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House of Games #65 — Sunset Moon Update & Midnight Nano Reveal

Otto Wretling
37 min readMar 13, 2024

Welcome back to House of Games! This week we talk about updates to our games, what’s going on with Sunset Moon, what it takes to finalize a demo and a special reveal, don’t miss it!

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/house-of-games/message

Chapters

00:00 Episode Intro
00:23 Update on Sunset Moon
36:17 Midnight Nano Reveal
42:18 Midnight Nano Gameplay
52:05 Episode Outro

Your Hosts and Guest, and Their Games

Games

Other Links

Transcript

[00:00:00] Episode Intro

[00:00:00] Rune: Halli, hello everyone and welcome to the most updated podcast in the world. I think I used that before, House of Games. Today we are diving into some major updates for Sunset Moon and Otto’s game that is yet to be revealed. As the matter of fact, we’re gonna look at it today. Excited? Well, board a choo choo train because we are heading to House of Games.

[00:00:23] Update on Sunset Moon

[00:00:23] Otto: Welcome to today’s episode of House of Games and as my amazing co-host mentioned, today we are going to look at updates from our respective games. So Rune, do you want to go first? Where are you? What’s, what’s happening? What’s going on?

[00:00:53] Rune: Yeah, what’s happening with that demo that was supposed to be out before Christmas? I am, working on it. [00:01:00] we talked a little bit before we recorded and I said that, this demo that I’m putting together is basically like putting together a whole game. I, I never made a demo for my games before so that’s a new thing I’ve learned like it really is like that the whole game almost has to be done before you can put out a demo. Now granted there will be things added to the game after the demo is out, for example, I have not implemented the animal system where you can buy animals and farm them or whatever you do with animals, but it’s, it’s, it has pretty much, I feel like it has all the functions I want in the game and just this last week I’ve been working on one of the main quests so… before I wanted to have four different main quests that you could sort of pick your way but I have decided to there’s one main quest through the whole game, [00:02:00] but you can of course just choose to do it or not so I want people to be able to play the game without even bothering about the main quest at all. The cool thing about that is things still might happen to you based on the main quest as if it was happening in the background.

[00:02:15] But now that I say that, well, that wouldn’t make sense because then if you did start the main quest and then the thing that happened already happened again, and it happens again, it makes no sense. So that’s not gonna happen. I take that back. But the main quest will have a It will start with the detective on the island who’s investigating your grandfather.

[00:02:34] So, in the demo you will be able to play until a certain point and it sort of ends on a cliffhanger. As a matter of fact, there are 3 quest lines in the demo. One is one of the main ones, the detective ones. And then the other one is more about character development with this girl. So you can sort of, you know, go on dates with her and talk to her and sort of befriend her and maybe you fall in love with her, but you [00:03:00] cannot marry her in the demo.

[00:03:01] So it was, it would be sort of like a block. You can go on a date and after that you can’t and also her main story or let’s say her story also ends on a cliffhanger. So in the full game if you fancy this particular girl or a boy, whatever. They all have their own sort of main, well, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a side quest, but for this particular character, it’s her own main quest, if that makes sense.

[00:03:27] So every character in the game, not all of them, but most of them will have like a quite robust storyline. So in the demo, for example, this girl Sakura, she will be a, you can make it quite far into her relationship and then it will also end on a sort of like a cliffhanger. I sort of talked about before how I, I, I like this sort of, Black Mirror storytelling where there’s big twists that you weren’t expecting.

[00:03:54] And I think it will be extra powerful for players who have played games like these before. [00:04:00] Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Persona is another game that I, I’m realizing now that, man, this became It’s becoming more and more like a Persona game, which is a good thing in my opinion. And I think thinking about it like Persona is a quite dark game so that I suppose it is a little bit more like that. But anyway, when you play those games you… let’s say you have played those types of games before and then you play Sunset Moon I think you will be surprised and shocked about the story twists and I really hope that that will be the case And if I’ve done my job right, you will also expect certain twists and then they won’t happen.

[00:04:40] So that’s another thing I’m trying to keep in mind that not every character on the island will have like this spectacular, spectacular side story but some will and I think that will have a better an even better effect on the player in the end of the day because now you don’t know what to expect from anyone [00:05:00] or anything just like in real life.

[00:05:03] But, I have not started with her main quest, if you will, but I have started, I’ve done finished Snoopy’s, the detective, I’ve finished his whole quest line until the, the cliffhanger. And as I was making this one, I realized that man, I am really finalizing the game at this point because he has so many things you have to, there are so many functions involved in his storyline, which might not sound like big deals but we talked about this some episodes ago when we talked about quests in general and I said I don’t like when quests are basically the same thing, but they’re just under a different disguise, so in Spider-Man you go and pick up, there’s no difference what, swinging around in New York and picking up backpacks, or turning off these, thingies, air polluter thingies, or whatever it was in the game.

[00:05:56] It’s basically the exact same function, [00:06:00] but it’s just, the end of it, it’s just a tiny difference. Which is fine, but eventually you get bored if it’s the same thing over and over again, which tend to be the case in a lot of open world games. So in Sunset Moon, I hope that I will be able to disguise these functions, which let’s say there are 10 different functions at this point, but that means I could basically have, so I will, as an example, let’s say you, you go to bookshelf, which you can, and then you flip through a book. And then there, there’s a thing that says you have added this, crafting recipe now, which meant you read the book and you learn about the recipe, and now you can go into your recipe crafting panel and then you can actually make that item which you need them to give to an NPC to fulfill the quest for example. But that one in in itself that book, because I could also use that [00:07:00] as a, let’s say you you flipping through this book and in the book I have like pictures from the island, let’s say there’s a picture of the beach and in that picture, I’m just making this up as I go, but I’m realizing now that I’m saying this, that this is quite cool.

[00:07:20] So on that picture, it’s like a black and white picture from the olden days, let’s say, and then you see a statue there, but you know, there is no statue there because the beach is just right outside and you can’t see the statue, but then you go there with your plow thingy and you, you plow, and then bam, bang, and then you find that statue, and then it has something for you.

[00:07:43] Point is that, that book mechanic itself, you can dis- it’s this, it’s one mechanic, but you can disguise it to be a million different things. One cool thing I want to do, there’s a journalist on the island, one of her side quests, I want her to, you’re supposed to help her [00:08:00] make pamphlets and send it, send them to the mainland to promote Sunset Moon, so you get more tourists coming. I guess like year 2 or year 3, I’m going to introduce more 2 new NPCs. So maybe I can sort of turn that into that, that if you do the side quest, it sort of looks like they read about Sunset Moon and they came to Sunset Moon because you promoted Sunset Moon with help, by helping this journalist, but one of the functions I have is like, if you stand on this spot and you press the screenshot button.

[00:08:33] So also what we talked about last episode, I’m sort of making this up for game consoles and they all have the screenshot button, but I think Steam also have that, but point is, if you step on this spot and then you press the screenshot button, it will register that you’re taking a screenshot, but it’s also like a picture for the journalist who’s then going to use that picture in her book as a, as a quest.

[00:08:57] I mean, her quest is to [00:09:00] basically ask you to do that for you, for her. So that’s, that’s another cool thing. And that’s another cool function I could then use in different scenarios and I’m again thinking on the spot right now that imagine if I have that function inside the dungeons there so there’s a catacomb underneath Sunset Moon and if you walk to a certain spot and you press that button that could just trigger this, this, that would be really cool.

[00:09:26] I don’t know how to do this though, but imagine you go to a spot and then you take a picture with the screenshot button. So first of all, you need to buy the camera. And then when you stand on the spot, you take a screenshot and then you go into your, I’m thinking now Nintendo Switch, to your folder, picture folder.

[00:09:43] And you look at that picture inside your Nintendo Switch and then you see there’s a ghost standing next to you. That would be fucking cool I don’t know how to do that, maybe I could I don’t know how to do that to be honest, then I would have to sort of get into the [00:10:00] Switch somehow, I’m thinking this is almost like that classic from Metal Gear Solid 1 when you have to pull out the PlayStation controller and put it in slot B and all that stuff and when Psycho Mantis read your memory card.

[00:10:12] I guess this is some Hardcore programming skills that I don’t have, but I’m sure there is ways I can use this picture function in various places of the game in different storylines.

[00:10:27] and it has like a completely different meaning or it feels new and fresh for the gamer. So anyway, that was a long way of saying that the Snoopy questline, it has a lot of functions that will be reused throughout the game, but I do think that I, I am creative enough to sort of find ways for you, the player, not to know that this is the exact same function as you used in this other guy’s side story, but now you’re using it here because you’re doing this, it doesn’t feel like you it’s the same repetitive [00:11:00] thing. It’s feels new and fresh. but that’s what I realized when I made the story for well, the detective story took took a lot of time, but there are so many functions in the game now that had to go in there and I never thought about that before christmas when I said the demo was almost done, like I never thought about all these things that we’re nowhere near done.

[00:11:23] So that’s really exciting. The, his side story or that that story works and the dialogue is being updated as you’re progressing through that story. So that’s really cool and as you know, when you’re developing games, once you have one of these, in this case, in this case, this quest line sorted out, I can copy paste the whole quest line and just erase the things I don’t need and change the names to, to the NPCs that are involved.

[00:11:51] And that’s another thing, from the script’s point of view, as this is a sort of developer podcast, I suppose, each NPC will have [00:12:00] their own script attached to their own quest line, so it’s super static in a way, like it’s not so fluid, but I feel like it’s easier to work this way. And I also sort of add these, slots where I drag and drop the NPC’s data files.

[00:12:19] So these NPCs are involved in his storyline and then I can sort of drag and drop them into there. And then as you progress through his story, there’s another command that is sending a signal to the NPCs. So their dialogue tree will also update, so when you talk to them, they won’t say “Ah, it’s Friday, what a great day!”, instead, they will say I know you talk to Snoop, are you, are you trying to arrest me or something? Or whatever the case may be. So this is, some really cool stuff and it all works great, which is cool. The only weird thing that I don’t know how to solve and I don’t know if I want to solve it is that when you talk to people, you press on [00:13:00] X, for example, but when it’s quest related things, you have to press on triangle.

[00:13:04] And this is for me, so it will trigger different dialogue trees. And I think this is the best/the only solution. Cause otherwise, because it takes place in this world that keeps going no matter what, like in terms of the events and so on, because if you make in the middle of a quest and it’s Christmas, maybe you don’t want to deal with that quest on Christmas. Maybe you just want to go and have Christmas instead. So, this is for me the only way I can sort of make that happen. So, if you go to the Christmas party, instead of talking about arresting your grandpa, you might just want to hang out and talk to someone and see what they have to say, because it’s Christmas, because based on the day and the events and all that stuff, the dialogue is different and so on.

[00:13:50] So, this is, a weird solution, but I think it is the best one. And then, of course, if you, if this NPC [00:14:00] has something to say about the quest you’re on, I will add this symbol above the NPC. So you know that, okay, this NPC has a quest thing, a quest related conversation, and then you press triangle instead of X.

[00:14:17] So that’s, that’s a weird solution, but I think it’s the best one because it also, that’s the only way I can think about it, like how you can sort of, ignore the quest and, or continue with the quest. So that’s the, the biggest and latest update. I also did one more cool thing about the dating system, so if you go on a date with someone, it will be like, I talked about this before, but they have different schedules, so they go to different places based on what day it is, what event it is, if it’s raining, they stay home and so on. But if you go on a, on a date, she will have, or he, your date will have a date schedule, [00:15:00] so they will go to maybe a 2 or 3, I can change it depending on the person, but I’m going to let’s say they go to 3 different spots in the morning. My idea is to for, for example for the girls that they go and do some makeup, they sit and do makeup, so that would be a cool detail for the player to go and visit the girl that’s going to go out on a date with before the date and then she’s sitting there doing makeup and if you talk to her she’ll say say like her dialogue would be “No, not yet, come on, don’t be such a tease. Let’s meet up 2 o’clock as we said.”, So, the, her dialogue is, has different, she can say different things based on the time of the day as well, which is really cool. And all of this is so fluid in the dialogue system. I can just add these things. It doesn’t have to be that every person is saying something different in the morning and the night.

[00:15:48] Just like in real life, you know, not every person has something interesting to say all the time. Sometimes you say, hi, all throughout the whole day, but some people are chatty, chatty, chattery, like they like [00:16:00] to chat. So they might say something in the morning and something different in the afternoon and so on.

[00:16:04] It depends on how much I want to build the characters and this is also, something I think it’s super fun to do and also adds, some reality to it in a weird way where all players say different things and so on. But anyway, if you talk to them your date before the actual date, meaning 2 o’clock, she will maybe say something, “Hey, don’t be a tease, leave”, and then when you talk to her, when you’re gonna meet up and this is a cool thing too, you have one hour to be there, like to, to actually talk to her on the date spot, so she will wait for you on her date spot, and that’s between 2 and 3, and this is a hard coded thing, so that all these dates will start at these hours, and this is also a game design thing I think is useful for the player, so you sort of know that, okay, when you go on a date, it’s on these days, and it’s this time of day, 2 o’clock, for example, because that way, it’s not too much to keep [00:17:00] track of as a player because that can be confusing.

[00:17:02] If the NPCs feels too real, if you will, it’s, it might be confusing and like, Oh, what am I supposed to do? But you will eventually learn these things when you’re going on a date, it’s 2 o’clock and you always meet up in the NPCs house and you have “fika” together. So that’s the first date activity, but if you’re late.

[00:17:20] If you come after 3 o’clock, she will be pissed off, or he. Like, why? Who do you think I am? I’m not gonna sit here and wait for you all day. So that’s a cool thing, too. And also, obviously, depends on who the NPC is. Yeah, they will say different things about that. So, oh man, it’s just so cool. And then, when you start talking, the date starts.

[00:17:39] And then I have in the dialogue system it can go into 3 random directions or as many directions as I want, but I I’m aiming to give it 3 different conversations, because you might want to go on a date with this person again later on, so if you marry this person later on and you take her on a date, she will then say oh taking [00:18:00] your wife on a date, that’s very gentlemen of you sort of and then you might want to have a different conversation the next time around because it’s all about getting to know these people as well which is also, I mentioned before it adds a a more impact on if for example an NPC dies or well I talked about before I’m not really gonna allow you to kill them but if something were to happen to an NPC it has a little bit more impact on you as a player if you really know this NPC and this is sort of Persona, Persona stuff I’m talked about before how sort of turning into that in a weird way, but when you start a date, it can go into 2, 3 different conversations and these are random.

[00:18:41] So you might be unlucky and have the same one every time. I’m not sure if I’m going to add some booleans to make sure you don’t have the same one every time, but anyway, it can go into 3 different conversations. And when that conversation is done, you will have the next option, which will be, she will ask you like, okay, or he, where are you taking me [00:19:00] next?

[00:19:00] And then you can pick a spot. So the options in the dialogue tree like, well, let’s go to the beach and, sit on the bench and talk over there. Or let’s go to also, this is also depend on the season. If it’s, winter, you can go to the onsen, the hot springs, and if it’s the summer you can go skinny dipping.

[00:19:17] And if it’s the winter you can go, spring, you can go to a different place. So that’s quite cool too. So then you, you will actually, and she will actually walk there, and this was quite complicated thing to to program because now from a coding perspective she has to ignore what day it is that she’s on a date, she has to ignore all of those commands and now she just to have to follow your command to go to this spot and then you will actually walk there, you can walk with her to that spot and then once you reach it on the way to the spot, and this is so cool too, on the way to that spot she will say something like I can’t wait to get there whatever I tell her to say, so they’re, even there they’re, the dialogue tree is branching off to something else while you’re [00:20:00] walking there and once you get to the spot, there’s a new conversation and you get to know her even more and then you will have a third option once that conversation is done. You can then choose to go to one last place or you can ask her to go to a love hotel, which is a thing here in Japan It’s basically a place for banging, because in Japan you live tight and all that stuff. But anyway, if she likes you enough, maybe she will say yeah, let’s do it or she might get angry or you might want to take her to the bar or him or go skinny, like the more, the further in you get to the date the higher chances are that you will end up kissing her or hugging her or you know, she will actually start liking you.

[00:20:46] So that’s a really cool dating system I have there and it’s, I think it’s, quite unique in its way, how it’s, how you have sort of control over it and how you can, the [00:21:00] outcome will depend on what you say as well. And this is, this is something that I would have to fine tune towards the end of the development, but, throughout the conversations too, you have, let’s say they are roadblocks, if you will. So let’s say you talk to an NPC that you know is like, there’s one in the game who is very much into the environment and so on. So if the conversation, you might not want to say, there might come up an option that is quite offensive for her. So if you would say that she’ll get kind of angry, and then you sort of lost your chances to continue this date with her.

[00:21:34] But if you’re being good, a good listener, whatever, you might understand who you’re dating and thus you can make it through the whole date, so the whole date thing in of itself it’s sort of like a mini game in a way and if you make it to the end of the date, which doesn’t necessarily mean the love hotel. It could also mean that you, you can say let’s take it slow we meet up some other day and then if you make it to the end of the date, your, her likeness for [00:22:00] you will increase with let’s say 100 points instead of well when you when you give them items their likes for you will increase by 1, or 2, or 5 points.

[00:22:12] But if you make it to the end of a date, it might increase with 20, or 100, or whatever. And by doing that, you will then get to know her faster, and you know, once she loves you, you can marry her, and so on. So that’s a really cool system. A lot of talking for my point now, but man, it’s just so much going on.

[00:22:33] And, and it all works, which is so cool, and I’m shocked when I’m sitting there playing. And that’s the coolest thing, making games. So I’m bug testing it and then I say, well, let’s go to the beach. And then you see, she stopped walking, they’re like, what? How the fuck did that happen? I did this? I can’t believe it.

[00:22:52] But yeah, it works and it’s really cool. And I think that’s, it would be fun for people who are playing the game for the sake, from that [00:23:00] perspective they want to play the game to get to know people and, and you know date and so on like all these dating sims that actually exist but dating sims are usually just text based things at least here in Japan I that’s the only ones I can think of but yeah that’s really cool so that’s, I think that’s all the updates I have and these were the 2 last ones that I had to get in order to be able to finalize the demo and they work now, so right now today before we started recording I was working on a music script that handles the music And yeah, it’s quite straightforward.

[00:23:41] I hope to because we talked to forgot his name, but many episodes ago he made a music software that sounded really cool. And that’s something I hope to use later on in the development of the game, but for now, it’s the, the script is quite simple, the box collider, so when you walk into them, it will start a certain [00:24:00] music, certain music.

[00:24:00] So if you’re on the beach, it’s the beach theme. And if you walk into the town, it’s the spring theme for the demo, for example, but obviously in the summer, the music changes on and when you’re going to shanty town, there will be different music. And the script also helps fading in and out these things.

[00:24:15] So when you go from one they will fade. And now I’m trying to add another audio listener to the game because it’s quite important for me to, the way I want to have the events is that they will take place in certain areas of the game. And you know, if you’re in the event based on the music. So if you enter this area where it’s the Sakura season, you can hear the music.

[00:24:40] It’s a different theme, versus the spring theme, so yeah, that’s, I’m working on that a little bit and I’ve been downloading a lot of free assets for sound effects. I, they’re really good, but I hope to change them as well when the game is done, to either outsource [00:25:00] all the sound effects stuff because I, do not like doing it and I suck at it, so if there’s any sound effect guy who’s very cheap, please hit me up.

[00:25:12] But that’s it from Sunset Moon. Sorry, there was a lot of talking, but there is so much happening.

[00:25:17] Otto: Oh, interesting, very interesting. So what would you say is what you spend more time on? Is it like writing the game itself, like the, the, the, not code script, but, you know, the, the text that characters do or say, or the scenarios, or is it more like only coding that takes a lot of time, or graphics, or what would you say you, what, what makes the game take so much time to create more than you expected?

[00:25:50] Rune: Ooh, the dialogue system for sure, because I keep changing it and I keep… one thing I notice is that, or I’ve been messing around a [00:26:00] little bit more with it and I learned that I can actually, let’s say I make a branch or I make a whole dialogue for an NPC. There’s loads of dialogue for one NPC. And now I make the second NPC.

[00:26:12] And then I realized, oh man, I wish I had like a dialogue option where, based on what animals you own, it could branch off. So let’s say you talk to someone who loves animals and you own a dog, then I want that boolean, or a string it’s called. I want that string to say what animals you have, and if you have one of those animals this boolean will turn true and then she will say next time you talk to her randomly on a summer day maybe at this point you’re used to the fact that she you say hi how are you and then that’s it but this particular day you for some reason talk to her and or him.

[00:26:54] I keep saying her because I’m a dude and I’m just thinking from that perspective that I want to [00:27:00] ナンパ, pick up girls. But anyway, if you were to talk to her a random summer day and you own a dog or whatever animal you can have in the game. Then that will branch off because normally she would just say, hi, how are you?

[00:27:15] But now she’ll say, hi, how are you? And then because of the string has the word dog in it, the conversation can continue. And she will be like, by the way, I saw you have a dog. And then for the play, that’s quite fun. Like, oh, fuck, how did you know that? And then she would say something, I really love dogs.

[00:27:30] And then maybe the next option for you would be, well, I’m more like a cat person. And if you pick that, she will get grumpy. Or if you say, yeah, me too, she will get happy or something and so on. And another really cool thing about this is because I can trigger the quests from these dialogues. So they could be a scenario where there is an NPC that you don’t even think has a side quest for you or anything.

[00:27:55] It’s just like an NPC. And all of a sudden you talk to this random [00:28:00] NPC one day and you have done something in the game that this NPC is into and then that NPC will then trigger that conversation. Because this very complex dialogue system store all I can sort of tell what it should store and so on and replace things It’s super complicated, but that takes most of the time but anyway, I was just gonna finish this point that based on what you have done in your dialogue data, it could trigger a new conversation for this particular character and all of a sudden you’re starting a side quest with this Character and that will lead you into the dungeons where you find this cool thing or you find something that you need further on, later on in the game to unlock more of the secrets that Sunset Moon holds. So that’s really cool.

[00:28:46] But yeah that to answer your question the dialogue system by far man I spent a lot of time with it, but I wanted to say about writing the characters I only do this when I’m out and about so if I have to go into Tokyo for for [00:29:00] a model gig which doesn’t really happen nowadays, but I sort of quit completely, but when I did that, I would get on the train and I would go into Tokyo, go do my job or audition and after the audition, I would go and be one of those pretentious assholes who sits in Starbucks and pretend to work.

[00:29:17] I always criticize those assholes, but I noticed that I can actually do it. I go to a cafe and then I have my laptop and then I sit there and work, drink a cup of coffee and I get quite, I don’t know if it’s because of Tokyo, like I see people everywhere and it’s just like, it’s quite inspirational to write these, side stories and, but the, the best part or where I actually love writing my stories is on the train back to Gunma where my wife is from.

[00:29:46] So then we take the morning train and the first thing I do is drink some, some whiskey and in from the morning and then we get on the train up to Gunma and then I get that slight whiskey booze and it’s fun to write [00:30:00] when I’m… not drunk, but like just feeling a little…

[00:30:02] Otto: Mr. Hemingway over here.

[00:30:06] Rune: Who’s that?

[00:30:08] Otto: Famous drunk writer.

[00:30:11] Rune: Oh, yeah, sure. I take it, but like I talked about some episodes ago, I also like to listen to music while I write, but when I’m home, I don’t write because this is where I code and tie the game together and the graphical stuff, even though the game looks fine now, I’m saving that for last, because in my previous games I did graphics first and then I just had all the boring shit after.

[00:30:41] Now I’m gonna keep the graphics to the last. That will be the last thing I do. So the graphics you see now, maybe on screen, will be It looks fine, but it’s It’s definitely going to get some, facelifts and improvements before the game is out. But yeah, graphics are just visuals. So that’s [00:31:00] the things you can change last minute.

[00:31:01] It doesn’t screw anything up really if you just stick to whatever you’ve done. And also, I enjoy that, that the most, and I think it’s super fun to make pixel art and I learned so much from what I’ve done so far. So I, I really hope and think I can improve the graphics way more before the game is done.

[00:31:19] But that will be the last maybe 2 months I’m gonna spend just polishing the graphics. So I’m gonna wait with that till last.

[00:31:29] Otto: Yeah. Interesting. Cool. Uh, yeah, and you know, how, how much time do you get to spend on it nowadays?

[00:31:44] Rune: Well, 8 hours a day. I, I start, well, now and it’s so cold here in Japan, I can’t really get out of the bed in the morning and we live in such a small house. I can’t get out without waking everyone up. [00:32:00] So nowadays I will sleep until my son wakes up and then I bring him to, school or kindergarten and then straight from there I go to the gym one and a half hour and then I’m home, so maybe let’s say I’m home around 10, 10:30 and then I work until 5 uninterrupted and then when my son goes to bed I work while watching something on Netflix with my wife so I’m more listening to the shows we’re watching but I’m working there from that room the other room we only have 2 small rooms in this little house but so then I sit there for maybe 2.5, 3 hours so I, I, I get in like 8 hours a day for sure and then if my wife has plans in the weekends and go out with the kids with our son, I spend the whole day working there too.

[00:32:46] So I think in per week maybe a easily 40 hours, but then my wife and I would do date days once a week as well so that sort of ruins a whole day from working, but I think it’s important to have those…

[00:32:59] Otto: [00:33:00] Don’t tell your wife that. Cool. Well, it’s interesting that you really get to spend so much time on it. I’m really happy for you for that thing. I, you know, I spend maybe, I couldn’t even say 40 hours a month, maybe 40 hours a year, is what I spend, maybe. Something like that. So, kudos. Very cool. cool.

[00:33:32] Rune: Thanks, but I gotta say one more thing, when we got kicked out of Sweden we moved into this little house and it was almost the main reason I wanted to live here is because it’s dirt cheap and I just thought man if we live this cheap I don’t need to work like have a real job because I have still money from my previous games, so I can easily survive in this, I can’t even call it a house, whatever it is, is [00:34:00] we’re living in like I could ease we could easily survive here for one more year.

[00:34:03] And I was like asked my wife like can I just chase my dream one more year and then we see what happens. So that’s one of the reasons why I can work on it so much is because I’m sacrificing standard of living. But I told you before, off air, I think living this awfully is a lesson, it’s a good lesson.

[00:34:26] And I think it’s, yeah, my wife and I and my son, I mean, it’s so small and we survived here for a year. I think that says something about, you know more about life in general, like how we could survive there. And a part of me also think, you know, in Sunset Moon, it’s all about class, you know, upper class, lower class and all that stuff.

[00:34:48] We took a class trip when we moved from our beautiful apartment in Sweden to this shithole. So, maybe I got some inspiration from here too.

[00:34:58] Otto: Cool. Very nice.

[00:34:59] Rune: And I mean this [00:35:00] house is a shithole, not Japan. I love Japan.

[00:35:03] Otto: Ha, ha, ha. Oh, nice. Oh, very nice. It’s, inspiring to hear. It’s, sounds almost like a Miyazaki movie, almost. yeah, and, what else was I thinking? yeah, I, thought it would be, to tie this together with our previous episode, it would be fun sometime to do sort of a, a playthrough of the demo when it’s done, and maybe do some, some testing as well, while we’re at it, it would be really fun to see what it’s like, so I imagine it’s gonna be really, really good.

[00:35:46] Rune: Are you thinking that you, you don’t play it until we are doing, like, recording it, and then you’re playing it, like, natural reaction and I have to sit here, like, on a [00:36:00] tortured chair and see you ruin the game. Yeah, that would be fun.

[00:36:05] Otto: Yeah, and then, I imagine, like, I can do testing and, you know, maybe go through what I would test, the time maybe.

[00:36:17] Midnight Nano Reveal

[00:36:17] Otto: Cool and, speaking of that, I was thinking we should do the same thing with my game, right now. But, before that I could, just, give a little, context on, on the game.

[00:36:32] So, the game itself, it’s called, Midnight Nano, so, the, the context of, the latter part is that this is a, maybe a miniature version of, what I wanna create someday.

[00:36:51] So, more on that…

[00:36:53] Rune: Nano, nano like nano technology?

[00:36:55] Otto: Like iPod Nano. Like, the small [00:37:00] version.

[00:37:00] I guess, this small. yeah, yeah. So, and, basically, you, you’re gonna see it on screen soon.

[00:37:12] But, basically, what you do is that there’s this, planet, you have a rail railway around it and a train and basically your goal is to keep your, the train in the shade, and not in the sun, because then you die.

[00:37:34] So, having said that, there’s, we released it very early, because I think we, previously with the 2 previous projects, Me and my brother have, stalled it, and we’ve done feature creep and stuff, all to the points where we abandoned both of them, so with this third game, we thought [00:38:00] that it’s better to release it now, early, even though it looks absolutely like shit, and it’s not finished and there’s a lot of things to do to make it, you know, a really quality game.

[00:38:13] But it’s better to release it now, in its current state, and then update it rather than just fixing it in the editor, because then you will see, I mean, immediately after releasing it, I realized a lot of things that had to be fixed and implemented that I wouldn’t have cared about if it was just in the editor, so…

[00:38:35] Rune: Did those things you realized that you had to fix, did anyone get to play the game? Like, did people start playing the game before you realized them or was it just, you know, you hit release, tried it out and then you realized that you need to fix them? Do you know what I’m saying? Like, did you get some feedback before? Because I would say that that must be quite stressful.

[00:38:54] Otto: The second option, so, I, nobody has played it, so you would be the [00:39:00] first actually to play it, except me and my brother. So, I just released it and then realized, oh, right, we need like a, a, a scoreboard and stuff and you should probably know how many lives you have before dying and stuff and you should probably have some way of telling that you died and, you know, there’s a lot of stuff, it’s so, it’s not even a prototype, I would say.

[00:39:25] You’ll see, soon. But, yeah, but I think it’s not, doesn’t have to be that stressful, I, you know, I, like a, like a some sort of a meditation guru, I just accept that it’s shit and, it’s, I’ll just fix it, eventually. That’s my plan, but, also, recently we did get sort of into a routine of being able to work on it continuously.

[00:39:56] I’ve, because of the, as I said, because [00:40:00] of this podcast, I haven’t had time to do the game, but recently I started, some mornings to, before I start working on the podcast, to instead work on the game a couple minutes before working on the podcast. So then I just squeeze in a little bit of time, and doing it frequently makes it easier, basically.

[00:40:23] Rune: Man, what you have to sacrifice for this podcast…

[00:40:29] Otto: Yeah, but it’s worth it. It’s it’s been a great journey and I love to be on it, so uh…

[00:40:36] Rune: Mm.

[00:40:40] Otto: What was I gonna say? Yeah, so we did actually also get to play or do some game development together, me and my brother, as we’re, you know, during mornings, for example, before work. So, and that’s what got us to the point where we [00:41:00] can actually release it, even though it lacks so many things.

[00:41:04] But, yeah, so I thought, I’ll just, send you, yeah…

[00:41:09] Rune: I was gonna say, when I’m back in Sweden, we should, the 3 of us should meet up and we do like a game jam day. Not working on a new game, but like working on our own games. But just do it 8 hours straight.

[00:41:22] Otto: Yeah, that would be really amazing.

[00:41:26] Rune: Mm. Oh, and some drink some beer and pizza in the end…

[00:41:31] Otto: That would be amazing. Yeah, I look forward to meeting and having you back in Sweden. You know, if not else, this fucking delay that we have in this current call makes it so difficult to talk sometimes. So, if not else, that’s gonna be amazing.

[00:41:50] Rune: Mm.

[00:41:53] Otto: Alright, yes, so I think, you can, I’ll send you the link [00:42:00] here, and then if you want you can share your screen and, you can show the, the store page and everything, it’s so incredibly, you know, it’s so barebones, you wouldn’t believe it.

[00:42:18] Midnight Nano Gameplay

[00:42:18] Otto: Let’s see, so now it’s just gonna load, let’s see.

[00:42:21] Rune: I hear a choo choo..

[00:42:23] Otto: There we have it. Yes, this is the train.

[00:42:27] Rune: Wow.

[00:42:28] Otto: Okay.

[00:42:30] Rune: And look at that. This program that he’s, Yeah.

[00:42:35] Otto: Yeah.

[00:42:38] Rune: I will just start playing then.

[00:42:40] Otto: You click play. Alright, so it has one button, which is Go Faster. So you click that and it goes faster. so the point is to stay in the shade, basically. And, what you can’t see on screen is that you have a certain [00:43:00] number of lives. So if you go too far to the left or to the right, then you will lose lives. And then eventually it will just go back to the menu, which you’ll see.

[00:43:11] so it’s, now we’ve implemented that it, stops, when you go too far to the left or right. So, So there you’re lost, basically. Yeah, so, it’s just, to, the point is to do, just keep it in the center, basically, but we’re, we’re gonna balance, you know, difficulty and stuff, but now it’s just, it, it works, I guess.

[00:43:40] yeah, and then you’ll, yeah, exactly, it’s supposed to be, you know, just a planet, I think. it’s not necessarily gonna be Earth, but, you know, there’s textures of Earth that are available for free, so, there you have it. So, the point is then, now you bounce off [00:44:00] the walls to the left and right so, so that you can’t go off camera, but then, once you do that, it also sort of is supposed to help you a little bit, that you, if you have too much speed, you get a little bit less speed, so you, get some time to, to recover, so to speak.

[00:44:20] And it’s supposed to be, we thought about making it maybe go faster as you go longer. So then, it’s gonna be harder to stay in the middle and then, the way you score is basically the number of laps around the Earth, or whichever planet we decide to call it. Yeah, so that’s the small, little, small game. So then, yeah, so, the things I realized, you know, that I didn’t care about, in the beginning was, for example, the score thing, and lives, because, of course, in the editor, I can see it in the console, [00:45:00] how many, like in the editor, how many lives and stuff I had.

[00:45:05] So that’s, things, obviously, that you can’t see now, which makes it a problem. Then, you don’t know that you lost, so, you know, a death screen or something as well. So there’s a lot of things to fix, just the basics, so you understand what the sort of point is to, to the game. But yeah, there you have it. It’s a small thing, it sort of works, and, yeah. What do you think?

[00:45:35] Rune: Yeah. It I was thinking as I’m playing it. I mean, I’m a space nerd, one thing that came to my mind, my, I’m gonna die and see what happens. One thing I was thinking about as I was playing it, yeah, like you said, it doesn’t have any UI things, showing. I was thinking it would, [00:46:00] be I was thinking, like, ambient music as a part of the, as you develop the game. So ambient music and kind of like feel good, which I guess is not what the game is going to be, but that could be like a fun step to move towards.

[00:46:20] If you want to, for example, experiment with how it is to add music to the game and then how to have a settings in the game where you can…

[00:46:28] Otto: Yeah.

[00:46:29] Rune: …pump up and down the music. Then that could be a good choice for music, like something ambient, spacey, and if you can play the game on the phone, which I suppose you can later on, but that could be a quite relaxing thing to do.

[00:46:45] There’s only one button, so some ambient music and, I can imagine just by playing it now that it could be, it could be quite, mesmerizing with some ambient music. And then if I can turn down [00:47:00] the choo choo train sound effect, so it’s more like ch ch ch ch. Oh, I’m thinking a night train. If you ever slept in a train, you know, there’s something very soothing, with that.

[00:47:11] Otto: Yeah.

[00:47:12] Rune: And then some ambient music in the background, that would be quite relaxing. That was the, where my mind went the first, and then you said something that after a while you can get off that island, that planet and get to a new planet, right?

[00:47:29] Otto: No, actually, the thing that I, thought was, you know, it’s, it looks like Earth now, but it’s not necessarily supposed to be Earth, it’s just that Earth textures are, cheap and easy to find. So it’s a planet, basically. But, go ahead, I, I’m interested to hear that thought.

[00:47:52] Rune: Yeah, no, I was just, I thought you said the, after a while, the, the train track [00:48:00] leaves whatever planet you’re on and then go to the next one. I thought that’s what you said while I played the game. Maybe I was so mesmerized by it so I didn’t quite hear you.

[00:48:11] Otto: That would be a cool idea, actually. But no, I, that’s, that wasn’t part of the plan. But, interesting, tell me more.

[00:48:21] Rune: I was thinking maybe you’re on one isle, island, one planet, and now I’m thinking, because I watched the Mario movie with my son, some weeks ago, imagine a rainbow train track through space and then, I’m still in this mindset that it’s supposed to be a soothing game that, soothes your mind. I’m thinking like this, rainbow track and then to the next planet and then it goes back on that planet it’s a normal track again and then you’re on that planet and it goes quite fast and then eventually when you finish that level if you [00:49:00] will it takes you to the next planet but if the idea is to make the game go faster and faster and faster I can also imagine that these rainbow tracks that I just mentioned they would sort of interrupt the gameplay I guess.

[00:49:14] Otto: Maybe, but, cool, I’ll, I’ll take it into consideration.

[00:49:21] Rune: I was also thinking, it depends, I guess, cause I was thinking if, imagine it goes really fast and you go, and then off the first planet, and it can be this sort of feeling that, whew, I made it. And then I don’t know how you do this, if it’s developed in 3D, but if you can somehow make that the next planet in a distance, and then you see approaches you, and then maybe it goes off, offscreen, and then it comes back next, whatever, and then…

[00:49:51] Otto: Yeah.

[00:49:51] Rune: …slow motion effect, and then you get back into it, but I don’t know.

[00:49:56] Otto: Cool, Yeah.

[00:49:57] I mean, if I just think out [00:50:00] loud, you could have some sort of, you know, you create, you finish 10 laps or, you know, X amount of time in the game and then you get to a sort of a middle stage where you can upgrade the, the train or something. So yeah, that’s absolutely something possible.

[00:50:18] Rune: Oh, and here’s a cool thing you could do in that case. Let’s say you have that, you go through around one isle, one planet, and then this track, it could maybe be the same track, it just Oh, yes. I can’t even speak Swedish now. Imagine it detached itself from the planet, or if it turns into this rainbow track I mentioned.

[00:50:44] And then you go, get off that planet. And as you’re going to the next planet, the game never stops, and there’s no pause menu or anything, it just comes up the upgrades you mentioned, as you see it, and then you can tap on whatever upgrade you [00:51:00] want, so it’s sort of fluid, and then, as you have, I don’t know what you were thinking about updates, if you can pick one for example, once you pick one, the up, upgrades will fade out and then the game continues, but it feels like you’re constantly going somewhere, which means that as long as you don’t pick an upgrade, it will just keep on going on that Rainbow track towards the next planet, but when you tap on the upgrade you want it fades them out and then you’re up, arrive on the next planet and continue there with a new upgrade.

[00:51:36] Otto: Right, yeah. A lot of, yeah a lot of good ideas, I think. But first, I have to fix the basic UI stuff, to make sure that you understand what you’re playing. Maybe fix the store page and stuff as well. It’s a lot of things and fix so you don’t get this warning from Windows when you [00:52:00] try to run it as well would be great.

[00:52:05] Episode Outro

[00:52:05] Otto: Yeah, cool. I think, maybe that’s, a good, jumping off point for this, Episode, what do you think?

[00:52:18] Rune: Yeah, sounds like a good, sounds like an idea. Sorry, my, my, my family interrupted us. So it’s a good…

[00:52:27] Otto: No worries!

[00:52:28] Rune: …point to to to stop recording. Yeah.

[00:52:34] Otto: yeah. Thanks so much for, for trying my game. Thanks for being my amazing host as always. Always fun to hear about your game and your progress. I look forward to playing that. And, what else? Leave a voice mail if you have any comments. Make your best train impression if you want to. What else?

[00:52:57] Leave a comment. [00:53:00] If we mention anything, I will put the stuff in the link, links in the description below.

[00:53:08] Yeah, think that’s it. So, thanks so much for listening and see you next week. Bye bye!

[00:53:15] Rune: Bye!

Podcast
Interview
Game Development
Indie Game
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Otto Wretling

Written by Otto Wretling

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Writing about my podcast, game development, technology, language learning, and whatever else comes to my mind!

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