43rd Weekly Update : Harder than you think !

Ouch ouch ! Creating video games is harder than you think. Creating a good video trailer is harder than I think..!

So this week, I spent most of my time on the video trailer, which made me realize that I’m no Stanley Kubrick.¹

At 1st, I thought about doing a trailer listing & demonstrating all the main features of the game. A lot of Indie games do trailers like that. It’s relatively easy to design, it requires almost only normal game footage, and it’s efficient at presenting the game.

But then I thought it wasn’t the right way for Dungeon Guardians. DG is an adventure, an experience, more than a list of features. So I decided I should do a trailer telling a story, to connect more emotionally with the viewer and let him want to know more about the game afterwards. Ok, it sounded like a great idea, but how was I supposed to do that, especially with very limited assets outside of game footage ?! So with more hard thinking, I designed a decent storyboard, starting with the intro sequence from the game and going into some distinguishable elements of the game (exploration, fights, puzzles).

I found a freelance motion designer to edit all that, but unfortunately, it seems he’s no Stanley Kubrick either. He gave me about 0 idea nor feedback for make the storytelling of the trailer compelling, so I had to do all the thinking by myself.

Fortunately, he has a good artistic sense and he’s able to do nice effects & edit, so the final result should be good.

But with the 1st cut, I discovered a huge issue : basic track shots & rotating shots done manually with the mouse look awfully not smooth & unnatural in a trailer ! So I started by adding mouse smoothing. The result was already significantly better, but any movement done with the free camera mode of the map editor was still awkwardly linear & abrupt. I then added a system of recording & replaying waypoints and added a special curved interpolation between them. Tada, finally, professional camera movements !

So now, I’m waiting for the final cut from the motion designer and hoping the result will be good. Once done, I’ll be able to publish the game on Steam Greenlight, as I wrote the long & detailed description of the game this week.

Except the trailer, I wasn’t able to work on the Race bonus because my mind was not set to it (it happens!). So instead, I started to implement the payment & delivery process. It’s based on a Key system like for my tennis games, but with a simplified installation process.

Ok, so here’s the plan for this new week : get the game on Greenlight, do some PR to let the world knows about Dungeon Guardians, polish a few things in the game,² add the Race bonus (this is one has been running away for weeks, now!). If I manage to do all that, then 1 week later, I should be able release the game !³ 

Cya next week.

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1. or maybe I’m the Stanley Kubrick of before he learned anything about movie ; who knows, maybe he’s started by doing crappy videos !  ↩

2. mostly: give the possibility to write notes on the map ↩

3. with the Rogue class missing ; it’ll be added a couple of weeks later ↩