A mini update for game progress. Happy to say I’ve setup the first step for being able to trigger optional dialog on NPCs when you walk up to them and press the action button. This probably sounds like nothing too impressive but it’s was surprisingly complicated to pull off based on the way I’m doing progression of the optional dialog on NPCs.
Outside of that I also went through all the rooms of the game and added additional background and environmental sounds. It’s actually a somewhat small and fast thing to do (only took me a few days) but it really adds something to the environment! A certain level of immersion if you will.
Now that these items are done I’m having my wife Josie review and leave comments on the script for the game and then I’ll update that and get started and placing the actual cut scenes and (currently temporary) recordings and text for the scenes.
While I’m waiting for her to finish that up I’m probably going to start working on writing music! Exciting times!
Hello all! A quick update on some further progress with the game!
The last month or so I’ve been working on building out a map feature for the game that will let the player track their progress and also allow them to fast travel from save points. Happy to announce the work is done and we have a functioning map and fast travel!
This ended up being a lot more of a to-do then I had guessed (story of most of the game development) as I needed to come up with a scheme for being able to track where the player is , where the player has been and what items/secrets that player has picked up in a given room.
Quickie update today – just finished being able to track and place all of the items the player can collect in the game as well as when boss fights and puzzles have been completed. Also updated a bunch of bugs.
Next step is building out the map that the game will use along with being able to teleport around at teleportation points!
Long time no see everyone! Big update to make today! After close to 9 months of work I have finally completed the backgrounds for all the rooms and levels in the game!
This is a step I’ve been dreading to for years as I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, but I’m happy to say after getting a flow of things the work is completed! What that also means is that I have a mostly functional came at this point too. Man what a journey.
We are coming onto 5 years since the start of the project in March of 2025 and after all this time I can say that I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. There is still a tremendous amount of work left to be done, but man is getting to this point an accomplishment.
Next steps from here are going to be recording some additional animations for a couple enemy types (my wife is going to be doing the recordings for those), then it’s fixing more bugs, make updates to sound effects, making music and then the next real big task is going to be working on cut scenes!
Exciting stuff ahead, looking forward to sharing more things as we progress!
Hello hello, I’ve made good progress on the game so time for a new update!
For the last month or so I’ve doing a variety of things – specifically fixing known bugs and (the big thing) running through and fully playing each room and level in the game and making adjustments to the gameplay and design.
Happy to say that process is completed (though I’m sure more of adjustments will be coming as the game progresses). Overall – I didn’t have to make too many crazy adjustments from what I had already built – it was more changing what enemies where where in which places. Also a little bit of redesigning a few puzzle and platform areas – but not in a big way.
It’s a great milestone to hit that and now I move onto the next HUGE part of the game making process.
Building Backgrounds
The next huge lift for the game which has begun is building all of the art for the backgrounds of the game. I’ve already gotten started on the process and have 9 rooms built out so far – so only 191 left to go, lol. If I’m lucky I’ll have this part of the process completed in the next year.
My hope is that it will take me about as much time to make the backgrounds as it took to build the levels out themselves. It’s a big lift and a part of the process I’ve been anxious about starting – but here we are.
The way I’m making the backgrounds is primarily by taking photos – either ones I’ve taken or things I find on Unsplash – and cutting them, then collaging them together and animating them in Photoshop and After Effects.
So far so good. But I’m gonna be in this space for a while now.
So that’s the update for now! As always take a look at my socials (linked in the footer) to see shots and video clips of progress!
So after working almost a year on this process (or at least what felt like almost a year), I’ve finally put together all of the rooms and levels for the game. Phew!
I’m not sure what the final end number is for the rooms as I haven’t counted them, but it’s a bit under 200. The original room count I had sketched out was 200, but I ended up combing some of them. If I had to guess off the top of my head it’s probably somewhere around 185 rooms I guess? Somewhere between 180 to 190? A whole bunch.
Needless to say this is a major milestone so going to take a moment to celebrate it and then it’s back to the grindstone. There’s still tons and tons of work left to do – the biggest task of all likely is going to be making the backgrounds for all of the rooms, though that’s going to come a bit later down the road.
First task up next is fixing bugs I’ve discovered in the process of the making the rooms and levels and then running through all of the rooms and levels over and over again and adjusting things. Once that process is done then it’s on to making some more animations, doing some more writing, fiddling with menus and save points and then doing backgrounds.
The final step in the process of everything is probably going to be making the cut scenes and recording the other actors who will be NPCs. It’s gonna still be years before this project is done, but I really do feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment over how far it’s come. Getting the rooms completed is a major stepping point.
Name Change!
In other big news I think I’ve settled on a new name for the game! For now at least…
As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I discovered there’s another game that exists with a name very similar to “Lair of the Insect God”, so I want to change the name as to not confuse anyone.
So after much mulling I’ve decided for the time being to change the name to “OBEY THE INSECT GOD”. As always, until actual launch date, this name is very subject to change. In fact this is actually the 2nd name change the game has gone through so far (originally I was just going to call it “Insect God”). I’m also going to be changing the name of the main character … I think? Who knows. Lots of wonderful strange things left to discover in this process.
That’s the update for now! I’ve posted some more video of the game on my personal Instagram linked to in the footer, so check it out!
Just a quickie update as I have written in a while. Level building continues! That’s about it lol. I continue to work on it every day and have gotten really far so far. The game is coming together nicely, but there’s not really much new to report on other than just continuing to plug away at it.
On another topic – I’ve decided to change the name of the game from Lair of the Insect God to something else. This is due to both me discovering that there was another game released a few years ago which has a very similar name to this already and I don’t want to get them confused – and also because the story of the game has taken a bit of a different shape and I don’t know if the name fits really anymore.
I’ve narrowed down the name to a few new things which shall be revealed at a later date! This is the 2nd time I will have changed the name of the game – thus is the life of making things.
Hey All! Just a real quick update as I realized I haven’t written a blog post in months – progress continues!
I haven’t really written anything because there haven’t been any super big updates to talk about. I’m knee deep currently in the process of actually building out the levels/rooms for the game. Currently I’m doing about one room a day. So with a little under 200 rooms to do this is basically be the state that I’ll be in for the next several months.
Overall, things are progressing nicely, but there probably won’t be a bunch of new stuff to write about until I’m through that process.
I had previously mentioned that I was thinking about releasing a demo for the game, but I think I’m on the fence now about that. As I’m discovering, as the game and level build out progressing, there are certain things I’m deciding to change in it in terms of design. So far nothing particularly significant – but in case I do decided to make a big change at some point as I’m going through this process, I don’t want to “bait and switch” people who might play a demo.
I could definitely see a demo coming out at some point in the future, but I think I need to get more of the game down solid in terms of the flow and level design before I’m confident enough to do that.
Either way, that’s about all progress for now. I shall continue to build out the rooms everyday and once that’s done it’s going to be a lot of testing and playing to get down the game flow after all the rooms are created. And then there will be about a billion other steps after that.
Just wanted to do another quickie update to know I’m still here! Work continues on the game and I’m still planning on putting together a demo – however before I can start the demo I need to lock down a date for the actress I’m going to be working with to record a certain enemy animation. That actress is my wife. Wish me luck.
In the meantime I’m continuing to chip away at building out the actual levels for the game. Yesterday I finished another area in the game – so now I have two areas down and 14 rooms competed (out of 200 rooms). Only 86 more rooms to go! LOL.
I wish I had more to say to about the process right now, but frankly a lot of the work is just rinse and repeat really. Now that I have all the sketches in places the work mainly consists of laying down floors, walls and platforms and then placing enemies and environmental obstacles around. I’m also fixing glitches I’m finding as I progress along the way.
I’ll probably have a bigger post and more multi-media to show once we record the enemy animations I’m waiting on and then it will demo construction time!
Exciting stuff!
In the meantime I’ll keep chipping away at it every day!
