Hey again folks,

I'll try to post these updates a little more frequently - both to share development progress outside of twitter and also to keep track of development publicly! Sometimes it'll be smaller things, sometimes bigger, and I'm hoping to get some general feedback and comments from anyone looking forward to the game!

This past month or so has been a decent amount of planning for the full game. I'm currently aiming for six in-game days, meaning that the final game will be approximately six times as big as Open Mic. That should end up being about 10-12 hours per playthrough, which I think is pretty perfect for a game like this. The idea is still that you should be able to replay it and see new things every time (provided you make different choices and try a different character build) but I also feel like going over 15 hours or so might cause the game to overstay its welcome.

Besides planning, I've been doing tons of new art for the game - all the art for Day Two is now completed, and some of Day Three is already done as well. Every scene in the game is hand-painted (on a tablet, granted) and every frame of animation is drawn and painted separately, so it does take a little bit of time but I feel like I've made pretty swift progress, which feels great.

One of the most common points of criticism was that the intro was too slow, or felt railroaded. I didn't initially think it was, but enough people mentioned it for me to reconsider. As a result, the opening scenes are getting reworked to be a lot more interactive. In the final game, you'll get up from your desk and walk around almost instantly after you're done with...

...which is also something I've been reworking completely! Not only is there now an actual dedicated screen for character building, but I've gone ahead and added three new stats along with a choice of eight perks, which makes your build a little bit more unique. This does mean that a lot of pre-existing dialogue will have to be re-written or heavily edited to make use of all these new features, but I feel like it's worth it at the end of the day to keep the entire game a lot more fresh.

Don't worry about the UI for now - this is all WIP and will be polished for the final game!

That's all for now - next report will probably be ready in a month or so! Next, I'll be finishing the intro rework (should be another week or so) and revamping all the dialogue currently in Open Mic. After that, I'll move on to dialogue for Day Two, which might end up being even more than Day One. (which I think say at around 100,000 words, which is far too many)

Have a good one,
Martin

Heya folks!

I already posted a brief update in the Steam forums, but I forgot to post here as well. This won't be a long post, but hopefully good news for anyone excited about Headliner!

The game now has funding and is back in full development!

Oh cool, who's funding it?
Clam Man 2: Headliner got picked up by Fig Portfolio Shares, which is a initiative that raised a couple million dollars in order to invest in indie titles. Unlike typical publishers, the FPS doesn't oversee development and instead provides funds for development for a share after release - that means the project still very much is in my hands, and the creative process begins and ends with me. That said, however, they have been suggesting I look into porting the game to other platforms, which I'm more and more interested in.

Wait, I thought the game was already in development?
Unfortunately, no - I initially sought out publishers to help me go solo with Clam 2 and pay the bills during development, but although I had a few interested parties, publishing a solo dev is generally considered a risky undertaking. For the last two years since the release of Open Mic, I joined another indie studio as director and writer for a prequel to their debut game, so with the massive amount of work that came with that there hasn't been much time to work on Clam 2. As of now, however, I've officially wrapped production on that project and I'm back to Clam 2!

That's all good and well but when is it actually coming out?
I'm not sure yet - to give you an idea, the funding I have is roughly for two years of development, but I'm hoping to have the game out sooner than that. More news on that later!

That's great! Congrats!
Thanks, me!

So what are you going to work on next?
One of the main criticisms Open Mic got, both in reviews and time played, was that the intro was too text-heavy and felt railroaded. I'm reworking the intro, and along with that, I'm having a look at some of the internal systems of the game. The stats and dice rolling work in a way that I'm happy with, but there's a lot of features I've wanted to add that don't necessarily work with its current implementation. If it takes a month or so to rework those systems and the final product has far more depth and variety, I'd consider that effort well worth it.


That's all for now - huge thanks to everyone still excited for Headliner. I'm happy to be back on track, and I've got tons of plans for the full game. This thing is a passion project, and since I'm developing this one alone, there's no one to stop me from making it as weird and unique as I want it to be.

Much love,
Martin