As a project ends, there comes a time where each playtest only reveals a couple minor things that need to be fixed.  JoyJoy has hit this point now, so I can tell it’s pretty much done.  I’ve put off doing music another week as there have been 3 playtests this week, along with getting a bunch of somewhat technical issues resolved.

Now that the game is solid from top to bottom, I’ve broken off the second project and cleaned out a lot of the JoyJoy-specific code.  I keep going back and forth between prototyping and system cleanup, and overall progress has been good, but I really should stop messing around with the prototype since I now have a better idea of what game #2 will be and the prototype isn’t going in that direction.

The prototype looks very cool and is fun to play around with, but there’s no obvious goal or player motivation.  It’s more like a very interactive kind of art.  Sort of.  Maybe there’s a big untapped market for that sort of thing, but I already have enough to think about.  I’ll just save off the current version and look at it later when I’m comfortable enough to spend a week or two finding a game in it.  Though screenshots don’t convey the motion/living nature of it, if you see a “game” in the images above, feel free to email/comment and let me know.

Work on JoyJoy has progressed at a nice pace this week, and it feels great to almost be done. I finally tackled loading and saving yesterday and took notes about everything that went wrong and right. I’ll be trying to find the appropriate spot to post details about that for others in my situation to find, though I still have to do more testing on the 360 to check for sound and memory card issues.

Aside from that issue, there has been a lot of polishing, balancing, and bug-fixing this week. Thanks to an adjustment stemming from a discussion with this week’s playtester, Clint Bundrick, the game is both less repetitive and ramps up in a more exciting fashion. I’m ready for a lot more playtesting, in fact, and if you’re in the Champaign-Urbana area, feel free to send me an email or Facebook message if you’re interested.

The last major task is a complete sound and music overhaul. I’m giving myself a week to do that and become completely absorbed in it. If I need a break, I’ll be working on JoyJoy’s box art or starting on game #2. Starting on game #2 really means taking JoyJoy, ripping out most of the custom code, redoing a couple systems to make them easier to work with, and adding a couple new systems.

I’m know I’m tempting fate, but so far everything seems to be going according to plan, maybe even a little better. There will be some unforeseen problems cropping up any day now, but I can’t spend time worrying about problems I don’t know about, so I’ll just forge ahead and hope for the best.

The internet finally invaded my office after Mr. Comcast paid a visit this morning. I’ve been pretty productive the last couple days now that I’m done with the initial PR and wrapping up the DreamBuildPlay entry for JoyJoy (which helped push me to finish the trailer and other stuff earlier this week).

On the downside, I did hit my first large roadblock in terms of programming. Though XNA is great for building XBL Indie Games in general, one weakness is overcomplexity when dealing with saving and loading of game data. I finally found something that should really help out by Nick Gravelyn. Assuming things go well, I’m going to write up a little tutorial about what exactly I added to the game to make everything work.

In addition to some nice words being said about JoyJoy on a couple forums, GamesIndustry.biz and GameTrailers.com also put something up for Radiangames and JoyJoy. The GameTrailers crowd is quite harsh, so having more positive comments than negative is a good thing.

It has begun.  Radiangames JoyJoy will be my first game.  It’s an intense twin-stick shooter with a beautiful art style, upbeat soundtrack, and immensely satisfying and customizable gameplay.  Words don’t mean much in games, so how about some low-quality video.  Rest assured it looks even better running at 60 frame per second.

I’ll be sending out a press release to a lot more places, but already its showing up on Gamasutra and Destructoid (also has the video).

If there’s a lot more to post about, I’ll do another update later tonight.