Alpha and Dragon*Con

My Bogle saw the light of day at Dragon*Con this past weekend. We put it in front of around a dozen people that ranged from close friends to complete strangers. Some sessions were simply demo's of what we've been up to and some were "shut up and watch them play" play-sessions followed by rigorous grilling :)

All in all it went incredibly well. Only a few bugs were uncovered and most sessions went off without any hitch whatsoever. The feedback we got was very positive. Some of our major concerns weren't an issue for any of the testers. Graphics and character designs scored particularly well which was a major relief. Not that I was worried about them to be honest, but you never really know, right? Especially after staring at them for hours on end like we have. The things that didn't score as well were the pieces we still are working on and didn't really demostrate this weekend. The only bad thing about demo'ing it at Dragon*Con was that some of the venues were quite noisy and demo'ing on a laptop without good speakers caused the sound to be quite soft. Those players who got to hear the great sound effects we've got really enjoyed the overall experience a lot more than those that couldn't hear it very well.

It was an incredible push to get ready for Dragon*Con (which is why you haven't heard much from me lately). We've gotten so much accomplished that's its hard to know where to start. We've gotten the fifth character in, whose animations and sound are probably the best so far. We've gotten a bunch of work done on tiles and set pieces for our levels along with a clear direction for our music even though it's not quite in game yet. We've gotten a lot more gui work done and a lot of cleanup and polish to the gui, characters and the gameplay. We also got the mac build working which means we should be launching for both platforms at the same time which is excellent news.

So we are officially in alpha testing, which is a nice milestone to be at but it just means there's an incredible amount of work to get done before we are officially in beta, though very little of that work is "in-game" but rather on things like Friends Play Free and such. The beta milestone has gotten pushed out a little ways based on where we are at and what we think we need to have so that we can get the most out of the beta. This weekend was great because it really confirmed that we are headed in the right direction. The whole experience has definitely gotten me more motivated to wrap this game up but at the same time I've seen just how much potential it has and I really don't want to screw that up by rushing through the last few tasks.

You may be wondering "what exactly did they get to see this last weekend?"... well, I'll show you.. only I'll have to show you slightly smaller than what it's designed to run at so this isn't nearly as good looking as it is in game:

Note the Runes on the right. They are like "power ups" for your characters.

Note the Initiative display on the left. The current character is on top, with the rest of the turn order below it. The active character also has a movement grid displayed and they can move anywhere they want in the grid. Also, the entire GUI shifts from Red to Blue when the player's turn changes.

So hopefully that makes up for not posting much lately. What do ya think?
-Andrew Douglas
theoreticalgames.com