I spent the last few weeks of summer on a push to polish up Fist Puncher so I can submit the best possible game to the Independent Games Festival by the October 17th deadline. It’s pretty easy to figure out how to play (mash buttons), but I’ve added an explanation of the controls and now you can scroll through your character’s moves on the pause screen. I’ve also greatly improved the cut scene scripting, so the story takes shape as you advance through the levels. It’s still an action game at heart, but I’ve always intended to include at least a loose plot to tie it all together. You can definitely play it as a straight beat ’em up, but there are also some branching paths and hidden alternatives to solving problems. Oh, and there’s finally some sound beyond the music, it’s amazing how a few little sounds effects bring the action to life. Bam!

Spent the last week working on game state management and a proper saving/loading scheme for Fist Puncher. This is definitely not the ‘fun’ part of making video games. It’s satisfying once you see things working right, but for me it takes some extra concentration to get to that point. Too easy to be distracted by a good baseball game when you’re adding pause menu logic or reading another article on how to avoid code 4s on the Xbox.

I did spend one night adding a new level.  Here’s Dr. Karate, tempted to break the Hippocratic Oath with some hoodums he found squatting at the local playground.