Dreaming Sarah
The Finish a Game Jam
I've been working on Dreaming Sarah since around Dec. 2012, and I usually ran into so much trouble that I got demotivated, slowing down the whole process of actually making the game.
So today I heard about this jam - the Finish a Game Jam - and decided to try it out.
Here's the deal - I'll be working on the game this whole week to try and finish the game by next weekend. There's still a bit to be done, but I want to do everything I can to finish it as soon as possible. Of course this might mean some nasty bugs, but after I'm done with the base game, I can stop then sort them out.
Also, I'm racing with the Painter's Guild dev Lucas Molina to see who finishes first! Guess we should bet or something but in the end all we want is to work more on our games.
You can also check out the development stream at http://www.hitbox.tv/andreyin - I'll try to keep on streaming the whole time, so if you have any comments, suggestions or just want to say hi, you can go on the chat and do it.
Thanks everyone!
Bug fixes update + Steam Overlay now working!
This is a quick update to fix a few bugs and add the Steam overlay. No new areas or items have been added in this update.
Here's the list of fixes:
- Added Steam overlay support
- Fixed umbrella + magnifying glass bug
- Fixed fish-related bugs
- Fixed lava sound bug
- Fixed menu bugs
- Fixed save-related bugs
- Fixed the analog and d-pad controls not working on some areas
- Fixed the "change control" menu not going back to main menu
- Fixed being able to open item menu while getting an item
- Fixed being able to help the pianist without having the bullet
- Fixed description of the glasses item
- Fix volume buttons for songs
- Released Mac/Linux versions
I still want to release the game this month but due to limitations the official release might be in January (since I probably will have to wait for the steam sales to end before releasing it for real). This means that I soon as I get the game done I'll release it as a Early Access still, then wait until I can release it as a full version.
Thanks for the support!! :fdisk:
Linux & OSX builds + new emoticons
Per user request I've made the OSX and Linux builds available for testing. To use them, right-click the game on the games list, select "properties" and on the "betas" tab, choose "nodewebkit105" from the dropdown menu. Then the "install" button will appear.
But remember - if your Mac/Linux machine has an Intel HD 3000 video card, you might encounter some heavy graphic glitches (like a black box around Sarah and no effects working right). I'm really sorry but right now there's nothing I can do about this unfortunately. I think it has something to do with outdated drivers, but I couldn't figure out. The weird thing is that with this same card the game works just fine on Windows machines.
As for the new emoticons - someone mentioned that they wanted more Sarah emoticons, so I've made them. I'm still waiting for it to be approved, though. Should be up in a week or so.
One last reminder - I still want to release the game this month, so I'm working hard on it, but I'm also still fixing a lot of bugs that I didn't even know existed (like the menu-over-menu crash, and the part where you give the boy the hat crash). I'm just one person working on this so I'd rather fix these before advancing (and creating more bugs).
Once again, thanks for the support!
Halloween update
Since halloween is coming up, I thought it would be a pretty good time to update the game with some new things.
Bear in mind that the update is NOT LIVE YET, I still have to finish a couple things before making it live this week... Here's the preview of what will be added:
Achievements
Finally! Thanks to Scirra and GreenHeartGames' Greenworks, Dreaming Sarah will have achievements. After this update there will be 16 achievements - but that isn't all of them. More will be added later on the final version.
There will be one achievement for each item you get, plus more achievements for other things you discover in-game.
Please note that even though you can already see the list of achievements, you won't be able to get any until the update!
Game cards, emoticons and badges
Cards have been added! Although I'm still waiting for them to be reviewed and accepted. As soon as they are they'll be added automatically, before the update. Right now there are 5 cards, 3 backgrounds and 7 emoticons.
The card arts that aren't by me are made by two friends; Fervir and Rdein.
You can check Fervir's game here:
http://fervir.itch.io/elysis
And Rdein's games here:
http://www.bombservice.com/rdein/
There are more friends helping me out with cards so I might add some more later. If YOU would like to make a card, I'd love to see it. Just draw Sarah and I'll have it on Steam with the name "Sarah by [your name here]" and email me it at andre@asteristic.com.
New areas
5 new areas have been added into the game. Some big, other small.
New items
4 new items have been added into the game. Including a necklace that turns Sarah into a fish. Finally.
Redesigned menu
This took me a while to re-do, but now the menus in the game are properly done. This will help me a LOT later when translating the game to other languages. In fact, if you'd like to help me out I'd be grateful! Just contact me and we can sort something out.
And more!
And it's all coming before the halloween, so stay tuned. If you have the game installed it will update automatically.
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Now, to anwser a few questions:
Linux and Mac builds
I looked into it and right now it's not possible for me to release a OSX build. The problem is that even if I could test it properly (which I can't) I would still NEED a Mac to send the build to Steam. And if that wasn't enough, I still haven't figured out a game-breaking bug where WebGL effects just won't work. These effects are used for a lot of things (like outlining hidden things, showing which item has been selected, etc). Apparently with Yosemite the WebGL support is a bit better, but I'm not sure if this is only in Safari or in general.
BUT, this doesn't mean it won't come. I still want to have it on Mac and I might get a friend's computer to do it, but probably only after the full game has been released. Otherwise I would take too much time figuring things out (since the process is really different) and end up delaying the game again. If I test it on Yosemite and the game-breaking bugs are still there it would take me some time to get it fixed (removing the WebGL effects completely).
As for the Linux build, it seems that it's a bit easier to get done, but still I have no way of testing it properly. I asked a friend for help a couple months ago and he said the game was running fine apart from a small issue - it wouldn't run in fullscreen no matter what. It sounds like a Node-Webkit issue and if they don't fix it there's not much I can do. I'll see if anything has changed with him (maybe the new builds of Construct 2 fixed this) and if it has, I might send it next week too.
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That's it for today!
If you have any questions please contact me at my twitter - @andreyin. I anwser a lot faster there and I don't keep an eye on the discussion forums here.
Once again, thanks a lot for your support. I had no clue I could get my game as far as this, and it's all thanks to you.
Thank you!
Late announcement about the game's progress!
As you might have noticed, I still haven't released an update that was supposed to come out last month. This announcement is to explain the reasons.
First, as some players might have noticed, there's a game breaking bug when you talk to the kid who lost his hat. This bug has been boggling my mind for a while now, and even though the line of code apparently doesn't have any flaws to it - not only that, but it's the EXACT SAME code for the keyboard input and yet it only happens when playing with the controller - I can't get it fixed properly. So the reason the update is taking so long is because I'm redoing the whole programming for text, trying to fix this.
Another thing that's making me push back the release date is that I'm really unhappy with some areas I've done for the game. The moon bar did not come out the way I expected it to be AT ALL so I'm redoing it. As I've mentioned on the Early Access description, I'd rather push the game back if I have to than release something I'm not happy with.
With that said, I'd like to thank and apologize to all of you. I'm a single dev working on this game and your support has pulled me through to where I am right now. This is my first big game and I'd really like to be happy with it, instead of rushing it.
Also, please don't think that I've dropped the game or anything. I'm still actively working on it along with some other projects, but this is my main work right now. The new release date is Q4 2014, so it WILL be done by the end of the year.
Thanks again for your understanding. If you have any thoughts or would like to reach out, you're welcome to send me an email or reach out on twitter - my username there is @andreyin.
Thanks everyone!
Steam keys for bundles and other stores
Dreaming Sarah just got on Steam today, and I've been going through all the places it was being sold before and adding keys for it, so this is just a heads up on when you'll have your key available:
Itch.io buyers: I've sent an email with a link to your download page, the Steam key will be there.
Groupee buyers: I've contacted Groupee to figure out how should I give them the keys, I'm awaiting for an anwser.
Desura buyers: I'm still figuring out how to create a .csv file so I can upload the keys there, shouldn't take long.
Thanks for the continuous support!