Done is better than perfect.

Might as well keep this short and sweet: Treasure Adventure Game is finished!! Over the past month or so of public beta testing I came to the realization that this game will never be perfect, but I'm really really happy with it. Finishing this game is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me. Ever since I played Super Mario Brothers I dreamt of making my own little virtual world to run, jump and have fun in.

And here it is: http://www.gamefront.com/files/21080788/treasure_adventure_game_1.0.1.zip

I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Beta 0.6.1

Well, Beta 0.5 wasn't the last public beta after all. The amount of bugs and gltiches that the play-testers have found was staggering. I've always heard that the hardest part of making a game is the last 10% and I'm finding that to be true. I know that TAG will never be 100% perfect. If you could see the house of cards that holds this game together, you'd know what I mean. I'm not a programmer by trade and this is really my first fully fleshed out game. I made a lot of poor decisions early on that make's it difficult to change certain elements that should be easy.

Regardless, of that, the game has been getting so much great press and wonderful comments from the people who've played it. It's really amazing. I really wanted the game to be "gold" by now. But, I think I owe it to all the people who've playtested and wrote about the game to get it as close to perfect as possible. Therefore I opted to release another beta (0.6.1). 

http://www.gamefront.com/files/21033504/treasure_adventure_game_beta0.6.1.zip

As long as there are no major game-breaking bugs in this version you can expect the final build soon. So, go ahead and try it out. If you find any bugs you'd like to report you can post them here:

http://www.robitstudios.com/treasure-adventure-game-forum/post/1659851

Thanks againt to everyone who's enjoyed TAG. You're all amazing people and you've made me so happy. There were so many times during the creation of this game that I thought "Will anyone even care about this when it's done?" Now I know that's not the case! All I can say is, "Thanks!". I've got the game-dev bug now and I truley think this will be my life's work.

P.S. You can move your save-files from previous builds into the new one if you don't want to start a new game. Just copy the contents of the "save_data" folder.

Treasure Adventure Game beta 0.5 available. Also: new trailer!

I have released, what I hope to be the last, public beta for Treasure Adventure Game. Unless a major bug shows itself I'm planning on having the final game available next weekend. The play-testers have been doing a fantastic job of weeding out the bugs. I've also been receiving so much great feedback. A lot of people seem to be really enjoying the game and I can't describe how great that feels.

Hopefully you will enjoy it too!

Download Treasure Adventure Game Beta 0.5

Also, since I haven't posted it here on the blog yet, I wanted to share the final trailer for the game as well. 

Looking back before leaping forward

Treasure Adventure Game is almost finished! All the content is in the game, and there's been continuous play-testing going on for about 3 weeks. There are still small bugs here and there but they are really winding down, overall. I'm hoping to have a true public release (most likely still a beta release) in the next 2 weeks. If you want to know when it's available check back here or follow me on twitter.

Part of finishing TAG, was, of course, finalizing the sound-track. Robert stayed right on schedule and finished the last song for the game this week. Fittingly, the last song he made was the final boss music, which is absolutely phenomenal. It sets a great mood and incorporates many themes from other parts of the game. If you want to read more about how the soundtrack to TAG was put together, Robert Ellis updated his blog with a look back at his process. 

To continue the theme of looking back. I found some really early screen shots of what eventually became TAG (the game was called Karma then). No one has ever seen these before. They date back to 2008, and I'm comparing them with that part of the game today.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates.

Here's your TAG progress update:

Most of the dialog is finished. I still need to add some tutorial type dialog. Robbie (http://twitter.com/beta_red) gave me a very nice compliment and said that he laughed out loud in a couple of places. That's more than I could hope for as I don't think I'm a particularly funny writer. 

I've done a full play through of the game which revealed that there were a lot more bugs than I had realized. Based on everything I've read about finishing a video game, that shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. I've worked out almost all of them, luckily. But, I know there are more lurking under the surface ready to wrap their sticky tentacles all over TAG and pull it deep into the sea. Speaking of which:

I'm confident that I will have a finished version of the game available this fall. I'm going to have a beta version available for play-testing in a couple weeks. I'm going to set-up a forum so that anyone who tests the game can post their findings and get updated builds, etc. 

Tomorrow I'm heading to Florida for a week of sun, fishing and relaxing. As soon as I get back, I'll be ready to push TAG to completion. Thanks for everyone who's been following the development of TAG. You've all been very motivating. If any of you want to play-test the game, leave a comment here or hit me up on Twitter.