In order to become great at something, you must push through the times when its no longer fun. This is something that we all experience at times. This is what I told my 12 year old as we drove in the car and discussed his lack of desire to play basketball that day. Its not that he wanted to quit basketball altogether, just that day he wasn’t feeling into it. But I advocated that he push through. If you just go dribble a ball or take a couple shots, then you’ll feel good about the effort that you put in.

This week, I had to also give myself that same advice. It has been a struggle to move forward on the things that I felt mattered more because I was blocked by things that matter less to me. It really destroyed the motivation to continue.

In order to become great at something, you must push through the times when its no longer fun.

So we push though. We must. We want to be be good at this, we want to build something great. We push through. Let’s talk about this week.

54 Games

Moving forward with the 54 Games name, we have submitted the DBA so that our company can operate under that name. This would be a positive if we hadn’t done that weeks ago without a response. We still are waiting. This must be almost done at this point, unless there is an issue, in which case we might need to move forward with a new name.

This week I have also created the Steam Workshop account. This is the account needed to publish our game on Steam. That was our goal, publish a game to Steam. However, we need more paperwork to submit to Valve. Because of this, we had to make requests to the state for documents. Which means more waiting. And more waiting.

Once we can submit those documents, we can create the game’s Steam page. I can’t wait. This is when the game will feel real.

Bombseeker

With every interesting idea comes interesting challenges. I had the idea of allowing for multiple themes for Bombseeker to exist. This would allow for players to enjoy any of a number of visual reskins of the game while maintaining the same game play. still wanting to do that, I began changing the game to allow for that. This has been painful. Maybe if I had more experience with games, then this wouldn’t be such a difficult feat.

A very large reason for this idea was to allow for me to hand draw (very poorly) some of the assets that we will need for the beta. We can store all of these assets in the “beta theme” asset pack. Then we will be able to have a real artist come in post beta and design the real default assets so that the game by default would look good.

Assets

We had previously been using some assets from itch.io that could be used commercially for free. But these were really only good for the character and time maps. When is comes to the title screen an the campaign screens, these asset packs aren’t helpful. In order to solve this, I began sketching what I want these screens to look like. These screens will be the primary source of lore for the game (maybe accompanied with short cut scenes if I can figure that out)

Tutorial Screen

The tutorial screen will greet you with a friendly face, a member of the resistance who is ready to teach you how to be a bombseeker.

Welcome to The Resistance, my friend. Oh? You were assigned to become a Bombseeker? Let me teach you the basics of what we do! 

To Prithe Campaign

After the tutorial is complete, you will gain access to the “To Prithe” campaign. Each campaign will be delivered as a member the the town of Alanther requesting to clear the path to another city for various reasons.

A long long time ago, my family had a farm outside of Prithe. Our family abandoned the farm when the Wild Beasts made their way to Prithe out of fear. I would love to raise my children on that farm like my great ancestors did for so many generations. Can you clear the path to Prithe? 

To Craithe

Sometimes you will hear of people traveling throughout the world, avoiding the bomb riddled travel paths and risking the dangers of the wilds.

My brother traveled through the mountains to Craithe. He sent a letter to me via some Resistance troops traveling North. Apparently there is a blacksmith in Craithe that could use my help. Can you clear the path to Craithe of bombs so that I can take my family safely? 

Conclusion

The formalities that we need to to move forward with the business side of releasing our game has become a long, dry, boring homework assignments. We continue to wait on the DBA and the required paperwork for to create the Steam page. In the meantime, we are enjoying the little bits our art that we are throwing together as well as the writing of the lore that will build our world.

We push forward. We must. Hopefully the next update will be more interesting. Hopefully the next update will have game play updates. Hopefully the next update will show steps towards beta. Hopefully the next update will feel more accomplished. Until then, we push forward.

Go Forth and Be Awesome.