Log: The E.A.R.T.H.W.O.R.M.'S Progress

June 10th 2008: Got some interesting (and unexpected) feedback from the latest batch of public testing. I am being water as far as this matter goes, and armed with my new list of stuff-to-do I'm making some alterations that should hopefully smooth over some of the cracks.

May 19th 2008: Why testers are important. For all bedroom games designers out there - you must get other people to test your games, as often as you can, especially before you're about to close an important build. Don't be embarrassed about it - most people enjoy playing games after all. Now, the chances are that you've been staring at your game for too long and you can't see the wood for the trees, and sometimes very surprising comments can come out of inviting your mate Iñaki, for example, round to your house for a beer or two and saying, "have a look at this."

You can expect the usual selection of comments - "what am I supposed to do?" (no, your in-game instructions are never as clear as you think they are, and there are many things that you take for granted being the world's most experienced player of your soon-to-be-finished game), "why is the game over?", and so on, but I've never heard anything like I heard on Saturday night. It turns out that one of the explosion animations in Brick Addiction took the form of the symbol - a symbol representing a particularly loathsome activist group - and, nope, it hadn't dawned on me. Let me tell you, my jaw nearly hit the floor.

So, get the beers in, cook up some descent grub, get your mates round, and haul them one by one to the games room. And, thanks again, Iñaki.

May 18th 2008: One thing that is on the mind of the conscientious indie gamer (I hate that word) is rot. That your body is going to rot away after spending so much time in front of your PC, even if you've (very sensibly in my opinion) invested in an ergonomic chair, mouse and keyboard. Countermeasures include: joining a gym, taking up swimming, or even doing what yours truly has adopted as his personal solution: following exercise videos on youtube (piltes, boxing workouts, girly workout vids, anything - most of them are pretty tough, and if you're like me, even fifteen minutes of prancing around like it's Flower-Arranging Day at St. Trinian's is enough) (and when you inevitably get bored of them, you just grab some more) and doing them twice or three times per week.

Interestingly my physiotherapist (let me qualify that - no, I don't have a physiotherapist. My mate Iñaki happens to be a physiotherapist, and he is in no sense of the word mine) reckons that the hand exercisers I have sitting on my desk and use every now and again are bad news. You'll keep your forearms in shape and your hands will get stronger, but your hands will tend to close up even more than usual in rest position. In old age you may end up bunched-up hands that are difficult to open. He reckons that it's better to do said exercise with your hands already open. For example, spread your hands on a table or a wall and try to close them.

May 11th 2008: Been doing loads of playtesting these past couple of weeks. I was even doing it for two hours in the English Academy last Friday (with my notes, my level schematics, the whole shebang) when I had a cancelled class. There were no spare rooms so I had to do it in the same room as the two kids who were there to do their geometry homework. Geometry is one of the most beautiful things on the planet to study, but these two found what I was doing more interesting than learning the names of the different polygons. Yes. I feel guilty about that episode.

Ok, so after this latest batch of play testing I decided that Brick Addiction wasn't quite as lively as I wanted it to be, so I've spiced things up by adding six new powerups this weekend. Yes, six. Good ones too - not like some of the lame powerups you tend to get in breakout games. I also found the time to watch ManYoo win the Premier League again. In short, all's good where I am.

Oh, and I've had to fend off a threat to the well-being of my game project, namely something called "Sins of a Solar Empire". Judging by the quality of said game, it makes me think someone over at Stardock games knows my mind and wants to sabotage my project. Stop it, you!

April 26th 2008: Yep. Brick Addiction's 350 levels means tons of playtesting. It's a good job I enjoy playing it, then, innit?

March 15th 2008: Madre mía - is it six weeks since I updated this page? Lumme, that went quickly. Well, I've as far as Brick Addiction's concerned I've been finishing off a few details and stamping on some irritating bugs, not to mention refining a few brick types and powerups. We like powerups here, but this won't be the bog-standard set - this game has been thought through from first measures and everything that's in the game can be fully justified, as can everything that's not made an appearance.

For what it's worth, I'm enjoying working on the game as much as when I started back in January 2006. New ideas are still flowing, and I'm growing happier and happier with it as time goes by. 'Any update on when it's going to be out?' some of you are asking me. Patience please! It's done when I'm happy with it. I want to make sure it's good, s'all!

January 29th 2008: Lordy. I've done it! The final background is done. That's all of them done and dusted, with all the aquatic inhabitants freely swimming around. Yeah, it feels pretty good to have got this far.

Dev is definitely slower than it was. I'm spending an increasing amount of time giving English classes, but I'm putting in the hours into the game when I can.

January 6th 2008: Happy ... er... Epiphany. Well, here in Spain it's a big celebration today. The kids are all opening the presents that the three kings have brought them this morning. Did I get any presents? Well, no, I have pretty much everything I need already, thank you very much. I'm happy in love and in work and even the sun's shining today. All that I could ask for is that the background on world 6 looks a bit better (good grief). See, now that all the levels are in place I've been going over the backgrounds one by one with a fine-tooth comb and smoothing out any problems, like the well-behaved little game developer I am. It's looking better and better!

December 12th 2007: An important day in the development of Brick Addiction. I have ALL 350 of the levels. And it's been no small task. Bear in mind I'm developing this game in my spare time - I've got a whole bunch of other stuff going on too. Yep, the breakout game with the highest number of levels ever (is there a game like this with more levels? Mail me and let me know if there is..) has all the levels in place. Ok, I need to polish them up and stuff. Still. It's a relief - part way through it started to look like an impossible mission. Now that's a good way to start wrapping things up for the year.

December 7th 2007: Joke: what do you call someone for whom a photocopy costs thirty-seven euros plus ten hours on the road? Yes, you read that correctly. A photocopy (albeit with an official-looking signature plus a stamp on it). Well, I'm not so sure I'd like to hear your answers, but you can already see what kind of a day it's been. Sorting out this paperwork is a real bundle of laughs. But then I think of the pleasure I'm going to get from releasing the game (and with any luck, the pleasure people will have playing it) and it's all worth it.

December 5th 2007: I just wanted to take this opportunity to try to explain exactly how much time and care has gone into Brick Addiction. Normally a game of this type has between sixty and one hundred levels, and, believe me, you could spend a while finishing a game like that. There are, occasionally, games with a hundred and fifty or even two hundred levels, but it's pretty uncommon to see them. We have a whopping 350 in our game. And I don't mean automatically generated levels, either. Each one has been built by hand, and even has a unique name.

Now just in case there was any doubt in the matter, three hundred and fifty levels is ONE HECK OF A LOT of levels. Take into account that every level needs to be designed, play tested, and refined until I'm happy with it (plus yours truly is a bit of a perfectionist). And then I have to order the levels to make sure that the difficulty progression is acceptable. I've got sixty-five left to go - which isn't really that many compared to how many I've already created - but that's still more levels than certain other breakout games have in total...

November 30th 2007: When you've been working on a project for a year and a half, you get a bogged down. I'm sitting back and taking a vista larga at things. Call it little a rest while I look at things with new eyes.

November 21st 2007: Well guys, this is what sometimes happens when you decide to write a game off your own back while you're going about the business of living your daily life - earning money to pay bills and that kind of stuff. See, unless you have a development contract and you're being funded while you actually write the game (not my case at the moment, but maybe one day - lumme, how much would I enjoy that?!?!?) it's a kind of a 'hobby that could give income in the future', and needs to be treated as such. Thus now and again other things have to take priority - I've put the game to one side while I sort out a bunch of other stuff I've got going on here. I can't wait to get back on track though!

November 10th 2007: I'm sorting out paperwork and other boring stuff like that. Turns out that to be able to sell a game you've written's a tad more complicated than it ought to be!

October 5th 2007: On a side note: someone I was speaking to last week raised the issue of why I put this stuff up here. I mean, most companies don't give away what they're doing, down to the nitty-gritty of when they're adding new levels and putting up new screenshots as I choose to do. So why do I do it?

The answer's really quite simple. In my experience in the games industry - when you've got a really good idea (this is a generalisation) the chances are that nobody will listen anyway!

Ahhh... I'm combative today. But hey, I mean it. If another developer wants to come along and steal my ideas, they have my permission to come right in. Put the kettle on and make me a brew while you're here. But if you do use my ideas, I'll know it and so will you, and later on if you've got any decency you'll be ashamed of yourselves. As for me - I'm not short of ideas. Plenty more where these came from, Bub.

October 5th 2007: Added four new brick types.

October 3rd 2007: When I began development of BA -as an experiment more than anything else - I kept rigidly to the design doc and maintained a "if it's not in the design doc it's not in the game" approach for the first couple of months. Like I say, it was an experiment. Now, eighteen months in, the importance of the design doc is zero. I'm back into my habit of seeing where I'm being led by my intuition, taking spontaneous detours in the design. On the positive side, this allows for decisions to be made in the context of heavy playtesting, and on the downside in the cases where there was no planning involved for certain elements, they have to be crammed unceremoniously into the game, unexpected side-effects and all. However, I am begin careful to keep within the original set of parameters I lay down at the start.

September 30th 2007: Just a note for any aspirant indiegamers (I hate that word) out there - you've got to be very, very committed if you want to see a project though to the end. I'm lucky to have had the experience working in the games industry for a good few years as I'm ready for slog it out even though at the back of your mind you can hear a voice saying "Jeez, I can't believe I'm still working on this project. How long has it been now?". When that happens, there's usually a lot more to come!

September 29th 2007: This is what's technically known as "the fun bit at the end" (not to be confused with the "horrid bit at the end" - that usually comes afterwards). See, when everything's almost in place you can play around, polish things up, and add the fun things that you've wanted to but not got around to doing. Which is exactly what I'm doing this weekend.

September 28th 2007: Generally speaking, you can divide the tasks you have to complete in order to complete a game into two general categories, "things that are fun to do" and "things that are not fun to do". When you have to spend five hours on a Friday night repairing a bug that nobody but you will notice the result of, that definitely falls into the latter category. Sometimes I think, 'why am I doing what I'm doing'? After all, I'm an English teacher working in a city, nay country, full of people who want to learn English. I could take the easy route teach classes all day, every day. I enjoy teaching too. But I've worked for years in the games industry and I just love the process of dreaming up and creating these things.

To answer my own question, I'm creating this game because I enjoy the process, and because I love a challenge. If I can come up with a breakout game that people will remember, I'll be happier as a result. If I can make enough money from it to simply keep going, that's good enough for me. I'm not asking for the world.

September 23rd 2007: I'm just here, working hard on the sound effects. Man, producing a game all by yourself (ok, Al, almost all by yourself) is a REAL test of character. I knew it was never going to be an easy challenge, but persistent as I am, I'm finding that the going's getting pretty tough.

September 2nd 2007: I've been working on the story. Coming up with a story that's interesting and yet easy to get across in a small series of easy-to-swallow bite-size chunks is a pretty challenging affair.

August 29th 2007: To give each of the worlds more personality I've been working on some tasty location shots.

August 22nd 2007: Creating games is almost as addictive as playing them.

June 29th 2007: Back to the drawing board on a few issues. When I think, 'there's tons of breakout games out there, so what can I do to make mine stand out?' I get a buzz. And that's the fuel that keeps me going.

July 24th 2007: It seems that this week I'm on a roll! Come on over and take a look at the two tasty new wallpapers I've just put up. More quality backgrounds from your favourite source.

July 23rd 2007: The shiny new forum is up! Three log entries in three days ... my, my! What a hive of activity! Maybe something good is about to happen. Oh, and I've ditched the blueprints section. I don't suppose anyone will miss it much. I don't think that I will.

July 22nd 2007: I've got one world background to go and a handful of levels to finish off. We're getting there! Yesssss! After that the real testing begins. Ahhh... the testing. Oh, check out these tasty new screenshots!

July 21st 2007: Long time no hear. That's because in May I decided to drop the log (what!?!??). Now I've decided to re-open it. Hence the lack of entries since then. Ok, so here's the new-look "log" section. The first thing you'll notice (if you remember the old log) will be that the new one is, well, less interesting. See, I had to make a decision. The old format was fun and good-looking but it took too much of my time. So here you have it. A straight-up run-of-the-mill bells-and-whistles-free don't-you-love-compound-adjectives game dev log.

May 2nd 2007: It's all good. This entry marks the end of the big UI change I was talking about. Basically the whole game has been re-assessed since the last entry and a number of gameplay and design changes have been made. I'll get some updated screenshots up when I get a jiffy.

April 3rd 2007: I've been fixing a few bugs, and, oh, I decided last week to redesign the UI from scratch. It just wasn't up to it. The new one's much better - I'll get some shots up when I can. As one consequence of the overhaul I've (really) decided to rename the game (the "Ocean Paradise" bit). More on that later.

April 2nd 2007: Just in case you missed it: yesterday's entry was a joke. Fool's day and all ...

April 1st 2007: I've renamed the game as "Brick Addiction: Underwater Balls".

March 16th 2007: Hehe. That's the sound of me, satisfied. See, I've added my magic ingredient to the gameplay department of Brick Addiction. What is it, you say? Why, it's not just something that will make playing the same stage more than once bearable, it's something that will make people want to play the same stage over and over again. Yep. It's starting to look and play for all the world like I always wanted it to.

February 15th 2007: Yes, I've updated this page twice in the space of three days. Yes, miracles can happen.
I've added two new wallpapers. Now, if that wasn't already stretching things too far, I've added a nice banner with the Official Officially Unfinished Brick Addiction logo to the games page. I think it's rather good-lookin', myself. And with any luck at all, it'll be even more so when I eventually get around to finishing it.

February 14th 2007: First up - sorry that it's been so long since I updated this page. I've just been really busy with the game.
The good news is that we have 147 levels and counting. 350 levels was indeed an ambitious number, but I think it's going to be worth the hard work. We don't want a crummy 60 levels, or 100 or even 200 levels. We want enough so that the game will last. We want people to be playing Brick Addiction for yonks! We also have a handful new types of brick, and five completed worlds. Woohoo! Check out the new screenshots.

January 23rd 2007: Finished world 2. Done the background for world 4. Spent a LONG time on this website, just streamlining it and fixing the HTML. No, there's not many visible changes. I can see that!

January 10th 2007: I'm well on the way to finishing World 2. Now it's starting to look natty.

December 27th 2006: Happy Christmas! Ho ho ho. Fun in the snow.
Added a few more brick types and the structure for progression through worlds.

November 24th 2006: Refined the tips system.

November 19th 2006: I'm taking this opportunity to playtest Brick Addiction as much as I can. Extensive playtesting has gotta be done. Hey, it gets better every time I play it!

November 3rd 2006: I've added two Animalia wallpapers. 'What's Animalia?' I hear you ask. One at a time, please! Well, if enough of you ask, I may tell. In the meantime, go and have a look!

October 27th 2006: Pencils. Pens. Drawing. Plus adding the finishing touches to the new-look website.

October 18th 2006: I've decided to use the background for world 2 of BA Oceans as the Official Brick Addiction Wallpaper Image (whatever that means). Because I rather like it. Plus: The "Free Stuff" section is up! Yes, there's a choice of exactly one wallpaper image. Good job it's rather natty, then. Go on, you know you want it.

October 15th 2006: I've added a "free stuff" section to the site, where I'm going to add wallpaper and so on. There's nothing that's really good enough to offer yet though. Ha ha.

Free Stuff!

Do you want this smart image as your desktop background? Of course you do! Click here for our free wallpapers.