First...
Scratch N Score has finally moved into the beta process. What does that mean? A month of never-ending bug reports where people press the weirdest combinations of buttons known to man, that no user will ever actually do, all in an effort to break things.
So now we sit back and wait for the reports to start coming in so we can work on fixing all the little things. I’m pretty sure the most common ones found have already been taken care of ahead of time, but there are those people… *ahem* that I know will find more.
Hopefully it’s a quick process overall so this can get a scheduled release date. On another note, I also switch to a different video production software that’s much easier to work with than Corel’s and gives me a much better end result! Considering my level of expertise in video editing, I am quite impressed with Wondershare Filmora. Good price for the value, definitely worthwhile.
A ton of projects in the works
I have a ton of projects in the works, but a lot of them need more thought and fleshing out on paper (well digital paper) before I start work on them. A couple board games and the like. They should definitely be fun and great products for the table, but for now I decided…
Dice games! Why? Because I just did one and enjoyed it, and thought WHY NOT? And having certain people kind of try to talk me out of it just made me want to do it more! Sorry J! lol
We’re talking about your simpler dice, party type games like Over Under 7, Ship Captain Crew, etc. And since they are simple, we’re going to group them in packs, starting with 7 games in the first one. I started development on the first of the seven, and it’s the one that will take the longest. It’s not complex at all, as a matter of fact it will probably be the quickest of them all, but it’s all the other stuff that goes into a new project and choices that will carry through every single included game.
Things like the user interface, sound effects, particles, the general programming structure and framework. That all takes time to develop, even when you’re using components designed from other stuff, and it all has to work and be reuseable. Once it’s done though, it’s a simple matter to adapt each piece to the next game, change the rules and write whatever specialized code is needed for that game. I’ll still have to do GUI’s for them, but the basis of what that looks like will already be done.
Simpler games
Another thing about simpler games is while they are fun on their own, you have to amp that up with your sound and effects to capture a player’s attention. If you’re just rolling dice and there’s nothing else going on, it’s going to get boring and guess what, you lost a sale but more importantly you lost a customer’s confidence in your past and future products. One thing I chose to do to help amp it up a little is to add some AI generated voice narrations. Playing it with and without those is almost 2 different worlds, even if it is just some simple words being spoken.
Gameplay on the first game is nearly completed, it just needs a few more FX touches as well as a game over / play again option, and the in-game settings menu. After that we can move on to the next game. I’m hoping, with the market and audience the table has, that this will be a success, but that’s something only time will tell.
I do have plans for at least one more volume if not two of these dice game packs. There’s a lot of cool simple fun ideas out there that wouldn’t work as a standalone game, at least not something you’d want to pay for by itself really. It also pays to listen to people, as one game I had been thinking about doing was just asked for by someone who just picked up a table.
There’s a ton more going on in the background, but this will see light of day soon! Simple projects are fun, and it gives me something to work on and think about while working out the details on the bigger ones!
Well, time for bed.. for now…
