2019 review post

I was planning to write a review of what I've done this year in the vague realm of game dev, but then I glanced at my last post, which summed up what I'd been doing from around september 18 to may 19 sort of time.

So, I'll talk about the other project I've worked on that I didn't mention last time around!

https://atpprojects.itch.io/miseriarpg

I made the soundtrack for Miseria by atpprojects. It was a lot of fun to work on, the settings and pacing of the game offered a lot of inspiration for the type of audio that I made. There's a mix of ambient and quite abrasive textures in the soundtrack, and I think sounds much better when experienced as part of the visual novel! So check it out if you like the sound of the game, it is free on itch.io

Also I did put the OST on my bandcamp, which can be found from my site http://sleepyagents.co.uk
Or just go straight there if you like - https://sleepyagents.bandcamp.com/

Since the last post I have also added 2 new classes to skillshare, here is one of those links that get you 2 months free and also gives me 10usd - https://skl.sh/2HkV5X2
They are also music production related.

That's it for this post. I hope to have some more game dev stuff to share in early 2020! Best place to find out is my twitter!

What has happened since my last blog post!?

OK, It's been a while since I posted here (like about a year). But that's not because I've done nothing!
It's just I tend to use twitter instead when I have some news to share.
Anyway, I wanted to do a quick update!

So, Departure Lounge, isn't really any further along, I struggled a bit getting the art style down. I haven't abandoned the project, I just haven't done much work on it :'D

I have however done a nanoreno game this year - https://sleepyagents.itch.io/seven-seasonings called Seven Seasonings. It's got a bit of trading and some dice rolls in it!

Recording the Predestined Time (by myself and amorphous) was released in Feb - https://amorphous.itch.io/recording - we spent some time fixing up the little things that needed fixing! (and I put the OST onto my bandcamp.)

Back in September '18 I made this https://sleepyagents.itch.io/sleepy-rhythm-machine - Sleepy Rhythm Machine, which is more of a toy than I game I guess.

So, that's the main Sleepy Agents news! I'm also doing lots of audio stuff, so I'll try to remember to post here a bit more frequently.

Finally, today I posted my first ever online course, which is on Skillshare, it's about programming drums for electronic music, and it's aimed at beginners, you can check it out here - https://skl.sh/2KfAlSB  - if that sounds interesting to you! <3

Development Blog - Music All Month May - Departure Lounge

I didn't post a blog at all in May! Oh no.

Well, I did work on music pretty much all month. ♪ I thought about doing a more technical 'how-to' type blog post (related to music), but I think that can wait until after I've finished this game!

I have recently uploaded a couple of WiP pieces of music to my soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sleepyagents check em out! ♪

But they might be gone when you read this - if they are gone they've likely been replaced with more music for Departure Lounge, so either way you'll get to hear some music ^^

At the moment I am sort of feeling my way towards creating actually usable assets. I have some art concepts, scene sketches, lots of music in various states of completion, so during the next couple of months I'll very likely begin putting stuff in engine!

Perhaps I'll have some art or something more visual ready for my next blog post.

Till then :)

Development Blog #9 - Continuing with concept art - Departure Lounge

I thought it'd be fun to put my early character concept alongside my most recent.

Early concept:

October 2017

To now, recent concept:

April 2018

The main things that I've noticed changing over the months are the eyebrows and piercings. The current design, although still pretty similar, fits the character better. There were some things about the character that I didn't know back in September.

As a bonus here is my very first sketch of this character! (from around September 2017)

XD

till next time!

Development Blog #8 - Random concept art - Departure Lounge

Hey!
Here is some random concept art presented without comment (or nearly without comment!)

I got some watercolours about a month ago, so I've been combining playing with those at the same time as making concept art. Wow so efficient >.<

Development Blog #7 - Departure Lounge - Finding fonts and deciding!

I used to sometimes look for fonts on a site called dafont. But I much rather use Google Fonts these days. I saw on a couple of occasions licenses on dafont which were different to licenses on other websites for the same font, which made me a little wary. Also, Google Fonts has a pretty good user interface. https://fonts.google.com/

The only thing I struggled with initially was finding a download button!
BTW you have to add your font to a selection and then open the selection which is where you find the download button, like this:

There are probably other ways to download fonts from Google Fonts, maybe!?

Anyway, what I tend to do is use the preview tools and the filters (for my title I wanted a font with serifs).

I ended up downloading way too many! Here are some I tried:

I just deleted the ones which I didn't think were quite what I was looking for.

Then I cut them down to the final four candidates!

In the end I went for the font that I liked the most before I even hit the download button. I have no idea if that is down to intuition or some kind of bias!

I'll reveal the font I decided on when I have a decent title screen ready to share!

Till next time!

Development Blog #6 - Departure Lounge - Progress so far month by month

I'm going to do shorter posts for the next couple of months, as I begin to plan out assets and all that exciting stuff!

Today I wanted to highlight what has been happening on the project since around last September:

September - I had a weird dream that formed a couple of ideas for the story! Also started to scribble notes in a notebook, some about plot and setting and more on characters.

October / Inktober - I drew some character concepts.

November / Nanowrimo - Wrote the first draft of the story which came out at around 13k words.

December - Refined the first draft. Some music work.

January - Started the second draft. More music work. (I started using FL Studio as my main music production software, so I had to adjust to the new workflow).

February - Lots more music. (Also I watched loads of the winter olympics which meant I had less time than usual!)

March - Oh, we're here, in the present. I still haven't finalised the second draft. But I have begun work on the visual concept. Trying out some GUI ideas and starting to make decisions on the art style. And more music!

That's all for now.
Till next time!