TL;DR
- Navalny
- Big City Greens Classic 2 NHL livestream
- A blog for the UI package
- I lost my headset 🙁
Previously on Devlog…
Last time, I decided to keep the to-do list short and simple. It’s no use adding items if I won’t be able to do them. As it turns out, it was a good idea. I wrapped up the Bumper Tanks (it’s in the early access!) and wrote the UI manager documentation and a blog post describing it. As a bonus, I did it on time! “So why is delay?” you may ask.
Navalny
The main reason is the murder of Navalny, a fantastic Russian politician. I did promise my wife not to comment on Russian politics publicly since it’s not very safe. So, I won’t go into the details of his life, death, and my thoughts about him. But I never expected to be affected by the death of a person I don’t personally know. Let alone a politician. It was a hard few weeks for me. His murder was the first reason for postponing the blog post.
Big City Greens Classic 2 NHL live stream
The second delay was caused by the deadline. We were preparing for a Big City Greens NHL livestream. The idea was to stream a live game in the Big City Greens world. I was responsible for the VR commentator part of it. I was almost the only developer working on the future. Of course, I got help from a great intern (hi Michelle!) and, a couple of other people on the team. But Michelle’s internship ended a couple of months ago. And it was my responsibility in any case. Had something gone wrong during the NHL livestream, it would have been my fault. I had no one else to blame. No pressure…
Thankfully, everything went well! And apparently, people liked the VR headset very much! Whew…
As a bonus, I overworked for about 40 hours to meet the deadline. So now I have a week off. This is weird because it’s the first time I’m not exhausted after an intense period at work. I guess this is what it’s like to really enjoy your work.
A blog for the UI package
As planned last month, the documentation for my UI system, and the blog post is done! Neither of them are particularly detailed pieces of literature, but I don’t have any illusions about them being used by thousands of people. It was mainly for future me. If something changes and it suddenly becomes the most popular UI framework for Unity, I promise to update both the documentation and the blog post.
I lost my Oculus Quest headset…
I forgot it on a train on my way home… It was the first generation of the Quest series, so it wasn’t a particularly expensive device. And I was planning to get the Quest 3 anyway. But it had some sentimental value. Also, only recently I accepted my faith as a VR developer and was contemplating making a VR game. I guess I’ll have to develop and license a few web games first…
Web games
Speaking of which… The Gambit is still not released, and I’m not sure why. Similarly, I’m still waiting for feedback for the Super Drift Racer. The first point in my TODO list will be to get some answers.
While my web game licensing endeavors didn’t bear any fruits, I still have hope. Now that I have a better understanding of the market and the expectations, I can tailor my next game accordingly. I do have a few ideas I would like to explore. I think it would be a nice opportunity to try to monetize the prototypes. For example, I can start with basic mechanics for the Alchemist’s Castle remake. Who knows, if a particular idea catches on, I may develop it further for a full-fledged Steam release. But this is an idea for the potential future which may never come. So, first things first!
TODO
- Ping Addicting Games and figure out what is going on with The Gambit and Super Drift Racer
- Have a prototype for a web game
- Bonus: A prototype should have one of the mechanics for the Alchemist’s Castle remake