Seems like Fisher-Diver is doing pretty well on Armor so far. Their audience usually like my stuff less than some other websites (like Kongregate, in particular), so it’s super reassuring to see a lot of positive comments coming in. And none of the negative feedback has been surprising, so that’s extremely good. A lot of people were complaining about the lack of a save function (for some reason I thought I could get away with leaving this out???), so I went ahead and put that in. Hopefully it’ll boost my scores a bit!
The game goes out to other websites later this week, which is when the real party gets started.
Hey everybody! Fisher-Diver went live yesterday. It’s site-locked to ArmorGames.com for a week, and after that we’ll start allowing it to spread around. I’ll also be able to use this time to make some final adjustments and bug fixes according to the feedback that comes through.
First off, you noticed the new layout, right? Maybe this is how coquettes feel when they decide on a new hair style.
Basically, I fucked up the old website with my goofy shenanigans and couldn’t seem to fix it, so I reinstalled WordPress and picked a shiny new template. It’s wonderfully simple and ought to make browsing this site a little more pleasant. Props to the designer (whose link is sitting at the very bottom of the page)!
Second, Fisher-Diver is juuuuuuuust about ready for release. Literally any day now. Not sure how long Armor will take to put it up (since they have all this stuff prescheduled), but they usually take a week or less.
Finally, just for fun, here are two photographs I took a couple of days ago.
David Carney and Tristan Costanzo have been hard at work on the audio for Fisher-Diver, and it sounds fantastic! I recorded a really quick video to show how it’s coming along. What do you think?
I’m thinking about using the title “Fisher-Diver” now. It’s not flashy, but it’s easy to remember, explains the main gameplay in very simple terms, and seems to be surprisingly Google-friendly. For the moment, it’s good enough. I might think of something better, but I’d be okay with releasing under this title.
The game has been playtesting very well in the past few days, which is extremely encouraging. If you’d like to play the new build, hit the tab near the top of the page. David’s still working on the audio, but the music that I’ve heard so far has been the radness and he sounds really pleased with where the sound effects are going. Even though the current version is still silent, there are various other updates throughout. If you have any friends who’d enjoy trying it out, maybe you could ask them to give it a playthrough? That would make you a good person.
There’s a new version of the fishing game (is “Fishing Dream” a stupid title?) in the tab near the top of the page. Most of the changes are focused on shaping the “fun-ness” of the gameplay. Up until now the game has (hopefully) been fun to play with because the mechanics are interesting, but now I’m starting to make the actual gameplay choices more compelling on their own. Oxygen management is one of the biggest changes–the game looks almost the exact same as last week, but just because of the oxygen meter, it plays pretty differently. As always, I’ll love you for always and forever if you give me any kind of (honest) feedback.
I’ve been quietly tinkering away on a deep sea fishing game lately. Fix is still under way and moving along wonderfully (and my artist is settled down for a while again, so he can do more work and we can make more progress). The exciting news is that it’s time to start playtesting the fishing game!
Hit the “Fish demo” tab op top to try the current version. WADS moves around, aim and shoot with the mouse, collect dead fishy parts with the spacebar. Bigger chunks are worth more money. Larger (more valuable!) fish can be found as you dive deeper.
There’s no actual goal right now. I just need to be seeing if everything is starting to make sense to players (ie, you). If you have time to play it for a few minutes, be sure to keep an eye out for anything that’s noticeably counterintuitive. Positive and negative feedback are equally appreciated, but dishonest feedback is worthless, so don’t worry about my feelings.
If you can’t think of anything to say but want to help out, try answering any of these questions:
1) What do you wish you could do in the game?
2) What element of the gameplay was the hardest to understand?
3) How does hunting the fish make you feel? (no, really)
4) What’s your general strategy for getting the most money out of a fish?
Fix is still coming along nicely, but I don’t have anything to show for it at the moment. I’ll most likely put up a video to explain some features soon, but I need to get some elements a little more polished before it’ll be worth showing off. Things to expect: character art by Ben Jelter, interactive lasers, switches/doors, and more!™
Since there’s nothing cool to see for Fix, you get a playable demo of a new prototype I’ve been tinkering with. I don’t have a name for it yet, so for the time being, you can find it in the “fish demo” tab near the top of the page. It involves an infinite ocean and randomly generated fishy creatures, and I think you’ll like it.
Oh, also, I took down the Grief demo because I’m not working on that game. It was originally going to be the sequel to Company, but the story I had in mind doesn’t need to be a sequel and the gameplay wasn’t shaping up to be compelling enough. Fix is going to be much better.
