Christmas is coming & so is Lemmy...

Been a week or so since the last blog...sorry about that. Me and D have been busy tweaking the game and adding in a new feature! You'll have to buy the game to see what it is but rest assured it has been worth the extra few days. To be honest it has been all D's work apart from the editing of the sound. We want to get the game finished before Christmas and therefore present shopping has taken a back seat until now. Tweaking and testing has turned out to be a long slog but certainly worth it! We don't want them sending it back from peer review with a rejection due to bugs and glitches (are they the same thing?!).

We are hoping the game will be out in January and I don't see why it wouldn't be. Getting anything sent off to Microsoft ie tax forms now before Crimbo is a bit ambitious but in the new year here's to exciting times!

Levels complete!

We have just officially finished all the levels including the mammoth final one! Testing has been continuous throughout and we are set to ask others to playtest it next week. It's all a bit nerve-wracking! The W8-BEN form is enough to test my nerves as it is! Of course we'll let you know how playtesting goes. Before that though we have to finish testing it ourselves which is proving to be interesting to say the least. Lots of chopping and changing!
D found a really great game on Steam yesterday called 'Terraria'. I would thoroughly recommend it! It's surprisingly addictive though which is often the mark of a good game. D has also been enjoying 'Skyrim' of course...I'm only 3rd level as I've been hardcoring Lego Harry Potter. Our days are currently consisting of data entry, XBox and Lemmy Lizard!
Unfortunately over the past week or so both D and I have been struck down with illness :( Recovering now though but it was a setback to the game! Did my first lot of Christmas shopping today. 4 presents for under £20. Love you Amazon!!

Great weekend!

Saturday in London was a fantastic day! Got the train up from Bath at about 1pm ish and arrived just before 3. Immediately got lost! Had to buy a guidebook before asking a policeman which tube train to get for the British Museum. Strangely we were told to look for the guys in blue in the underground who knew everything about the tubes! No blue people but 'Assistance' were very helpful! Museum was great and free...although we gave a donation! Brilliant Egyptian section although we didn't have time to get round all of it. Underground ended up being a bit of an adventure in the end. They had shut the majority of the lines due to maintenance which caused a bit of a pickle and police intervention! Overcrowding to the extreme! Leicester Square was overwhelmingly packed as they had shut the square itself for building work! Got lost trying to find the theatre. Turned out it was down a side street! Stewart Lee as always was hilarious. Great venue. All round awesomeness! Had a lovely meal at the Italian next door before heading back to Paddington via the now-open Bakerloo Line. 45 minutes early meant a coffee & hot chocolate before our train arrived! Train journey home wasn't without a drama or two! Jen from The IT crowd appeared to be our train manager, requesting over the intercom for a policeman's presence in Coach H at one point! Delays in Reading as the driver of a train at the platform had decided to wander off rather than drive his train! Overall a wonderful day!
D did some painting on Sunday although Soothing White is apparently code for Grey!! Regarding the game we have found an alternative way of testing for glitches before actually playing the game through. Last week's method had me pulling my hair out! Have also drawn a map of the game (very rough - I'm no Picasso!) so we can keep track of what goes where. Ultimately very handy if you have a lot of levels of different shapes and sizes. Hoping to wrap up the last of the testing this week but anything can happen....

Testing

We've been level testing over the past few days. It's a lot less enjoyable and a lot more tedious than I thought it'd be. Don't get me wrong, I love Lemmy and all...I just don't like going back to the script half way through a level to check things are dandy! Would much rather play it through and enjoy being terrible at our own game! It's further infuriating when you know there is a hiccup but cannot see it...despite staring script in the face for most of the day. Note to fellow indi game developers: when you are on the verge of tears in the testing phase it's time to take a tea/coffee break! Further further disappointment comes in knowing that I am the one who has written the level script and therefore all the errors are my fault! I have now passed the testing reins over to D temporarily as he noticed I was going slightly insane with frustration!!
On a lighter note the dentist said my teeth were fine and me & D are off to London this weekend. British Musuem & Stewart Lee will be waiting...

The end is nigh...

Got the carpets being re-fitted within the next few days. My colour scheme has unfortunately been poo-pooed! A bit of painting to do as well but a lick of pink paint should cover it...
D has been finishing off the last of the levels, only 3/4 more to go I believe!! I've been writing level script over the past couple of days which I was expecting to take longer, to be honest. Once you get into the swing of things the script flows quite quickly though which works out well for me!
Next week will be the last of the levels and the remainder of the script. We'll be going over the level script together before testing to see whether there is anything we want to add or remove...
Things are looking great with the game though! Only tax forms and payment to worry about now!

Fireworks!

Had a great Fireworks party at the weekend! Stayed dry and fairly warm! D set off the fireworks along with a couple of our friends. Firework dance, re-shaped and re-worked!! Off to see Stewart Lee next week in London, just for a day trip. Should be great :)
Progress on the game has been slow over the past few days as we have been packing up and moving rooms in our shared house! Looks like I've got some painting & decorating to do in my room. Yea! Pink it is then...Should be back to normal tomorrow as order will be restored!

Batman over! Noooooooo!

Alas I finished Batman:Arkham City last night! Still plenty to do other than the campaign but it just won't be the same without the story to go with it :( It was a great ending though and I wasn't disappointed. I must confess there were a few points throughout the game where I had to look up what to do on the Internet but that's what it's there for, right! I guess I'll continue with Rage on D's PC and then on to Uncharted 2 which I havent't played yet...
Going to be working on the remaining levels today. Should be done by the end of the week, if the end of the week is midnight on Sunday!! Getting through them a lot quicker with 2 people working on them.
Looking forward to Fireworks party on Saturday! Always a laugh

Batman and Levels....

Now 39% through Arkham City! Looking forward to playing the DLC once I'm done with the Bat! D bought Uncharted 3 today. We tend to use our PS3 as a Blu-Ray player however Uncharted 3 was a definite for D! I played the second one and didn't really take to it. I think I've gotten so used to the XBox controller and the ease in which you hold it in your hands. The PS3 controller just isn't very comfortable to hold and that's strangely off-putting! Being a huge XBox fan however I might be a little biased. Perhaps time to broaden my horizons...
Lemmy-related this week me and D are finally finishing off the levels together. Up until now D has been doing all the programming and code so I'm pretty sure he's loving the level design. It's a welcome change! Only a few more to go and then testing will commence...

The Day after...

Enjoyed our Halloween Saturday night yesterday! Watched a bunch of 'scary' films: 'Don't look up' - Got about 50 minutes in before we had to stop and turn it off due to the sheer awfulness of it! Is that a word?! 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 2' - Very 80s and inconsistent. Understand the very basic plot but there were a lot of random occurrences that didn't make a whole lot of sense! 'Rec 2' -  A great find on our local DVD market stall (£5.00 - bargainous!). Lot like the first one which was brilliant - good twist. And finally caught both 'Friday the 13th' remake & 'Ginger Snaps' on telly - both your regular cheesy teen horror films: one serial killer & the other a werewolf flick! All these films were made better by pizza & Morgan's Spiced! Feeling it today a little...
Now that all the tweaks are done on Lemmy both D & I will be working on levels next week. Hopefully get them all finished and then start working on finishing the level script. Wish us luck!

Arkham City

25% through Arkham City as of last night! Got a bit stuck on a particularly hard bit and had to give up when it got to 3pm :( Walkthroughs online are the way forward there...
Pleased with progress on the game this week, this week being 'Tweak Week'! I've left the tweaking to D and I've been happily designing more levels. Testing has begun and is ongoing...Playing the same level repeatedly will get a bit tedious I suspect! Have had to do a spot of data entry in between which slows the process slightly but it pays the bills.
D went to Sainsburys this morning to buy 'Battlefield 3'. Another one ticked off the list! The latter part of the year has been a little crazy for games and our gaming calendar is still jam-packed. Skyrim anyone?!
Today will be more levels for me and further tweaking for D! I'm seeing the end in sight :)

Coming soon...

Hi there! Me & my partner in crime are currently developing & completing our XBox Live Indi game 'Lemmy Lizard vs The Mecha-Eggs'. It'll be available later this year and we are at the moment trying to let people know about it! Our website www.wytchlight.com contains further details, videos & screenshots of the work in progress...as well as reviews, info about us & the RPG my partner created. Very nerdy! We entered this year's Dream Build Play competition with a very rough beginning of our game and were therefore unsuccessful! Worth a go though, right. Anyway feel free to check out our game in progress & website. We welcome any comments :)