THE WHALE HUSBAND LLC
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

Ok, so back to what we were doing BEFORE release… Music is incredibly important in defining the feel of a game, especially a game like Bucket Detective that relies so heavily on mood. Music provides a context for the emotions/ideas you experience in the game. For example, we have the intro cutscene that is sort of funny/goofy, but we use music that creates a sense of dread, creating an interesting contrast. Because I use music in this way, it’s important that before we start making music, the other elements of the game are set in stone. So, music was one of the last things we did for the game. I’d argue that I even started a bit later than I should have on the music, because it ended up that we were pretty much waiting for just the music to finish before we released the game. One interesting thing I observed is that almost everyone (among Let’s Players) used the default, lower quality graphics settings. This might have been because they didn’t feel they had a computer that could handle the higher graphics settings, but I actually think that, as the developers, we over-estimated how much time a player would take to investigate (or even just already be familiar with) the graphics options we provided. Players don’t want to toggle on/off v-sync, anti-aliasing, realtime shadows, to see how the game looks/performs. They simply know the approximate power of their computer and want to push a button that matches the quality of their system so they can start playing. For the next game I’ll provide a more simple “low, medium, high” graphics quality button at the start of the game, then allow players to tweak individual quality settings if they want. This is something Unity provides by default, but something we chose not to use, thinking it would feel cleaner. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop making games (obviously), just that making my own games will have to remain a side project. Which, in a way, is nice, because it means there is no pressure to make things that sell. I can continue to make games which are 100% the games I want to make/play. So, going forward! I’m excited to get back to playing games that AREN’T Bucket Detective. I want to finish playing Dark Souls and a bunch of other games. I’m also excited to start working on new projects. I have a ton of game ideas in genres I’ve never worked in. I’m hoping soon to start building prototypes, doing game jams, making small 2-4 week projects, collaborating with new people, and generally just being creative again.