Fortnight

The game is starting to look like something. I've gotten the front end menus all done. They work, they have art and they are navigable. They're all debugged now too and make a decent attempt to not do anything stupid. So that's more or less all off the list and I can move along.
I got the Basic Tutorial all hashed out too. I went ahead and added it to the Front End menus, so it all looks the same. So on the pages for the menu it looks like a book with page creases and stuff and then the Basic Tutorial looks like a book, with play on the right page and tutoring on the facing leaf. It sounds odd, but I find that it works really rather well visually and from a gameplay perspective.
For the art, what I'm going to do is crib the parts from the backgrounds The Ron did and adjust the colors. Since the tutorial is an abstract concept with no grounding in story, I'm going to abstract the art for it. So the pages will have more or less inky black lines to show the geometries. It should match the rest of the art in the game and my front end menu, provided I can do it right.
Turns out I was correct, my photoshop skills were called upon.
Further, I found doing the final levels (for the IGF build of the game) to be interesting. Since the Tutorial features single moves for the player, having to design a puzzle that more or less only has the one thing is kind of tricky. Doing it with only half a screen the additional twist. Thankfully it both teaches well and plays. Now I just need to make it look like something.

Once that's done I'll get cracking on the Fight Tutorial. Basically I want the player to select a type of enemy, load a screen with that enemy in it, keep the player at 100% health and reset the level when the enemy gets taken out. Add a sub screen on pause that shows directions and how things work and that should be done. No, it's not the best way to teach a player anything, but it's better than nothing and it's what I have time for. Given another option I would script together a mode like in the last IGF version, but I have 14 days or so left. Time is not, and probably never was, on my side.

With that it's just some minor cleanup to get the Speed Run mode working correct, the Perfect mode dancing and the Easy Mode eased. Then...nothing. After that I've got nothing left to do until I get the assets for it. I wait, I twiddle thumbs and I send emails where I pretend that I wasn't staring at my ceiling thinking of what to do next until 2 AM. They tend to go like this, and everybody on the Team gets them, although the specifics change.

Hey (insert name here),
I just thought I send an email to see how things are going and if you need anything.
I hope everything's cool.
Later,
-Eric

- For the title, what I wanted to call it was either "Two Weeks Notice" or "Hurry Up and Wait." But it turns out I've used those already.