This evening on Twitch, Team KAIZEN demonstrated Burst! from early prototypes to the current version. Toward the end of the video, I add a brand new feature to Burst! in a ten-minute presentation. After that, my brother demonstrates how he makes songs for Burst!, using the latest version of the Song Editor. You can watch the full video on Team KAIZEN’s Twitch channel here.
Weekly Update
Burst! – The STEAM Expo in Great Falls was yesterday. Team KAIZEN edutained about 500 kids with the latest versions of Burst! and Shattered Soul and some VR demos. Before the Expo, I added a thumbs-up flag that uses Unity’s built-in cloth effect to Burst!’s adorable helicopter and worked together with my brother to add a new song to the game. I also added a system for loading and saving the player’s high scores and unlocked fireworks, colors, and songs, but none of it’s visible to the player yet, so it doesn’t really count. 😛 You can see the latest version of Burst! here, and if you want to help Team KAIZEN continue making games and teaching programming and game development, we’re currently entered into the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest. You can vote for us daily until April 4th here.
Other Programming Jobs – FirstGroup America asked me to update the PDF Splitter application I built for them this week. I may also be creating a simple website for them soon. Additionally, I had about eight job interviews, technical interviews, and phone screenings for three jobs since my last update. They covered the spectrum from the worst to the best job interview I’ve ever done. The last technical interview I did this week was so horrible that I pretty much immediately started a new web development project just to prove that I can do it. Also, if I’m going to build a website for FirstGroup America, I should probably practice first. 🙂 The website I’m building is a mix between Adventurous Reader and That’sNotAnArgument.com. It should be interesting and demonstrative, but we’ll see how far I get with it. It’s quite possible that Burst! or another job will take higher priority.
The Twelfth Hour – I’m back to being most of the way through Chapter 11. I can feel it getting closer to what I want it to be! So close! I think once I make it to the end of this speed write, I might go back to the beginning, rewrite the beginning per the critiques I received from Critters, and add in some details throughout that have become important to building up to the information revealed at the end before I start the heavy-duty editing of Chapter 8 and beyond.
Burst! March 2018 Update
Here’s a new video of Burst!’s latest features, including updated menus, new fireworks, firework sound effects, flashing windows that visualize the audio, a helicopter, a new song, and more!
Weekly Update
Burst! – Over the past two weeks, I polished Burst! quite a bit and added some new features, including long notes, the ability to hit a beat perfectly, and a song selection screen. I also created a build for the game designer to look over. He has since released a video to show off the latest gameplay.
Shattered Soul – I didn’t do any development on it, but the game designer requested a new build to record an update video. The videos he released a couple months ago show a build that was outdated from the moment he filmed it and don’t depict the current state of the game. He figured he ought to remedy that. You can find the new video here.
The Twelfth Hour – I finished a rough rewrite of Chapter 9 and most of Chapter 10. I also unofficially started rewriting Chapter 11, taking pieces of it and moving them to 10 and vice versa. A significant portion of 11 is going to get axed, and it’s going to feel great. Wahaha! >:D