Status Report #53 (Sprite Outlines & Homework Galore)

     Sprites are all done and just need to be animated! This is the fun part of sprite making where I can see them in action. I also have to worry about mixing and matching certain sprite pieces for the more complex looking baddies. I'm also gearing up toward running a game development club at school.

This week in game dev can be found below!

iOS Games Disappearing (For Real This Time)

Last chance to get my iOS games like Fish Feaster!

     I thought I already went through this a long while back but noticed something was off when I still had Fish Feaster Free downloads throughout the next few weeks after my expiration date. Now I remember the extension I got during a time last year when Apple's Development Portal had issues and blocked lots of developers out. To make up for it, Apple added some time to people's dev licenses. Apple requires $100 a year to keep your games on the app store and publish new ones. If people already downloaded them, they won't disappear, but there won't be any patches coming.

    That extra time helped me get my first game to a few more people so I'm grateful for that. Now it's time to watch them go again. I still have my apps on my iPod and I have the dev files on a hard drive so they won't really be gone forever. I'm just thinking now is a good time to get ready to pull my stuff down and prepare for a new age of quality control. My old works will always exist in the Games Page but as new releases come I'd like to start marking off the practice games. I want to be known for the RPGs to come, not the amateur arcade stuff. Once the app icons at the top of my blog fill up I'll be putting only my most popular games there. Apps that get taken down will just redirect to the Games Page.

The Musician Search Ends

     The dust has settled and I have finally found the help I've been looking for. Stuntddude and Ai-shi-ter-u will be helping me out on the audio side of things for my upcoming RPG. I had them send me a test track each to see if they can get the feel down and produce something in a reasonable time. I was surprised when I got a sample track back the very next time I checked my email. It only took Ai-shi-ter-u 2 hours to make and sounded like a fantastic start!

     I can finally relax knowing that I'm in good hands on that side of things. I can even look forward to growing alongside someone else and having us all climb to ever greater heights. Like I said, 100% of the OST profit will go to the composers as payment, and when I become financially stable these guys will be the first ones I go to with payment upfront in addition to OST sales.

     You can find to those guys on SoundCloud to listen to stuff they made before.

Finished White Outlines (NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN!!)

     The time consuming process of outlining each up-scaled sprite is finally over. I am ready to cut out each sprite box and drag them all into Unity. It's a big relief to be done drawing everything and soon I'll be making code that turns these pixel monsters into living creatures. Like I've mentioned before, I don't plan on ever ding this stuff again. I'll keep my sprites small, manageable, and outline-free. I can focus more on color contrasting and non-black borders to make things stick out.