It’s been a while since my last post, and that’s because my
wife and I just settled into our new apartment. I head into every move thinking
that my past experience has prepared me—this will finally be the move where
everything goes right! Needless to say, every time I think that, I’m
wrong. Whether it’s uncooperative
weather or not enough boxes or racing the clock for cleaning checks, I’m
starting to doubt there’s such thing as the “perfect move.”
 |
| So. Much. Cardboard. |
Even though Alkanaur is my first game, I’ve found myself
falling into similar traps throughout its design. It’s easy to fall into a trap
where you imagine that all your past design work (for your current game or
previous projects) has prepared you—this will finally be the time that your designs
go completely right! But the truth is that iteration and feedback-based
improvements will always be necessary. If you want to be a player-focused development
team like we do, you’ll always be making adjustments and figuring out what
players prefer.
Alkanaur still moves steadily along, and we’ve received some
solid feedback on our pre-alpha demo. Our next step is a longer, public-facing
demo that should provide a full “slice-of-the-pie” for people to understand
what our game is about. In addition to the battle system in our current
pre-alpha, the new demo will include a taste of our character customization and
narrative systems. Even though I know every new step we will take will require
iteration and adjustments, I also know that—just like our recent move—we’ll
eventually get there.
