Happy 2020 martians,
Today I’m showing off where I ended up with Martian Medical in late 2017 before switching from SDL to SFML. This final build had a lot of the core elements I was keen on nailing down, such as an interface, a* pathing, interactions for construction and object queries, staff hiring, and a basic Mars environment. The art style also started to take shape, I commissioned all of the environmental art and my doctor character to get a feel for it all. UI design and artwork I have found to be far more difficult than the programming side!
I also experimented with a day-night cycle that looked pretty sweet, but ultimately this was placed on the backburner when I began to prioritise tasks on switching to SFML. It was one of those things that sounded great at the time, and it was hecka fun to program, but in retrospect it didn’t bring me any closer to bringing the game to a playable alpha state!
One of the reasons why I pursued a day night cycle early in is because I hadn’t considered the distinction between programming as a hobby, and developing an indie game with the intent to publish. I believe I kept myself engaged with this project by focusing on the elements of the game that produced the most tangible or visible outcomes! Like parallax backgrounds, daynight cycles, artwork and animations. When it came to working on my classes to improve efficiency or manage resources, and scripting of patients and staff, I definitely noticed a slump in my interest because the rewards weren’t always visual.