So, it’s been a little over a year since I announced Jimmy, which means development’s been going on for over a year and a half. There’s still a lot left to do before the game’s finished, but since the Earth has rotated around the sun, this is an arbitrary enough reason to talk about the state of the game. So, let’s talk!

First, let’s talk about what all’s done. The enemy graphics are done. The battle animations are done. The enemy behavior is set. The player skills are set. The skill system is functional. The transformation system works. The field actions work.

Now, I’m working on two things: level design and music. I‘ve got about thirteen levels built so far. At my current rate, I can make about one level every five or so days, so I’m producing them at a fairly good clip. I’ve also got 36 songs complete; I’m knocking 1-2 of them out a week. There are a lot of levels and a lot of music in this game, so I’ve got a lot of work left to do, but at my current rate, it’s going better than expected. When I finish the music, I should be able to crank out levels a bit faster, too. Unfortunately, my job–which I can condense into a two-day work week because I work on a quota system–is about to get hectic, and there’ll be a few weeks where I’m working non-stop coming up soon, so progress is going to slow down for a bit. But, once summer hits, I should be really cranking stuff out.

Actually, let’s talk about summer. This summer, I’m going to put out a demo. I’ve been putting off assembling a demo because I want to have a good chunk of the game done so there’s less time between the demo and the full release, but once summer hits, I’m going to focus solely on producing a demo. There are still a few systems that I need to develop for the game, and coding isn’t my strong point, so I’m going to have to take some time to learn some Ruby. These aren’t essential systems, but they are things that I know I want in the game, so I don’t want to leave them out of the demo. So, expect the demo some time in summer–probably towards the end of June or July.

I’d also like to put Jimmy on Steam after I’ve gotten some feedback on the demo. This means I’ll also work on a trailer, so expect the first trailer later this summer as well. I’ve also heavily considered Kickstarter. A big part of me likes to do things on my own, and I don’t like asking for help, but the fact is Kickstarter is such a good thing for publicity. I feel like every successful indie game in the past few years (other than from established indie devs) has used Kickstarter, and I don’t want to neuter myself out of stubbornness. So, I’m considering Kickstarter. The money would mean less time I had to spend on my job and more time I got to spend on game development, so that’d be great, but before I decide on Kickstarter, I want to focus on the demo and Steam, so let’s take things one step at a time! I’d love to hear opinions on Kickstarter, though.

Over this next year, I’d like to finish all of the level design, the music, and the final few systems. I would very much like my next annual progress report to be about how I’m at least halfway through with the adding all of the scenes and dialogue, as I would like to be on track to finishing Jimmy in 2017. Right now, I think that’s a real possibility. Thanks for listening, and here’s to a good year!