#1. WELCOME TO THE DEVELOPMENT BLOG
August 04, 2023 - post by Jono
Kia ora and welcome to the Jump Punch Kick dev-blog!
“Why are these guys writing a dev-blog?” we hear you say… “Does anyone actually read dev-blogs anymore? (No). “Aren’t the only people that read development blogs basically other developers?” (Yes). And, “why not do a documentary like Double-Fine’s PsychOddessy?” The answer to that last one is because we don’t have that kind of money — we’re two Dads building a game part-time (with the help of some talented contributors) while juggling family and job responsibilities. Certainly not your typical game development model.
Other than Twitter, we don’t really have much of a social media presence at the moment because… well… hasn’t the social media landscape gotten just a bit weird?
Elon went and slapped a giant X over the top of the bird app. Facebook is a quagmire of advertising, unfunny memes and conspiracy theorists. Instagram is bombarding us with stuff to buy because we’re apparently not cool enough and even TikTok is starting to experience what Wired described as “enshittification”.
Damn kids! Get my off lawn!
Personally, I love reading other dev-blogs, listening to interviews or watching game development documentaries and seeing the behind-the-scenes of how the magic gets made. To me, the creative process — whether it’s games, films, books, music, whatever — is just as interesting as the end-products that are borne out of it.
And, if we’re honest, we regret not doing something similar for our first game, T20 Card Cricket. We’re very proud of it and like most creative undertakings, it came with its share of dramas and challenges. We didn’t realise it at the time, but mobile games like T20CC don’t seem to last as long as more ‘traditional games.’ Eventually, many of them get delisted from the App stores or don’t become worth the cost to update to the latest Google SDK or iPhone model. Unlike physical products, once a digitally distributed product leaves the App store, it can be like it never existed. So documenting the development process is a way of immortalising a game, in a way that algorithm-driven platforms and apps don’t allow us to.
So what can you expect from this dev-blog? If there’s one thing we dislike about some dev-blogs is that often you get three or four posts early on in development and then NOTHING for three years. Then, out of nowhere, there’s a post titled “Buy our game!” Huh? As my friend Diondre Cole says, “What’s up with that?"
Well, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot (and showing my age by posting too many GIFs) but we want to start by making a commitment to at one post a month, for the duration of development.
We’ll post things about “Hour of Reckoning” like game design thoughts, character designs and concept art/sketches, development learnings and advice, conference visits, and our successes and failures. And, if there are any cool or weird stories we’ll pop those in here — like the time Jono was investigated by the bank because they thought we were involved in illegal arms dealing.
But that’s a story for another day. Maybe we should write a blog post about it?