I'm Kendra, a former teacher with lots of experience teaching children to read. This Devtober, I will be working on Night Forest, a complete phonics program I have had in the works for a long time but too often neglect in favour of short-term projects. I don't like social media so will be posting a daily comment on this thread noting my progress. I do not expect to finish the game within the month but I am committed to working on it every day.

October 1st - made a bat puppet, converted and transferred files from one source game

October 2nd - animated the bat for speech, edited and imported images 

October 3rd - drew more assets, began port of phonemic isolation mini-game 

October 4th -more assets and completed port of phonemic isolation mini-game!!!

October 5th - adapted most of the phonemic isolation mini-game code to create the new rhyming mini-game code

October 6th - Made an opossom.

October 7th - Just a short session today but squashed a bug in the phoneme isolation mini-game and worked on the opening sequence.

October 8th - So much progress today including successfully porting the letter recognition mini-game and creating the core cycle of the new rhyming mini-game. 

October 9th - Playtested and bugsquashed. Two minigames are now fully working but I may have broken the third in the process...

October 10th - just mindless editing of assets today. I wasn't in the mood to do anything more complex but the important thing is that I did something.

October 11th -Designed and made the map for the consonants game, inserted the baby owls animation for the vowels lessons. 

October 12th - Squashed some bugs and then added to the interactive vowel lesson.

October 13th - Improved feedback in rhyming game, ported most of cvc word spelling game

October 14th - Made an alligator and a spider.

Oct. 15th to 17th - Sick with a terrible stomach flu. 

October 18th - Recorded and cropped some audio

October 19th - Integrated animation and audio into rhyming game

October 20th - Made a painting that will be the background of the culminating activity

October 21st - Created a system for saving and loading games for any number of users. Built a top menu for selecting between launching a new game, loading a saved one, and free play mode. Also made a raccoon.

October 23rd - Lots today, including the wonderful weirdness of creating stop motion footage of a spider blending up fruit smoothies. Made a garbage can, a toad, and a moth, recorded and inserted lots of audio. 

October 24th - Did lots of animation today including gorgeous moth flight and spider brunch: 

October 25th - Swapped out Placeholder placards with placeholder art so that the rhyming mini-game is ready for preschooler playtesters.

October 26th - Made an animation to transitions between the Rhyme Game and the Alliteration Game.

October 27th - Hammered out some art and sound files for the alliteration game.

October 28th - Reordered levels to accommodate new mini-game ideas, began development of syllable counting game and onset-rime blending game.

October 29th - Lots of art so now the alliteration mini-game is ready to playtest.

October 30th - Squashed bugs, worked on transition animations, hammered away. The game can now be played in campaign mode as far as the start of the third mini-game.

October 31st - Rejiggered the third mini game with the result that the whole first of the game's eight phases is playable.