Tech Demo, musagi

The tech demo is nearing completion. I'm debating whether or not to add any sound. If I do, I risk opening a can of worms so to speak. Like everything new that I try, I end up revising it a hundred times before I'm satisfied, and I'm positive sound won't be any different. I'll probably leave it out, but that's okay because Sever's strength is in its unique gameplay, and that at least will be intact.

It will probably skip past the menu screen and dive right into the gameplay. The main menu can only really show off my nifty GUI, and that's not what I need feedback on. Plus, even though the GUI's a major feat to me, many of the people playing the demo would already have one of their own. I'll be showing Sever to people more experienced than I, so the gameplay will be the only news.

There'll be one map and a single enemy to fight. He'll be stationary of course, but he'll have a premade layout of arms. I'm not sure whether I'll add any new graphics either. I would like to, but it's too time consuming and hard. I need some practice. The arch sprite was a stroke of luck actually. It just happened to turn out right, but I have no guarantee that my next attempt will be as successful.

Anyway, I have a feeling it will be here in a few days. As I prepare for school to start again, I find my time filled up, but I'll find a few minutes here and there to work on it.

Good news regarding music: I found musagi, which is by the same guy that made sfxr, the amazing sound effects tool I found. I followed the tutorial for musagi and frankly, I love it. It beats the tar out of Anvil Studio when it comes to usability. And the best part is that its author is an indie dev himself. And his tutorial is grand. By the end, I actually had a basic enough understanding of music theory to realize why all my music on Anvil sounded so bad.

Anyway, I have a feeling I'll be experimenting with sound and music over the next few months. Thanks to DrPetter (the author of these tools), I think I have the ability to do everything myself. I have GIMP and Inkscape for graphics; C#, XNA, and VS Pro for programming; sfxr for sound; and musagi for music. It's overwhelming to think that I have all these tools at my fingertips.

Thank you DrPetter. And thanks to TIGSource for bringing him to our attention. And many thanks to TIGSource for giving all of us saplings a chance to make it in the indie scene.

Stay tuned for updates on the tech demo.

clevceo