Dev Notes: Far From The Tree

Finally, after nearly a year since the last Global Game Jam, here is a new game: Far From The Tree! It was made in two weeks, with my friends. Despite there not really being an occasion for making the game (eg. a game jam), I am happy to see that so many people have already enjoyed the game! So, I'm very happy to say thank you to all our players!

We made this game in Unity, which is an engine I had not used in about a year. I had agreed to use Unity for this project, as long as I can the code as open source (Outside of Global Game Jam, I never did that before! Check it out here!). There were many problems using Unity on Linux, so I might not be using it again for the next while. Instead, I will continue to focus on Godot, and I might be open to trying other engines / tools (kinda like when I used Bitsy!). Still, I did enjoy working on the project, and am glad to have done something bigger than a game jam. This might be the first time I worked on a game for something outside a game jam, since Saskatchewan!

As mentioned earlier, I did the majority of the programming for the project, as well publishing the game on itch.io. Brandon Simpson did the majority of the art, as well added some code to the closed source version. Chad Lynds did design work and made some art. Finally, Sam Power (Smoo) made the music. They all did an excellent job, and we are all happy with how the project turned out. If there is demand (either from players or just us devs), then we might return to work on the game.

This is the first time I wrote a Dev Log as opposed to the original method of Dev Notes on the game page. I will continue to use Dev Logs from now on, and more importantly, I will post more often. Older Dev Notes will be brought over to Dev Logs within some time, and I might add on to them, to give more detail about the process.

The past year had so many different turning points, and many struggles. However, it is important to try to find happiness and good things within. I have achieved so much, and I am looking forward to pushing myself further this year. Hopefully, everybody else will also have a good year! I may be attending Global Game Jam this year, and I am working on a new project outside of that. So, be prepared for new stuff coming out this year! 

-Alex <3