This was the email I sent out to local friends:
HEY EVERYBODY,
Been working reaal haaard on my video game. It still doesn't really work all the time lol, but maybe some other people's games are good at PAX PREGAMERS event tomorrow (Thursday)?
Playcrafting's PAX PREGAMERS
Anyway. It's free. Bring all your friends. I'm skipping my men's league soccer playoffs for this shit. Come cheer me up.
There's still the Friday night event ($15):
Mass.Digi's Made in MA Party
In other news, I bought a domain name:
www.FLOCKOFDOGS.com
I bought a banner from Staples and I'm going to mount with a drying rack, curtain rod, and shoelaces:
I bought business cards from Staples:
I bought a 42 inch TV off craigslist:
*no image available (it looks like a TV)*
I bought paw print thumbstick covers and a few new controllers:
Holy guacamolee! I'm getting really good at social media, too. IG, Twitter, FB...need to get on that Snapchat. Missed out on the IPO.
-Max
P.S. I don't have any other events lined so I won't be spamming you with more emails for a while. Sucks to be my friend.
*****************************
So anyway, last Wednesday night, I play tested my game for a few hours with Kevin Anglin and Courtney Castle. We came up with a list of 29 issues/bugs/frustrating things about that game. Many of the bugs reuined the experience for one or all players playing. Here they are:
- player reticles not moving any more wtf?
- pausing and then unpausing with controller blocks all further input lol (pausing with keyboard fine)
- when dead, when player docks, if other player in dock, error and dead player is permadead!
- players can get stuck permanently on fin of whale
- using solar panel in river makes current permanently act on whale, whale no longer functional
- dog wounds misaligned
- using whale horn drill on hut or on others can crash game
- players can both hold sun box and man helm...problem?
- torpedo explosions do friendly fire
- harpoon changes colors when players heal
- dog wounds don't disappear
- aiming sun balls is mapped to wrong thumbstick
- harpoon missing reference when harpooned item is destroyed, breaks player input
- almost impossible to pick up harpoons in the sky
- rubies and gems not spawning properly
- the deck doesn't affect players as it gets dirty
- the deck changes to "clean" color even if dirty when whale rolls from belly to right side up
- whale no longer drinks from watering holes (no way to get more water, gg)
- sometimes trying to man a dock warps you into the helm
- loot hardly ever drops
- confusing to have to dock to drop solar panel
- add a controls menu?
- solar shields don't last long enough
- deck gets dirty too quickly
- too hard to charge only when sunbox is on shelf
- flappy bird enemies are hard to see
- dead players can float very far away from whale, very hard to ever get to play again
- change harpoon throwing to toggle?
- ADD TUTORIAL?? haha
And there were other little issues too. So I stayed up until 4 am then got up at 8:30 am and worked until 4 pm trying to crush those bugs and/or write work arounds. Then my cousin and I left for PAX PREGAMERS. Photos from PAX PREGAMERS (taken by Grayson Whitworth, my step cousin):
Ok, so that was cool. Met the guys making Skorcery and they were cool. Christopher Night came by and played my game! Met lots of other folks. There was no room for by sweet banner tho. Also, my cousin carried my TV like a quarter mile, because apparently, to get into Laugh Boston, you need to go into the Westin next door, go up the elevator, then walk across the hotel lobby. Anyway, the game still broke a lot while demo'ing it at PREGAMERS. I wore my voice out saying things like, "I'VE NEVER MADE A GAME BEFORE HAHA." and "Wow, look at all these bugs, I'm so, so sorry."
But, to be honest, people were quite positive and were very kind about the buggy experience. Many asked me what the next step for the game was going to be. A few people asked me about where the idea came from and asked if drugs had anything to do with it. Well, no. Also, a drunk, kind-hearted, Minnesotoan talked my ear off about how I should make the game VR. We'll see about that.
So got home at 11 pm, Grayson and I ate at Cambridge Common. Went to bed. At 8:30 am, I made Grayson playtest Flock of Dogs with me. We came up with a list of like 24 bugs/issues/frustrating things:
- mopping while manning station causes player to get permanently stuck
- feeding dogs doesn't work?
- dogs get stuck in walls sometimes !
- dogs fly through walls sometimes !
- players spawn with harpoons
- dirty deck still doesn't drag player
- too hard to grab hose without accidentally docking on the whale
- can't select levels or menu items with controller at all
- some enemy camps spawning in walls but not always??
- hold to warp button takes too long
- second player can man helm while first player in the belly, then first player stuck permanently
- change thumbstick aiming to right stick to match other shooting mechanics
- whale died error
- *illegible*
- wounds on dogs too small to make out
- fins block undocking dog straight back into dock (at least not stuck in fin?)
- flappy bird enemies are too hard
- whale body not assigned
- add whale boosting
- whale hose can be picked up from opposite side of whale...sometimes?
- stats don't carry over between levels
- flying dog into whale pushes whale faster than it can swim lol
- more meaningful to charge sunbox if only can be done when shelved
So then Grayson went to Paul Revere's house and I ignored my bosses emails and worked on the game. By 4 pm, I had fixed a good amount of the game breaking stuff and put in some more work around. Went to Made in MA event and had a great time. I also had hardly eaten, so I bought some really tasty, pretty expensive duck tacos from the bar in the venue. I forgot my credit card and the bartender came all the way to my conference room to return it to me! I hope she saw how much glory I was basking in. Then a bunch of my friends showed up! Anneli, Courtney, Dan, Kevin, Sam, Sarah, and Ted! The executive director of Mass Digi talked to me a few times, told me I need to start merchandizing, took my photo next to my banner, and later, it was reported to me, showed pictures of my game to a woman (whom I identified as the organizer of the Boston Indies Meetup group). Anyway, most people claimed to really like my game. What else are they going to say to the creator's face though? And my cousin, at my command, made sure to give out very many of my business cards. I regret not collecting people's email addresses though. Here's photos from Made in MA:
So I really want to do more events. PREGAMERS was free for me, because I didn't get into their PAX booth, which would have been $200/day. The Made in MA event was $75. I don't seem to be receiving tons of emails begging to buy my game, so...that's a bummer, but it was fun. I know that (a) my game shows well on a convention floor. This makes sense because people don't have to wait to play and the game has very accessible drop-in/drop-out co-op gameplay. (b) Everyone likes my business cards. Duh. (c) Some young women like my game! (d) Need to add little flashing icons of buttons to indicate what to press when, because boy oh boy did I have to tell people what buttons to press a lot. However, I'm pretty happy with the general control scheme. Room for improvement, but it's a solid structure. I have kinda unclear expectations. My booth/table had very little down time and I was actually still playing the game with two women when the venue starting turning on lights. I looked around and every other game was packed up and we were the only ones left. Grayson was sitting across the room waiting. He had already packed up the banner, extra controllers, and business cards. Anyway, I was hoping that people would come to my website and sign up for updates, but that hasn't happened. I did get several new Twitter followers, so maybe I need to up my Twitter game. Not too hard.
Anyaway, that's it for my event wrap ups. They made me feel happy about the work I've been doing and were a huge motivator for getting more work done. I hope to go to more events for sure.
Anyaway, that's it for my event wrap ups. They made me feel happy about the work I've been doing and were a huge motivator for getting more work done. I hope to go to more events for sure.
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