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The situation with ESA
Posted on 2014-05-23 03:51

Alright, so ESA has been very close to being completed for a while now. However, these last things have taken quite a bit more time than I assumed, mostly due to not feeling inspired to go that extra mile. Since I’m have a bit more patience than I did some years ago, this lack of inspiration doesn’t mean that I’d abandon the game now, but it means things might take a bit longer still. Another reason the game wont be finished as soon as I’d like is that the soundwork isn’t finished; the composer has had an extremely busy Spring and thus has been able to get cracking on the audio only fairly recently. This is totally understandable and I don’t mind it, but it means that the game will probably be finished content-wise before the audio is ready.

So, what’s left to be done? Let’s list:

- Two phases for the final boss. The second phase has been giving me a lot of trouble because the concept I originally had wasn’t really very fun to play against. I’m still not quite sure where to go with the second phase, but fortunately the rest of the fight I have pretty much designed already.
- A mini-miniboss in the final area. I had a really cool idea for a small miniboss-ish battle right before the final one, to increase the difficulty of the final area but also to give the ending more weight, as it were. I have the fight planned but figuring out an interesting design for the boss took some time.
- The station bestiary. I’m regretting adding this somewhat, because implementing it will be really boring, but then again the concept is way too great not to use! I always loved that enemy list thing in the end of Super Mario World and want to make something slightly similar here. This’ll be the very last thing I’ll work on.
- As mentioned, the audio. I’ve implemented the sound system in terms of game code already, so I’ll just have to add in sound effects and music as they’re finished.
- A larger secret thing. The secret game area is done for good, but there’s a part of it that requires some hardcoded cutscenery and such. This shouldn’t be too hard, I’m just lazy.

I’m going to announce a release date as soon as I feel confident enough to decide on one! Sorry about making empty promises in the past (the official trailer still says I might finish the game in 2012, sigh). I’m not really used to hyping up a game-in-development so stuff like deadlines are my bane!