Is it that time again? It’s the last day of the month, that means I have been summoned to my little corner of the internet for my (slightly) regular monthly dev log. As always, I’ll discuss what I’ve been up to, what’s new & what’s next. Let’s begin…
Introduction
Hello, world! I almost missed this devlog, the end of the month crept up quickly without me realising. Luckily, my lovely girlfriend reminded me last night and after a moment of panic I got to writing. We’re not missing a devlog this year! Let’s talk about the progress this month.
Button Pusher Release
As you already know I finished the update for this at the end of March but I was still to post it. I waited until I had conformed to the latest store rules and uploaded it as soon as I could. Sadly this didn’t come until the end of the first week of April:
A little later than I would have liked, but I’m happy it’s out and hopefully if you’ve played it you enjoyed the collection of new content! If you haven’t played it yet then you have been pushing the wrong buttons this month…
PC Broke (again)
I know what you’re thinking from the headline, again! yep, somehow my pc decided to give up on life again, it’s almost a yearly tradition now. What was wrong? It wouldn’t boot properly. My guess is somehow some windows files ended up getting corrupted.
I tried booting in safe mode and was met with various system errors:
I tried fixing it by restoring and removing updates, using safe mode, command prompt and nothing worked. In the end I managed to reset windows and keep my files but it’s a pain. The worst part? When the PC finally booted normally I noticed it had removed half of my applications, don’t worry it was just the important ones:
So I then had to spend a full day reinstalling all my applications. Next time I level up I need to invest some skill points into luck.
The game formally known as Monster Hunt…
One of the tasks I set myself last month was to finish the Monster Hunt update. Sadly with everything else I’ve had on both personal and the events mentioned in this post I haven’t managed to finish it. I am on with it though!
As of now the game is undergoing a small rebrand, I’m changing the name from Monster Hunt FFS to Halloween Hunt FFS. It fits the theme and time of release more and it’s a little more unique, there’s many games with similar names to Monster Hunt and I want to try make the game stand out a little more (hopefully):
I’ve also added some new hunters (skins). I haven’t yet shared this on my socials so this will be a blog post exclusive. There’s 10 new costumes, I won’t show them all but here’s a preview of a few:
Each costume comes with a new challenge to unlock it, further extending the gameplay and giving players something to work towards.
Finally I’ve done some balancing, one of the top complaints I’ve heard is the game was hard and near impossible to reach the second weapon. I don’t want the game to be too easy but I also want players to experience everything the game has to offer. I’ve messed around with the spawn times, the damage and the rewards for killing. It may still need some altering but it should suffice for now.
It sounds like I’ve done a lot and I could probably release this now but before I do I want to add another weapon. I’d planned to add more from the start and soon I want to be working on a new game, so it may be a while before this sees another update. This is the next job on my to-do list and when I wrap this up I’ll release the update straight away.
The plan now?
I always have great intentions when I write this part of the post, but usually I only get so far with my goals. I can’t decide if the best approach is to be loose with my goals or be strict and set deadlines. I’ve tried being loose the past few months and it hasn’t gone well. That’s not to say I haven’t been productive, I’ve still achieved a decent amount of work but I definitely feel like I could do more.
So, as an experiment I’m going to try being a little stricter with the goals I set, I’ll keep this up for a few months and see if things improve or decline. So here’s some goals:
- May week 1 – Finish the update and release it (on or before the 8th May)
- May week 2 – Complete and upload the video (I’ll give myself until the 17th – that should end the week nicely)
- May week 3/4 – Use this time to plan my next game, I WILL be starting this project from the 1st of June. Make sure you know what you’re making by then Alex!)
Honestly, this might not work but hell making the dates public should help and if it goes wrong at least I know that’s not the way to go moving forward. Let’s get to work.
Until next time…
AlextheDev 