Toytles: Leaf Raking Progress Report – A Little More Conversation

Last week, I reported on the progress of my first few sprints to create updates for my leaf-raking business simulation Toytles: Leaf Raking.

Sprint 4: More personality injections

Last week’s sprint plan included:

• Give each neighbor unique text as unhappy clients
• Add variation to weekend flavor text

I was able to work 5.25 hours, but unfortunately part of that time was used to create the v1.4.1 release for both the App Store and Google Play.

Unfortunately, it’s not yet an automated process. Well, the Android build is mostly automated. I can run a single command and have a release APK ready to install on my own devices to test with or to upload.

But due to Apple changing requirements every so often, breaking old scripts and how-tos, I unfortunately can only get so far before I need to fiddle with things in Xcode in order to create a publishable release for iOS.

I have it mostly down to only a few manual steps related to getting the app icons setup at this point, but it’s still tedious and annoying that I need to do so.

I decided to work on the weekend flavor text, which is all I finished for this sprint unfortunately.

There were originally two random dialog sequences that occurred when you woke up on a weekend, telling you about a dream you had. Now there are 11 more.

Part of the time was rewriting some of the code so it was easier for me to add a dialog sequence. I think ultimately it would be best if I could change the code to load the scripts from a text file. For now, I’m adding the scripts in code, which requires a recompile to test each time. But it works.

None of these events make a difference to the game play. That is, they don’t help or hinder your progress towards earning enough money to purchase the Ultimate Item(tm).

So why do it? It’s all part of my attempt to inject some personality into the game.

And eventually I would like to add weekend events that allow the player to make a decision that could, in fact, make a difference. So for now, I’m laying the groundwork.

Until next sprint

So this week’s sprint I will definitely get to the unhappy client dialog. I have some marketing screenshots to update, partly due to the copyright date, and I want to streamline the way you wait for rain to end so you can get back to raking as it is currently a bit clunky.

I’d also like to invest in getting the release builds a bit more automated, and I am kicking my Past Self for not spending more time on automated tests so I didn’t have to verify that I didn’t break anything each time I make a change. I’m slowly improving the code as I go along so that it is easier for Future Self, but Past Self is a short-sighted jerk.

—

Want to learn when I release updates to Toytles: Leaf Raking or about future games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and get the 24-page, full color PDF of the Toytles: Leaf Raking Player’s Guide for free!