For this year, Drop Everything Games will be bringing you 3 doses of weekly content, as we investigate, peruse, and enjoy some of the finest games the industry has to offer. On Tuesday and Thursday, there will be content from Nick, and on Saturday, there will be content from Slade!
Additionally, Drop Everything Games aims to release two games this year: The highly anticipated “Encompassed” and a project that we have named, which we have not staked any claims for yet, and as such we have not shared any details about.
For the record, we intend to release a game every year, until we decide that this is no longer fun. I hope you enjoy what we have to offer this year!
(I look really angry here because I have the sun in my eyes.)
Encompassed finally has all of its systems working, and we are going to be putting it into iTunes, and the google play store some time this upcoming week for an open beta!!!
More details to come, but when the time comes, we would like to invite all those who are interested to join us in testing
I will update this post with more details as I get them, but I want you all to know that it is coming. It is finally coming.
If you want to be notified when it goes live, give us your email on the home page at: https://dropeverythinggames.com/
I know that I have spent a lot of time on past blogs and vlogs talking about bugs, but today I just wanted to lay out the final 4 bugs that are preventing the game’s launch (At the moment).
1. Saving on Mobile devices has some quirks. For some reason the data will save fine, but then when we exit the game and come back, none of it saved permanently. We are still looking into this.
a. 11/18/2017- It seems that this was a simple error where we did not have enough space marked out in our save folder. Will test today.
2. We had functionality in the game where we could switch off the VR mode, and make the game a single camera experience. We have tried several fixes, and are now currently aware that the issue comes from the smaller pieces of the camera that we are trying to move. This one is just going to take iterations, because we cannot test the functionality outside of a build. It takes about 15 minutes to build out to a device, which means that each attempt has a long time between attempt and solution. Basically, I haven’t had enough time in one block to see what going on with it, but given a solid 8 hours, this one should disappear.
a. 11/20/2017- https://youtu.be/_eEWo7TAB7w I made some progress, but this is still a long way from done.
3. We need to re-balance the audio. adding the voice overs has made it apparent that we will need some form of dynamic audio balance.
4. For the audio system, an in depth adaptive soundtrack system, there is a bug where we are evidently deleting an object, but then the audio system says, “Hey, where is this thing?” I have been working on this for 3 weeks with no hint of the right direction. The issues comes from not really understanding the system because our composer built it.
a. It seems that there was a section of the code that was meant to check if the object was destroyed, and it was that section of the script that had issues with objects being destroyed. after removing it, It seems to run fine. This was a rarer bug, but I did everything that I could to trigger it, and nothing bad happened.
For each one of these issues, I will post updates with their solutions.
Encompassed is a Virtual Reality (VR) game for mobile devices. It is an atmospheric puzzler in the same vein as Antichamber and The Witness. It boasts an original story, following the death of a planet, and an incredible interactive soundtrack by Kevin Anthony.
Being specifically designed for mobile devices, and designed for those with motion sickness in mind, Encompassed aims to be as widely accessible as possible, and will likely be the best first Virtual Reality experience for a new device.
Despite being designed for Virtual Reality, it can also be played in a mode that ignores the VR, and functions just as a puzzler for mobile.
It will be available for purchase on December 19th.
“Time keeps on ticking, into the future.” I have dumped a ton of time into the story, because I think that the story will be the greatest cohesive element. The problem is that it is hard to show off those elements.
On another note though, I realized, after talking to my editing crew for the script, that the levels didn’t really fit all that well with the script, so I have implemented another set of visual changes that should align the story and the game play still further.
Tell me what you think!
Also, I will be back next week with a full video showing off a few systems in the game that will help tie these things together.
My to do list for this week:
Implement the map system so the players will be less lost.
Edit the script further.
If I have time, do the rest of these visual changes.
The week after, I will try to add the voice overs.
So, last week, I began work on the script for Encompassed. It was a new direction for this game. We had originally imagined Encompassed as a purely atmospheric puzzler, but we were having some issues explaining the core mechanics of the game. We decided to add Voice Overs to explain these mechanics, but struggled with the proper implementation. We needed something that spoke to the player, but also seamlessly integrated with the game play. Cue a story.
For those of you who don’t know, I deign to be a writer. My Bachelor’s degree was in writing (although it was geared toward technical applications) and when I started making games, I did so as an outlet for story telling. The future of good stories is in games, after all. So I set to work on making a story that is interesting, believable, but not too hand-holdy. Last week I began, and finished the rough draft for the game.
Another addition from the last few weeks was the implementation of the adaptive soundtrack by our composer Kevin Anthony. His work is incredible, and I have regularly called him a wizard. If you don’t believe me, listen to the music on this weeks update video. It is faint, and not responsive to the viewer the same way it is to the player, but it is incredible nonetheless.
If you want the full audio experience, you will have to join our beta testing group for details. On this page, there should be a link to that, if you can’t find it, send me a message on facebook, or send me a tweet.
Lastly for the updates from last week, you may have noticed another version of the ball from the intro shows up after both the first levels were beaten, this is another storytelling system that needs a lot more work. I will update this during this upcoming week, and you will see a demonstration on next Monday.
My goals for this week are as follows:
Edit the script.
Implement the storytelling experience including:
Recording and adding voice-overs.
The moving balls that show the change and progression of the balls.
Some more marketing stuff. This includes a video advertisement, and this blog post 😉
Thank you all so much for being our fans and supporting us as we work. You are the best, seriously.
-Nick Harmer
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