Goal for This Week (Oct 28 - Nov 1)
In-browser playable tutorial for Nothing to Hide by Halloween. (very accomplished)
Goal for Next Week (Nov 4 - Nov 8)
New mechanics, new art, new story.
Accomplished: In-browser playable tutorial for Nothing to Hide by Halloween.
Polish. Playtest. Publish.
This week I drew and designed the tutorial levels, which taught the core mechanic and ended with a giant puzzle. I playtested with a few people in-person, and with dozens more online. On Halloween, I finally published the first polished prototype.
Last week, I had set out specific criteria to consider this goal accomplished.
Here's how they turned out.
Create a polished tutorial. Yep.
Playtest the full tutorial in person, thrice. Thanks goes to my housemates, Kirill, Justin, Barron, and Bill for being the first playtesters!
Make sure the game works cross-browser. I was already developing in Chrome, and Firefox and Safari were also easy to support. I forgot about Opera until just now, and despite many attempts, I never got the game to work in Internet Explorer. Why? Because Internet Explorer.
Share it online on Halloween morning. I shared the game on my Twitter, Facebook, Facebook fan page, the Newgrounds frontpage, the r/IndieGaming subreddit, and r/gamedev's Feedback Friday thread. According to my open-source analytics tool Piwik, I reached over 1000+ unique views.
Get feedback, attention, and possible collaborators. On the prototype's web page, I had included a short, open-ended feedback survey using Firebase as a quick and lazy backend. A hundred people responded, and that's just through my site! Even more left me feedback through Newgrounds and Reddit.
I've reached a great milestone, but it's also a stepping stone.
Here's what's next.
Goal: New mechanics, new art, new story.
This week, I actually implement the feedback I've gotten. I'm not just giving lip service when I say they've been greatly helpful in shaping the future design.
Controls.
The community came up with brilliant ideas that never even crossed my mind. Some levels required too much precision, and my first thought was to have a key to slow down. But other gamedevs gave a better solution - mouse controls. Not only does that give the player more precision, it simplifies the controls, and allows for more engaging puzzle mechanics later on.
Next week: Switch over to mouse interface.
Puzzles.
Many playtesters said - cool clever core mechanic, and it's a good tutorial, but we need to see more. But their feedback went further. They came up with new puzzle ideas such as mirrors, "dummy" versions of you, throwing the cameras, moving walls and doors, panel activations, etc. I can prototype a few of these, then settle on just one extra mechanic for the demo that launches with the crowdfunding campaign.
Next week: Prototype a few new mechanics, settle on one.
Art.
Another thing playtesters pointed out was the inconsistency in art style. The backgrounds were grim, dirty, and had no outlines. In contrast, the main character was cute, cartoony, and outlined. I don't have many art assets right now, which is good! That means I can experiment and figure out what art direction to really go for.
Next week: Find new art direction, and re-skin the game with it.
Story.
The big missing thing. There was no story at all in the prototype. But even then, people were quite curious about the main character - who is she, why does she have that bindle bag? My goal by next week is to add this to the game, in some form. In films, the saying goes “show, don't tell.” In games, it's ”do, don't show.” I will try my best to not present the story via just cutscenes.
Next week: Add narrative to the game.
All in all… open development works.
When I began Nothing To Hide, I expected that developing openly would make bug-finding and content creation easier, but I didn't expect the community to help shape the core mechanics and controls!
Later in November, I plan to launch that Progress Pledge campaign with Nothing To Hide. Combine the benefits of developing openly with crowdfunding openly, and I think that may thrust openness + business into the mainstream.
This week didn't just skyrocket my confidence how openness can help developers, it was a point of personal growth for me. I have a hard time of letting go of my own ideas and embracing others'. I want to be the one in control. But as I develop more openly, I will learn to let go.
Milestones are stepping stones.
But they're not set in stone.
EDIT 11/6: Added section about art in my weekly goal.