Tag: News

So as many of you may know, updates have been sparse in the last few weeks.

This is because I’ve been in a transition period. Since the beginning of the year I’ve been working towards moving back into my old home. I’ve been away from my home for over a year, and I haven’t been able to focus to the degree this project requires.

But in the last couple of weeks I have finally been able to completely focus on moving back to my old home. I’ve spent the past week completely moving all my things back to my old home and I finally have a sense of stability.

Starting next week I’ll be able to focus even more on progressing Guardian’s Guide. I’ll still be working a day job but the commute is much, much, shorter.

I’m also living alone at the moment, which will allow me to focus even better.

So, I want to get the next video out in 2 weeks. (maybe sooner) This will allow me to finalize features about the battle and exploration for good. I want to set up a video that properly showcases what the player can expect; so I might put in things that won’t be present early in the final game, just for the video’s sake.

It feels good to finally have some stability. I’ll talk to you guys in the next update!

 

2021 has seen some of the most promising development for Guardian’s Guide since I begin making the game many years ago. Even though I took the time to transfer the project over to a newer framework, the setback was very worth it and has allowed me to make changes that will benefit the game once it is complete.

With that said, development time is a foul beast. It is very easy to get caught up in feature creeps and “improvement” spells. I spent a bit too much time in 2021 doing these things when I should have been pushing the project forward. Towards the end of 2021 I realized I didn’t have a release date for this project. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even have a release time frame. “Was I even planning to release this game?”, I asked myself. The obvious answer is yes, it’s the predominant reason I’m making this game, so people can play it.

I have to get serious. More serious than any time in my life. I have to set a dead line, and then push myself to meet that dead line. So I decided for 2022 I will “complete” the game. As in, the game will be playable from start to finish, minus the polish, effects, final art, etc. Having the game in this state by the end of the year will allow for a early 2023 release date. So here it is, an official declaration.

Guardian’s Guide will be released in 2023.

Everything I do from now on will be to make that deadline. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to split my focus from development to site maintenance, to social media and beyond. Most of these web sources will suffer since I plan to hyper focus on accelerating development. I will still attempt to update the website regularly, but the updates may be sparse. Keep in mind, I am also working a full time, 40 hour job. I will be sacrificing all my free time to make this dead line.

I have a plan that splits the game into chucks to be completed each month. Here is roughly what I am attempting.

January – Entire game completed on paper/begin completing year 1

February – Complete Year 1 (age 11)

March – Complete Year 2 (age 12)

April – Complete Year 3 ( age 13)

May – Complete Year 4 (age 14)

June – Complete Year 5 (age 15)

July – Complete Year 6 (age 16)

August – Complete Year 7 (age 17)

September – Complete Post Game (age 18)

October November December – Work on final 10% (testing, adjusting, editing, improving, other endless task)

This is a very favorable outcome. The truth is I have no idea how long completing a year will take. It might be quick, it might take much longer than a month. Nevertheless, once I have a good idea of the time frame, I’ll be able to get faster. I expect to fall behind in the beginning as I know I still have many things I need to do before I can really get into full development swing.

This 2022 year time span also gives my artists plenty of time to complete my initial request bulk as well as the images I plan to add once I start working through the years of the game.

Once I get to the fateful “Final 10%” I will start doing more site specific stuff like advertising and showing off the game. I guess that will be more of a 2023 thing. If I’m not at that point by then, hopefully I will be close enough to get an official release date in mind. If I’m not even half way, then that’s pretty much a fail on my end.

2023 might sound like a long wait for you guys, but it feels like almost no time for me to get all the work I need completed. lol But I am going to get it done. I want more than anything for the project to be successful. An entire future of other projects and my personal life depends on me properly bringing this game to market. I won’t let everyone who’s helped me up to this point down, I WILL complete this game. Please give me all your support for 2022 and 2023!

 

Well, the fated day has arrived. Actually, it arrived many days ago. I have taken on a day job. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later but I didn’t plan it to happen this soon. To make a story short, I received an offer from a friend, and then I took it.

Why, you may wonder? I’m running low on funds. All of Guardian’s Guide has been self funded up to this point. I was doing okay until I got hit with 2 medical emergency’s a few months back. I’m pretty good at ignoring stuff but this wasn’t one of them. It put a pretty big dent in my pocket.

Even with that, I still didn’t want to return to a day job. My hope was to devise a plan to make income and still continue to focus mostly on the game development. Easier said than done. I took a good look at my circumstance and evaluated my position and made the best choice for the future of Guardian’s Guide.

As of right now I plan to work throughout the holiday season. Hopefully this will give me enough time to devise a plan to make income without devoting so much of my time away from game development.

Sadly, this does mean I won’t be able to get as much work done as I’ve been since I’ve started this website. I will attempt to stay focus and properly manage my time so I can have something to show with each minor update.

Once the holiday season is over, I’ll give you guys an update on my position and what I will ultimately decide to do.

So in the previous update I told you guys I will be returning to my old job and I won’t be able to update as often because of that. Well, I have a new announcement to make regarding that.

To put it bluntly, I’m not going back to my old job. I’m not fucking leaving! Not yet, at least. I will continue to put most of my focus on this game, this site, and a few other projects I have planned.

What have I been doing since the past few updates? Not much. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from it all. I did originally plan to go back to my old job but I had quite a bit of time to think about things and I realized making this game is really the only thing I care about right now. So now I’m back!

With that said, there are some things I need to let you guys know about. Within a few months there will be a new version of the framework I’m using to make Guardian’s Guide. This new version has many features I want for my game so I plan to update to it once the new framework is officially released.

Here’s the problem, I will have to redo quite a bit of work once that time arrives. I’m pretty set on doing this transition so I will also take this opportunity to make some major changes to the game. Let me list you the reasons why I’m upgrading the framework and what I plan to change.

1. Easy Language Support – I will be able to easily translate all the text into different languages. (to do this in the current framework is ridiculously laborious)
2. Easier Gui Management – Creating and Managing the gui becomes stress free (which is most of the game and a huge part of the reason this transfer will take so long (I’ll have to redo it all lol))
3. Much More Customization Under The Hood – This update is technically combining two frameworks. One that is focused on general games and the other that focuses on RPGs. Because of this, I will be able to consolidate many non-rpg features all under the new framework. I am very excited about this. The more I can do within this framework alone, the less custom work I have to do on my end.
4. Framework Quality Of Life Improvements – With the combination of frameworks brings a bunch of Q.O.L. improvements. Things such as navigation, copy&paste, zooming, resource management, debugging, and many more.

So, what do I plan to change once I make the transition?

1. Every Gui Will Be Under The Framework – Currently, the majority of the gui is managed within the framework. But there are a few that are managed outside the framework with custom scripts. (this is because either the framework couldn’t do it or I just never bothered to convert it over) This will change with the new framework. Since it will be easier to make gui and I will have more power under the hood, I will convert ALL gui to the new framework.
2. Official Support For Keyboard And Controller – Once I set all the gui under the framework I will implement both keyboard and controller support. Right now the game only supports mouse but I want to change this just in case this game does well and I end up putting it on a console or something. (lol dream big they say)
   
3. Many Small Things – Since I don’t have the framework in my hands at the time of writing this I can’t tell you everything that I will need to change but I know there will be trouble once I start making the transition. I am prepared because it will be worth it!

The new framework is still a few months away from official release but the beta will be here within a few weeks. I can’t do any real work with the beta but I can get an idea of what I can expect once the framework is complete. In the mean time I’m not going to do much game progress as that will increase the amount of work I have to do during the transition. Instead I will focus on artwork, animations and testing gameplay.

The update pattern will still be a little sporadic but I plan to keep all post free as I announced in the previous update. The video updates will be on hold until I make the transition. I also have plans for other projects (non game related) so I might take the time to make videos for those. We will have to see how things unfold.

THE SHOW GOES ON!

Effective immediately, all previously locked content and future content will be available to everyone. Furthermore, anyone can now join for free and leave comments on any post.

The reason?

To put it bluntly, I won’t be able to keep up with the schedule any longer. I can’t guarantee an update every week or a video every month. What changed? I’ve decided to return to my previous profession. The reason? There are many but it mainly boils down to money.

What does this mean?

There will be fewer post and infrequent updates. My time to work on the game will be reduced by quite a lot of time.

Why now?

There are two main reasons. One, there are many things I want to do in life and they all require a consistent flow of cash. As of right now, going back to my old job is the best method for getting a livable flow of cash. Two, making games won’t help me reach my goals in life. To be blunt again, making games is statistically a bad financial decision. The upfront cost is immense. That’s whither you’re spending money or time to complete the game. There is also no guarantee anyone will play or enjoy what you make. You are spending X amount of years just to make a single product that no one needs or has any demand for and hope people will take the time to trade you money. It’s a gamble and a bad gamble at that.

What does this mean for Guardian’s Guide/Allugic?

Despite my pessimistic out look on game making I still plan to complete Guardian’s Guide. Game making is fun and more than anything it’s a great hobby for learning many skills. I just can’t depend on it as my main source of income as I had originally planned. Working my old profession will guarantee a steady form of income to fund my life goals and hobbies for years to come.

If you choose to support the development you will still receive the final game on release along with the other perks listed.

What happens now?

I will work on the game and update the site when I have free time. There are actually many things I haven’t revealed yet and art assets are still being created as I type this. Completion is still the goal! Join the site and follow the social medias to get notifications of all future updates. I apology for the sudden news but this decision will help me personally and in the long run, help the game.

Thank you for your understanding and continuing support.

I’ve made a small change to the home page. I separated the monthly and weekly dev blogs so each could be accessed more easily. As a result, I’ve created a new window for news below the dev blogs. At some later point I will add more to the home screen which will result in me pushing the news even further down. Well, we will see once we reach that point.

Due to recent life events I will end of moving to a new location. If everything goes smoothly, my work pace won’t be interrupted. I don’t know the move date but it could be as early as next week or a few weeks from now. I prey to all the heavenly beings my pc doesn’t die in the moving process. (it has happened before)

I might update a weekly blog this sunday. I will show off a new character in the game that won’t appear in the monthly update for a while. If you want access to the weekly updates please consider becoming a member. Your contribution helps tremendously with completing this game.

Onwards and upwards, as they say. More weekly and monthly updates to come!

So most of the website maintenance is done. There are still a few things I could adjust but I’ll do that at a later time. As for now, I just want to get back to working on the game. If you run into any problems, contact us through the support form. We will be releasing more weekly updates soon with more information about the game. Members will have access to this information as soon as it’s released so consider becoming a member and directly supporting the games development. Other wise, just wait for the monthly updates.

I’m excited to finally have my site back up and functioning! Lets do this!!

The primary purpose of this website is to document my completion of the project I am currently working on. The schedule I will attempt to follow goes like this: 

-small weekly updates

-large monthly updates

-monthly video updates

The video and large monthly update will be an accumulation of the work I’ve done throughout the month, this includes information from the small weekly updates. This content will be available for everyone.

The small weekly updates is content exclusively for those who wish to support us in the development of this project. So if you wish to see content weeks (or months) before it is shown in the monthly updates I encourage you to become a member and support this project.

In between this schedule I will do sporadic posts and website updates. Despite having a Twitter and a Facebook page I will not spend a lot of time on social media. I will respond to members of this site and those who contact me through this site as well as on the YouTube page, but I will spend the majority of my time working on the game. Making this game is an extreme time sink but it pales in comparison to the time I could spend responding to everyone through social media. So I would like to apologize in advance if I don’t respond to your inquiry right away. I’ll revisit this schedule in a year and reflect on how well it’s worked, until then be well my friends.

I’ve held this domain since the early 2000s. Back in those days this site was mainly a portfolio to showcase the art I created. I still have a DeviantART profile where you can see some of my old doodles. Besides that, I also created games with tools such as RPG Maker 2k and Macromedia Flash. Most of those projects were never released and unfortunately died with the PC due to countless virus infections.(as was the way of the early internet)

In the late 2000s I started using different tools such as Multimedia Fusion and RenP’y. With these tools I’ve actually released a few projects to the internet, some of them were more on the mature end of the spectrum so I won’t name them here.

During the early 2010s my life began to pull me from this site and art/game creation in general. I even lost the rights to this domain for a year. Also during this time period I began to look more into professional game making tools such as Unity. I spent many years learning Unity and the many assets it had available. As my mastery improved, slowly but surely ideas began to form in my head. Long hours at the 9 to 5 allowed me to formulate a blueprint of the type of games I wish to create and the path I would take to get to their completion.

Finally, I spent the last few years of my life preparing for the moment I could return to this site and properly create a game. I have pages of documents, concepts, theories, and summaries of projects I wish (and do not wish) to create. I’ve even gone back and forth about whether to focus on sfw or nsfw. Some point during the last 5 years I began to settle on the idea of a daughter raising sim/RPG. With my first official game decided on I began to build the framework of the game.

Fast forward to 2021 and I am now at a phase where I can fully focus on completing this game and start showing some of the hard work me and many other talented people have put into making this game a reality. There’s still a tremendous amount of work to do but I am extremely excited to be in this position in my life. Making games has been a dream of mines since I was a boy, and now as a man it is a goal I am determined to see through to its completion. I hope you will be here with me through this journey of completing this project and the many other projects I have planned in the future.

Until the next update comes, live well my friends.