“Finished” Version of the Game (Including Mac & Linux) Should be Ready by January 14th

Just as an update (if anyone’s still interested at all), I’m going to try to get the final version out before the new school semester starts, which for me is January 14th. I probably won’t release the Mac/Linux versions of the beta after all. While I intended to get out my old Mac and install a Linux Virtual box for testing, I got kind of busy before Christmas, and I’ve been sick the past couple of days. Yeah, I know…excuses, excuses -_-;;

Anyway, I think I know what I’m going to fix now, so I’m just going to fix those couple of things, test it, and then release it for all platforms so I can get ready to move on to the next project (which may or may not be a visual novel).

In the meantime, if you would still like to download the beta version of the game for Windows, it will still be available for download until the fixed version is released:

http://cesullivangames.com/sodi

Let’s Try This Again…Download Link Now Works!

Apparently, I forgot to actually hit “publish” when I posted the link to the game download page this morning.

Once again, you can download the game here:

http://cesullivangames.com/sodi

Open Beta

Well, I said I’d have the game up by yesterday, and I almost made it. It has actually been up since about 1 AM this morning.

However, I’m really not sure I’m 100% finished with it, so I’ve decided to call this one an “Open Beta.”

Right now, it’s only available for Windows, but I’m planning to get Linux and Mac versions up as well as soon as I have time to test them.

You can download the game here:

http://cesullivangames.com/sodi

If you do play it, I’d appreciate it if you could leave some feedback, either in the comments here or in the comments on the page where you can download the game (to make it easy, I’ve put a link back that page in the game’s main menu).

Release Date Pushed to Tuesday, December 3rd

Well, if anyone was actually waiting with bated breath for this project to be finished (which, as low as the hits on this blog are, I doubt), I apologize ^_^;;

I really don’t think the game is going to be up tomorrow. The game is at a point where it is playable, I just really need a couple more days to polish it. Of course, the web page where I’m going to host it isn’t up yet either.

I had a feeling this might happen, but I wanted to try to push through and see if I could make it before I posted anything. But at this point, I’m getting tired and burnt out, and being overwhelmed with the idea that I’m supposed to be finished by tomorrow isn’t helping.

So in light of the fact that I probably don’t have very many people waiting on this game anyway (if anyone), I think I’m going to rest, enjoy my Thanksgiving as much as possible, and give myself the time I need to finish properly.

I’m pushing the official release date up to Tuesday, December 3rd. That’s the absolute latest I can release it, anyway, since I’m using this as a project for grad school, and the project is due on Wednesday.

It may be up before then. It should be up before then. It might even be up as early as Friday, I just don’t want to make any promises. But it will definitely be up by Tuesday.

Crunch Time

So again, it’s been a while since I posted anything on here, but I’ve been really busy finishing the game. Problem is, this project seems to keep getting bigger and bigger, because I keep coming up with new ideas, and going “Ooooh, I want to DO that!”

Additional backgrounds? Of course!
(Faked out) battle system? Heck yeah!
Minigame? Totally don’t have time, but let’s be completely stupid and go for it!

Did I say everything was on schedule before? ^_^;; Well, anyway, right now I’m still planning on releasing the game on Thanksgiving (11/28). I kind of HAVE to release something by then, since this is technically a school project and I’ll only have a week after that before I have to write up my postmortem and make a presentation.

So I really need to get back to it, because it is CRUNCH TIME. I leave you with this image…

It’s Random Screenshot Time Again

I haven’t posted anything on here for a while, but let me assure you, the project isn’t dead. Right now, everything is on schedule, and I’m still planning on a U.S. Thanksgiving Day release (11/28).

Here’s a random screenshot of what I’m working on today:
Yep, it’s a capybara. Curiouser and curiouser 🙂

Release Date Planned + Character Info, Screenshots

So this is what’s happening at the moment:

• I’ve finally looked at my schedule and made plans to release the game on November 28th–Thanksgiving day in the US. The release has been pushed back to Tuesday, December 3rd.
• I also got around to posting Story of Dream Infinite to the Lemma Soft “Works in Progress” forum, here: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=23577
• I’ve created new pages here, with character info and screenshots. I also updated my About page with additional information.

Exciting times, people. It finally feels like I’ve got the ball rolling on this one…

Production Cost Now = $237.32

So, after having to replace the hard drive on my desktop (all the artwork I’ve been working on was bogging my computer down so much that I couldn’t use the paintbrush tool in Photoshop any more), I can now officially say that the cost of producing Story of Dream Infinite is now equal to a whopping $237.32.

Just including purchases that were made specifically made for the purpose of working on this game, it breaks down like this:

Production Costs

Sketchbook Pro (Android app) $5.35

Gray Musemee Notier V2 Stylus  (probably lost on commuter train) $15.99

(REPLACEMENT) Red Musemee Notier V2 Stylus $16.99

3 Replacement Nibs for Musemee Notier (shipped directly from Taiwan because Amazon ran out) $9.98

New 2 Terabyte Internal Hard Drive & 2 Terabyte External Hard Drive $189.41

Total Cost = $237.32 

To be fair, I probably could have fixed the problem with my computer by, you know, deleting some stuff.  I actually had a Linux partition that I never used that I could have cleared off (which I did anyway when I transferred everything to the new drive). And buying  a 2 terabyte hard drive might just have been overkill, but hey, it was on sale, you know?

I’ve really been needing to set up the whole backup system for  a long time now anyway (hence the purchase of the external drive as well). The realization that suddenly losing all the work I’ve put into this project would SUCK is just what pushed me to actually do it. And of course, hopefully I’ll still be able to use all of these things on the next game I make. Since I’m using this is a project for school, you could even call these educational expenses…

Of course, I also didn’t include any labor costs, or the cost of the hardware and software that I already owned.  Someday, maybe I’ll sit down and figure out how much the cost would be if I was actually paying myself even as much as I used to make when I was working part time.

Might be kind of scary…

(Expected profit from free to download game = $0)

Android Release Planned

I’ve gotten RAPT (the Ren’py Android Packaging Tool) up and running, which means I’ll be able to do an Android release of Story of Dream Infinite. I’ve already tested the part of the game that I’ve been working on on my tablet, and things are looking good–at least as good as they look on my PC, anyway.

It might come a bit after the PC/Mac/Linux release, since I’ll need to make some adjustments to the code (I’ll probably have to do some things to reduce the file size, as well), but since I already have an Android Market account which I registered  a while back and have never used, I’ve decided this would be the perfect opportunity to, well…use it.

Of course, since this is going to be my first visual novel release,  it’s going to be a free download, and I am planning on making the game free on the Android market as well.

Incantation to a Fire-Fox

On Thursday I had a meeting with the professor who teaches the poetry writing class I’m taking this semester. It was supposed to be a meeting to talk about my personal “ars poetica” or whatnot.

Afterward, I was all like, “Did I just have a meeting with a literature professor where I used the phrase ‘I think it was the lizard people’?” In short, I had failed to do what I had planned: you know, act like a normal person and make up some !@#$ about why I was taking his class and what I wanted to do with the poetry I was writing.

Instead, I ended up being completely honest. Before I knew it, I was telling him how I had always wanted to try incorporating poetry into my prose writing, and all about my crazy interactive narrative project and my idea of writing the magical incantations in the game in poetic form. I even showed him some of what I had tried to write.

Weirdly enough, being honest paid off, because he actually ended up convincing me not to give up on what I was trying to do, and he gave me some advice that really helped. So this morning, after my dog woke me up at 4 AM, I finished writing Micah’s incantation to Ublasti, a fire-fox spirit, and I’m actually pretty pleased with it:

“Awake Ublasti, foxy fire goddess…
Forget love, let’s play a Combustion game!
Reduce my enemies to ash and bone,
Ignite the air with your Nine Tails of Flame!”

I think the Lady Gaga reference is what does it for me…it really makes it sound like something Micah would come up with! My one worry is that the third line might be a bit dark.

This is supposed to be in iambic pentameter, but I’m really not sure if it’s correct–I guess I’ll find out next week when I share it with my poetry class. I can’t decide whether or not I should make a complete fool of myself and read it in Micah’s voice…but if I’ve got some accompanying art work to take along by then, I’ll bring it with me. I think the class would actually get a kick out of that.

(By the way, if anyone cares about this, it turns out my poetry professor was a writer for the “Wishbone” TV series–you know, the one with the Jack Russell Terrier that aired on PBS in the mid 90s? When this came out in class, one of the younger lit majors had a major fangirl moment, which was pretty funny.)