Guitar Fretter Update: Lefty Flip, Light Narrative, and Playful Game Polish

Lots happening with the new updates to Guitar Fretter.

Freeplay won't be the final name of the free version.

Hoping it'll be a helpful useful thing that there will be two versions of Guitar Fretter, the full version which will have all the features and a free version which will have an essential set of features but not all of what's in the full. I've been calling the free version Freeplay as a placeholder. That's not the official name, I'll reveal that in an upcoming post. Feel free to guess in the comments though if that sounds fun to you. If you get it right or close to right I'll give you a virtual high-five.

Feelings about working toward the full-enough ready-enough to publish update.

So much of creating art at least for me is noticing feelings about the experience of creating the art, including them in decisions while carefully keeping feelings from running all the decisions.

I'm proud of Guitar Fretter, where it's been and where it's going. This update will be big in that it'll have new experiences designed and requested a long time ago and some that came out of digging through feedback and notes for what could be here.

Feature updates: three things I'm confident will be in the game.

Lefty Flip

In April I shared that lefty flip is looking promising. Lefty flip is when some folks will play a guitar rotated 180 degrees. Taking a guitar designed to fret with your left hand and strum/pick with your right and switching that around. Lefty flip is officially in the full version update of Guitar Fretter.

Two more things will be there too.

Light Narrative

Guitar Fretter features characters I created in a comic called Art Geek Zoo: The Way of Sound. It's been a long time since I've worked on the comic, yet Guitar Fretter continues to evolve.

Even though the game came from a story, the game didn't have a lot of narrative moments. I'm working on updates to moments already in the game to give some light touches of dialog building a light narrative.

Playful Game Polish

In addition to adding frames of animation I'm adding particles, revised art, improved color management in small elements and whole screens. More eye candy, the stuff that game industry folks call "juice". Not sure the etymology of the jargon, I do gather it means the game feels more lively and inviting both as you look at it and interact with it.

More sounds too.

Lots of detail in the reality of this short list: lefty flip, light narrative, and more playful game polish.

Each of those items is easy to say and are weeks of work on their own. It's all coming along yet does lead to a natural question.

Example of work in progress visual polishing.

When will it be published?

Lots of the mysteries of this release I've learned enough where the work isn't figuring out how to do the work, it's just keeping at it until it's done.

I'm guessing it will be close to the end of Q2 but end up being early Q3 when I get the update published. Planning to publish the update to PC and Mac first, then to mobile via iOS and Android.

Ever grateful that Guitar Fretter has an audience, your interest, and feeling optimistic there's a lot more folks who will be discovering it after this big update.