I think I managed well, past 2 weeks ;)

Of course, I would have liked to progress much more with the actual game (and I feel like I keep repeating that *rollseyes*), but I’m finally through all the managing stuff for steam and got my steam store page up 😀
http://store.steampowered.com/app/717280/Critters__cute_cubs_in_a_cruel_world/

this also includes the very first trailer I made for the game 🙂

If anyone is interested in my process for that:
I got Hitfilm for it (since it’s free and has a composing part as well, for text and effects) and watched some very good, tutorials for it. I also applied simple moving on principle to it, which is simply: rough it out and continue moving on, one clip/step at a time.
In this case, I looked for some music that could fit to my game and made some footage of my game with Bandicam and then I imported those files into the project and started shortening and cutting them down 🙂
With a bit of a system, I was trying to make cuts on noticeable music changes and also some faster moments in the footage match up with some of the music. The same goes for the text I was overlaying later ^^
I also always tried to remind myself, that a trailer shouldn’t exceed 1:30 minutes and that the first 30 seconds are usually deciding, if the trailer hooks (based on lots of stuff I have read over the years)
I probably haven’t done best job with that, but I tried to think of which information is most important for me to convey : the games name, that it’s early access and that it will be on steam and what the game is about, hence why I chose to build in those little text overlays, which are practically naming what I can’t really show from game footage alone, since I’m still working on implementing the variety needed to show it properly (besides colors changing)
I think it’s probably also helpful, if I post the most compressed and best tutorial I was finding for Hitfilm 😀 thanks to him, it felt so easy to understand how to use the program 😉 https://youtu.be/7rXWTJzmbZ8

uhhhh so yeah 😀 I’m happy that everything went well, the only thing that bothers me, is that I couldn’t make the release work for 31st of October 😮 , but therefore I have now time to develop on the game until release into Early Access and then I will likely update it immediately, so it just means more stuff for everyone who gets the game :3

also tried out today on how it would work out for me, to use a physical to-do list, I think it’s going well, helps me to keep my brain a little less scattered :3

*squeeeeks* I’m so excited to get this game out to everyone and to be able to keep working on it 😀

Eventful week, in a sense ;)

I feel this week was indeed quite full of things. I started off by meeting someone to get evaluated, if I could maybe get an extension for the grant I have been working with the past 5 months and I hope it goes through, but it for sure makes and made me very nervous, because I have no idea how to evaluate my work and how others might see it and what exactly would be even “good” criteria to getting that extension of the grant through and on monday I’m gonna have a meeting about that again 😮 .

I know that I’m trying my best to make things work somehow, which is why I try my hardest currently to get the Steam Store page done and then evaluated and hopefully approved, so I can put it up on steam as “coming soon” and then hopefully! at 31st of October I would release my game into Early Access on Steam.

Honestly, I would have liked to wait with that for a bit longer, but my grant is running out at the end of October, I had struggles to deal with, that I really didn’t expect, some that could have been avoidable, but were due to my inexperience on how to work and stand up for myself. It all has drawn everything out and not only did I not feel good about it, I sort of bashed myself for it.
I try not do, but sometimes it’s hard when I think “I could have done better” even if that’s not true, since I really try my best to research and figure out things the best I can…..honestly…who knows what more could have gone wrong, if I wouldn’t be like that 😉
hah….I sidetracked a little bit.

Soooo….I made a bit of a deal with myself, to crunch through work until end of the month (trying to not overdo it though). That includes, setting up steam store page, making materials ready for promotion(videos, art etc.), adjusting my plans, getting my game into a relatively stable and feature complete state. I don’t know honestly, if I will get all the features in, especially the more complex ones, like save functionality….not even sure if I should do it, since I don’t know how to do that yet and I expect it to be quite a lot of work 🙂

Also…what the hell! I need to make a trailer for my game, from game footage 2 weeks away from the launch o.o and I have never done Video editing like that XD sure I edited some Videos while I studied, but I think I don’t really have a clue 😛 So that will be a first timer and I hope it’s at least gonna turn out moderate lol……
I really feel like graphically my game isn’t ready for such exposure of it’s graphics…>.< buuuuut that’s the version that is gonna come on steam…and if there are any extras, in case I manage to develop some more when the store page is up, I guess I can just update everything as needed 🙂 Maybe I can make the Video relatively “neutral” as in, it shows current game, shows what’s in it…..hmmm I will see what the results will be o.o
Also I wonder how my german accent would sound like if I would do a voiceover/talk ….could I pull off some sort of scientist explaining the life of critters like a documentation? XD

oh….and there are images to share 😀 I finished my promo picture, which btw. took much longer than I wanted it to…with occasional: sitting on my pc without anything happening to it for weeks….>.>

I’m honestly very proud of it 😀 only thing I don’t like, is that for some reason I chose this really weird format and never checked on what I actually needed rofl….which kinda bit me, when I tried to use this image on the steam store-page stuff o.o

hihihi first preview of my steam store page :3 I would be lying, if I would say that this wouldn’t make me somewhat excited 😀

oh and then I also updated all my EmberSparkz pages with my new image and even started work on a Critters own Sub Webpage on my main domain 😀
http://www.embersparkz.com/critters.html

what’s not so visible, is that I made all the “capsules” or images necessary for steam ready and I also created a unique Logo for Critters 😉
And just yesterday I have implemented food and “dead bodies” decay to the game, as well as fruits regrowing on bushes 😀

so yeah….quite lot’s of stuff that happened this week 😀

So much! So few time *sighs*

I think it’s about time I start prioritizing the actual game development. I have put much more time in trying to do business related things, than developing and it honestly has annoyed me quite alot. Not to mention, that I also had some personal issues “to deal with” again and those things just keep eating time, if I want to or not….and then on top of that I might have also felt quite depressed about not feeling like I’m progressing properly and feeling as if I ruined everything by not being active enough on social media etc.
Last 2 weeks were stressful to say the least…..
But I’m slowly crawling back out of that hole again and I was even pondering, if I get the time and to gather some experience with making Videos, if I should make a stream of me working on something.
I have no idea how that would go, cause I’m actually a quite shy person and not thinking that I’m very photogenic OR videogenic XD for that matter…..but I am curious about at least giving it a try.
(If someone wants to see it, please tell me so XD cause that could make a difference in how courageous I feel about it 😉 )
On a good note: I got to continue work on the final promo picture for Critters and my discord is still alive 😛 even though it’s not really “busy” in there XD. Also I might have found a solution for my grass bending/visibility problem with my cubs and have already implemented a first version of it.