Daily Report - 27/12/2023 (Patreon)

UX improvements, we’re getting a new weapon, YouTube revival?

YouTube revival

This is something I just felt like sharing as a bit of an update. Up until last week, our YouTube was really falling off, dropping from 12k views/48h avg, all the way down to 4k/48h. This had been quite discouraging of course, as it meant taking a big hit in AdSense and channel growth as well. Also, it sucked because videos I thought that were quite well, weren’t getting the views I think they deserved. Now, we’ve turned that ship around with the past few videos, a combination of some “drama” as well as good timing for our latest video has allowed some really crazy numbers, giving similar growth to when we released our first launch stats. Nothing too actionable here, I just wanted to share that we’re doing better on the YouTube front for now.

More UX

Thomas and William kept chewing through our bug and UX improvement column, adding the ability to see your blessing stat changes, correctly persisting them, or dropping items from your inventory.

New warrior weapon

Adding new weapons to our game isn’t as easy as it is in a 3D game. You can’t just slap a new model in your characters hands and call it a day, but since we’re using pixel art, that means our main character needs to be fully redrawn with 40-60 new frames.

We realized this ain’t it for us, so we commissioned our next weapon nearly 2 weeks ago, and yesterday I received the first update on this. There are still a few issues that need to be redrawn, and I don’t think we’ll get that done before the next playtest, but I am really happy with the result so far.

What’s next
I’m going to start recording/editing our next Devlog today, so we should now focus purely on getting ready for the playtest again. One thing I want to look into is splitting our controls, making the controller aim using the player direction, but keeping a crosshair on KB/M. The current claw grip required to play with controller just isn’t playable honestly, and this seems to be the approach that most other similar games take as well.

"Embracing the darkness in game development means accepting that not every idea will shine, but the pursuit is worth the risk”

Marnix Wyns

Producer & Creative Director @ BiteMe Games