AlarCity: Development Thread

[Puggsy]

I can understand where you are coming from, the main issue for me is that if you are having motivational issues as described above, the longer this takes, the less motivated you will be in finishing it

Also by now the pre-order money, which has been there for over a year, is probably meaningless and even less of a motivation, too, for continued development.
This week I found a purchase in December 2017 that I couldn't recognize. It was the Alarcity preorder I had forgotten about it.

[Gzegzolka]

Take Your time. Need brake? take it. I feel that pushing people to do stuff faster is not good thing, especially when what they do is more hobby than job.

[earok]

It.. sorta hasn't been a terribly motivating year.

I've had a couple of random setbacks, abuse about TimeGal emailed out of the blue, and just.. I took a week out to do the 7 Day FPS thing to try and rebuild my self-esteem a bit, and I honestly thought that was a cool experiment but most of the response to that was lukewarm at best.

Despite all that, we are making headway - the improved scrolling engine itself adds a lot of flexibility on top of what we can do with the game, on top of the various other things I've learned to do now that I didn't know when the project started.

I did want to get it out by Christmas this year, that's sadly not going to happen, but I'll at least try to put something cool and new out on Christmas day.

[malko]

@earok : Don't put any pressure on your shoulders. We are big kids who have learned patience with the years that have passed, even if we get excited about a new title. Nobody will blame you for a postponed release. Having fun doing things, morale and health are more important than a release date.

[DamienD]

We all have shit years; that's life unfortunately; and mine has definitely been that way also...

I've supported / paid the money to you guys when announced; and I have no issue with doing so

...do I care that it will take longer than previously expected? No, I know you guys will deliver so whatever time frame is cool with me

It's the finished product that counts and will go down in Amiga history.

[MartinW]

Don't panic! I've been out of the scene for a while and was only wondering what was happening. Seeing word of a re-write was a bit of a concern, that's all.

[kriz]

Take your time Earok... Your work is much appreciated, stay in there and update us when you are ready for another update..

[Tigerskunk]

@Earok: Didn't you code this thing this summer: [ Show youtube player ]

Thought that was a mighty fine accomplishment.

On the topic of completing a whole game. Yeah, it's really grinding one down sometimes. I can feel this with Inviyya a lot.
Sometimes I get so much done and feel that the game is finished soon, but then I notice something else is not up to par with the rest of the game and then I rewrite this part of the engine.
At the moment I am working on a little christmas side project again, which is just a reskin of Inviyya with different mechanics. It's relieving that I don#t have much pressure on this, since nobody expects anything anyway of that.

Sometimes I am thinking the level of quality we want to deliver in games is just too high.
I can understand why so many people are doing demo coding. you are coding an effect, and that's basically it.

You don't have to care about so much other stuff that's mostly boring shit. Like an Intro screen, transition screens, hi score entry, and whatever else.

Just take your time... Stuff will get finished, and will be a great game, i am for sure...

[earok]

Thanks guys I appreciate the kind words

@MartinW No worries!

@Steril707 Inviyya looks really, really good. Definitely one of the games that's raising the bar for Amiga productions. I never answered your question on the video - it is indeed Copper Chunky, though not a good demonstration of the technology (it looks a bit muddy in that video since I'm using a low resolution map, plus since then I've worked out some ways to fake a higher resolution by slanting the 3x3 pixel blocks at the sides). Though truth be told, there's not that much use for Copper Chunky other than stock AGA Amigas in any case, most upgraded AGA Amigas would be better served with C2P.

I'm kinda doing a similar thing right now for Christmas (reusing code from other projects for something fresh), though at this stage I can't promise anything myself - Christmas is barely a fortnight away after all!

[Puggsy]

Originally Posted by Gzegzolka

I feel that pushing people to do stuff faster is not good thing, especially when what they do is more hobby than job.

I hope my message was not read that way at all.
What I was trying to say is that I find that when someone has trouble finding motivation, it's even harder when you extend a project longer because of this. The more time you spend away from the project, unmotivated, the harder it is to come back to it. I speak from personal experience too!

I'm not at all worried that the game takes longer to get release, I am just worried that earok is not motivated. We love him and his work and want him to feel great about it.

earok, if some *** has written bad words to you, ignore them. Look at all of us who write nice things to you.

I hope you find the motivation to work on AlarCity again soon, for your own good, not for us!

[earok]

No worries @puggsy !

Ahem. Christmas project is done. Skills and knowledge I picked up from it should feed nicely back into AlarCity.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=95589

[earok]

First update of 2019.

We've been doing a fair bit on the engine lately, bringing across the scrolling from The Kiwi's Tale to support vastly larger levels, as well as working towards a more streamlined toolset (levels can be created in Tiled for Windows, and instantly converted to AlarCity's map format).

I'm also planning to stay in touch much more often about the project. To that end, I'm tentatively planning to appear on a livestream on the weekend about the project (which could in turn lead to further livestreams), so I'll post a link when it becomes available.

Final note - I'm really keen to get it finally finished this year, so I'm not likely to start any new projects until it's done (though it's possible I might do one or two projects that help me develop new skills and tools for AlarCity, such as what I did with The Kiwi's Tale). Don't be afraid to give me a nudge every now and again to ask me what's happening.

[Clydos]

Great update, thanks, earok! Looking forward to a live stream. Hope it is possible for me to watch in Germany (regarding timezone problem).

[buzzybee]

@earok: You are doing much more for the community than anyone can realistically expect. Each of your projects, be them small or tall, are inspiring me to make the best out of my own game RESHOOT R. Which by the way, should have been ready by the end of 2017. At least that´s what I posted somewhere sometimes. Now it´s early 2019 and I am still finetuning stuff. But it´s nearly finished ... not that much left to do.

[earok]

@buzzybee Thanks mate, that does mean a lot! You've also been an inspiration - RESHOOT R is a gorgeous looking and technically marvellous game, also our conversations about interleaved bitplanes prompted me to implement a solution for interleaved bitplanes in Blitz.

@clydos Unfortunately it looks like it might be off for this weekend! My host has gotten quite busy with tutorials. Though I'm going to look at seeing if I can self-host a stream on Twitch, I'll stay in touch.

[Clydos]

Ok, no problem, earok. I guess you will post it here or on AmigaBill's discord if and when the stream will happen.

[apex]

@earok
I believe in you and bought already the GOLD edition.

[earok]

Thanks guys! I appreciate

I didn't get around to streaming in the end, I hope to sometime in the near future but for now.. this is not an official video by any means (so don't take it as a depiction of quality), just a little something to show what I've been up to on the new engine lately.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Clydos]

Wow, this runs really fast and smooth! Looks cool!

[Reido]

looks great!