[Dev Log] The Bear's Black Heart

[Bobby B]

Oh my word...just realised its not David Bowie...its David BOO-ie!!!

(Graveyard Booey also works)

[theschap]

[fierydrake]

This looks fantatic!

[Bobby B]

Some new characters...including Dot Gobbler and Bosco

[SuperBiasedMan]

Oh wow, Bosco and Dot Gobbler is not a character combo I expected!

[Bobby B]

  On 12/3/2016 at 4:48 PM, SuperBiasedMan said:

Oh wow, Bosco and Dot Gobbler is not a character combo I expected!

I wanted to put Joe Duffy in too but @Abban is a spoilsport/right

[SuperBiasedMan]

Plus, Joe Duffy as DLC down the line would be a top seller.

[Bobby B]

Tee hee! I'm playing the first build

[Bobby B]

  On 12/3/2016 at 4:55 PM, SuperBiasedMan said:

Plus, Joe Duffy as DLC down the line would be a top seller.

Ha! We'll see what else we can squeeze in before deadline.

 

Many Dublin heads here on the forums? We also made this http://joeduffysoundboard.clamnuts.com/

[Bobby B]

Two new characters..."Eric the Actor" and a Black Smurf 

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm actually just a Dublin visitor at the moment, living in Kilkenny. There's a few of us around tho.

 

That Joe Duffy soundboard  would be a great resource for a Joe Duffy visual novel saying game. 

[Abban]

Joe Duffy already is a visual novel! I farted in his face once, its my claim to fame.

 

Dev update coming in the morning. I'm too exhausted to write.

[Bobby B]

Uh oh!

A little tremble on his upper leg maybe?

[Abban]

We have a finished build! I want to run a few tests of the balancing then I'll be back.

 

Sometimes the bear farts.

[Bobby B]

He certainly does, looks great man, well done!

[Bobby B]

Gahhh! nearly there! Brandy is stinging my eyes and I haven't moved in hours.

 

[Abban]

I just want to say thanks to everyone here for the feedback and emotional support over the last couple of weeks.

 

I've never done anything like this before and the amount I learned is incredible. The focus that comes from not having time to make and not second guess decisions really pushes things along. I'm going to add the last dev diary thing tomorrow because the amount of stuff I added over the last 2 days probably equalled the wok from the 2 weeks before.

 

Also, congratulations to everyone else who got through it! Bed time.

[Bobby B]

Yes, much respect to everybody who got through it...I only contributed a smidgen compared to the amount of hours and strain Abban put in on this. You're the man Ab, couldn't hope for a better biz partner and pal.

[Sloane]

I think I wandered (literally) into a tiny bug where the level border wasn't quite right (the path was blocked but another part wasn't) and I left the screen.

 

Anyway, amazing work, everything and especially the characters really look stunning, incredible stuff. If this popped up on the AppStore I'd buy it in a second.

[Bobby B]

  On 12/5/2016 at 5:56 AM, Sloane said:

I think I wandered (literally) into a tiny bug where the level border wasn't quite right (the path was blocked but another part wasn't) and I left the screen.

 

Anyway, amazing work, everything and especially the characters really look stunning, incredible stuff. If this popped up on the AppStore I'd buy it in a second.

Cheers Sloane, threres loads more content left on cutting room floor which we couldn't squeeze in.

You're in Germany/Spain...so are we! Abban is in Berlin and I'm in Spain. What parts?

[Ben X]

POST-CONFUSION EDIT:

 

The presentation on this is just superb. Lovely art, music, characterisation, seasons passing, title screen, lots of little touches. All the conversation choices are great, too (the

  Reveal hidden contents

#allSchmurfs one especially cracked me up

). I didn't feel like there was much player agency in the forest sections though - no skill required or choices to be made, really. I'd really like to see some more mechanics bunged in here - a map, some simple arcadey enemy-avoid stuff - and for it to tie in with the conversations even more strongly.

 

Furthermore, I checked out your site https://bigbadspanish.com and also loved that! The site itself is charming and the idea is really intriguing. I signed up to the mailing list so I can play the new demo when it comes out, and forwarded the site to a couple of people. (I did have a problem with the bottom of the text blocks on the old demo dropping past the bottom of the window, if that makes sense - you're probably aware of that.)

[Abban]

Cheers Ben!

 

The balancing is all over the place atm, because we only started writing that content yesterday. Hooking it all up took up most of the day and I only got to actually play it properly after we submitted. There's a decent little game in there that I still need to draw out. For example I need to force the player into making those bad choices begrudgingly.

 

We've been slowly working on Big Bad Spanish for the last year (although Bobby had been designing it for years before that). I'm pretty new to game dev and I've slowly been building the game while learning how all this stuff works. The reason the site looks so good is because thats our original bread and butter, we have a web design/development background.

 

It feels like I learned more in the last 2 weeks than the last 2 years before.

[Bobby B]

Cheers @Ben X yeah agreed on the arcadey-avoid a baddie or Forest Ranger element. Hey I'm still amazed that Abban could even make the Bear move that well in 2 weeks let alone a real game. We'll get Big Bad Spanish out soon!

[hedgefield]

This thing just oozes style. Wouldn't look out of place in the App Store at all.

It felt more like a linear story you have to walk through than a forest to wander around in, I think it would benefit the structure if you had a certain area to explore with things to do in it, and once you hit some sort of milestone you continue on to the next week. But the content itself was cool, scavenging for snacks was fun, and the dialogues had nice unexpected twists and humor to them. Impressive work!

[brendonsmall]

I really love the art in this game.