For the sake of gauging how quickly I’ve been making progress with my nights-and-weekends development, I decided to consolidate my progress into a single list, with logged hours connected to each section (quarterly or monthly). I’m hoping this’ll help me anticipate what the rest of development might look like, and/or brainstorm how to speed things up to meet some more desirable goals.
Thankfully, I tend to be thorough with tracking both time and tasks, which made this report easy compile.
I thought it’d be fun to share this list, offering a peek into the development story of Nectira, so far:
2013: No Hours Logged
Summer – Winter: Learned basics of programming, dabbling in various “learning projects”.
2014 (550 hours logged)
1st Quarter: 48 hours logged in Feb 19 – March
- Started Nectira around Zale’s (first son’s) birth.
- Whipped out most of the basic elements. (including enemies, level flow, combat and traps; with 3 trap types, and three element types)
2nd Quarter: 171 hours logged
- Hand-Crafted an over world map, with a few hand-crafted levels
- more level content (procedural, regenerating trees and bushes)
- Controller Support Added
3rd Quarter: 281 hours logged
- Procedural generation of every level
- Procedural generation of realms
- Newly designed Yarku
- Theme Song
- 2 more traps
- 2 more elements
- 5 varieties of the new Yarku
4th Quarter: 50 hours logged
- Greenlight Polish, Video and Campaign
- Concept Art and Design Articles
- Lots of holiday breaks (minor progress)
2015 (268 hours logged: Jan – Sept)
January: 40 hrs logged
- New Nectira design and implimentation
- Yarku Hives
- Yarku Eggs
- Toxic Fog
February: 26 hrs logged
- Hive levels added to realms
- Update Map Generation (flow changed: hive, vine, repeat)
- Upgrades menu and implementation
March: 35 hrs logged
- Celaem Vine Anthem 1
- Corn Cannon Trap
- Sun Element
- Bambarricade Trap
- “Policopis” Butterfly Critter
April: 20 hrs logged
- Gems Change Necira’s Colors
- Nectira color varieties added
- Bubble Element
- Sulfur Element
May: 50 hrs logged
- Color Palette Swapping, in place of large texture files
- Gem Use Added
- Jade Special Ability
- Diamond Special Ability
- Rhodonite Special Ability
- Stinging Sedge Trap
- Flurry Element
June: 19 hrs logged
- Start World Map Generation (10 Islands onto world map)
July: 36 hrs logged
- Finish World Map Generation (10 Islands onto world map)
August: 35 hrs logged
- A Page of Fixes and Improvements
- Moving between realms and world map
- Hive Anthem
- Title Screen art and implementation
- Story/Boss Placeholders
September: 7 hrs logged (partial)
- Options Updated
- Page of adjustments/features/bugs.
4th Quarter: hours not logged
- Save/Load implementation
- Options and System transitions/ notifications
- Extra Background (layers)
- Forest background layers
2016
January: 36 hrs logged
- STEAM GREENLIT: focus shifted from content to story and 1st realm progression
- Story Script Writing
- Yarku, Intro Frame
- Nectira Empowered, Intro Frames
February: 15 hrs logged (partial)
- Intro Music
- Yarku Runt Enemy
- Heartland Realm Generated as starting Realm
March: 20 hrs logged (partial)
- Celaemheim (starting area)
- Subtitle System
- Intro Scripts and Voice Acting
- Birch Trees added
- Heartland BG Layers
April: hours not logged
- Celaemus Dialogue Art
- Dark Chogi Monster
- Seloryv Root/Sprout
- Erkolial Tree and magic tree framework
- The Celaemean Garden @ Heartland Realm
- First few “Game Guides” (non-intrusive “tutorial-esque” pop-ups)
May: hours not logged
- Finish “Game Guides” (~15 total)
June: ~26 hours logged so far
(NEXT MONTH’S POST)
Now that I’m keeping a digital record of my monthly progress, I can easily start pasting those here, as monthly updates. Maybe I’ll add a couple pics to each, as well.
*fun fact, of the partial hours I’ve logged up to this point, I’m up to about 915 hours, or almost 23 weeks, if Nectira were a full-time project.
I’ll get on the July update in a couple weeks!