Hello super friends,

We hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there. We here at Deckpoint are currently in the midst of a statewide lockdown and are pretty much confined to our comfy (mostly) quarters.

Previous Devlog #59: New Beginnings

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Trying to make the best of a global pandemic, these last couple weeks gave us some time to reflect on our workflow and the road ahead. We are quite a ways from the initial target date we set for Luckless Seven, but we are still absolutely committed to seeing this through. 

One drawback to the long development is that earlier parts of the game tend to not reflect the level of quality of the parts we work on today. During playtesting feedback, this gets pointed out. Oftentimes, we end up going back to those sections and bring them up to snuff.

Today I wanted to take a quick dive into the inner workings of Deckpoint Studio. Specifically, I wanted to talk about the main person handling the ropes. That person is the developer and lead of Luckless Seven, Jesse Kooner. Given the very long span of Luckless Seven’s development, Jesse has been the only person who has continued to work on the game full time since its inception. We’ve gotten some questions from people over the years on how we’ve managed to keep up game development for so long. The answer is that most of us on the teamwork other jobs that help keep us alive.

This means, of course, that Luckless Seven has experienced all the great positives and stifling negatives of a project with one sole coder. Jesse being the only programmer means that there is always cohesiveness with all the technical aspects of the game. However, this also means that when he gets extremely sick (please stay away coronavirus), it almost always means the personal deadlines we had for that time period have to be moved back. While we can continue to produce music, art, or story, those are frequently not the bottleneck for releasing a new major game build. 

The ultimate result of this is that Jesse has had a hand in every aspect of Luckless Seven, from marketing, website design, game development, and business management. Fortunately for the rest of us, Jesse had developed many of those skills already from previous work experience. Jesse’s time studying business for his MBA program also helped with managing the finances and tax work for the studio.

This wide range of experience has helped him manage the work done by the rest of the team and bring everything together in Unity3D. With him being the only one working in the engine, he’s managed to rack up some impressive stats: he’s written almost 100,000 lines of code, built dozens of unique environments, and created the models for hundreds of characters. But wait, that’s not all! Every piece of art, music, or dialogue from each member of the team has to be worked into the game by him as well. Given how large the project has become, it’s been very handy to have someone who has physically put each asset into the game.

Although the road has been long, Deckpoint continues to receive support from Tyler, Emma, Brandon, Jonathan, and Jesse. Together, we Captain Planet our way through the project and help keep each other sane. This year will be big for Luckless Seven, and we hope you will continue to stay tuned to the final leg of this long journey.

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Previous Devlog #59: New Beginnings

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

Jonathan