Developer Diary 78 - Working

I'm working day and night on a presentation of the game in late January. For this purpose I'm preparing a special gameplay demo, that contains a full level and 5 different types of enemies including a maze, a village, a cathedral, a large forest area and the entrance to a dharmapala fortress.

Dreams

Last night I was walking through a desert during daytime. A warm breeze carried a whispering voice towards my ears. It surrounded me and guided me towards a city beyond the horizon.

People in this world
Can't see what they see,
Can't hear what they hear.
So keep your eyes open and your ears alert,
And you will see things no man has ever seen,
and hear things no man has ever heard.

Developer Diary 77 - InteractFX Testing & Transition Gates

These last couple of days I have been working like crazy on the game world and I have never been happier. When too much time goes by and I can't work on the project for various reasons, I grow more and more miserable.

I incorporated transition gates. These gates change the light level from outdoor landscape segment values to indoor segment values. This basically means that, when you enter a dark location you need the overall lighting level to be adapted to the new environment. But once this happens, the sudden change in lighting smashes game immersion. So I built gate structures, that change the lighting levels while the player explores them. This way there is no break in immersion and the change in lighting levels happens smoothly.

I'm also working on particles and elemental effects in relation to the dharmapala chants. I improved the overall look of all dharmapala chants and their effect on buildings, structures, items, enemies and the environment in general.

My goal is to create three different demos:

1.) A very small one, with basic functionality
2.) A second larger one, including enemies and death volumes
3.) An even larger, final, complex, releasable and pitchable demo, consisting of the very first game level and Mahakala's palace.

I want to use the final demo to recruit more crew members and pitch the project to various sources that can ensure financing. Higher quality means a larger chance for success. Needless to say, that I'm trying to make this thing shine.

Developer Diary 76 - Amen

I'm going through my diaries and early notes tonight and just found something interesting from long ago. While studying for the conservatory entrance exam, I had written down a prayer one night. I must have been around 20 years old, and during that time, I was living for the first time on my own. I don't remember why I did that, or where it came from. The last couple of lines said:  


Dear God, ... 
Let me find strength, when all I feel is weakness,
Let me be brave, when all I feel is fear.
Let me be compassionate, when all I feel is rage,
Let me feel freedom, when all I feel is confinement.

Please let me be who I truly am and fight for what I truly believe in, 
And in return I promise to be myself forever....
Amen. 

And suddenly a thought hit me: At what point, does this stop being true? If this is truly a bargain, what if one of these two parties, doesn't keep their promise? It's funny because I suppose everybody secretly makes this promise .... I think it can easily be mistaken with: "Hey, as long as things are looking up, I don't need to start any crazy stuff."

But I do believe that all consciousness carries a responsibility to cure itself and to return to what it truly is. I believe that this is the true meaning of the Bardo Thodol: Consciousness won't automatically turn darkness into light. It is a long process of soul searching and self reflection. But consciousness has a responsibility to do so, and to take up the long journey towards light. Or it will lose it's own identity and purpose. It will remain in darkness and change into a different form. This duality is a defining feature of all sentient beings. And it doesn't matter what, who, or where your conscious center is. You either move away from the darkness and towards the light or change form and move even deeper into the opposite direction. But the potential for change and the constant ever changing current of thoughts and feelings remains present all over the spectrum. The final goal is neither light nor dark, but a satisfaction of the underlying curiosity that consciousness carries inside. And since (at least to my own understanding) this curiosity is insatiable, eternal and endless there is no goal, just experience and a (more or less limited) free will.

I choose light. I always will.

Developer Diary 75 - Moon

No, I'm not dead. But I'm doing a lot of things at the same time right now .... some of it is job related, some of it is money related. The more budget I can gather, the better the chances will be for this project to come to fruition in the future ...

That being said, I still keep working on the soundtrack. During the last couple of days I have been working on a piece called Moon, which is meant to be used as a peaceful underscore inside the game world. Yesterday night I finished the first part:

Developer Diary 74 - Gamedesign is Done!

I finished a 20 page game design document, including screenshots, music links, videos and SFX examples. The game is theoretically pitchable to a publisher now. I also have a demo level ready, but the FPS are not consistent across all parts of the level yet and I'd also like to add an area depicting the transition to another landscape chunk. But so far things are coming along nicely.

Developer Diary 73

Right now I'm preparing a Game Design document and a demo for future pitches. This is a Dharmapala palace appearing in the woods. I thought this might be the most impressive object to experience in a demo. After this is done I'll take screenshots of AI, Items and objects to incorporate them into the gamedesign document. As unbelievable as it sounds: This works at 90 FPS in VR.