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ISSUE #19 THE VALE, QUILL 9 FEB 2018 ONE BRASS
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There's a long way to go til that I expect, and the 40/40 in Famitsu (another fantasy). Eurogamer Essential, a million Steam sales, and a BAFTA are all also on the bucket list. I really really don't expect any of those, but it is nice to let the mind wander into the realms of unbelievable craziness if only to keep motivation going.
Other stuff I have been doing this week includes placing down hundreds, if not thousands, of bits of grass. I get annoyed by plain green bits so did a full pass of every region. Flowers is next...this might take some time. After that it is just detail, bug fixes, collisions, and layering work. I say just.
I might just fantasise about Neal making a tool that does it all for me. (That one is actually a feasible fantasy...)
Cursing about Curses
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The next step on our journey to further interest is getting the Steam store page ready which was some of the focus of this week. Matt may well have more to say on this so I'll not say too much on it, but suffice to say that things are never as easy as they probably should be...
After last week's slump it seems that I've not necessarily fully recovered, but the Steam store gave some good focused targets to quickly work on. I also looked into some editor features that will make level editing easier in addition to continuing to pave the way for some larger updates for sequence editing and layers which didn't quite fit in the time.
When working on a large project like this, it can be difficult to make headway because deadlines feel artificial. The truth is they probably always are, but if you dig in enough and commit to them then that's when they start to stick and that's when the drive is there to get them done or make sufficient headway so that it can be moved to a more realistic time to finish off what remains.
I think I've also found there's a tendency in making deadlines/predictions for them to become a curse in a way. By putting such a fixed point in time, it often assumes the perfect run up of time to that point - that every waking hour is focused solely to that end and that nothing will come up that distracts or causes a problem delaying that end date. Rarely, if ever, is that true though! Perhaps my perception is a problem, in that it defaults the assumption that a deadline cannot be achieved and in some ways sabotages the chances of it happening.
Whatever the case, we are definitely getting to a point when we need to put some strong deadlines in place. And then I guess we will see if the curse is real or not!
I decided to go for a very bare-bones setup, using just an acoustic guitar, ukulele, harp, and Spanish guitar. The tricky part was not making it sound overly sad. Just because there's nobody around doesn't mean the player should be unhappy about it. Rather, I tried to make it relaxing. Like solitary reflection one might do when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do. I reckon the result might work especially well when it starts raining, either inside the game's world or outside your window.
The fields won't stay empty forever though. Soon the market stalls will be set up again and pig races will be organised. The time for self-reflection will be over and the time to peruse the wares being sold at the market begins.
That was just one such thing that we've been recently cryptic about. There is, however, another thing that I've been toiling away on that I've referenced a few times in recent weeks. I've been waiting for some final bits of info to come through before revealing too much, hence why this week's issue of The PixelCount Post was a bit delayed, as I was extremely keen on sharing this info this week. Now that these final puzzle pieces have fallen into place, I am happy to say:
Our Steam 'Coming Soon' page will be going live next week!
This is essentially our store page, with the only difference being that you can't yet obtain the game (yet). I don't have an exact day next week that the store page will go live, but I'll be sharing that information in the very next issue of this fine periodical. Also, the day we make our Coming Soon store page public, I'll also be sharing another tidbit of information:
We'll soon confirm our projected release month!
Huzzah! We're still hammering out the specific launch date itself, but we're finally approaching the part of the game's development where we can tell you what month to expect the game (barring any last minute wrenches). Suffice it to say, it's been a very busy past few weeks for me between PC Gamer and all the Steam store preparation. It's incredibly exciting to be reaching these milestones in the project and I can't wait to talk to you all again next week with more information on when you can come visit us on Steam!
P R I N T E DᅠA TᅠP I X E L C O U N TᅠC A S T L E,ᅠT H EᅠV A L E
Copyright 2018 by PixelCount Studios (Limited).ᅠᅠAll rights reserved.ᅠᅠEdited and assembled by Matt Allen.
