What a year it’s been for TagTime! Starting from zero, we now have a working prototype and a solid foundation to build the future of virtual tag upon. We are beyond excited about the game's future and can’t wait to show you all the awesome things we are building.

This dev log should have been posted before Christmas to keep up with our goal of releasing a log every two weeks. Unfortunately, we encountered a lot of sickness, and then came the holidays. But now, we are back on track.

As this should have been the final dev log of 2023, we are not going to dive into a specific game design topic but instead, look at what we have been tinkering with since our latest update.

Progress report

Art

Lucas and Anastasia are putting an incredible effort into creating new visuals and assets for the game. We're eagerly anticipating implementing them into the playtest build, but we're not quite there yet.

In our first dev log, we teased a subset of the new assets. To provide an update on the progress we've made since then, take a look at these images captured from within a test scene we've established.

A gallery showing a sample of our new assets

Previously, we've been teasing new champions for the game. While we're still refining the gameplay design characteristics of these champions, work on their visuals has already commenced.

The initial glimpse of our new champions was unveiled with the teaser of the splash art Anastasia was developing. If you follow us on Discord or Twitter, you might have already seen the completed work, but it's worth taking another look.

The completed splash art for TagTime featuring our first five champions. The pig, the fairy, the gnome, the witch and the wolf

The pig and the wolf will serve as the default champions when starting the game. The pig being a runt and the wolf a monster. To aid Lucas in fully developing these remarkable beings in three dimensions, Anastasia has created a couple of character turntables.

Character turntables for the pig and the wolf

And finally Lucas has already managed to breathe life into the pig.

Programming

On the less flashy but equally crucial side of development, Mikkel has dedicated significant effort to creating a progression system. The concept involves players earning experience based on their performance in each game. The actions that grant you XP vary among teams, but everyone receives a base amount of XP simply for participating in a game. This earned XP can then be utilized to unlock and upgrade champions. Examples of champion talent trees can be found in dev log #2.

In addition to addressing bugs and integrating/testing new features and concepts, Carl has initiated the enhancement of the existing networking code within the game. The current codebase exhibits signs of being a rough prototype, and we need to pre-emptively address the potential future issues that such messy code might cause.

2024

With 2023 behind us, let’s direct our focus towards 2024 and the future of TagTime.

In the upcoming year, our primary focus will be on production, polishing, and increasing awareness of the game. We strongly believe that the best approach to building awareness is by staying transparent and inviting all of you wonderful people to join us in our development journey. We aim to release regular updates and boost our presence across various platforms.

However, amidst these positive aspirations, we face some pressing issues. Firstly, as creators of an online multiplayer game, we have a tough journey ahead. The initial challenge lies in generating critical mass - attracting enough players to populate the servers. While many developers mitigate this by implementing AI/bots, ours are currently inadequate. Thus, our primary task is to create exceptional bots, a challenging yet achievable endeavour.

Another significant challenge pertains to the netcode. Despite our team's capability in coding, it remains a massive undertaking for our small team. As we scale up and attract a larger player base, unforeseen bugs are inevitable. To preempt some of these issues, we must rewrite a considerable portion of our current codebase to make it more robust and scalable.

Furthermore, marketing, PR, and community building pose additional hurdles. As a small production studio, we have limited experience in public relations. While we initiated steps in this direction in 2023, it became evident that it demands more time and effort than occasional social media posts. Finding the resources - time and money - to expand our PR efforts while continuing our production commitments is a significant challenge.

Despite these challenges, we remain undeterred. We are genuinely excited about the project. However, it's crucial for us to acknowledge and address these potential obstacles.

We eagerly anticipate what lies ahead for TagTime and look forward to hearing from you. Connect with us on Discord, Twitter, or any platform you prefer, and share your experiences playing the game.

That’s all for now, folks!