2012: Broadcasting from the Apocalypse

Well, 2012 is here. Speculated by many to be the end of the world. I suppose it's only appropriate that this will be the founding year of my new company. (Ahem, I mean the company will make games involving post-apocalyptic settings. Not that other thing you were just thinking.)

Business Development

As reported earlier, I became a permanent resident (PR) last month. Permanent residency was a big deal for two reasons:

1. It allows me to stay in Canada indefinitely.
2. It allows me freedom of employment without any visas, including starting a business in Canada.

Without #2, I was unable to work for anyone other than specified by my visa (i.e. BioWare Montreal). It was frustrating not being able to do much about my employment situation except wait. Having a hobby to work on helped, but I felt stifled by not being able to do much of the business development necessary to start an indie studio. Now that I'm in the clear, I can increase throttle to full (well almost, see below).

I spent a lot of time researching start-up businesses, and trying to get a handle on what was required. There's a ton of good info out there, but the hard part seems to be narrowing it down to the parts that are applicable. In case it helps any readers, here's a list of steps I went through. None of this should be taken as legal advice, as I am not a lawyer. Also, many of these are specific to the province I live in, BC. However, the general idea will be similar regardless of Canadian province/US state.

1. Draft a business plan - It sounds like a hassle, but it has already paid off for me. Doing this has put a lot of things into perspective for me, and forced me to answer questions I hadn't considered. Take this step seriously. It doesn't have to be polished if you don't plan on showing it to investors, but it should be as complete as possible.
2. Decide on a business structure - I spent a lot of time thinking about this one, and was quite close to incorporation. However, doing step #1 revealed some things about my plans that were making incorporation sound like overkill for my start-up. Also, I was lucky in finding Jack Nilssen's Dark Acre Year Zero Post Mortem when I did, as it bolstered my confidence that sole proprietership was the best fit for me.
3. Submit a business name request - Provided you're going with a name other than your own, you'll need to register that name with BC. You'll need one primary name, and two alternates in case the first is taken. I did mine online, and it only cost $32. I made a spreadsheet with a list of company names, and researched the following for each:
1. Check if the name is taken in BC at Name Requests Online (click Step 2).
2. Check if the name is trademarked in Canada at Canadian Trade-marks Database. (It's not as comprehensive as a NUANS search, but it's free).
3. Search for the name on the internet. I considered the name good if there was little conflict with other search results, particularly in the video games area.
4. Verify the desired domain is still available. This step is optional, but you'll probably want a website for your business if you're going to market your indie games. I used whois.net.
4. Register your business - Once your business name has been approved, you must register the business with BC within 3 months of starting. I also performed this step online. In fact, BC makes this and the next few steps pretty easy by integrating them all in one website, the BC OneStop service.
5. Register with the CRA - If your business sells goods and/or services, and the world-wide annual sales exceed $30k, you need to register for the GST/HST. The IRS probably has a similar requirement in the States. For me, this step must wait until I get my PR card, as I will need a permanent SIN number (like an SSN) to register.
6. Obtain necessary business licenses - Depending on where you live, your municipality may require you to obtain a business license. Turns out living in the woods saved me about $80/year, as my municipality does not require licensing. However, most towns and cities do.
7. Employee considerations - If you hire any employees or contractors, there are a number of employee-related programs you'll need to look into. These include EI, payroll deductions, WorkSafe programs, etc. I'm sticking with solo for now, so I was able to skip many of these.

I also collected links to some additional sources of info, for those interested:

• Small Business BC's checklist outlining the process of starting a business in BC.
• Start Your Own Business - a handy walkthrough and reference for starting a business (US-centric, but most topics still apply). Available as paperback or kindle. Thanks Mom and Dad!
• BC OneStop - I already link to a subsection of OneStop in step #4 above, but the general site provides a wealth of info, and is worth checking out.

As you can see, there are quite a few steps involved. Fortunately, they're not too hard to do. In truth, it took me longer to straighten all the steps out and make the necessary decisions than it did to actually do them. With any luck, I've saved some budding indie some research time!

So what name did I choose? Well, the website is being developed, so I don't want to direct anyone to empty space. Stay tuned!

Ludum Dare 48 #22: Sol Solo

I know I've forgotten something, but here it is: my first Ludum Dare 48 entry:

Sol Solo title screen

I spent the last few hours scrambling to pack some last-minute polish in. I was cranking out sound effects from a Roland XP-60, frantically paging through the manual for the soundbank listings, punching it into Audacity, saving, hooking up instances.

And there was a ton of worrying about invisible features. Should I hook in Playtomic? Nah, too risky with only 40 minutes to go. A trackback link? Oh yeah, definitely. Sitelocking? Duh, what am I thinking? That'll just backfire. I'll just have to search the net and see where it ends up.

The main game screen.

Man, my head is a bit scattered right now. I'll come back to talk about the experience some more in a while, but I need a break. For now, if you want to see it in action (or even try it and rate it!), here's my LD48 entry page.

Life as an Indie

Both Christina's and Gareth's tweets this morning reminded me of a blog topic I've been meaning to write. Back when I was first considering becoming an indie game developer, I had a lot of questions about indie development. I found a number of blogs started by other indies, and read them ravenously.

One area that I found particularly interesting was indie life. What was it like to wake up as an indie? What types of problems did they confront? What was their workday like? What did their desk look like? Their room? I guess it was sort of fantasy fulfillment to read others' blogs. A few minutes of escapism before I had to get back to my then reality.

I figured when I finally got around to going indie myself, I'd do a post with just those details. I dunno how many folks are as into it as I was, but maybe there are a few who enjoy peering into the fishbowl. Plus, a friend of mine has been asking about how I keep up my work ethic, so this'll be good prep for answering that question.

Where I sit. Tools include desktop PC, older laptop, Wacom tablet for pixel art, portable audio recorder (fuzzy thing on top shelf), musical instruments on right. Detective fan optional.

How I handle my work schedule

My schedule is actually quite consistent. I treat my work day pretty much like I did at previous employers. I work Mondays through Fridays, about 40 hours per week. I take the same holidays BioWare does: roughly 10 stat days, 3 weeks "paid" vacation, 1-2 weeks "paid" break at Christmas (likely only 1 for Christmas this year). (Note: I say "paid" in quotes because I haven't made dollar one yet as an indie. BioWare does pay employees for regularly scheduled time off.)

I'm actually protective of both my work time and my play time. When I miss an hour or more of work, I log it. When I work overtime to cover the missed work, I log it. I log everything I do in a day in a big text file. It reads kinda like a changelog for a game patch, but with dates. Here's an example:

2011/12/03
made hexes show appropriate random scavenge locations
made hexes have finite scavenge locations that slowly replenish over time
made scavenging button only appear if current hex has available scavenging, and no creatures nearby
Created mushroom items (poison and edible, incl unidentified)
Created crowbar and related attackmode.
Created poisoning condition (for use with poison plants)

Typical daily schedule

My days are also quite consistent. I've sort of setup my days around short, regularly scheduled islands of rest and reward. It's never more than an hour or two until something I'm looking forward to, like food, coffee, chatting with Rochelle, etc. Here's how a typical day looks:

• 06:30 - Wake up, throw on pjs, turn on PC, make some English Breakfast tea.
• 06:45 - Tea made. Sit at computer, and start checking mail and social media sites.
• 07:15 - See Rochelle off to school.
• 07:20 - More reading/browsing. Maybe a short game of something. Bi-weekly, this is where I'd start composing a blog post (as I'm doing today).
• 08:45ish - Somewhere around here, I usually start my morning routine (brush teeth, shower, feed the cat, etc.)
• 09:20ish - Boil some water for another cup of tea.
• 09:30ish - Launch FlashDevelop, Photoshop, and Windows Explorer. Close all other windows, including browsers. Browser use exclusively for AS3 documentation, phpMyAdmin, and other work research.
• 12:00 - Lunch time. Turn off monitor and go into kitchen for some lunch. Usually read Twitter and Gamasutra on a laptop at the kitchen table while I eat.
• 13:00 - Back to work. I may afford myself a few minutes to check email again at this time. But then browsers are off, and work is on.
• 14:00ish - Take a break and make some coffee. I often try to push this until 15:00ish instead, so it divides the afternoon better.
• 14:10ish - Coffee made, back to work.
• 16:00ish - Rochelle comes home from school between 12:00 and 17:00, depending on the day. I usually take about 10-15 minutes to chat with her before getting back to work.
• 16:15ish - Back to work.
• 18:30 - Work finished. Close FlashDevelop, Photoshop. Verify work log is up-to-date, then check-in all files to version control. Most days, check-ins are working code. Large refactors may mean skipping nightly check-ins until game is stable again. In those cases, usually no more than 2-3 days between check-ins.
• 18:45ish - Start making dinner with Rochelle, depending on required prep time.
• 19:30ish - Eating dinner.
• 20:15ish - Free time begins. Usually a mix of watching shows with Rochelle, playing games, or reading stuff on the web. Dishes usually need doing sometime before bed, so there's a bit of dish time in here somewhere too.
• 22:30ish - Start getting ready for bed. Usually asleep before 23:00.

There are a number of bathroom breaks in there too, of course (all that tea and coffee has to go somewhere!).

The view from my seat. This is a bit more like how the desk normally looks, with a few random things spread around. The digital picture frame on the left cycles through inspirational art.

Staying focused

I have to admit, my mind isn't always cooperative. My focus and effectiveness tends to drain the longer I sit at the computer. And the end of the day can sometimes be trying. However, there are a few things I do to mitigate distractions and lack of motivation.

I find that keeping regularly scheduled work and break times helps me focus and not get distracted. It's always clear whether I should be working or not. I think that without a consistent schedule, it'd be easy for me to lose track of how much work I'm doing (or not doing).

I've learned to recognize times when I've been staring at a problem, cyclically running through the same thought process, and not making any progress. When that happens, I have to force myself to get up and walk away. Simply standing up and walking around seems to clear my head. So the breaks (whether they be coffee, bathroom, or whatever) do a lot to keep me on task.

Decision fatigue can also plague me from time-to-time. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff left to do, and I can't focus on anything. This is where having a prioritized backlog can be a big help. I keep a running "to do" list in an Excel sheet, and any time something comes to mind that I won't immediately address, I add it to that sheet. And periodically, I'll go over the list, deciding on each item's value and effort.

The benefit of this exercise is that I can turn to this sheet in times of indecision or lack of direction. One quick data sort later, and I can see a list of "best bang for the buck" tasks, or "biggest risks." Then, I don't have to decide what to work on next, I just run down the list, sniping each task in turn.

When I'm having a particularly hard time focusing at the end of a day, it's usually because I've been stuck on the same problem for too long. The backlog can also help here. The previously mentioned "best bang for the buck" sorting means I can get a list of short, meaningful tasks to work on at a moment's notice. Often, these are a good break from the day-long task I've been on, and I manage to squeeze productivity out of that last hour.

Which reminds me, there are even some mornings where it can be hard to get back to work. On such days, it's usually because I'm dreading the task at hand, especially if I'm picking up from the previous day, and not sure how to continue. One trick I've used a bunch to avoid morning malaise is something Hemingway did: quit while you're ahead. (And, as it turns out, so did Roald Dahl!)

Or, when all else fails, look out the window.

So there you have it. A brief glimpse into my life as an indie, and some of the tips I use to stay on-task. If you have any tips of your own, I'd love to hear them! Or if you've seen other blog posts along this vein, those too. (Especially with workspace pictures and window views, yum.)

Oh, and immigration!

Also, as mentioned in November, I had a meeting with immigration. It's official: I'm a permanent resident! I sort of expected I'd be told to wait another 2 months for my card to arrive, but it turns out the card is just for airlines. I am a landed immigrant as of last week!

Now starts the deluge of questions about forming and running a company, on top of building a game. But hey, that's a better problem to have than waiting in the dark for an answer ;-)

Refactor Bonanza

Pride Goes Before a Fall

Those Twitter-enabled readers might remember me bragging about resisting the urge to refactor a system a while ago. Well, turns out hubris is still alive and well. Several days after my proclaimed victory, a use case failed, and four hours of tracing spaghetti code later, I was still no closer to fixing it.

That system, of course, was the inventory system. And the use case was stacking items. Several months of iterative development combined with changing requirements led to a system fraught with confusing methods. Methods with names like "TryFitItem," "CheckFitItem," and "ItemFitsInCapBox." Can you tell what each of those does differently? I can't. And I wrote them!

It turns out those functions were not only confusing to work with, but wasteful of the CPU as well. They did a lot of equipping and unequipping of items, shuffling them around in different containers, all in an effort to see where they fit best. And while all this was going on, the buffs/debuffs for the items were stacking and unstacking with each check. Then, when this rigmarole was over, all I got back was a boolean. Or in some cases, not even that explicit (e.g. a point that might be null). What does this boolean mean? Did the object fit where it was? Or did it stack? Or maybe the user wanted to swap it with the item underneath it?

I decided to refactor. It took several days (~2.5), but it's a much cleaner system now. The methods are more compartmentalized, so each has a clearer function. They do less actual moving of items, and more hypothetical testing of new positions (saving processing time). They do things in a more consistent way. And most of all, they return more contextual information in the result.

New Resolution

I also changed the game resolution from 1280x720 to 800x600. This change resulted from a performance test, but is meant to address a business issue. Originally, the game was done at 720p, with assets all scaled 2x for the retro "fat pixel" look. I figured I could get good screen coverage on a modern widescreen at 720p (even accommodate TV setups and eventual ports to HD consoles, if need be). And for portals that wouldn't allow that size, the 1x size would surely fit (640x360).

However, the 2x scaling takes its toll on some machines. And, as it turns out, nearly every Flash portal out there would need the small version, as 1280 is way too large. However, finding actual numbers for maximum resolution turned out to be difficult. In most cases, sites didn't list limits on their FAQs at all. For those interested, here are the best numbers I could find (or guess, based on existing games' widths or the site's frame size):

• Newgrounds.com - Maximum dimensions = 800x*, where * is expected to be "within reason." Maximum file size of 10MB.
• Kongregate.com - 800x*, 20MB.
• Flashportal.com - 800x700, 7MB.
• Miniclip.com - 600x540.
• Armorgames.com - 800x*.
• FlashGameLicense.com recommends no more than 800x600, no less than 400x300, with 640x480 as the size with the most acceptance across all portals.

It was pretty clear the 720p version wasn't going to fly, even retooling the art to be scaled 2x to improve performance. So I started exploring resolutions compatible with the above, and settled on 800x600. Why 800x600? Mainly because the sponsors I've heard the best things about have that as an upper limit.

There's no way I'd fit everything into this new, smaller size of 800x600 though. Not unless I ditched the 2x scaled look, anyway. So after much hemming and hawing, I decided to bite the bullet and live with 1x scaling. It actually gives me more space to work with than 720p at 2x scaling, which alleviated some GUI issues I previously had. Here's a sneak peek:

Maybe 800x600 is more retro after all.

I did keep the encounter image at 2x size, just because there was room for it, and it seemed a shame to hide a full encounter illustration up in the corner. Normally, I'd rail against inconsistent graphics standards in a game, but in this case, it's the lesser evil.

New GUI!

You might also have noticed some new GUI elements. The status bars now have some snazzy overlays to make them more attractive and "finished" looking. Similarly, the message window was expanded to the same height as the attack mode, and shares its style.

Giving those elements some polish really made a difference, and I can't wait to follow-through with the rest of the GUI. But not until the layout is more stable. Still a few more days of work to go before the resolution shake-up settles down.

Everything's smaller now. Hopefully not too small.

New Font!

I also use a new font in this version. "What's wrong with the old font," you ask? I rather liked it too, but I was unsure as to its use license. After some time looking around for free to use fonts, I stumbled across FontStruct.com. It's an online font creation utility that allows you to draw, letter-by-letter, your own fonts, and then download them as ttfs. And, as it turns out, it doesn't take that long to do. In about 30 minutes, I had a custom font hooked up to my game.

I may still tinker with it at a later date. It's legible, and looks fine, but it's not very unique. Custom fonts can often lend a memorable character to a game. But for now, at least I'm not violating any copyrights or licenses.

Roll your own fonts in 30 minutes!

Creature AI

I also put some more work into creature AI. Creatures now use the visibility methods I worked on previously. And this means they can head towards distant objects (player, enemies, loot, and tracks). I've also started working on AI for choosing the best weapon, though that still produces some inventory bugs. When I'm done, though, hopefully I should get the occasional NPC rifle shot from afar.

There Goes the Neighbor- I Mean, Neighbourhood

Permanent Residency

Good news, everyone! I received a letter from CIC, and it appears they've made a decision! The letter was worded as dodgily as possible so as not to tip me off as to what that decision was, but indications point towards acceptance. I have a 1-hour appointment in a few weeks, and I am required to bring my documents and two government-approved photos. Trying not to get my hopes up too high, but after 11 months of waiting in the dark, it's good to have forward movement!

What does this mean for NEO Scavenger? Well, the short version is that with permanent residency, I can officially earn money. In a couple months, I should be able to incorporate, and license/sell NEO Scavenger without violating my visa.

The down side? Shiz just got real. I was sort of comfortably hiding behind my visa issues as an excuse to keep noodling with the game. After all, I couldn't do anything with it even if I finished it. But now, that excuse has an expiration date, and it looks like mid-January. So time to hunker down, take stock, and get this thing ready for market.

Audio Work

Almost as if I subconsciously knew time was running out, I decided to tackle audio in NEO Scavenger two weeks ago. I figured that was an area that had been neglected for too long, and probably one of the biggest missing features in the game, so I went at it.

As expected, audio is hard work! I managed to get mp3s playing in Flash/Flixel without too much trouble, but getting them to play and sound right is where things got difficult. As it turns out, mp3s don't loop well. For reasons I won't go into here, mp3s always have a silent gap at the beginning. And no amount of my workarounds were, ahem, working. I even went so far as sampling an mp3 stream's bits in real time to artificially cue past the gap each loop. Still an audible gap on loops.

The solution? Oddly enough, use Flash's IDE. I had been building everything in FlashDevelop, so I hadn't been using the IDE. Flash CS3/4/X does this thing where it bundles exported mp3s with information on the gap length at the beginning of the file, for seamless looping. Simply include the mp3s in an swc file at compile time, and voila! Seamless looping mp3s!

However, this meant one big change in the way I was loading assets...

Runtime Content and Piracy

Almost everything in the game, apart from the engine itself, is loaded dynamically at run time. I load images, game variables, the map, item definitions...you name it. "Why on Earth would you do that," you ask? Good question.

Originally, I thought I would be clever and avoid piracy issues this way. I had read Andy Moore's accounts of piracy and blacklisting, and I wanted to avoid the piracy issues he ran into. (Note that "piracy" here isn't the player getting the game without paying, since it's free anyway, but rather professional pirates decompiling the game, rebranding it as their own, and selling it to Flash portals for profit.)

I figured I could cleverly have my game ask my website for its guts on start-up. If the game was at a legit site, the game would get its guts. If not, or if the game was at a portal that blocked outgoing links, the game would probably default to demo content. Content which would only serve to whet one's appetite for the real deal. It was meant to be a sort of remote kill-switch, which would allow me to deny access if sites abused the game somehow (e.g. rebranded it without permission, or blocked links back to my site).

It sounded clever at the time. But there are some major drawbacks:

1. Portals Like Single-File Games: Having a sprawl of files and web connections for a single game is a no-no in Flash game licensing. Particularly if the sponsor wants the game to be picked up by other portals, which multi-file games make difficult.
2. Hosting Content: Having every instance of the game in the world ask my website for guts is a huge bandwidth and uptime concern. I could find a more reliable place to host the content, but even then, no portal owner wants to rely on a game that dies if I decide to stop hosting the files.
3. Hurting Players: There's always the chance DRM hurts the player, and this would've been no exception. What if a problem causes the player's game to fail? And even working copies are going to have to rely on a centralized host to download data from, which could mean sluggish game loads for many users.
4. Hypocrisy: I even promised myself I wouldn't use DRM. "Hello, I'm Dan from April 2011, remember me?"

So it seems pretty clear, the way forward: simplify. Just go with the game setup everyone else uses, to make accessibility as high as possible. Expect piracy, and try to use it to my advantage. I don't know what that means, yet. But it sure does sound good!

Meanwhile, Back In Actual Game Development

Notice anything new?

Attack modes!

That's right, new attack mode UI! I've changed the way attacks work in NEO Scavenger. Previously, anything you had equipped in an appropriate slot granted combat bonuses. This worked well enough when the only three weapons were bare hands, meat cleavers, and wrenches. Equipping two weapons simultaneously meant double bonuses. But that was ok, because we all have fantasies of marauding bandits in the wastelands with dual-wielded meat cleavers, don't we?

The problem came when I started adding ranged weapons. Suddenly, having a ranged weapon meant your bonuses from any other equipped melee weapon came along for the ride. While dual-wielding a hunting rifle and long-range throwing-cleavers sounds cool, it's sort of not what I intended.

Hence, attack modes. Now, every equipped weapon (when in the correct slot) grants one or more attack modes. They work kinda like Fallout or Silent Storm, in that you can see and change which attack mode is active via the graphic on the bottom of the screen.

The trusty old .308.

I also changed the UI a bit to accommodate the new attack modes. The message window is now thicker. It's an improvement in that the player can now see a bit more message history than before, but the down side is that it had to be hidden in the inventory screen to avoid obscuring important elements there. The sleep button was moved to the right, as it is an action and not a UI screen like the others. And I finally added a "Wait" action, for passing a turn without moving. I'm still on the fence about whether to use Rogue-like or Civ-like movements/turn, but for a Rogue-like method, a "wait" option is a necessity.

I also rewrote the visibility code to be faster and more reliable. You can especially see it in the first image, above. The player's line of sight gets blocked by certain hex types, even when on an elevated tile like the hill. What I had before worked, but wasted a lot of CPU on redundant hex calculations, and still made a few errors.

Since I wanted creatures to use ranged weapons, I needed visibility calculations to be cheaper. Otherwise, the AI would take too much time during a turn. And without visibility checks, creatures might attack the player from unfair locations (e.g. through a hill).

And since creatures and players were now sharing so much code, I finally took the plunge and made them both derive from a common class. (Yes, I know, they should've from the start. Bad Dan!) As you can see in the above two screenshots, now everybody knows when Dogman is comfortable. (Still working on message filtering)

One-Click Inventory

One last big change is to the inventory system. (Yes, again.) Enough testers have complained about dragging items around that I finally made auto-moving the default click behavior. Anything you so much as touch with a mouse click or drag pops automatically into an appropriate slot, if possible. Ground items go to inventory. Inventory goes to ground. Available skills go to player skills, and vice versa.

Everything you see here took one mouse click to equip/pick-up.

If the player wants to be more specific about where an item goes, they now must shift+drag. This is also true if the player wants to Tetris-rotate an item to fit.

In hindsight, it makes more sense this way. 90% of the time, users are picking up items and dropping them, and this saves the user the trouble of tedious clicking or dragging.

Next up: figuring out how to handle ammo, and making encounters and skills more intuitive. I should probably do another content pass soon, too. The skeletal story encounters need some clean-up and fleshing-out to be worth their weight.

Detroit Megacity is born!

After a few days of painstaking pixel-wrangling, Detroit Megacity is finally finished. Behold!

Detroit Megacity, and the shantytown sprawl around it.

I've been struggling with the art for that tile set a while now. I even had to stop and put it aside at one point, to come back later and try again. Getting isometric wall tiles in a hex grid to line up was a bit of a pain, and the amount of detail needed to populate the city was higher than one would expect for such a small collection of tiles. But Detroit Megacity (the DMC) plays a pretty central role in NEO Scavenger, so I wanted it to be something special.

The DMC is meant to be the hub for NEO Scavenger. When not out in the wastelands scavenging for treasure, the player can trade hard-earned loot for a hot meal, safe rest, and replenished equipment for the next expedition. There may also be some clues hinting at the player's origins hidden within the city's sprawling reaches.

The DMC also fulfills a larger, peripheral role in the game. It stands as a stark counterpoint to the ruined, ravaged wastelands, and an example of what's possible. The world of NEO Scavenger includes sharply contrasted civilization and badlands, high technology and supernatural horrors, and mankind struggling to reclaim his once stable footing in a world which has spurned him.

Finally, the DMC is at least one part guilty pleasure. Having grown up with truly inspiring dystopian megacities such as Blade Runner's Los Angeles, Akira's Neo-Tokyo, Shadowrun's Seattle, and Rifts's Chi-Town, I wanted one of my very own to play with.

Usability Upgrades

Outside of having fun with art, I've also been doing my homework, so to speak. The UI still needs lots of attention to prevent new users from giving up in frustration, so I've been hard at work refining that. Having some folks test the game has revealed many shortcomings in the UI, both those that I didn't realize were there, and those I was in denial about.

Above, you can see the status bars have now further evolved to change size as well as color. Now, as they grow more menacing in color, they shrink in size, to further indicate that a stat is running low. What's more, it's now easier to tell relative values, so "how green is my thirst" is less of a question.

I also added clickable buttons for player condition and map screens. There was no excuse not to have them, I just hadn't gotten around to it until now.

Edge-scrolling the map with the mouse was a bit of a failure. Even users who asked for it quickly changed their mind. It seemed to scroll by accident a lot, and it's a lot of work to scroll when one actually wants to. Still, some sort of mouse-driven scrolling is probably a good thing. I've always liked Sim City's style of scrolling (click a spot, and drag to one side or the other to start scrolling the map, kinda like a "soft" joystick). So perhaps I'll have to try something more along those lines later.

And then, there was the big one: the inventory screen.

Inventory UI Polish

I finally did it. I combined the ground and personal inventory screens. I think just about every tester asked for it at one point or another, as dragging from one screen to another was tedious. I had some (likely poor) reasons for wanting them separate, but I finally gave in and combined them.

New combined ground and personal inventory screen.

I gave up the overzealous 8 amulet and 10 ring slots, and shifted a few things around, and now it all fits on one screen.

I also got rid of separate slots for socks, forearms, eyes, ears, and face, and merged them into feet, torso, and head slots, respectively. Originally, I wanted the player to have items for these slots (especially headgear such as sunglasses, helmets, and bandannas), but it was starting to look like that old scheme would be too tedious for the user. Also, the crafting of layered clothes was a bear for what little fun it offered.

So now, players can just drag and drop items onto the paper doll, and it'll "just work." T-shirts will drop over the hospital gown, or vice versa, and still look correct. Dropping a hoodie onto the torso covers them both. (Slots like the torso allow a finite number of items at each layer depth, and they draw-sort according to that depth.) Dropping an item onto a filled slot swaps those items. Dropping an item onto a container inside another container fills the container. Dropping onto a rollover button (right side of screen) tries to fit the item as best it can.

Also, the old shift+click behavior is now default click behavior. If you click an item, it "just goes" to the first appropriate and available slot, or else a container. If it can't fit, it starts dragging. If the user wants to fine tune where it goes, they now shift+click and drag.

Oh, and WASD and arrow keys now rotate dragged inventory items now, for better inventory Tetris.

Bandit Loot, Wounds, and Degradation

I also added a few new features. Bandits now drop loot, so that engaging them is more rewarding for the risk. Wounds are now full-on player conditions, which means they can affect player performance, and get worse over time if untreated. And items can now degrade.

Item degradation was something I had planned from the start, but felt was optional until recently. It didn't seem right in a post apocalyptic setting to find a pair of bluejeans in the trash, and never have to worry about pants again. They'd surely go threadbare over time. New shoes and fresh socks too should be treasures. Lighters should go empty after enough usage, and campfires should go out over time.

Eventually, the reasons to add item degradation piled up, and I got it over with. Items can now degrade based on usage, time, or equipped time, as well as lose charges per use. A lighter is an example of an item that loses charges when used, but can also degrade until it breaks. It might discharge and recharge many times before it degrades, but it has a limited lifespan based on number of times it's used.

Shoes are an example of an item that degrades per unit time while equipped. Meat cleavers are an example of an item that degrades per use. And campfires are an example of an item that degrades over time. When items break, some will turn into new items (t-shirt becomes rags, campfire becomes ashes). Others simply disappear (e.g. plastic bags).

If I do end up adding item repairing in this iteration, it will likely be via combining skills and items in the crafting window (e.g. sewing plus dental floss plus one or more pairs of pants to repair).

Encounter Responses

There's still one more change in the works, and that's how encounter responses are dealt with. I don't think many testers realized they could use skills and inventory items to respond to encounters, since they're on other screens. I had intended for the player to be able to use anything at his disposal to solve an encounter. I thought it'd be fun if the player could think outside the box, and try something that wasn't presented as an obvious option.

However, I think that's going to be hard to teach new players. It also means I need to create many, many permutations of responses, and players have to trial and error to get the response they want.

As an alternative, I'm going to try and pre-fill the response area with items the player could potentially use. If they have the right items or skills for an optional response, it'll be right there for them to use. It means there are less surprises, unfortunately, but also less work for the player. Also, if there are fewer possible responses to each encounter, I can probably make them more meaningful. There should still be some replayability if the player chooses a character with different skills and items the next playthrough.

Roguelike vs. Civ-like

I had the opportunity to playtest the game on some new folks this past weekend, and it revealed some very useful info on the design.

Overall, I'd say the test went pretty well. The players' feedback suggested there's a decent gameplay loop in there. It's gonna need some polish (a lot, actually), but I'd rather have that problem than the other way around.

Moves Per Turn
One of the bigger points of confusion involved the "movements per turn" and "end turn" mechanics. I think most everyone figured out that they have a limited number of moves per turn. But where things fell apart was how to replenish those movement points. It appears nearly everyone assumed the "Sleep" button was meant to rest and restore those points, rather than the "End Turn" button further down. And as a result, people were dying left and right in their sleep from dogmen and bandit attacks.

The few that did use the "End Turn" button mentioned that it could get tedious pressing it all the time. Fortunately, they had a suggestion: what if the game automatically ended the turn for you? Or better yet, what if each move was a turn?

That sounded familiar. Practically every roguelike out there operates on the same principle, not to mention many of the familiar board games. It meant deviating somewhat from other staples in the strategy and rpg genres, though. Namely, I was trying to emulate the early exploration mechanics in Civilization. Fallout and Silent Storm are both sources of inspiration too. And all of those games utilize "moves per turn" or some similar mechanic.

What should I do? I haven't decided yet, but I have mocked up the roguelike movement for the time-being. I've had a lot of time to test the Civ-like schema. Now it is time to give roguelike a fair shake.

Post Apocalyptic Monsters, Tracking, and Weapons
One of the other major changes I've made is to the wandering monsters. The game now has a raft of wandering creatures added randomly to the map at game start. All creatures, including the player, leave behind tracks where they walk. These tracks are "hot" where the creature stands, and gradually cool after the creature has left. Creatures will follow tracks when they can, and otherwise seek out loot.

Tracking a creature.

When a creature is adjacent to another creature, they take turns attacking until one wins. This includes the player, who can now attack an adjoining creature by clicking on him. Once that was in place, it wasn't long before the first in-game weapons followed.

Currently, the most powerful loadout in NEO Scavenger: dual-wielding the rusty meat cleaver and the monkey wrench.

UI Work-Over
The game UI has undergone some refinement again. Both in preparation for playtesting, and as a result of it. You may have noticed that new status bars no longer have banded colors and needles representing state. Henry pointed out that it was tedious to keep looking over there for changes, and that it could just show a solid color to get the same point across. It was a great suggestion, and simplified the UI considerably.

New loot icons, and player sprite!

The map screen also has some changes. Now, only certain hexes have loot, and that is indicated by a loot icon. The icon is gold when it is "new" loot, and gray when the player has visited that loot before. I've also finally added an appropriate player icon! He's the dude with the green outline, coincidentally dressed the same as the previous inventory picture. I don't think I'm going to make the player sprite change with equipment, due to time constraints. But the iso player sprite was long overdue, and it even makes the player easier to find!

Playtesting also indicated that I needed more obvious controls. Buttons for inventory, clicking current hex to open loot screen, arrow-key and mouse-based map scrolling, even some conflicts with accelerator keys on Macs. It's all extremely useful feedback, and I'm glad for it.

The List Goes On
And there's more. Too much to list here without getting exhaustively dry. The summary is that the game still needs some work, but is starting to show its colors. Playtesting, even with a small number of people, has been a tremendous help. And I think I can make this into a complete game soon. Maybe within the next month.

Though, I'm starting to wonder if I've made something heavier than a Flash portal game. I feel like I'm in a weird territory between a heavy Flash portal game and a light premium/downloadable game. I still think a free option is necessary for increasing awareness, but now I'm starting to wonder if I've created a demo for a premium game (a la Armageddon Empires, or Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space). That'd be fine, except the premium version is unfinished.

I guess it's good that my business model can adapt even this late, but the uncertainty is a little unsettling.