Dev Update - Dec. 2015

It’s been a while - it’s time for an update of progress, failures, but also potential.

Earlier this year at BABSCon, our boss-rush style demo was playable for the 3-days there only (although you can watch it). Chrysalis was the highlight of the demo, as she was really polished into an enjoyable, challenging fight. The rest of the bosses weren’t nearly as finished, but now we have 4 more bosses that are halfway there and are just waiting to take the spotlight. And what are those bosses without weapons to go with them? There happens to be 3 already in, with another just about ready.

So Lyra’s got some pew-pew and some meanies to fight - but, (oh, we know) those still don’t make a game. Behind the mechanical fun is the story tying it together. MegaMare X has a whole a light-hearted jaunt written-up that’s just missing one thing: actually being in the game.

The alpha mentioned in the previous Oct update has goals to achieve all the above. But also ensures that we have everything in place to glue it all together.

Looking back, we had a series of small failures in our earlier parts of development. Problems we didn’t even realize we had. There would be so much writing, conceptualizing, and not actually working in-game with things that they’d get lost in the shuffle or even just some of the simple things wouldn’t be done. We just now have the capability to properly place items, and fully scriptable cutscenes are soon to come.

It’s nice to say that we’ve finally turned that around and that we feel that we’re on the right track. Unfortunately, our past failures have meant backtracking that has taken time and effort away from the artistic pipeline we once had. But that’s a challenge for another day soon. And that’s a day when this alpha is ready to drive us the rest of the way through into shaping the game we’ve always envisioned.

Spooky Month Development Update

As per providing more regular updates, here’s one for the end-state of September into the first part of October. This really goes hand-in-hand with progress since early August, but we’ll get to that shortly.

The team is working towards an internal alpha with specific goals. This alpha covers the major game features through its core mechanics and progression parts of the gameplay. Lately, we’ve gotten the initial stages for the intro and what we call the ‘primary’ stages (the ones you choose which in order to play).

These stages done are only in the initial phase of development, and the work to be done afterwards is nothing to laugh at. Iteration on the stages is needed to find ways to really make them fun, to flow well, and make art assets. There are also a few more pieces of the game already done, but not yet a part of the stages. Some examples are: integrating the bosses into the stages, placing upgrades, unlocking the weapons rather than just having them, and implementing a proper save/load mechanism to continue play.

Unfortunately the team has shrunk and we’re only slowly pushing forward on this front of game design and development. These stages have been in progress since early August and working towards similar goals set, but with multiple major personal events arising, it’s been tough to keep working to a regular cadence. But despite these factors, we’re still going to make the best game we can and are more on track than ever.

State of the Game – a.k.a. “When can I play it?!”

Starting more regular updates, it seems fitting to first begin with where we are towards the game being done. It’s easiest to say that simply, MegaMare X is in Alpha phase development. It has a lot more work ahead, and we will still need more folks to help.

Our panel this year at BABSCon showed off a few cool boss fights and a basic stage select. And while there’s certainly more content in various stages of development, much of the overall experience was incomplete.

So, ever since that panel, we’ve finished the game’s core features and filled in the remaining details so that we can build the content (stages, story scenes, etc) overtop of it. Now we are making good progress, although it has admittedly been a long road to get here.

Our development has had its stalls and some misdirection, but that seems part of the learning process. Our team, Starlight Studios, aren’t game industry professionals (yet!), and we surely have more than a few struggles left before MegaMare X sees completion.

So, when can you play it?

We’ll let you know as soon as we know!

In the meantime, we’ll show off more stuff over the coming weeks, and answer your questions as they come. Hit up the ask box!