Reviewed by Indie Gamer Chick

Indie Gamer Chick reviewed March to the Moon and it got on the leaderboard!  Very glad to see that happen.  Now that I'm on the leaderboard I can use the seal to show that she approved of the game.  My favorite line from the review was "March to the Moon is unquestionably fun."

Curious, I checked The XBLIG, and I'm on his leaderboard as well.  So that's good!  I don't think I had a single negative review of the game and most reviewers have really liked it.

So... uh...

When do I get paid?  No, seriously.  Even with these good reviews, I've only earned a dollar.  And that's because someone gave me a dollar for a code because they didn't want to buy MS points.  I'm below the payout limit on XBLIG, and for my homepage store as well (although just barely for the homepage).  I've got it up on Indie City as well, but even though it's still on the front page and has 4.3 stars out of five all I have are a few hundred views and a single demo download.

This is pretty discouraging.  A small part of me says that I should give up and just go work on that list of games on steam that I haven't played yet.  It's a pretty small part though.  I have plans for more games to make.  I think there are two major problems that make the average player want to just pass it over.  #1 is the art.  #2 is the music.  Maybe #3 is the marketing, because I have no idea how to do that right apparently.  I've been learning more about making art and I can make something better now, and I think I could make something much better music-wise as well.

Anyways, not giving up.  Going to make something better.  Siphon Spirit is coming along and when that's finished I'll be able to work with a real artist on a new project again.  Though to be perfectly honest I fully plan on making another smaller game before I'm back on board with Peter again.

March to the Moon now on Indie City!

March to the Moon is now available on Indie City!  What's different now?  Not a whole lot, it's just about the same exact game, but now there are achievements!  Most of them are the same as unlocking outfits, but there are new achievements for mastering certain skills and some more for playing as a pacifist.  Hopefully I get some more feedback from a wider audience so I can make the next one much better!

Nearing the end of feature-complete

I'm working now on the part that I think is going to be the most difficult for the Japanese game.  Well, the second most difficult after getting a name that I'm happy with.  It's the actual flashcards.  I'm working on getting it so that I don't need to manually add answers for each kind of flashcard.  Okay, how many of you did I lose the second I brought up flashcards?  On the bright side, I plan to finish all the different flashcard types this week and finish off the battle screen.  Then all I need is the win/lose screen and the whole game is fully workable.

Peter's taking a little break and getting a mini-game set up for anyone who backs Siphon Spirit on Kickstarter.  It has the makings of a nice puzzle game, so I'm thinking about taking it further later on.

New Japanese Art

Is anyone else sick of me being sick?  I'm sick of me being sick.  Anyways, Leah got me some new art so I stepped back from working on the battle screen to put it in.  Take a look!

 Those sliders were taken directly from March to the Moon. Take a look at the much improved sliders below!

She got me more than just sliders, but I was most interested in them because they required the most work to put in.

Indie Game Night is tomorrow!  I'll be showing the Japanese game and Siphon Spirit by myself since Peter can't make it.  I'll respond with that people said about the games as soon as they post.

We're alive! WE'RE ALIVE!

Yeah, finally starting to feel a bit better!  Peter was feeling left out, so he decided to get sick for a day.  Then he sent me an image for the fifth level's cutscene.

It's time to leave the town and see what's going on with the army!  I finished converting the Siphon Spirit code into something much cleaner, and have been pretty happy with how few bugs have popped up.  Just got one that we've noticed so far, and it's just not calculating the score if there is an ending cutscene.  Easy fix.

The Japanese game is also coming along again now that I can focus long enough to get things done.  The battle screen is the most complicated screen in the game, so it's taking me some time to put it all together.  I have the basic attacks working and you can select an item to use to heal yourself now.  Next up is to actually heal yourself.  Then on to the special attacks.  Then on to actually filling in the flashcard data.

Okay, just think.  Focus.  I can do this.

THIS GAME IS HARD.

Being sick is going out of style

Yep, still sick.  At least I'm on the tail end of things so it should go smoothly now.

I didn't get much done on the battle screen.  I wasn't feeling very rushed and I was pretty tired.  Instead, I worked on Siphon Spirit.  I updated it to use my new screen manager code which has really helped clean things up.  Originally it was all just one big hodge-podge of code and it was a big mess.  Now, it's not quite working yet, but it's almost there.  The reason that I decided to change it all around it because we want to add a new screen to it.  An editor screen.  That's right, you'll be able to make your own levels!

It already has an editor built in, but that only is connected to the developer builds.  It's not very user-friendly. Peter has to remember a lot of button combinations and trigger and oscillation info.  And if you screw up it just crashes.  I think the only crash right now is if you forget to add the player orb.

Winter must be coming...

So I was sitting there thinking that I was all better and ready to get back to work.  The truth is that I ended up getting sicker than before and am just starting to feel better now.  I did manage to finish the practice screen, which is a major part of the game.  This is the place that the player will go to to practice drawing and pronouncing the kana characters and the words that they learn.  After each one, the game will ask whether the player thought they did well or if they thought they didn't do well.  Things that need more practice will show up more often and things that the player knows won't keep showing up.

I have a fairly detailed list of everything that I think I need to do to finish the battle screen.  At over one hundred different things on the list, I'm thinking it should be basically working by next week.  Hopefully I don't get sick again!