Day Fourteen: More Alien Monsters

Marketing:
I read quite a few marketing articles today and the last few days actually. I learned something very interesting. Everyone says that you need to start building e-mail lists... That surprised me. What's even more surprising though is that e-mail lists, from a non viral perspective, actually work better than social media! Crazy! Yeah social media does better if you get hundreds of people to share or retweet your post, but in regards to just getting people to look, e-mail lists are better. I guess it's because most people get less emails every day than they do tweets or Facebook posts on their feed.

Design:
I sprited some new little bad aliens. They are adorable. Here they are for your enjoyment:

Coding:
I started making the website for Shader world. It's going to be simple but should be good. So, basic HTML is all the coding I did today. I still need to get more sprite work done before I can code to much in the game. I usually use the sprites to decided how I will code things.

Day Thirteen: First Boss and a Great Musician!

Marketing:
Today was a normal marketing day. Not really anything special here. I did push to get more likes on Facebook and I got quite a few.

Design:
So much happened in this area that it's not even funny. A few days ago I hired a musician and he has been writing some song for the game. He's really good and has pumped out like 4 songs in the last 2 days. I'm excited to have him on the team. Here is his soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dalinanderson

I got a boss sprite started today. I'm excited for the project but it isn't not done yet. Here's the start:

Coding:
No coding for me today. Not really anyways. I'm almost always making tweaks to the code but I didn't make any major milestones.

Day Twelve: First Bad Alien

Marketing:
I started working on the Kickstarter page. I've got quite a few prizes set in and I started writing the introduction to the game. I also uploaded a video to YouTube of some early walking. If you want to watch the video check it out on my twitter profile.

Design:
Got the first bad guy in. I think he looks pretty sweet. I drew him and animated him for all four directions. I actually got quite a bit done today. Here is the sprite:

Coding:
Finally I did a decent amount of coding. I programmed the idle even for the enemies and made sure to do it in a parent mode. It was a little tricky but I got it working practically flawlessly. Now I just need to add attacking.

Day Eleven: Learning How To Use Shaders

Marketing:
Yay! I hit 1000 followers. Not much else to say in this regard.

Design:
I worked some on the player running animation and the trees. The more I work on this game the more I realize that I need to do. I love this project. I'm so excited for it and I wish I had more time to work on it. I guess I'll just have to do my best. Maybe I'll have more time one day... like when I finish school.


Coding:
I tried implementing shaders but I couldn't get it to work. I guess I need to actually read the documentation on them and find a tutorial. I'm excited to use them and learn about them because they can make a game look so good. They just add that little bit of awesome. If you already have good sprites then it is awesome.

Day Ten: The Sprite Gods Are With Me

Marketing:
I can't seem to hit 1000 followers on twitter... It's really lame. I've been over 900 for the last 2 days. Hopefully I'll reach the 1k mark tonight while I sleep. I've gotten a few more likes on facebook and that is cool. The best part is that they are people that I don't know.

I started working on the Kickstarter layout. I'm not sure how I'm going to do everything yet but I figured that if I worked on it a little at a time that it would start to evolve into something beautiful.

Design:
Well, well, well. The art for my game seemed to go really well today. It's not perfect yet but I feel like it is a step in the right direction. I have so much to do still that it feels overwhelming sometimes but I know that I can pull this off. I've gotten quite a bit of feedback from my amazing followers on twitter and I'm going to make this game the best it can be! Here is a screenshot for you of what I did today. Nice huh!



Coding:
I did some coding but not much. I need to work out how I'm going to do the artwork and how the objects are going to interact before I do much coding. I'm excited to get a battle system in soon but I need more art before I take that step. Don't worry though. The coding usually takes me less time than the artwork.

Day Nine: The Style Shift

Anyone play Starcraft 2? I just thought my title was funny. (Day[9])... Anyway...

Marketing:
I had a really good idea today for marketing. I searched for anyone on twitter who shared the Hyper Light Drifter link and then followed them. I figure I will be creating a community of people who already like indie games, who already have accounts on kick-starter, and who like the type of game that I am working to build. I also got with my hot secretary (my wife Charly) and wrote down the different ideas that we have to make the kick-starter successful. I'm not going to post those here unless they work but you can bet your buttons I will create an entire post about that if they do work.

Design:
So there was a style shift today. I drew a tree sprite that I really liked and I realized that I was going to have to change the style of the other sprites in my game to match this style. I really like the shift and I'm going to trust my instincts on it. I did post the changes on twitter and got some amazing feedback from the community there. Man I'm excited for this game!

The left side is the old style with the tree and the right side is the new style.

Coding:
I worked out some miner coding glitches but I primarily worked on the sprites for the game today. I got quite a bit done in that area.

Day Eight: The Investing Marketing Strategy

Marketing:
So much marketing. My brain hurts. I've been looking into so many different Game Development communities and trying to find the main ones that I like. I posted a question on twitter today asking other tweeters what their favorite game development community was and I got quite a few responses. I looked into every single one. I figure that if I get a following on each of them my marketing networks will be more stable. Kind of like how it's easy to break one string but if you get enough of them it gets really hard.

Design:
I made some cool little signature buttons for the different forums that I joined today. I'll post one so you can see.

Coding:
Honestly I didn't get any coding done today. I coded for 10 hours straight at work so I didn't feel like coding anymore. I'm sure I'll do quite a bit tomorrow though because I don't have work.