██ DAY 1 █████████████████████████
So I really thought about this a lot and I’m going to 100% dedicate myself to this game and get it out in the next 6-8 months. Being an independent developer this is my first time implementing a plan with the release of a game. This is also the first time I have created a devlog of the process, good or bad this will document my entire process, which I will update 5 days a week.
Nexify
Nexify is a game I created for a game jam over on Itch.io, you can find the game here and play that version right now. The game to my surprise came in 3rd place overall, I did also win for best itch.io page. Normally what bogs me down the most with my development is graphics, I am a graphic designer and artist by trade and I just get paralyzed with thinking my art isn’t good enough, so being able to use the Kenney assets in this jam allowed to to focus purely on the design of the game and it’s mechanics and layout and I do think I came up with something cool. I have placed in other game jams before, but those were for my artwork, mostly the gameplay just wasn’t there on those.
So far I have 20 or so levels and I need a total of 96 for release, those 20 levels that are done more then half need to be reworked. The game will feature a lot of secrets and will be a mix of sorta twitch puzzle action, with a sorta hidden object game mechanic, I’m also toying with the idea of a hardcode mechanic where you have to beat the game with out dying once, I got the idea when someone told me my game reminded them of a puzzle Dark Souls…. lol
My process
The short answer is, I don’t have one. While I have released games on IOS and Android, they were rushed, mostly not great games that had little planning and were done for the wrong reasons. To me a Steam game release is the big leagues, while I realize anyone can just spend $100 and dump whatever they want on the store, game design means too much to me to do that and up until Nexify I never really felt like I had something that was worth putting on Steam. So my plan is to build a process with this game, create it in the way I would like to work in the hopes of helping other independent developers like myself.
One step of this process was my devlog here and also a development journal and schedule. I started this journal to keep my ideas and schedule in a written place. I have found over the last few months that actually taking the time to write todo lists works much better then ones you would keep on your phone, I think if it’s something important to you and you want to truly get it done, write it down.
Conclusion
So no really sure where these will go or who if anyone would be interested in reading them, but maybe someone out there will stumble upon this and see my journey over the next 6 months and it could help them.
Tomorrow I will update more about the game and my plans.
Until then!
Cheers!
