Day 63: Today is a bit special. It’s not that’s it’s a particular event of anything. It’s just that it’s a summary of the last few days. Because since I was at IndieCade Europe, I don’t know if that can count as a “day”. So I’ve decided to pack everything in this day. And also that once it’s over I go play Skyrim. So here we go, today the last few days I:

• Took the bus to IndieCade. It was an 8 hour ride that left at 07:45. I had to wake up early and spend a lot of boring time. At first I thought I would be able to work on the bus. I was wrong. There simply wasn’t enough place. And it was cold too. Lucky for me the version I had made before was good enough for presentation.

• Arrived at Paris on Thursday around 16:00. Since my brother whom provided me a couch to sleep wasn’t home until 19:00, I decided to go to a library. I thought I could work there. Turns out I was wrong again. It was a really small library. There was no table available for me to work on. So I read comics instead.

• Went to IndieCade Europe. I worked there as a volunteer. I was assigned to games that I helped present. The first day I was on Ascent Spirit a VR game about climbing. The second, I was on Haimrik a narrative puzzle game. It was a good experience overall. But it was hard for me to speak to so many people. The first day, I got to present the pre-alpha version of my game! I had a 2 hours slot at the Show&Tell. Around 10 persons tries it. And I had generally good feedback. But it’s clear that the game lacks a long term goal and gameplay diversity. With the volunteer planning I had, I wasn’t able to test other games or to watch talks. But I still saw the closing keynote by Adriel Wallick on train jam. It’s a game jam on a train. It really made me want to go there. But that’s a lot of money I don’t have now.

• Updated the Itch.io and Gamejolt game pages. I updated the text to match the new version of the game. I uploaded the new builds. And today I also posted the trailer I made for IndieCade.

• Posted on reddit gamedev feedback friday about the pre-alpha version of Rogue Cadet. I got one feedback, and it was like the previous one. Fun to play, but for a short time only.

• Sent emails to the people that filled the prototype feedback form. I used this occasion to send them their personalized llama picture. It was 100% persons I know, so that’s okay.

• Updated the Facebook page. I did a lengthy post to summarize what happened since last time. I added a TL;DR just in case.

• Posted on the Facebook group of my school section. This is probably where I have the most reach. Speaking of reach. This is really something I suck at. Even on twitter I just can’t seem to gain followers. I must be doing things wrong. Or it’s an rpg class restriction, that prevents me from honing this skill (yeah this is more likely).

Sprint end: This concludes the “Make it work” sprint. It was intense. First the three day rush, then the IndieCade. I ran on little sleep and lot of coke. The buses really killed me, 8 hours to go, and 8 hours to return, that was a lot of time wasted. Also I think I got sick. I don’t have fiver right now, but my throat is painful.

Milestone end: This is the end the of pre-alpha milestone. I didn’t even planned to have this milestone, but IndieCade EU was the occasion to rush something. I’m quite happy with the result. The game starts to take form. And it was really a huge productivity boost. Plus I got to speak and show the game, which can’t hurt my PR. The main challenge I face now is to get to something that you can play for a long time. I have to make it diverse enough so you don’t get bored. And I also need to make the progression and long term goals. I have no idea if I’ll be able to do that, and it’s scary. Now I have to work on all the features I still don’t have. The next milestone will be proper alpha. I planned to finish it by January the 26th (on my birthday).