The game screen size really matters – in any way – especially when it comes to cross platform or cross device development…
My winter break is over, I am already at the end of autumn in my 3rd year in Stardew Valley – what a wonderful work of art! – and I guess this small 1,5 month break was good for my creative work on The Blacksmith. Continue reading The Blacksmith – Dev Blog #7→
My Final JS Prototype is online and you can play it. I tested everything I wanted for this prototype and I am quite satisfied. Although I lost much time playing Stardew Valley (god, I love this game and just bought it in end of december!), I am still in time thought. But sometimes you have to play good games to make better games!
So, what’s new in version 0.3 aka JS prototype 1?
We got a bunch of new stuff here! First of all, my good friend SSA told me to rearrange the whole interface – done – here is a screenshot of it:
Yeah, it is a REAL screenshot, because I send it to a friend while messaging via iMessage. And yeah, you are actually yaw dropping, right? Huh? 😉
It looks fantastic! And WTF are this – so many progress bars? YES
You can hire assistents in your blacksmith’s shop!
When your fame growths customers all over the kingdom will come to you and buy your crafted items. So how could you ever handle this large demand? Of course – your own little minions! Well – we call ’em assistents – but in real they are your slaves, they work hard their *** off to make you rich and more famous! Like in real life – wohooo! 😀
Somewhere I wrote a list about what’s new in this version as well – but somehow … I guess my young son ate this list … or at least destroyed it … ha! We got …
New quests and a final goal to win this game!
Well, I am a little bit lazy and did not add hundreds of quests … well, even not ten – but hey – this is my final js prototype and you should play thru it in less than … 20 minutes, I guess. Well – actually you should do it somewhere between week 20 and 40, thought.
But yeah – you will have to fulfill my great quests to succeed this game! And I will know it, because of …
Full Google Analytics Event Tracking!
Yeah, big Jurik is watching you! Play hard, play good and I’ll keep doing this stuff!
Well, actually I just try to track what you do in this game. How many times you fire your poor assistant. How much money you spent at the marketplace or how many items you craft. Just this stuff to see if it works or if your just load this page and close it immediately.
Everybody loves …
Upgrades! Upgrade your workshop and your resource storage!
That are cool news, aren’t they? And best of all – these upgrades are instant – so you click and you get it from one millisecond to next one – awesome! In all these other games you will have to wait hours over hours to get your buildings upgraded – not here – here you get ’em instantly! Awesome!
Disclaimer: yeah, I know, both, workshop and resource storage, was unlimited before this version … haha gotcha!
So, but one thing …
I did not implement save games :/
I really tried but since it is just my final js prototype with a not so long playtime … I gave it a shot after a teammate asked me to implement such nice feature. But the whole structure of this prototype is kinda … messy … well, I know how to program good code, but not in this prototype where my thoughts of creativity are responsible for this Italy style code 😉
And …
I did not implemented Dwarf Mine upgrades!
Everyone would love this feature so hard that this prototype would skyrock already. So to prevent me from become famous with the best prototype of all time I decided not to work more on this feature. I know, I know – all in one you get thrown into a mid game of this game and it is kinda hard to figure out what to do first and second – but heeeey *pointing to prototype sign* ya know 🙂
Become the most famous blacksmith of your kingdom and fulfill your destiny! Well, at least the first step, but hey … final js prototype (keyword, keyword, keyword in the name of SEO) and so on, yeah? 😉
New features are awesome! Man, this were some days full of creativity and coding and I think we got a good step into the right direction.
I made a list so that I do not forget something. So we got:
auto sale – when customer leaves your shop, he/she will automatically buy the item if it is available
week count – so you know how many weeks did you spend in this game
improved storage display
added week days to event messages, so you know when what happend
Ho ho! Every Friday you can buy all your desired resources from a flying vendor at your shops door
It’s dark, it’s deep – dwarf mine! Let them dig for you!
You want to become famous? So you have to increase your fame – let your customers spread the word about your crafting talent!
Quests – finally you can do quests!
background picture – atmosphere is everything!
As you see – this update has a bunch of cool and awesome and – you name it – new features!
Try ’em now! And do not forget to tell me your thoughts about it!
New features and what they are good for
I will tell you more about this update’s features. Because I think every indie game dev should tell about his progress – just to document it for later usage 😉
Auto sale
Since it was a mess to click every ‘sale’ I thought something like an auto sale would be cool. Less click and still money in my pocket. Maybe you will have to hire someone at your shop for selling your stuff in the future – we will see!
Flying Vendor
The flying vendor is someone that brings your needed resources directly to your door – that’s awesome! Because now you can buy them every Friday in the week. So you do not have to waste time visiting the market.
Maybe he will charge a bit more in the future or just appears randomly – I do not know yet. But for now you can expect him every Friday at your shop!
Fame
Fame is such a wonderful thing! As higher it is as more you get! As soon as you have a lot of satisfied customers, they will spread the word about your talent in smithing.
So you will get more customers and maybe in the future richer customers with very special needs as well! For now – try to reach a fame level of 500 – that is a good goal for this prototype.
There are also quests to raise your fame – try am now!
Quests
Quests are awesome and essential for a fantasy world. So we put some cool quests into this prototype – just for testing if and how it works.
In the future we have a ton of cool quests to do. I am really excited to see how it will work!
Dwarf Mine
Hey – that’s a fantasy game – so we really need a mine and who could own it better than dwarfs? Nobody! Correct!
So there is this dwarf mine and in the beginning there is a dwarf. This guy is kinda bored and want something to do. So you flip him a gold coin and he will start digging for you. Maybe he finds something, maybe not – we will see!
I guess in the future you can hire more than one dwarf and they will dig deeper and deeper and you never know what horrors are waiting there for you and your strong little dwarfs!
What’s next?
Well – actually I’m working on v0.3 and it will become a big update as well.
You can play the first prototype of “The Blacksmith”!
Play first prototype! Of course – it is in version v0.1 v0.11 and it is a pure functional prototype where I test the foundation of this game: smithing, selling goods and buying resources. But yeah, while developing this prototype, I’ve developed a few new concepts for this game in my mind 😉
Javascript prototype of “The Blacksmith” ready at end of next week!
Well, that is actually my primary goal and I think this will work. Because I have already a blueprint – my last posting was about a pen & paper prototype that I’ve played with my wife. So it should not be a big deal to get a javascript prototype.
I’ve learned today that prototype on paper is really fun!
While my son was sleeping, my wife and I took a prototype session with some drawings on paper:
While she was playing the smith, I had the game engine part in my hands. It was quite fun to see what she is doing and how I created new challenges on the fly. Continue reading The Blacksmith – Dev Blog #2→
Welcome at my dev blog #1 to the indie game “The Blacksmith“!
Everything starts on paper – that is at least something I’ve read a lot in the past. That’s why I started on paper. Well, actually I started to write down my thoughts about this game, some mechanics it should have, the overall setting and a plot.
As soon as I started writing my mind explodes and many ideas come up. So writing is a good thing, I guess. Sleep a night over it and return to your table. Actually this one night were many nights and now I am here where I am. Continue reading The Blacksmith – Dev Blog #1→