Afterword: The making of Guxt, with dates and screenshots

Note: Contains spoilers.

2005/10/14	I thought maybe if I shrank the screen size I wouldn't have to draw as much and the game would get done faster.
2005/10/16	Now the ship can shoot. This is probably the most fun stage of game development...
2005/11/08	Made a map editor and added map display. It works just as I told it to, yet I can't suppress an admiring "Oooh!"
2005/11/16	Tried making an enemy character, though it doesn't do anything yet. This one is stuck to the map, in contrast to the player, who is part of the screen.
2005/11/17	Made it so you can blow up the enemy character with a beam. Simple destruction animation.
2005/11/18	Allowed display of onscreen messages. A single line in the middle of the screen... Not all that useful. This is when I drew the font.
2005/11/20	Got points to show in the upper-left. Upper-right is the refresh rate.
2005/11/23	Made clouds appear at random in the background and added a boost effect to the ship. I wanted to add a sense of speed. The colors look like a Game Boy.
2005/11/24	Added a spinning enemy. This is the one you see right at the beginning of the final version.
2005/11/25	Changed and balanced the background colors. I originally planned to do the whole thing in two colors, but there's no going back now...
2005/11/26	Game Over display. In other words, added damage detection.
2005/11/27	Made a speed-up item. Also added the twin beam.
2005/11/28	Made an enemy that attacks from behind. Guxt features a lot of enemies that come from behind. This one was actually left over from an abandoned game I once worked on with BA2.
2005/11/28	An enemy that circles around the player. The drawing rate makes fast enemies look too blurry...
2005/11/29	Tried making an enemy that shoots back. These appear from the bottom.
2005/12/01	Started work on the Stage 1 boss. It's made out of seven characters: wings, eye, and gun turrets. I don't have the energy to make multijointed characters...
2005/12/02	Made it so the Stage 1 boss appears from behind.
2005/12/02	Gave the boss a three-way laser.
2005/12/02	Made it so that item pickup points change depending on the timing.
2005/12/04	Made a death scene for the Stage 1 boss.
2005/12/07	Made the entry ranking.
2005/12/07	Made the ranking screen. It wasn't until the game was nearly finished that I connected it to the title screen.
2005/12/08	And with a typical boost scene, Stage 1 is finished.
2005/12/12	An abandoned character. Originally it was supposed to appear throughout the game.
2005/12/14	Started work on Stage 2. It took two months already to get this far...
2005/12/15	Stage 2 is all about the asteroids. You can dodge or shoot them down. They're tough, so dodging is best... Three-way beam.
2005/12/15	A different three-way beam. And yet another new enemy that comes from behind.
2005/12/20	One-hit death was getting too strict, so I added a shield item.
2006/01/18	The tiny screen makes even large enemies easy to draw. Looks like I made the right decision... The fish missiles kept coming back from offscreen, which wasn't fair, so they were scrapped.
2006/01/21	Missiles that break into three at the edge of the screen. I got the balance worked out, but something about them just isn't that cool.
2006/01/23	Made the title screen. No title decided yet, though.
2006/01/27	The key configuration screen. This is the first time I've ever seriously made one of these...
2006/02/02	Built map hit detection for Stage 3. I always struggle with this part...
2006/02/03	If you hit the walls, it's instant death, so that's not that hard, but...
2006/02/04	The bullet/map detection is harder, because the bullets move faster and tend to slip through the walls...
2006/02/11	The difficulty's ending up high, but since I'm not very good at shooters, I figure if I can beat the game maybe the difficulty's just right...
2006/02/13	Enemy rush right at the beginning of Stage 3. I thought maybe I needed to up the tempo a bit.
2006/02/20	You can actually hit the wall without getting hurt. Maybe some players never noticed. A parallel three-shot beam that got scrapped.
2006/02/22	Added breakable walls. They only showed up here in the end.
2006/03/01	An enemy that comes from the front and swoops around to the back.
2006/03/03	Secret character! It's fun to add secret bonuses, but I wish they hadn't taken so much time.
2006/03/03	Redrew the clouds and added larger ones. If I make the ones in front move faster, you start to feel the speed... is the idea.
2006/03/12	What was this screenshot again... Just coordinates display?
2006/03/21	Started the Stage 3 boss. Just "Think it, add it," over and over again.
2006/04/01	I think I kind of mechanically gave it three levels of attack.
2006/05/07	I figured three shields would make it too easy not to die, so I weakened it to the form of a power-up. It looks fancy, so I don't expect that many complaints...
2006/05/24	I've only got two screenshots of Stage 4... I guess I wanted to finish the whole thing up as soon as possible.
2006/12/11	Stage 5's fast-scrolling scene. Actually, it's not the background that's moving fast, just the rocks...
2007/01/06	The Stage 5 opening.
2007/01/09	I always liked the feeling of blowing up ground targets in Hudson's shooters.
2007/01/14	I've sure got a lot of screens of Stage 5... With completion near, the tension was high, I guess.
2007/01/23	Just before the final boss. I think now it was a mistake to change to the boss music and not bring the boss out right away.
2007/01/27	An uncluttered-looking boss appears.
2007/01/30	The lids close on the weak spots.
2007/02/05	The large bullets send the player dodging left and right.
2007/02/18	I settled on "Guxt" for the title.
2007/02/22	Made the Boss 5 death scene.
2007/02/24	Added selection of Trial and Ranking modes. The border on the font was getting to be a pain, so I ditched it.
2007/03/06	Made the enemy shots easier to spot. My plan was to stick with greyscale, but...
2007/04/11	The final boss of the Trial stage.
2007/04/18	The more I redrew it, the more it looked like Fuyuhiko.
2007/04/19	I gather players didn't find it too hard... Still, you can at least enjoy the tension of meeting it for the first time...
2007/04/21	Almost done.

Postscript

Thanks to all test players and everyone who sent me their impressions.
With your help I was able to finish and release the game.
If I release anything else in the future, I hope you will enjoy it.

(2007/08/07 Pixel)