I’m taking a few days to go to the Game Developers Conference in San
Francisco. Wooooooooooo! Work will likely pause until my return.

If anybody’s gonna be out there, let me know!

I uploaded a new video of gameplay, check it owt:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_v27HjD8Kc]

This shows a couple puzzles and the insides of a midgame dungeon. Nothing really mindblowing, but it may give you a feel for what sorts of puzzles we have here. To reiterate, there are 4 basic ghost powers– possession, switching, reveal/move, smash– and you typically use these powers to manipulate objects in the environment. These puzzles demonstrated here aren’t particularly complex, but as you go on they build on each other and I think you’ll find there’s a very nice curve of difficulty. 🙂

I look forward to sharing more soon!

PHANTASMABURBIA OFFICIAL PROGRESS REPORT
FEBRUARY 10 2012

DUNGEONS FINISHED: 12/13
ENEMIES FINISHED: 63/73
SIDEQUESTS FINISHED: 5/6

So since November, content progress has been completely finishing a couple dungeons, another sidequest (the biggest one), and a whole slew of enemies to fill those. I also actually spent a good deal of time putting extra details and touches and fixes to the dungeons and other stuff that I had recently finished at last posting. And, of course, there’s been a mess of engine upgrades, graphical additions and other such tweaks to the game to bring it towards a more finished level of quality. And now here we are.

In case it wasn’t really clear from the above numbers, I am now working on what is pretty much the end of the game. That does not mean it will go particularly quickly though. It feels like a project of diminishing returns; as I push deeper into the project, my focus spreads wider and I find myself working on lots of stuff at the same time. I.e, going through old areas and fixing cutscenes, or improving some common transitions, or pretty much anything but actual new content. The way most development cycles go, all of the game’s content is finished first and then a great deal of time is spent with these upgrades and other minutia, but that model doesn’t quite sit right with me.

I will keep working. I still hope to give out some more free game content to play soon, but I’d like to give Jason some more time to finalize a couple more tracks. In the meantime, screenshots will have to do. 🙂

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here! I sincerely apologize for that. I don’t want you to think I haven’t been focused on the game; on the contrary, this last month has been among the most productive on the game. Here’s a collection of some screenshots I’ve taken over the last month. (Some are a little out of date by now.)

I’ve got another sort of big announcement, but I wouldn’t call this official yet. Here it is: It is very likely that Phantasmaburbia will NOT be released on October 31, 2011 as announced previously.

The honest to goodness truth is that when I chose the date of October 31 I was only about 50% sure I would be able to reach it. I took it as a sort of self-imposed challenge, to push myself to get the game done so that it could come out on a date that was thematically relevant. I believed that I could make it if I had a straight two and a half months of unimpeded work, but since then I’ve encountered a number of unexpected obstacles both physical (an ongoing bout with sickness probably brought on at least partially by my self-imposed stress) and external (classwork taking up much more of my time than expected). Additionally, the amount of planned content keeps expanding. It’s not that I’m overreaching or getting too ambitious, but it’s the addition of many new small features (a new sidequest, a new set of enemies, some more cutscenes, a new unlockable, etc) that have slowly accrued into something that threatens to delay the game.

It’s not even that I’m that far behind schedule, really. It would be relatively easy for me to push to have all of the content done by October 31, and then give myself another, say, two weeks to do extra testing and polishing and fixing so that the game was only delayed by a short amount of time. But another much more popular independent game is claiming a launch date within that timeframe, and if I had to pick one moment in all of indie gaming history not to release my game, it would probably be at a time when I had to compete with Minecraft for sales and attention. As far as I’m concerned, 11/4/11 – 11/24/11 are no-release zones. Maybe this fear is unfounded; feel free to discuss it in the comments, and I will be responsive.

So, the question would be, “when exactly IS this game coming out?” It’s that question that has me hesitating to call this an official announcement. I’m not sure. There is absolutely no doubt that this game will be finished and that it will come out, and it’s going to be in a pretty agreeable timeframe, too. But I don’t want to give any more dates only to generate more disappointment. When I pick a day, I want to KNOW for a FACT that that will be the day.

I will be posting here with updates as I figure out more. I’ll see how much I’m getting done, and I’ll be watching the comments here to get a feel for what your thoughts are on the matter. To me, the idea of a delay seems awful on one hand, but on the other, I see opportunity here to make the game that much better with the extra time. I’m hopeful that this will only be good, in the long run.

Thanks very much for being understanding.

OKAY.

We have some announcements here that have been waiting a very long time to see the eyes of the public. Brace yourselves.

First of all, our composer Jason Covenant has just released a suite called “Conscience of a Dreamer.” You can listen to it here, and never listen to anything else ever again. Naturally, most of these songs will make their way into Phanta as well.

Then there’s this.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeK8Ep9d4AI]

Featuring music from said suite is a new “official” Phantasmaburbia trailer. There’s a lot of new little things in this I haven’t yet shared on the site, but it all moves pretty fast. Most importantly, this summarizes the basic story and whatnot for people who are still a little confused on what this whole dealie is all about.

But I guess most important to all y’alls is the prospect of winning a free copy of Phantasmaburbia. How, you ask?! Details are as follows:
Jason’s new album might sound familiar to people who have played my games before. This is because 2 tracks in it are rearranged or expanded versions of songs that have been in my games before. The songs in question were among the main themes of the games they were featured in.

If you can name a suite song, what game it originated from, and where in that game the original song plays, you will be eligible for a free copy of Phanta. I’ll save your email, and when the game is finished, you’ll be the first to get a copy. Sweet deal, huh?

WELL, in a surprisingly fast sweep, we got 3 correct answers in well under 12 hours. Nice going, those who won!

WINNERS:

1. Ted
2. Sonosublime

This is the new home for the upcoming Windows RPG, Phantasmaburbia. Come back here for news, previews, and other cool stuff!

With the new site, I’m ready to say that I’m aiming to release the game on October 31, 2011 with a starting price of $9.99. Those of you who have been paying a lot of attention to my stance on release date and price may find that this is a little later and a little more expensive than I’ve sometimes lead people to believe up until now. This isn’t me trying to stab anyone in the back, rather, it’s a result of the game’s scope expanding far beyond what my initial vision was for it. My most recent post concerning the dungeons provided a taste of that.

In addition to the new site publication, I’ve gone and updated the free demo available at GameJolt and YoYoGames. As is usual, there’s no new content available but there are plenty of changes to bring it closer to what the final product might be. Changes you might notice include:

• Numerous speed optimizations & bugfixes
• Updated victory music
• Updated tiles, as seen in the above screenshot

You might be wondering what happened to the yellow, desert-like landscape that used to be characteristic of the early game Spirit Tunnel. I’ve moved it to a later part of the game, into a dungeon that fits it much butter: