Hey Everyone!
I didn’t think I would be posting again so soon but I had a think about the previous post and received some messages from people that would love to see the game updated again. So, this is a follow up post to that.
The Two of Us for me is a passion project, it’s free (by choice) but that said the amount of time development can take up in my day-to-day operations is quite low because of that. I do work full time as a Game Designer already so that’s most of my week is already taken up. But I am going to be committing to updating this game. So, what exactly is this going to look like? I am going to break it down into 3 Phases.
Phase 1
This is the rebuild phase, for me this is the daunting time consuming but very necessary phase. I will be pretty much rebuilding the game from scratch to try and remove as many of the bugs we have all encountered as possible and tidying up the backend code (it’s not pretty). Along with this I am going to be reworking the networking side of things (this is the scary part for me as this game is the only experience I have with networking). One of the biggest criticisms I received from the player base is the unplayable lag that occurs when trying to play with other people across regions, so for me trying to fix this is a super high priority. That said, the terrible network code I have implemented limited my level design, there were ideas I had that I could just never get to work across two clients. The boxes in stage 2 you may have seen are extremely buggy and this is due to this issue. So, this rebuild phase is most likely going to take up a lot of time, but in the long run it will be worth it.
Phase 2
New stage phase, once the rebuild phase is complete, I will be looking to add a new stage to the game (although the way stages work may be changed in the rebuild… time will tell). With hopefully my new network code in place I will be able to create some new levels with creative ideas that won’t be limited by network problems. This phase will probably not actually take much time but like with stage 2 I will open up beta testing to work out some of the kinks.
Phase 3
Live Op phase, when I get to phase 3, I don’t actually know what the plan will be. If the game is still entertaining people, I will look to add some more content into the game. An idea I have had is to add a form of events to the game. Where for a limited time certain modes/levels will become available, and you can compete on a global/regional leaderboard. But this phase definitely is up in the air, it all depends how the previous 2 phases are received.
Going Forward
So, the plan for me now is as I get settled into work for the New Year, I will be looking at starting work on Phase 1. I will try and provide updates along the way, but if anyone has any questions feel free to reach out.
I do have a request for anyone who is interested in helping out. I have opened up a new email, and I would love it if people could send through suggestions they would like to see in the game, but more importantly send through information on any bugs you found while playing. The new email is [email protected] the more people that send things through the cleaner the game could potentially be :)
I wish you all a happy New Year and hopefully you will be hearing again from me soon.
Ethan