Nothing To Hide

In the past couple weeks, I've…

re-drawn and re-animated everything in an expressive Flat Art style.
built a prototype for cutscenes in the form of a scrollable social feed, and shared it for feedback on, well, my social feeds.
implemented Doors/Dummies/Conveyor Belts game mechanics.
implemented mouse-based controls. (I take back what I said last time - mouse controls do flow better.)

Also, I teamed up with HalcyonicFalconX, a musician I've collaborated with before on The Open Bundle. She created two new awesome musical sketches for the game so far: The National Anthem and Big Brother With A Smile.

This week: Create a polished vertical. A cutscene leads into an in-game level, with polished mouse-based controls, a fully animated world, new levels to show off the new mechanics, and a great background soundtrack. Publish this for feedback as the Nothing To Hide Polished Prototype #2.

More details on my Screenshot Saturday reddit post!

Progress Pledge Prototype

Not only that, I also finally started building the website for my "Progress Pledge" crowdfunding campaign. Here it is so far on Github!

Progress Pledges add accountability to crowdfunding. You pay a part of your pledge for each milestone the project creator hits, and you only complete your pledge when they complete their project.

I prototyped this last month, but that demo was very limited. This week's prototype has more features, including letting the backer set their pledge split per milestone, an administrator dashboard, and the ability to actually charge credit cards.

This week: Build the full Progress Pledge site. (better pledge form, donation leaderboard, emailing backers, cancelling pledges) All there would be left to add are the campaign text and video. Do user tests for this site, both online and in-person.

Talks & Travels

Last week, I had just flown back from the Under 20 Summit in NYC, only to fly out again a few days later back to Vancouver. I think I caught all the influenza. While I was in Vancouver, I got to meet up with OpenMedia.ca! They're pretty much the only digital rights organization in Canada.

This week, I should meet up again with the Mozilla YVR team in Vancouver. I did spend half a year mooching off their office space, after all.

Always Be Shipping

In my last update, I defended sticking to my campaign launch date, the end of this month, cutting all corners necessary to do so. Fool! That would have only resulted in me shipping something unfocused and unpolished. What's worse? I never learn from my mis-estimates. My plan last month was to launch the campaign at the end of that month.

At this point, I should just adopt the wise words of Walter White.

WE'RE DONE… WHEN I SAY WE'RE DONE.

On the other hand, I do not want to spend months on end not publishing anything. I've been stuck in that rut many times before. (e.g. Apr-May, after The Gamedev Garage Sale, and Aug-Sept, after The Open Bundle.)

I'm shifting from sticking to a plan to sticking to a process: Just ship a small polished something at the end of each month. Even if it's not the full thing. Especially if it's not the full thing.

Last month, I published a polished prototype for Nothing To Hide, which got an unexpected amount of attention and praise! Next week, I'll be releasing two polished prototypes, one for my game and one for my crowdfunding site. With any luck, these too will capture a bit of interest.

Thanks for reading!
~ Nick