Ch-ch-ch-changes

Merry day-after-Christmas! There’s not a ton in this update, and I’m more or less continuing the theme of last month’s update: regrouping and setting up my next projects.

Unexpectedly, I seem to be onto yet another new project. I was really intending to get back to my turn-based dungeon crawler (really) but an opportunity came up that I’m jumping on. Specifically, I got to talking with a development partner for some projects we are both interested in working on, so yeah I’m doing that now. Good development partners are hard to find, and while I only just met this guy he seems promising, so I’m giving this the ol’ college try.

Basically, he was asking some questions on reddit about how to go about cloning Car Thief. Well as it happens, I’d been considering a series of lightweight management sims like that. I’m a fan of games like Drugwars and Urban Dead, so those seemed like a good way to make some ad-supported games on mobile. Long story short, that conversation turned into an offer of partnership.

Rebuilding year (er, month)

Not a ton to report this month. I released Demolo last month, which allows me to reflect on it. Meanwhile I’m gearing up to resume working on my first-person dungeon crawler. And then I’ve also been considering a little video project, so I’ll describe that too.

Demolo is released!

This is a very short update given I already said most of it last post:

Demolo is now out for Oculus Go!

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1836211156444019/

Demolo review update

Well Demolo is currently being reviewed by Oculus, so that’s certainly forward progress. I’m hoping to release on Oct 31 but don’t know if that’s feasible. Shortly after last month’s update I submitted Demolo to their store for review, and it’s still not ready to release, so that’s very frustrating. Admittedly the hold up was not entirely on their end (more on that in a bit) but quite a bit of this time has been their normal review time, which is just crazy to me.

UPDATE 😀 Email I just got from Oculus:  review is completed and we should be ready for release on 10/31/2018.

At least here’s a pre-release video review, so that you can see the game in action running on Oculus Go:

Woohoo, about to submit!

Man, there was a lot more to do than expected to prepare Demolo’s submission to the Oculus Store. However I’ve prepared the mass of promotional images and videos they need, so I’ll submit the game very soon, possibly this weekend.

Indeed, I probably could have submitted it the day after I finished the trailer, except I had to pause to put together my GDEX presentation. I’m going to be delivering a talk there this weekend!

Demolo is playable on Oculus Go!

As laid out last month, there are 3 main tasks in order to port Demolo from the web build to work on Oculus Go: HMD controls, adjusting the UI, and replacing mouse with tracked controller. Well, I’ve done all three, so all the main tasks are done!

Now there’s just assorted polishing left to do (mostly glitches in the UI) and then submitting Demolo to the Oculus app store. I haven’t done a ton of research on their submission process, so I have no idea how long it takes (eg. is there a review period like iOS apps?) Aside from the unknown submission time, I estimate another week and Demolo will be released on Oculus Go!

I will of course be posting another blog update with a link to the live app.

Demolo release: Almooooost…

I’m mildly annoyed that Demolo still isn’t on Oculus Go yet, but I’ve been spending the past month addressing player feedback from the WebGL prototype. There is one last new feature I’m considering; make sure to read about it at the end and tell me if you think yea or nay.

Introducing Demolo

So the 3D puzzle game I discussed last month is nearly ready to release on Oculus Go. I’ve made all kinds of changes based on player feedback to the WebGL build I put on itch. I’ve done lots of graphics tweaks, but the most important change has been replacing the timer with an energy system, both making the increasing challenge more visceral but also incentivizing chains (by awarding bonus energy).

So this weekend I finally came up with a name: Demolo

3D Puzzle for Oculus Go

Alright so what I did this past month may seem a bit out of left field…

I developed a 3D puzzle game to put on Oculus Go! The game is almost complete but still missing touches like, say, a name. I uploaded a web build to itch.io for people to try out and give me feedback.

Unity in Action 2nd ed. is out!

So the biggest news this month is that my book is finally completely released! It has been a really long time since I finished writing it, but I suppose this is just the downside of Manning having a high quality bar and spending months on making everything perfect. At any rate, the book is available on both their website and on Amazon.

As for my RPG, this has felt like my single most productive month. I realize this is because of multiple systems I implemented months ago falling into place (eg. the data models for shops have existed this entire time, but you couldn’t see it) but it still feels awesome.