An Update List on Why Am I Dead 2

I was hoping to have an update sooner than this, but programming goes at its own pace and no one else’s. This should be the first, and last, major WAID2 update that lacks any visual or audible component, as I’m wrapping up the nuts-and-bolts development and moving into art and writing.

I’ve been on the fence regarding how early I actually start uploading material from the game. I’ve decided recently that I’d rather hold off until I’ve moved past art/writing/assets that are “work in progress” (or worse, place-holders!) before I do so — any benefits of a greater sense of progress for me are outbalanced by the risk of making a poor first impression.

So, sadly, you’ll just have to take my word that all of the following have been done:

Completely rebuilt how dialogue is handled, which means…
- Writing dialogue is way easier for me to write, and for others to read (hopefully)
- Looping dialogue; before, all dialogue options inevitably led to an end. Now some options can loop back around to previous parts of the conversation; convenient for menus or for revisiting information.
- In-dialogue variables (eg. <player> tag in script will be replaced with whichever character the player is controlling)
Save / Load Function! This would have been useful in the first game, but is a necessity for the second!
Game “props” (such as doors, tables, beds, etc) have some extra attributes…
- They can initiate dialogue when you try to talk to them, as sort of an “examine” function
- They store information about which character can “use” them. For example, some doors will be locked for certain characters, and open for other characters (who presumably have a key).
- Some props will have different dialogue results for different characters. One character might be bored by an object, and one might find it of great personal significance.
New possession ability mentioned earlier: some characters can be “fully possessed”, which allows you to talk as the Ghost through their body, opening up different sets of dialogues and effects!
Completely rebuilt how collision detection is handled, which allows for both smoother and more efficient movement.
Finished character AI, adding safeguards that should drastically reduce unwanted emergent behavior.

I think that’s all the major stuff, though there were some minor background changes that are much more boring. Sorry this update is so colorless, but I wanted to get it out anyway.

Announcing Why Am I Dead….2!

Well, so much for expanding the content of my blog and frequency of posts–it’s been nearly a month since my last update!

Oi. I blame it on holidays.

For anyone sticking around, I figure it’s about time I put in concrete my next major project. I’ve alluded to it pretty strongly before, and you’ve probably figured it out from the title, but just for clarity’s sake: Why Am I Dead 2!

I wouldn’t normally jump at the opportunity to do a sequel to something; I’ve got enough ideas for new content that I’m itching to make. So when I say that I’m making a sequel, that comes with the implicit statement that I believe the original left room for either improvement or further exploration, or, in this case, both. And, of course, that comes with the implicit statement that I’ll be aiming to make a sequel that substantially improves or expands the original, or, in this case, both.

So with Why Am I Dead 2, I’m raising the stakes. The game will be considerably longer and have higher production value: better graphics, better writing, better audio. A mostly new cast with lots of characters that I think you’ll love (and/or hate). Instead of approaching it as a side-project, as I did with my last game, I’ll be approaching the development of this game as its own full-time job.

How I imagine myself about a month from now

As a result of this, the game will not be free. This is mainly just to support the time I spend developing the game–the original Why Am I Dead, although I enjoyed making the ever-loving crap out of it, earned a laughably small amount of money. Which is fine, of course. And that doesn’t mean I’ll be charging a lot–I don’t have a particular price worked out yet, but you can be assured that it will be very very cheap by anyone’s standards. I’ll definitely be releasing a long-ish free demo as well, so you can try the game out and get a good idea what it’s all about first.

(Note, this doesn’t mean I’m done releasing free flash games forever! I just think that for this project, that model doesn’t really make sense.)

I know what you’re probably thinking now. When on Earth is this coming out? I want to give you all my money!!! Okay, I may have embellished your thoughts a little bit, sue me. Still, the basic time-line that I have for development is about 2 months of full-time core development, and another 2 months of full-time buffer, which means taking into account things not going as planned (because they never ever do), beta-testing, and polishing. So that puts me at 4 months of full-time work.

But regardless of the exact timeline, when I release the game it will be polished and tested to death; I have no plans to repeat the stormy release of the original.

During this time, I’ll be hoping to market my game, which is something totally new to me. I may even do little teasers and release info about the cast, story, and gameplay in episodes. Who knows.

Guys, you don’t understand, it wasn’t supposed to be that good of a game!

So, GDC China just ended. I had a great time, met some great people, and listened to some fantastic talks.

But that’s enough of that (at least, for now). Because, you see, the first morning of the conference was the day MochiAds accepted my game Why Am I Dead. It was also the day I was allowed to put my game on the bigger flash portals. I just sort of did this without any real expectations for anything, except for maybe a transient increase in ad impressions. Mentally, I had already finished the game and made it public. This was just a little footnote.

I was so, so, so stupidly wrong.

With such a promising mechanic, I hope WAID ends up being more of a proof of concept for a bigger project… As a standalone game, Why Am I Dead? has flaws, but it’s still plenty fun enough to justify sinking 30 minutes to an hour into it…

– Gamecola.net

Clearly at the moment, the developer has a greater amount of skill at constructing an effective mystery than depicting it in Flash. However, it is an ambitious, atmospheric work reminiscent of Hotel Dusk or Colonel’s Bequest, and it has quite the killer ending. This marks Peltast Games as a designer to watch out for in the future.

– JayIsGames.com

It’s certainly not perfect, but Why Am I Dead? is brilliant enough to be worth a few confused hours this late Sunday evening.

– Indiegames.com

It got the daily first spot on Newgrounds on 11/17/12 with about 9,500 views
…and is continuing quite healthily on the “Popular Games” section with, as of now, over a 4 star rating
Also got included on FreeIndieGam.es, a web-blog that I am a big fan of

I don’t know how all of the above looks to people who are not me. After all, a lot of the praise is qualified with good criticism, and there are Daily winners on Newgrounds every, well, every day. So, perhaps none of this shocks or awes you, the audience.

As for myself, however, well. I. It’s just. Ahem. Forgive me as I pretend that I’m on Tumblr for a moment.

There’s a lot more to say on the game as a whole and I may write up a post-mortem in the near future. As for now, there’s still a lot of work to be done on the game regarding bugs and APIs and whatnot and I should be doing all that and not posting on my blog!

My first game launch, as it were

I got off extremely lucky compared to many other North-easterners regarding Hurricane Sandy. In my area there were power outages and the occasional tree falling on some poor sod’s car, but no floodings or fires or what have you. I wasn’t even one of the people who lost power, I just lost internet for several days, and I’m pretty grateful of that.

And not long after my internet returned, my first game is now online!

YOU CAN PLAY IT HERE

As my first game’s launch, this is kinda how I feel right now:

The image is taken from this article written by Derek Yu, which mirrors my thoughts and feelings on finishing a game in a myriad of ways. I mean, I had kinda already finished Why Am I Dead a long long time ago, but only sort of finished it. This time, I finished finished it. And it feels good. Oh, here’s another image from the same article that seems appropriate:

Anyway. With all this excitement, it’s pretty much impossible for my standards of success not to be met.

“This game is too short!” == My game left people wanting more. Success!

“This game confused me.” == My game got people thinking. Success!

“This game was impossible to beat.” == My game was ambitious. Success!

“I absolutely hate this game and I want to injure you.” == My game, uh…created an emotional response. SUCCESS!

…On a more serious note, I’m looking forward to getting feedback and growing as a developer/designer from the responses I get. And of course, other projects are in the works, one of which I’m very overdue on talking about!