March Update (+ music!)

I figure this month is a good one for some chill music, so may I present a relatively large chunk of the much-longer "Dominic's Skate Camp". This track features both Dominic and I believe Alex, both of @alexthehonk fame. It's a great example of how Nathan is working the birbs into the music as something approaching proper vocalists!

As is my habit in music-months, all Patrons gets the bonus content this month! Yay!

Project Update

The big, visible thing I did this month was Birdie Sanders. Wanted to do something to get folks out to vote, so yeah! It fit really well! Birdie is also just you know, cute, and will be an awesome character option in the final game. Birdie Sanders themselves won't be a character you meet, but all the customization options will be there to use on your own birb!

Let's see, what else. We're in what's basically the modern Nintendo Power. Also I spent a lot of time on a single-button mode that doesn't explain in video, but in short: I made it possible to play the game without moving your thumb off the Ollie button. If you enable the grind-ollie and kickflip-ollie accessibility toggles, you can do all of those tricks with the ollie button. It's contextual which you do, so pulling off a grind or a kickflip or stall trick becomes a game of timing and positioning rather than just pick-the-right-button.

Why? Because we were gonna be in a large museum exhibit! It was gonna use the Accessibility controller, with only 1 stick and 2 buttons, and THE WHOLE GAME PLAYED ON IT and it was so cool! But, then - you know, er, virus. Museums closed. So no exhibit.

Bright side, the accessibility mode is GREAT, and was totally worth the time regardless!

Most important, critical bug fix I did this month was... moving a single line of code. Seriously though. This fixed SO many bugs. Took me months of wondering WTF was broken.

Anywho, I also made my options menu a little nicer and now I'm back to working on the mission system but then... you know. The market crashed, we're all stuck inside now, etc. Like, work continues, but the timeline gets a bit more grim, so not gonna dwell on it! Suffices to say, though, that:

SkateBIRD Is Delayed To 2021

We're not financially imperiled (unlike a lot of my friends in the service industry, yikes - please help where you can, tip well if you're getting delivery, etc). We're fine, really. Between the Kickstarter and some platform deals, we're more than funded through launch. However. The game is taking longer than planned due to normal iteration stuff. For instance, we're gonna go for a story mode! Like an ACTUAL story mode, not the findable tapes side-story we'd originally planned. Then pile on there that at least my productivity has halved or more because of - you know, everything outside right now? - and it's best to kick the can down the road.

To that end, though, we've ALSO made some plans that will help with scheduling:

- As I stated previously, my partner quit her job and will begin spinning up on SkateBIRD over the next month or so. She'll be doing some mix of QA, 3D art, and possibly more. It'll help a ton to have more help as we roll into production phase on the game.

- The person I was splitting a room with at GDC (before it was cancelled) turns out to run a porting studio that actually did a great job on more than a few games you'd recognize, and turns out they're interested in helping us with SkateBIRD! This could radically alter how much time is being put into the game. Not just in quality of the port itself, but also in terms of giving my side of the team more time to just work on the game proper.

So yeah. Stuff is going fine for us. Do not worry about us, we're fine, please direct any concern more to helping those around you in much worse circumstances. We're just delaying until 2021 because the game will be a lot better-realized for it. Next month, you'll hopefully see the first fruits of that labor, in the form of me showing off the missions system! I think! Hopefully! ;)

 Ok, cya then. Also, wash your hands, and please respect social distancing. Do it for the little birbs.