Unity is running a contest from now until the end of January, so I'm using it as a motivator to get serious about the short game I'm working on right now. I'll post updates in this thread over the next two months.
Overview:
It's a visual novel/point-n-click hybrid. The story should be around 10,000-15,000 words, and the game should be about an hour long. The premise of the story is that you're an agent of a wizard-lawyer-mercenary organization that makes unbreakable contracts with people, and the game will cover a couple jobs as an introduction to the premise. It's designed to be a series, so if it makes back the money I plan to spend on it (hopefully not exceeding $2000), I might make more. I'll probably release it on most of the platforms Unity deploys to unless I run into major roadblocks.
Outstanding Questions:
I'll be doing the writing, design, background art, and portrait animation. Unfortunately, since I'll have my hands full with the art, I'll need to outsource all of the engineering to Sailerius. I'll be commissioning our artist to draw the portraits.
The big things that leaves are UI design and music. I want to hire an experienced UI designer, but I'm not sure where to find one. The girl who did the UI for the new version of Ars Harmonia did an excellent job, but I don't think she's taking commissions anymore, so I dunno what I'm gonna do. Anyone know someone who's good at game UI? As for music, I'll probably end up using royalty-free or creative commons music, but I don't know shit about music and may or may not pick appropriate tracks. Oh well!
Production Schedule:
Previous experience with contest games says I should leave a lot of time for polish and debugging. Unfortunately this doesn't leave much time for the actual development. Here's a schedule I drew up with weekly goals:
12-5: Story fully outlined, ending written
12-12: Areas finalized, all puzzles designed, backgrounds started
12-19: All maps finished, story finalized
12-26: Portraits finished, story draft finished, backgrounds finished
1-2: Item graphics finished, story edited, engineering finished; polish begins
1-9: Portrait animation finished
1-16: Feature freeze; start debugging
1-27: Store submission
I'm guessing there'll probably be more polish I want to do after the contest is over, so I'll probably allocate another month or so to that before I release it for real. One issue is that I'm visiting my mother for a week over Christmas, and I'm not sure how that's going to work out, so I may need to update my schedule.
Overview:
It's a visual novel/point-n-click hybrid. The story should be around 10,000-15,000 words, and the game should be about an hour long. The premise of the story is that you're an agent of a wizard-lawyer-mercenary organization that makes unbreakable contracts with people, and the game will cover a couple jobs as an introduction to the premise. It's designed to be a series, so if it makes back the money I plan to spend on it (hopefully not exceeding $2000), I might make more. I'll probably release it on most of the platforms Unity deploys to unless I run into major roadblocks.
Outstanding Questions:
I'll be doing the writing, design, background art, and portrait animation. Unfortunately, since I'll have my hands full with the art, I'll need to outsource all of the engineering to Sailerius. I'll be commissioning our artist to draw the portraits.
The big things that leaves are UI design and music. I want to hire an experienced UI designer, but I'm not sure where to find one. The girl who did the UI for the new version of Ars Harmonia did an excellent job, but I don't think she's taking commissions anymore, so I dunno what I'm gonna do. Anyone know someone who's good at game UI? As for music, I'll probably end up using royalty-free or creative commons music, but I don't know shit about music and may or may not pick appropriate tracks. Oh well!
Production Schedule:
Previous experience with contest games says I should leave a lot of time for polish and debugging. Unfortunately this doesn't leave much time for the actual development. Here's a schedule I drew up with weekly goals:
12-5: Story fully outlined, ending written
12-12: Areas finalized, all puzzles designed, backgrounds started
12-19: All maps finished, story finalized
12-26: Portraits finished, story draft finished, backgrounds finished
1-2: Item graphics finished, story edited, engineering finished; polish begins
1-9: Portrait animation finished
1-16: Feature freeze; start debugging
1-27: Store submission
I'm guessing there'll probably be more polish I want to do after the contest is over, so I'll probably allocate another month or so to that before I release it for real. One issue is that I'm visiting my mother for a week over Christmas, and I'm not sure how that's going to work out, so I may need to update my schedule.