For completeness, this is a record of relevant game development activities in the year 2022. An excellent year for Red Asteroid Games and Overworld, bringing as it did the v1.0 baptismal release. A few key reddit posts hauled in about a thousand installs in a week. But those dwindled quickly, nothing went viral, and soon we were back to around 10 players per day. Just 2 months after launch (the wheels already in motion), I took a job with a big company, back on the grind for the man.
So 2022 was a year of ups and downs. Like they all are. But Overworld has improved a ton, I’d say! Here are some of the prime features added during the year.
Story Mode
Story mode ties together a lot of disparate material. The intro video, early game mechanics, and combat. The gatekeeper and the evil lurking in the Underworld. Asura, the blue god. A plucky young developer named Sahibdeep was the inspiration behind this epic 3 minutes, though not in the form he originally intended. Doing a story mode for every hero would be time consuming, but super cool!!
Device Support
We discovered the source of many 1-star reviews that drag us down to this day. Unfortunately our JavaScript/Ionic/Capacitor pipeline just can’t support early Android devices in the intended way, and they had to be axed. Unfortunately enough of them completed the install and were greeted with a black screen to cause much misery in our early ratings. Only time will resolve this shame.
Castle Animations
That’s right, 2022 saw us add the little builder dudes that hammer and hew at the stone walls of your castle! The end screen wouldn’t be the same without those awesome fireworks.
Much More
Countless other minor details were addressed. Besides bug fixes galore we saw:
- The iron man scoreboard
- The whale quest
- Deep cave tilesets
- More spell animations
- Halved shop prices
- A much more developed YouTube channel
Since this retrospective is coming out 1/3 of the way into the new year, I can add one more thing to the “list”:
Infobar and Bubbles!
That’s right, for long mobile phones I spent days getting the infobar just right, where your score, move count, and timer merrily scroll away. And there aloft float bubbles for you to pop, containing all the creatures of the level you’re currently on. Or in the case of the gif below, cats. Just cats.
So there you have it folks, solid contributions to the biggest project this poor lost soul has given himself to. That only leaves one more thing to discuss…
…the Future?
Yes! I’m sure we’ll have a bit of one. I’m currently refactoring all my JavaScript to behave itself for the closure compiler again, updating all my externs, and squashing bugs in support of the new platform. Web! This JavaScript game is finally hitting the web, most likely on Itch.io but I may as well have a copy running on here too. I’m excising all the login requirements, obfuscating the code, and making it entirely standalone. Must – entertain – most – people – possible!
We’ll see how it goes. I shall not be dissuaded. Thanks for reading yinz, have a great day!