Preparing for GDC!

With GDC round the corner I thought it would be nice to give an update of Gloom and how things are prepping up for the Game Developers Conference starting on 2^nd March. Not only am I exited for the conference but also due to the fact I’m taking part in Train Jam. Train jam is a unique game jam held on a train going from Chicago all the way to San Francisco right in time for GDC. With this said the most important things with attending GDC are meeting others devs, sharing stories and showing Gloom to as many people as possible. For this reason it is vital to have a polished Gloom build.

Gloom is a game about restoring order to the beautiful island of Malta that has been overtaken by the Gloom. You as the player take control over a mysterious creature that has been dormant for over 5000 years and forgotten his past. The player is the only one left of its kind. Your journey not only involves restoring order in Malta, but also self-discovery on who are.

Throughout GDC I will be running around the conference with an iPhone and iPad handing them to whoever is willing to give the game a try. Anyone at the conference feel free to tweet me at @dirkmalta and we’ll meet up. I’m as eager to show my game as much as I am to playing other people games.

The build will consist of 3 levels, all based in the first City of the game called Hagar Qim. There is a list of main bugs that have to be fixed before GDC, mainly with the character soft body jelly physics system and touch control balance. For the character soft body system I am using a tool called Jelly Sprites, and for input control mechanics I am using InControl. Both of which are high-end products available from Unity Asset Store. The Unity Store is one of the many reasons Unity is so amazing!

Another factor that I have been tackling since the beginning of Gloom’s developing is keeping the size of the game as small as possible. Due to having unique hand painted environments throughout the game, I am taking extra effort in making in making sure I keep the size of the game as small as possible. While many would recommend to use the Asset Bundles, I am not in the current state where I can have a dedicated server specially for downloading HD assets from. However this is the beauty of being an independent developer on a budget, it makes you think of smarter way to tackle problems. With this said for anyone willing to go with the Asset Bundle, I’ve tested it and its hands down the best approach to go by, especially since most games do so on the app stores now-a-days.

With this said I would like to announce I will be starting a Twitch broadcast where I would stream live development of the game. The plan is to show as much as possible of development without taking away surprise and story elements. Those are to be enjoyed once the game is launched.