NeverYear Games, Semester 2, Week 6

This week we came to the realization that there were far too many levels for single player. While the galaxy map may have looked really nice, we would not be able to make over 50 missions to the quality standard we would like to have. Also, getting all 50+ missions playtested would have been a nightmare, so we're not going to. Instead, there are 4 missions per faction, an introductory mission, 2 upgrade-unlocking missions, and the home planet. This will allow us to make levels at a much higher level of quality, and have them all be unique.

Updated galaxy map

We also had a long discussion about what to do with our UI, and came up with a solution. We took a few of our ideas and picked and chose the best parts from each to make up our newest idea. 

Keeping in mind how people hold tablets, we decided that the most of the non-interactable UI elements should be at the top of the screen so they're not blocked by hands, and that the buttons that players would press often would be on the planets. This marriage of multiple UI concepts produced something that we're all fond of, and should meet the expectations of our testers according to the feedback we've received.

Thank you and goodbye,
-John Cotto

NeverYear Games, Semester 2, Week 5

After last week's designer meeting (with Alex Beauchesne), work output has definitely picked up. We ended up deciding that we would include the Grays as a faction for this semester after all. Thanks to this decision, I had to re-make the galaxy map with the Grays included, and it added some nice dynamics with the way the factions are intertwined. Also, I worked with Mancino to come up with difficulties for each planet on the galaxy map, so there's now a solid sense of progression. We also had a lot of discussion about how to make the shields less cumbersome, and may have come up with a solution. Instead of having a single massive bubble, we're thinking about something more like personal shields for each building that are linked together, so if one shield goes down they all will. This essentially has no effect on the game other than to make it look better and make the shields make more sense.

Galaxy Map with Difficulties

Thank you and goodbye,
-John Cotto

NeverYear Games, Semester 2, Week 4

This has been a good week for NeverYear Games. At a designer meeting, we figured out a lot of the issues we had. Certain things like resource costs, game progression, and over-complication were all discussed, and we made a lot of headway. I also continued working with the level editor, getting more comfortable with how it works so I can pump out missions quickly. Another achievement for this week was creating the galaxy map. Collaborating with Alex Beauchesne and Charles, we were able to come up with how the single-player progression should work. I put our discussions into practice, and voila, the galaxy map was made. It still needs to be made to look good, but the layout is complete. That's all to report for this week.

Thank you and goodbye,
-John Cotto

NeverYear Games, Semester 2, Week 3

This week, I finally started messing around with our level editor, and with good results! I discovered an issue that was rapidly fixed, got to know exactly how the editor worked, and made a series of three levels with some minor progression. I also spent more time working on the timeline, hashing out more key events such as the Russkies reverse engineering technology and first contact with the Greys. Tomorrow is a big day for us, as we will be giving our greenlight presentation. If all goes well, we shall pass and initiate the next phase in developing We Love Nuclear Armageddon.

Thank you and goodbye,
-John Cotto