Category: Game Design

In my last report, I was making preparations for releasing my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

That’s basically the theme all this month, but last week was primarily focused on getting an Android build submitted for review on Google Play.

Sprints 2024-32: Polish, Porting, and Publication Preparations

Completed:

• Create Android port

Now, I’ve been creating Android builds for some time, and especially so in the last month or so since it has been the easiest way to get play testers a build of the game to try out.

But preparing for release requires satisfying Google Play’s latest requirements, which required me to update the Android SDK/NDK. It mostly worked fine, but I ran into a problem in that I couldn’t update the app on my phone.

It turned out that I am using a new computer and needed to copy the debug keystore to my new computer to let me continue to update the app on my phone properly.

Anyway, I submitted it to Google Play for review, and while I wait, I started working on other ports.

I’m one step closer to releasing this game for you to play!

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

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Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

Last time, I reported that I was almost finished with my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I spent time creating, preparing, and updating store pages, as well as continuing to add finishing touches to the game itself.

Sprints 2024-31: Polish, Porting, and Publication Preparations

Completed:

• Create privacy policy page
• Create store page
• Defect: When exiting gallery and pressing play, the assets reload even though they should already be loaded

There are a few things that aren’t live yet that I created, such as the store pages for itch.io and Google Play and such. You’ll see them when the game is released! Not listed above is that I started work on creating the Clown Alley Creator Player’s Guide, which is a free PDF you can receive if you sign up for the GBGames Curiosities Newsletter (see below!).

I fixed an issue I discovered shortly after sending out the latest release to my testers in which the asset loading screen takes longer and longer each time you enter the game from the main menu. Basically, if the sprites and audio are loaded the first time, it shouldn’t need to load them again.

However, it was appending the media to load to the list of things it already loaded, and so it would take longer to do so each time.

It wasn’t a huge bug, as it would take someone entering and exiting the game repeatedly in the same session for it to use just slightly more memory than it should, but it’s fixed now.

I also added a pigeon to the game, as I would like to make sure each game I release has a pigeon somewhere, but I’ll let you find it when the game is released.

I did discover that Google Play’s requirements for new apps will force me to update my build tools to support the latest SDKs, but I hope it is a minor change to build my Android release and doesn’t require me to figure out where a bunch of different configuration settings have moved.

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

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Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

In my last report, I replaced a bunch of placeholder art for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I have continued to apply polish and respond to feedback from testers, and I am getting ready for the actual release!

Sprints 2024-30: Polish, Porting, and Publication Preparations

Completed:

• Update Android/iOS/Windows icons
• Ensure credits page is comprehensive
• Tester feedback: swap the confirmation buttons when naming a clown for consistency with all of the other buttons
• Center button in modal for exiting back to Gallery mode
• Update delete clown confirmation menu to look nicer
• Tester feedback: hard to tell what top-level creator mode menu currently on

I updated the app icons, mainly because what I had before was too garish. I ended up liking this one:

I got more feedback from more testers, so I made sure to add their names to the credits page, plus I made sure to give credit Kenney UI and Sound Rangers. It occurred to me that I should also give credit to game-icons.net. All of these helped make this game feel so much more polished and finished and less amateurish.

Much of the rest of the work involved minor polish, such as centering buttons or making things easier to read.

The biggest thing was something I’ve been meaning to address for a long time. I have some top-level navigation in the Creator Mode, but since I had cut quite a bit of scope, it really wasn’t necessary to have it.

I had two top-level navigation buttons, and despite testing this game for months, I still find myself confused or frustrated with being on the wrong menu without realizing it. That someone else was also frustrated by it was enough for me to finally make time to address it.

Before:

After:

Things feel so much smoother and clearer, especially now that the way to exit back to the gallery is a lot more called out by the top left button.

And another thing I finally addressed is a way to let players know that the make-up submenu has 4 layers to it. In-person testing has shown me multiple times that people just don’t realize that there are four separate layers to play with, so I’m hoping that providing these conspicuous numbers should help.

Much of the remaining work is related to porting to mobile and desktop platforms and creating store pages. Assuming nothing surprising happens with Apple and Google’s review process, I expect you’ll be able to make your own clowns by the end of June!

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

—

Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

Last time, I reported that I had started working on polish and addressing play tester feedback for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

In one of my more productive game development weeks, I managed to knock out quite a few tasks.

Sprints 2024-29: Replace placeholder art

Completed:

• Replace Title screen BG placeholder art
• Replace Quit confirmation screen BG placeholder art
• Options Screen needs a BG
• Create Credits screen background
• Create Privacy Policy screen background
• Create How to Play menu
• Ensure in-game links take player to actual web pages
• Replace Gallery Mode exit confirmation menu with modal

When I started this project, I made rapid progress by creating placeholder art and moving on. The title screen and various other screens either didn’t exist at all (and so showed up as a few buttons on a black background) or had something that was functional but not pretty.

But thanks to spending my Indie Day focused on game development for a large part of the day, I managed to improve things.

Maybe. I’m not a professional artist, but I tried. And I didn’t use an AI to do it for me.

I added some in-game help pages, and I got rid of a placeholder background for the in-game gallery exit confirmation screen by just replacing it with a modal menu.

I also spent time working on updating the app icon. The current one’s colors are too garish, and since I added more color options to the game weeks ago, I’ve been meaning to update the app icon to reflect it.

Here’s the current one:

And here are some updated versions with less obnoxious colors:

With such a productive week, I realized that I am actually almost finished with the project. I know I’ve been working slowly but surely, and I know that I had a goal of releasing the game by the end of June which is right around the corner, but the fact that I’m almost done still surprised me! I can’t wait for you to play it.

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

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Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

In my last report, I added a neat transition effect for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I kept on adding polish to the effect and started to get feedback from testers this past week.

Sprints 2024-28: Adding pizzazz!

Completed:

• Create special effects when option changes clown preview
• Defect: crashes whenever deleting make-up option on any layer

Last week I had a neat curtain closing and opening animation whenever you choose a different option in creator mode.

But I didn’t like that the curtain looked like it was standing on its own, so I created a nice background to go with it.

I think it helps give the animation some context, but it still feels off to me. I think it is because the curtains and background are just kind of…there? There’s nothing anchoring it to the background.

I have some ideas on how to address it, but in the meantime, a tester discovered a pretty easy-to-reproduce crash bug. Basically, when working in the make-up submenu, which is a layered set of menus, if you select the trash button, it should clear the current layer’s make-up.

And it worked…until I added the curtain transition, in which case after the curtain was done closing, it tried to set the make-up layer to that trash menu option instead of a special NOT SELECTED value, and since there was no actual make-up sprite to render, it crashes.

I’ve fixed this defect and plan to send out another release for my testers soon.

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

—

Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

Last time, I reported that I had started adding pizzazz to my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I managed to create a simple yet effective animation in the few hours I had last week.

Sprints 2024-27: Adding pizzazz!

In progress:

• Create special effects when option changes clown preview

I know some people have access to a talented animator or use fancy shader effects, but I am pretty proud of this closing and opening curtain animation that I created using nothing but some math:

Basically, there is a static image of the valance above the curtains, then the curtains slide in, with the bottom easing in trailing the top to give the appearance of weight, then the bottom lags the top on the way back out. It’s a simple effect, and the animation is quick enough that it looks pretty good, and it is performant enough to run on machines that aren’t my more beefy development machine.

Meanwhile, I’ve sent off a build to my testers, and I am looking forward to getting feedback soon. I’ve got some more transition animation work to do, such as adding something to make it clear how the valances and curtain are staying up in the air.

I’m looking forward to the day you get to play it! To be the first to learn when Clown Alley Creator is released, sign up for my newsletter by clicking the link below!

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

—

Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

In my last report, I had finalized the color options and fixed a defect in my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I had started and continued working on some transition animations.

Sprints 2024-26: Adding pizzazz!

In progress:

• Create special effects when option changes clown preview

Clicking on different clown noses or hairstyles and seeing them immediately change in the clown preview is nice and all, but it’s not quite satisfying.

It doesn’t feel fun yet.

Particle effects are the obvious thing to add, but I wanted to add some fun transition animations. Some of the ideas I have in mind include clown pigeons carrying noses in and out, or a giant hand with a giant brush slapping on make-up.

I spent some time trying to figure out how to make sure that if the player has somehow picked a second or third option while the first animation was still occurring that multiple transitions can occur simultaneously and everything ends up fine in multiple scenarios.

Luckily I found that the transitions were quick enough that it wasn’t necessary. They are very fast transitions and aren’t meant to be an entire song and dance, after all. Any strange overlap isn’t likely to be noticed in less than a quarter of a second.

I ended the week without finishing the work, but I have a proof of concept with a red rectangle sliding in and out that shows it can work just fine.

I expect to finish the work this week. It’s already May, and I’m trying to wrap everything up before this project’s expected release in June. Sign up for the newsletter (see below) to be the first to know when it is going to be available!

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

—

Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

Full-time indie game developers Tim Beaudet and Justin Six are starting a book club focused on game development-related books.

The first book will be Game Feel by Steve Swink, and Episode 0 was released yesterday.

In this episode, they haven’t read the book yet, but they did go through the chapter titles and talked about what they think the book will cover, plus they gave an outline and schedule for when they will live-stream their discussions.

It was insightful to hear them talk about how they think learning about Game Feel may or may not help in terms of what impact it might have on sales, especially since someone has to have already bought the game before they experience the feel of a game. Tim posits that any multiplier for a game’s success that comes from an investment in game feel is probably more downstream once the game already has a critical mass of players.

The next episode will be May 2nd at 11am Eastern Time.

I read the book a few years ago, but I think it would be great to reread it and follow along with Tim and Justin, and I look forward to seeing Justin learn what Metaphor Metrics are.

Last time, I reported I had started adding shades of gray options and was figuring out how to add more colors to my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I managed to create something I feel satisfied with.

Sprints 2024-25: Color options

Completed:

• Create wider variety of primary/secondary color options
• Defect: Creator mode menus blank out sometimes based on what options were last selected

As I mentioned before, I had come up with a way to programmatically create the various color options. Originally I had 19 pages worth of color options to go through.

I showed my wife, and her immediate reaction was that it was too much. And she was right, especially when I looked at two different pages of green options that looked identical to me but that were in fact slightly different shades. It is possible to have too much of a good thing.

So I tried to reduce it to 10 pages, but then ultimately decided on 5 pages.

It feels like a good way to provide a wide enough variety of colors while also preventing the player from being overwhelmed with the options.

Once I finished this work, I then handled a defect involving menus disappearing in certain contexts, and I addressed it quickly.

So the next thing I started to work on was adding some pizzazz! When you make a selection in creator mode for a new nose or make-up option, there should be some feedback besides the clown instantly changing.

The simple thing is to add particle effects, but I wanted to add other possible animations as well. I ended the week in the middle of creating some code to support such animated transitions, and I expect to finish it this coming week.

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

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Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!

In my previous report, I was working on logic for managing all of the extra colors I want the player to have access to for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

Despite other obligations, I managed to make some good progress, but I’m not finished yet.

Sprints 2024-24: Color options

In progress:

• Create wider variety of primary/secondary color options

Most of the logic and infrastructure for this work is complete, so it is basically a matter of creating all the colors.

And I would like to provide a large variety of color options, and doing so has become one of those “Oh, I had no idea that there was some design and purpose needed” kind of things.

How hard is it to just provide a bunch of color options in various hues?

Well, I didn’t want to provide a bunch of colors in a seemingly random order, and I wanted it to be easy for a player to find the color they might want, so I can’t provide infinite options or I would risk overwhelming them.

So I decided that each hue might get a set of shades. Adding shades of grey is easy enough:

I’m still in the middle of coming up with a good solution for more colorful options. If you are interested in the technical details, currently I’m trying to start from a particular H value for a color in HSL (hue, saturation, lighting) format, then creating variations by modifying the L value, then converting to RGB format.

I got to the end of the week before I got to finish the work, but I’m hoping it provides a variety of shades for each color that feels intuitive for the player while also letting me generate a decent quantity of options easily.

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

—

Want to learn about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and download the full color Player’s Guides to my existing and future games for free!