Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Category: production line

Production Line blog video#7: BIGGER factories, sounds, and some gui stuff.

Trying to get Production Line close to an alpha release for people means doing a lot of relatively tedious stuff like resolution pickers on options screens, proper save game support, and so on. I still need some vague tutorialish stuff in there, and a host of minor bug  fixes before I even consider letting real early-adopter hardcore types try the game, but I am definitely making real progress in that direction.

Here is the latest video:

There is always something dodgy that has just gone in when you release a video, and this time its a mish-mash of factory sounds that er a bit ‘overpowering’ and not right. Still…better to have something rather than just a weird silence, or all those 1900s hammering noises I had in beforehand :D I’m also slowly working towards a better video presentation. I keep getting a glitch on my webcam which is I think because I was setting it to record at 1920 res, when I only use it for that bit in the corner, so hopefully shrinking that means I will have less demand on the video card and a smoother image next time. I am still really new to youtube, but at least I have a regular schedule I can tempt people to subscribe to now.

BTW Democracy 3 and Big Pharma are currently in the Humble Tycoon simulator bundle, which you may wish to check out:

66a4d2a484e775d3c344d6d258a8b5f2f3920c48

https://www.humblebundle.com/tycoon-simulator-bundle

 

Production line devlog #6: sparks and supply cache GUIs

A few random things went into the latest build of production line this week. I was working away on the GUI for the supply cache wossnames when I got the first sparks animations so I put a test one in (others coming soon), which swallowed up a lot of time. I also fixed some proper zoom-out colors, fixed a disappearing pallets bug, did a fair bit of optimising and also fixed the game so I can quit to the main menu and launch/load a new game without any crashes, which makes things feel slightly more usable. There is also a bunch of new visual assets in there, but I don’t show them off in this video, namely some new pieces of machinery for making stuff, a coffee machine & water cooler for the admin guys, a sofa for the marketing team, and so on.

I’ll be polishing, bug fixing and tweaking in the next week.

Oh BTW, Political Animals is in the Humble Store sale right now at 25% off, so worth picking up. Plus all the steam revenue from Democracy 3 is STILL going to War Child. Help us hit $10,000.

Production line video blog & political Animals update

logo550Committing yourself to weekly blog update videos on the status of the game sure does make you feel bad if you don’t get much stuff done! So in that spirit here is a short video with me trying to spin a new GUI screen and a line of text on another screen into a weeks work:

I’m getting even more efficient at making those, almost like its own production line…

animal_group1

On other topic, Political Animals is getting updated today and tomorrow (depending if you are holding a steam or GoG/Humble copy), and the official list of changes from the bunch of cute animals in charge of the game are as follows:

Bug fixes
– Fixed crash on finish of North Island
– Fixed localization related bugs
– Pause after election such that players can take screenshots
– Settings are now saved (your language and sound/volume setting will be saved until you change them)

If you aren’t familiar with political animals, and like the idea of re-running a recent election campaign to get a result you prefer, you can grab political animals from here, and its worth noting there have been quite a lot of youtube lets play videos.

Production Line blog#3: Upgrades, Layouts & Visual Style

Here is my latest fun-packed laugh-a-minute ‘you won’t believe what cliffski did next‘ videos with me showing off Production Line and talking about what is new:

I’m going to try to keep to weekly videos (at least) as I think its popular, and also I’m finding doing them really easy now I have a set workflow for it, and know all the productivity tips :D. I decided to do this one without wearing glasses, or shaving, just to give it an air of ‘danger’ and maybe even some ‘rugged masculinity’.

It amazes me what this ‘handbrake’ software does. it seems to leave the quality of an mp4 unchanged but shrinks it by 60%, just awesome. Of course, uploading even a 400MB file is still like Chinese water torture when you live where I do, but thats life. In fact, in exciting news I have been invited to a specials secret meeting of the village cabal to discuss broadband upgrade options. I wonder how my ‘for fucks sake lets just bite the bullet and dig up the whole fucking road and pay for it ourselves’ suggestion will go down? Probably badly, but OMG, a maximum upload speed of 80k is NOT fun when you are trying to carve out a reputation as a sexy young youtube personality.

Anyway…enough waffle. Unless you have been trying hard to ignore me, you will already know that we released Political Animals this week. Its a fun election strategy game featuring incredibly cute animals, who are far more corrupt, cunning and tricky than they at first appear. It was developed by Squeaky Wheel in the Phillipines, which is a studio I really cope can go on to do other games. It’s 10% off in launch week, so grab a copy now if you like that sort of thing. Here is the trailer: