILL have the first level done in 1-2 months like I said, and at that point I may decide to put it up for BETA testing, and allow members of the forum to play it. This is why you should join the forum.

So yeah, that's about it for now. Again, please join the forum and post comments on this post (by clicking comments at the top), and anything else.