I have fixed the sound for the game, the threads were not properly implemented. I have deleted all the threads for each sound and only added one thread wich play every song in a dynamic array. The dynamic array is protected by a mutex because std::vector is not thread safe.

After that, I have decided to change the first level to have something more interesting, with multiple transitions. So for the moment I have implemented dissolve and zoom transitions between maps.

This is more interesting than a simple cut between scene, and multiple visions allow to have a story less linear, more deconstructed. The first level will be in the demo so I really need to also have the beginning of the game interesting even of the plot is not revealed yet.

I need to have the impression that the game will be interesting when playing the first level. I already know that after the story unfold things start to become more mysterious and complex. but if the beginning is boring most of the time the player will stop playing the game, it’s a lot like a book because for point and click game the story is the core of the game. Without the story, the game does not make sense to be played. I am trying to make a story that is short and dense, impactful.

All I am trying to say is already said in this quote :

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”

Franz Kafka

 

This week I have mostly polished the game for the first and second level, added some dialog boxes and polished some backgrounds. I have also implemented sounds (only the music was implemented), so I will be adding sounds in the game. I am trying to make everything coherent. I have been thinking of adding more animations, but in some case, animations slow the rhythm of the game. I think I will not add animations in the case of simple actions :

• Get an object
• Push a button
• Turn on/off a tap
• Give an object to someone

But when there is a combination of two objects an animation will be added. But most of the game contain simple actions so maybe I will change some things to make more animations. The animations cannot be too big because it will take too much place in memory.

This phase of the development is slow because you first need to find something to improve before fixing it and it’s mainly a lot of small things to change. The number of things is not known and at some point, you must decide it’s finished, but in reality, it’s never finished there is always room for improvements.

The html5 demo is finished, you can play it on gamejolt. There are still some tweaks but the base is good and playable. Now I can return  working on the real game and start the polishing phase. I have found  out that the old version of the demo crash on my computer now, so I have deleted that from Gamejolt. For the demo, there will only be a  web demo  instead of a PC, mac, Linux version of the game in a 50mb package.

Now I am testing the game from the start to the end, and adjust the dialogs, art or add/remove content if I found it unfit. This is also the time where I  can add a lot of animations ! The shader system is complete and optimised now. I have spent 3 weeks programming in javascript for the demo now I will be working on the game, hopefully not on the programming but on the story and art.

The demo is not quite ready, I had to change the loading system to have only one 4096*4096 and 1024*2048 sprites sheet loaded in memory to make it usable for low spec computer. This created new bugs to fix. I have also added the shader in the demo. I downloaded the old version of the demo on Gamejolt to see that now it crash on my computer.

The new version with SDL without threads should make things more stable I think, but for now, I am still spending my time on the web demo. And I found out Gamejolt is adding non-free games so I will be even more difficult to have some kind of visibility.

The demo needs to be of high quality the same as the trailer to have the classic scheme: Homepage –> Trailer –> Demo (web or software) –> Game. The trailer is the turning point for almost everything : greenlight, sells, others websites, press.