Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Time for a chat

Warning! The following post contains huge amounts of text information.

Hello again, guys! As promised, here's my post with more information about side projects and current projects. Take 2 or 3 sodas, because we will talk a lo... NO! No, I'm joking, I'm joking! It won't be that long. Calm down...

Anyway, let's start with the most obvious one: Mari0 +Portal. As some of you may be noticing, I'm not working on it as much as I used to. In my previous post, I said it was because of side projects and SE. And it is actually why, but not all. People are losing interest in it, and, along with it, I am losing interest on it. I'm not saying I'm working on it without having interest. What I'm saying is that it is not as satisfying as it used to be. Back on version v0.5 of it, everything was awesome! People loved it, and everybody had this mod on their Desktop. Then came Alesan's Entities mod, and everybody ran for it. What made me sad, though, wasn't the fact that people were using Alesan's mod more than mine. I was happy for Alesan, because he's a very cool and smart guy, and his mod is amazing. The problem is that I realized that people were not SO interested on me as I used to think.
People made so many things related to his mod that I realized that they wasn't too much interested in mine. My mod have a little bit more than 10 mappacks for it, being most of them unfinished or never released. As for Alesan's mod, it had tons of mappacks, full of content and compliments.
As time passed, less and less people actually cared about my updates. When Alesan (or even other users) released something new, everybody was like "Wow! That's so awesome! Really,  really awesome! Keep up the good work!". Even when I did 3 or 4 updates, one after other, full of new content, a few people cared, and they were like "Yes, that's cool...". This, this was the worse. I actually felt like they were just commenting on my mod's thread to be educated, and not because they wanted. And, if I though this was bad, Mari0: SE came out, and people just passed to ignore me 99% of the times, and in the 1% of time they noticed I was there, they were even more like "Yeah, okay, cool, whatever...". Of course, they were not literally saying this, they're not evil or anything, but let's take some real examples.

Example 1:
You're too persistent.

Example 2:
Excuse me, but can I combine your mod with alesan99's entity mod?

Example 3:
I would love to see everything in se

If you thought "Hey, they're not being rude or anything", you're right, but that's not the point. The point is that, even though people seems to like my mod (I put "seems" on purpose), they are often suggesting me to merge my mod with Alesan's mod or Mari0: SE. With Alesan's mod I even thought, but then I gave up. With SE, it'd be almost impossible, and it'd make me loose one of the most important points of my mod: recreate some SE features and add brand new ones. They like my mod a bit, but they would rather ask me to merge it with other mod than use it alone. When it is about SE or Alesan's mod, no matter what features they have or don't, people don't ask "Hey, Alesan, can you merge your mod with SE or Hugo's mod?" or "Hey, Maurice, why don't you add Hugo's mod features into SE?".
I'm just keeping this mod because I want to feel like at least one project of mine were finished successfully. I want the mission accomplished feeling, the knowing that something I made entertained others. I already had this feeling once, but no longer. No, I'm not giving up or abandoning this mod (if it still wasn't clear). I just don't feel like it is as gratifying as I wanted.

But Mari0 +Portal isn't the only thing I can work on! I can do many other different things, and I am doing it! Let's start with one of the most recents: the HugoBDesigner's File Manager! That's just an experimental project I'm working on, but, because it is experimental, doesn't means that it has to be incomplete or useless. I'm working on it for some time, but I'm just half the way to finish it. I posted it here, in a thread of LÖVE forums. This will be very useful when finished, because I'll be able to use the code of it in other projects. You know, in case they require you to open a certain file/folder or save/load/delete/copy/move files and folders. Just like a regular file manager, but built in LÖVE instead. Here are some images (and you thought there wasn't going to be images in this post):




There are other small projects I worked on in the meantime, such as a small 7 differences game. But a big project I'm also working on - but not sharing - is a game by Hans1998. It is called Lines. Currently, we are in the planning and organizing phase, but we're slowly getting somewhere. And, hopefully, I'll soon start working on my very first own game, named █▀░■█▄▓  ▌. No, that's not the game's name, that's a joke. I'm not talking about it yet, because I don't want to show an unfinished project. This one is also in the planning and organizing phase, but I've got some levels done (in paper). This game will have 10 chapters (plus a level editor and a level downloader), and, until now, the first 2 chapters are mostly mapped out. I haven't any code yet, and I don't have any "showable" content yet, but as soon as I get it at least 95% done I will show you guys. This game will not be an experimental game, nor a short one. Not even a mod of anything. This one (and Lines, hopefully) will be a serious game I am planning to make. I'm not even sure if I'll sell it or not... I may or not sell it, but if I do, it will not be expensive: 5 dollars seems like a fair price for this kind of game. Also, I can't guarantee that I'd make it be sold, because, if I decide to sell it, I'll try to sell it via Steam, by sharing it on Steam Greenlight. And nothing guarantees that it will be available there. But, of course, it is just a matter of time until I can be sure of something.

When I have something less secret about my game or Lines I will keep you guys updated. Thanks for reading 'til here (if you did), and I see you in my next post.

2 comments:

  1. Bro, got to be honest.
    Im new; to Löve and programming altogether.

    It's difficult trying to get something done, when you don't know what needs to be done; but I've get almost anything I need by reading some of the posts on the Löve forum, including yours, and I can't even comprehend the amount of work you put into making what you have made.

    I haven't got to play your games but only by looking at the updates you've posted, I can assure it's one hell of a job.

    Thank you for helping us noobs up in here.
    Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much, man! It's always great to read such a nice comment! And, by the help I give there, consider it as a "payment". Whenever I need help, I ask there and people there are always very nice to me. I'm just doing my part on it :)

      No matter how much I've added to this mod, I always need help from people better than me too, so, if someone that ever helped me with something is reading, you deserve good part of the compliments above!

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