Hey all!
I'm posting the first update for a game that's been in dev for almost a year, it's called Wheel Runner! I first published the official playtesting version last week, and in the meantime have been looking for playdate fans and owners to test the game and give their feedback.
[If you're interested in playtesting, download the game on itch.io and reach out here, there, or anywhere with your feedback! Any feature requests and ideas for next steps are appreciated!]
This is the first of many devlogs, which will be posted weekly, for the game's development progress. In this update, we have:
**Update 1: **
15 December 2023
- Feature: New menu music and updated SFX (thanks to the team at WIZZFX, more about them below!)
- Feature: Updated transition & loading screen appearance, as well as improved animation timing and accompanying SFX
- A few bug fixes including ones that caused the game to crash on our poor playtesters
- Performance enhancement: Added "drawRect" implementation of dirty-rect-redrawing to the "Widgets" framework so that it now supports partial redraws
- Performance enhancement: sprite config including collision groups and disabled update callbacks
Check out the video update here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mig4MlOaz_U
Thanks for reading! Download the game if you haven't already:
https://franchovy.itch.io/wheel-runner
[ ––– Unrelated story warning!!! Read at your own peril! ––– ]
I really don't want to make it seem like I'm sponsoring them or that they're sponsoring me, so let me take a minute to explain the details of my collaboration with WizzFX, who they are and why they're working on Wheel Runner with me.
I used to work for a start-up in the Radio Industry (called "MusicDatak", they're still going), and from there I had met loads of people in the industry, in multiple countries, notably the UK. One of those teams was WizzFX, who do "Radio Imaging", a.k.a. the cool sweepers, intros, outros, and audio logos for radio stations including some for the BBC and tons of others. They are insanely talented audio artists and really have a gift for this kind of thing – and the team is essentially composed of musicians, sound designers and engineers, with one developer who I'm good friends with now.
Anyways, Chris, who originally founded WizzFX 15 or so years ago, once told me, back in the day, that he would be interested in diversifying their audio work, notably into video games.
At the time, I wasn't working on anything in the genre, but my interest in game development stayed strong. Which is why, when I bought my playdate for the PlayJam 2, and received some high-octane platformer music from the original composer (Arthur, not part of WizzFX), but was lacking good SFX, I knew there lay an opportunity for collaboration. And to my surprise, upon the first proposal, Chris and the team were more than excited to get working on the game with me!
So that partially explains why I put so much energy into this project: both the music and SFX are so good, and were made specifically for this game, I feel like it's my duty to make a game that lives up to them! Meanwhile, Chris and the WizzFX are taking this as their first step into the video game industry, so they will be happy to hear any proposals for video game work in the future, in case any of you reading this may eventually interested.
That's the end of the story. I hope it wasn't too long.
[ -- end of story warning -- ]
So go check out WizzFX's portfolio of radio imaging work! (Go listen to that demo on their home page!!!!)
Wizzfx.com
Stay tuned for weekly updates from me! Leave any notes, comments, questions or more in the thread below!
)
Update 
We're back with exciting news on our journey. Our development team has been hard at work optimizing Wheel Runner's performance, aiming for a buttery-smooth 30 FPS experience.
The Road Ahead: Anticipate Excitement! 
