Category: Game Design

Last time, I reported that I was working on adding more color options for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I wasn’t able to spend as much time on it as I would have liked, partly due to preparing my taxes, but I did put a small dent in it.

Sprints 2024-23: Color options

In progress:

• Create wider variety of primary/secondary color options

Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to report as I only managed to dedicate a couple of hours of effort.

Basically, I needed to update the color picker menu so that it is paginated, which means adding the previous and next buttons to navigate those pages. Not a big deal, but it was still a set of tasks to work on.

But most of my effort was on behind-the-scenes logic for handling this menu in a more robust way in order to support the wide variety of colors I want in the game.

I already feel like I am moving too slow as a solo developer with a day job, so when I have a very unproductive week, even if I have good reasons such as being on vacation or as in this case focusing on taxes, I still feel like I’m doing a terrible job. I had expectations that I would have released this game to testers already, and so I feel like I am weeks behind.

But I need to remember that the smallest effort in the right direction is still forward motion. And I’m still easily on track to publishing this game by June, as I had originally planned. It’s not like I have a publisher breathing down my neck. It’s just me, breathing on my own neck (you know what? This metaphor feels weird. Don’t try to picture that). Everything is fine.

Anyway, if you want to learn about the game’s release, look below for how to sign up for that announcement!

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 was trying to create an Android port for play testers to try my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I continued working on it, especially after discovering a defect that I wanted to address first.

Sprints 2024-22: Color options

Completed:

• Create skin color options

The ability to customize colors for everything was put into the game quite early. While I have been spending time adding plenty of hair, nose, and make-up options, I haven’t address the placeholder colors until now.

So I added options for skin color.

Meanwhile, since the placeholder colors were quite saturated and limited, it made it difficult to create clowns that didn’t come off as a bit too intense, which is not my intention at all!

Here’s the same clown but with some more subdued colors:

It is subtle, and maybe there are more extreme examples I could show, but the bigger point is that more colors means more options for player creativity.

Adding more color options seems like such an easy thing to do at first, but updating the color picking interface to allow for pagination hasn’t been so straightforward. I don’t want to give the player infinite options because that could be overwhelming and hard to navigate, but I also don’t want to give too few options.

I shrank the buttons so that more can appear on the menu at a time, but I still need to add menu page navigation controls. Figuring out the order in which I lay out the colors is also something I’ve never had to do before. While I am sure that there might be examples from other games or apps to look at, it seems like thing kind of thing to be more thoughtful about.

Meanwhile, I thought I had addressed it already, but I discovered a defect in which the menu buttons all seem to disappear if you navigate the creator mode menus in just the right way, so I want to fix that issue before handing it off to testers.

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 working on creating an Android build for testers for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

Sprints 2024-21: Android port for play testing

Completed:

• Create Android port

At the end of the previous week, I had created an Android port that functioned but that was missing audio. Mostly.

As I suspected, I forgot to update my Android build scripts to deal with some subdirectories I made for Music and Sounds, so once I addressed it, I had sound effects.

But I still had no music. Weird.

My initial investigations told me that my code definitely thinks that the music is playing. It wasn’t a volume issue.

But eventually I looked at the logs and found a line that said that there was, in fact, a problem loading the music file. “Unrecognized audio format” was not the error I was expecting, though.

Most of my sound effects are .wav files, and my music file is also a .wav file. What gives?

Well, it turned out that libSDL2_mixer has a configuration flag that you can use to specify that you want to support .wav music files. My custom-built version does not have it. Oddly, .wav sound effects are supported just fine out of the box.

Do I want it? No, the point of limiting support to .ogg files primarily is that I want as slim a library bundled with my app as possible.

And speaking of slimming things down, that .wav music file? It was 9+ MB! THAT’S HUGE!

So I created a .ogg file instead, which doesn’t even take up 1MB, and music works in my Android build just fine.

I also made sure to use the latest libSDL2 and related libraries, which required a few minor updates in code.

At this point, I want to test things out on my end before releasing it to testers, but I expect to have a build ready for them this week. I’m looking forward to the feedback.

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 previous report, I worked on adding consistency to the visuals as well as providing more options for eyes for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

There’s still a lot of polishing to do, but I wanted to focus on getting an Android port ready for playtesters.

Sprints 2024-20: Android port for play testing

Completed:

• Create eye options
• Create Android/iOS/Windows icons

I added some more eye options, thanks to some code I added to take advantage of SDL2’s ability to render sprites flipped, something my code has never had a need to do before. Instead of having left and right eyes that are identical, they are now mirrored, which means I can show eyes that are slanted or that have eyelashes streaked in one direction.

As I head into the final week of March, I’m focused on getting the game ready for playtesters, and the easiest way is to make sure that the Android port functions.

Which means it was time to work on an app icon. I came up with a few options, and I asked a few people for feedback.

And I ultimately went with this one:

My wife says that the colors are inadvertently creepy, and I am very much trying to avoid the ability to make creepy clowns. So what this told me was that I needed to add a wider variety of colors.

Building the Android version worked just fine, thanks to me creating automated build scripts for previous projects. I found, however, that there was no music and almost no sound effects, which probably means that I forgot to include them in the final Android build and it should be an easy fix for this week.

I expect to have the first Android build available for testers in the coming week.

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 was continuing the work of finishing my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

Some efforts of polish are relatively easy, but others take a bit more work.

Sprints 2024-19: Polishing/Finishing

Completed:

• Options Screen mute buttons should match in-game buttons
• When no clowns exist in gallery, show text and arrow pointing to New button so player is guided towards what to do

I’m definitely in the final phases of this project, as I am either addressing things I’ve already identified or I am playing the game to discover what to address next.

Long ago I created a simple options menu accessible from the main menu. It allowed the player to toggle music and sound effects audio using buttons that had text that said what they were.

In the game itself, however, I created a modal menu with different buttons based on icons. It would be nice if those buttons matched in the options menu.

Now they do:

Now you might notice that this screen does not have a background image. It is one of those “I’ll get around to it later” kinds of things that I soon need to address because, well, it’s later.

I wanted to give new players some guidance. Upon starting a game, you will enter the gallery. When there are clowns already created, you’ll see them all here. However, when starting a brand new game, you’ll find that the gallery of clowns will be empty. The first thing to do is create a clown, which might not be obvious to know to do nor how to get started doing so.

So I made a very obvious animated arrow pointing at the New Clown button:

Maybe I can try to make it more circus-y, but it works for now.

Meanwhile, I realized that I still need to create more options to customize your clowns, so I created a few variations on eyes that include eyelashes.

One thing I realized, though, is that I need to add some code to handle rendering eyes so that the left eye and the right eye are mirrors of each other. Right now, I just render the same sprite on the left and right, which works when the eye sprite is identical on both sides.

But if I want to have flared eyelashes or otherwise have eye shapes that aren’t perfectly symmetrical, I will need to render the right eye as a flipped version of the left eye. It isn’t something my existing code framework does, but since it is based on top of SDL2, which does support it, it should be quick to add. I ended the week working on part of that effort, and I expect to finish it early this week.

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 previous report, I reported that I had pretty much finished all of the major work and was starting to see that what was left to do was primarily about finishing touches for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I’ve been a lot less productive in the last couple of weeks, partly due to dealing with terrible legislation getting passed in Iowa, but I’m still working on finishing the project.

Sprints 2024-17 and 2024-18: Polishing/Finishing

Completed:

• Defect: clown preview stays on screen while transitioning away
• Main Menu button should look like text is baked on instead of separated
• Call to Action button needs a visible button

Managing a project means needing to prioritize what to work on, even when something seems like a no-brainer to address, even when it seems like an easy enough thing to fix. I like to fix most problems as soon as I notice them because long-standing bugs tend to fester. Yet, sometimes I make a judgment call that some issues can stick around until I’m ready to deal with them.

For example, when you try to exit the Creator Mode, you are transitioned away to an exit confirmation menu. Basically, are you sure you want to stop creating the clown you were working on?

The clown preview stays on screen while the menus are transitioning, and it looks…off. It looks wrong. It makes the game feel amateurish.

I’ve seen it multiple times over the last couple of months, but I never addressed it until now. Why?

After all, I could immediately see that I could handle the rendering of the clown preview differently. Maybe it should be offset the same as the menu offset, so it looks like it is sliding away with the menu? That might be only a couple of lines of straightforward code.

But I left it because much of the initial work involved placeholder art, which was already going to be replaced. Maybe I would want to handle menu transitions differently by then?

In fact, I got rid of the transition entirely. I now have modal dialog pop up, which removes the need for a transition, which means there is no “wrong” looking graphical flicker anymore. Problem solved, and in a way that means I don’t need to replace the background art for the confirmation menu, either.

Anyway, I also made the main menu look more consistent with the rest of the game, mainly by changing the buttons from being just images with text labels that are completely independent (and so seem to float even when the button is depressed) to parented widgets that make it look like a single object on the screen.

These are minor cosmetic changes, but they definitely make a difference.

Thanks for reading, and stay curious!

—

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Last time, I reported that I was working on adding and updating make-up options for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I finished creating make-up options (for now) and started working on some polish and finishing touches.

Sprint 2024-16: More make-up!

Completed:

• Create make-up options
• Use better layer icons for make-up
• Show labels for primary and secondary colors

The nature of this project is that I can always keep adding more. More noses, more colors, more hairstyles, more make-up. It can be challenging to know when to stop and move on.

And there are so many different kinds of clown make-up options that I could provide, but three pages of options seems to provide enough variety for the player to mix and match for now.

As you can see, I also updated the layer icon previews so that they are slightly bigger and also show the primary color for that layer.

And after having the ability to pick primary and secondary colors for each option for over a month, I finally added labels to let you know what they are:

I fixed a few issues. The left navigation arrow was fine on non-layered menus, but it was obscured on the layered make-up menu, so I adjusted the placement of everything to make it all fit well.

And I also discovered that I wasn’t resetting the creation mode’s menu to the first menu correctly when you exit and come back, which potentially could result in seeing no options on the menu screen. Luckily it was an easy fix.

At this point, all of the major work is pretty much done. Most of the remaining work is either polishing, porting, and publishing.

The challenge is identifying what specifically needs to be done. Some of what I planned upfront is easy, such as creating an Android port. But some things can’t be figured out until you have a game to playtest and experience. Only then can I see what isn’t working quite right or what could be improved. But as I said, most of the major work is done, and I’ve already uncovered a short list of tasks.

But I’m in the home stretch, and I can’t wait for you to play this game!

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 stopped working on hairstyles and started working on updating and creating make-up options for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I spent quite a bit of time either creating or researching make-up options for clowns.

Sprint 2024-15: More make-up!

In Progress:

• Create make-up options

I replaced the placeholder smile and frown make-up options with a few variations that I think look a lot better.

Now I could create endless minor tweaks and variations on these mouths, and from what I could find, real clowns do have a wide variety of just mouth make-up, but I do want to make sure I address other kinds of make-up.

So I made an option for simple round cheek blush:

You can see I also added a smaller mouth.

It’s not bad, but I also know some people blend the blush, so I tried to make a blended variation, and I was surprised how much it hurts my eyes to look at!

See? Or, better yet, don’t! It’s kind of annoying. Some kind of optical effect between the bright, saturated colors and the blending makes it feel like it is fighting with your eyes. Does anyone reading this know what this effect might be called?

So I ended the week trying to find ways to address it, and while I think blending it even more helped a lot, I do wonder if there is something else I could try.

Anyway, now that I am getting rid of the placeholder art, I am pleased that the make-up layering is working out so well. Here is a clown that has buckteeth on top of a frown and with rosy cheeks:

I will say that researching clown make-up on the Internet is challenging, partly because there are a lot of tutorials and imagery out there for scary clowns or Halloween costumes. I have found better luck by specifying Ringling Bros or major organizations such as the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center (which I hope to visit soon!) or Clowns of America International.

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 had finished creating nose options and had started on creating new hairstyles for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

Sprint 2024-14: More hairstyles

Completed:

• Create hair options

In Progress:

• Create make-up options

I continued working on hairstyles. Drawing hair is kinda hard.

But I think I did a decent job:

I have ideas for more clown hairstyles, but I wanted to move onto make-up. I started out by replacing the smile.

It originally looked like this:

But now smile make-up looks like:

It’s…well, frankly, it’s a work in progress. I know I want some shading, but even then, this art is not making me smile, and I want another crack at it.

So this coming week I will focus on updating the existing make-up options.

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 previous report, I added the ability to name your clowns and started work on providing more production-ready nose options for my second Freshly Squeezed Entertainment project called Clown Alley Creator, a creativity tool about creating your own fun clowns.

I finished adding noses and started on hair options this past week.

Sprint 2024-13: More noses and more hairstyles

Completed:

• Create nose options

In Progress:

• Create hair options

In this project, you can choose to customize your clown’s nose, hairstyle, and more. I was using placeholder art and options up until two weeks ago.

I’m quite happy with how the noses turned out, especially once I added shading, and now that I’ve worked on changing the placeholder hairstyles so that they are production-ready, the game overall looks and feels so much better.

I just wish I could also do the same with make-up, eyes, and more at the same time, because otherwise it feels like part of the game is more done than the other.

I like the idea of planning my work such that the game is always “done” at any given point, but now I am doing the work in a way that feels uneven. I’m not quite sure if there is a better way to plan the work of adding the production version and variety of options for a given type of customization. Working in a way that I would add a nose option, then a hairstyle, then an eye, etc seems weird.

Anyway, I’m fairly pleased with how the hairstyles are turning out. So far each hairstyle has two variations. One allows for a secondary highlight of color, and the other variation is what I have now learned is called “split-dye” and reminds me that sometimes game design really livens up your browser search history.

Having production noses and hairstyles, the clowns are looking much better, but I can’t wait to work on the make-up to make it more cohesive.

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!