Lizard Warrior

I made this game called "Lizard Warrior" for 7DRL. I didn't get as much time as I wanted to work on it, so as a result it was less roguelike more platform action rpg by the time the week was over. However, I liked the project so much that I decided to continue with it.

Your are a lizard man in a scary ass swamp. And pretty much everything is trying to kill you.

Fun!

TIGForums Development Log

Play the game

Development will be gradual, along side my other aforementioned project which has as of yet remained rather mysterious.

Level Editor Project

Here's a WIP screenie of my new level editor project. I'm making it because my other preferred editor, Ogmo, has been missing some features that I'd like to have.

It's a fully UI editor--You create and configure your entire project within the application. One thing I disliked about Ogmo was having to write out project XML's. It was nasty...!

I also tried to remove a lot of the redundancies and complexities of Ogmo. Some of the properties just felt pointless, and having to sort through a manual and tutorial repeatedly to find the info you want felt.. Well, unintuitive. That's why I'm placing such a heavy focus on getting it all done within the UI.

I disliked Ogmo's limited layering system, so instead my editor uses numeric z-ordering. I find this a lot more intuitive because in Ogmo I'd sometimes run out of layers to layer on my background tiles. The only way to get around this was to add in a whole new layer in the project file. A whole new layer just for maybe one or two tiles? Aaaaahhh... My level loading code got pretty nasty because of stuff like that. I also added rotation, scaling, and indefinite grid-snapping. This lets you use this editor easily as either tile-based or otherwise.

And finally there will be a "map" or "universe" editor. It's for designing the position of each level in relation to each other so that you can build your world-map visually. This is a feature I'm very excited for, because in my experience connecting levels has always been a painful and relatively blind process.

So, this post is running pretty long, but all in all this is my desired level editor. I'm very glad that I've made this and it's been very rewarding so far. Don't be fooled though, there's still much more work to do. When I'm "done" I'll release it (since it's a generalized tool) for anybody to use. Along with it I will also include the source code. Behold, my terribly kludgy Objective-C code! Har har.

See 'ya!

Also: If you want to follow the editor's progress follow me on Twitter @BlueSweatshirt(link in sidebar) or keep an eye on #OperationLevelEditor.

Secrets, Novella, and Nutella

Hello!
Unlike the usual trend of musings and teasings, today I'm simply going to talk about what I've been doing. While, yes, it is a tease, it is not entirely a tease on game development, something which I think I talk about for the majority of my time on here. So today I'm going to talk about art, writing, UI programming, and film.

Art
In my art class I just finished a surrealistic painting. Is it good? I don't know! But one thing is for sure: I need a ton more experience with acrylic paint before I'll be able to satisfy my personal expectations. I also need to work on my steadiness with a brush-- It's something I'm not used to using, so I tend to get pretty shaky with it sometimes.

I've also been working on my digital art skills for video games. Sure, I've done legions of sketches and stills, but it wasn't until recently that I've gotten interested in drawing/"painting" my game art rather than using low-res pixel-based art. I think it will propel the visual aspect of my games to new heights. And while, yes, I do have a certain love for pixel art and also for low-res art, it does not fit in with the kinds of games I'm looking to make. Also, I'd rather not do pixel art just for nostalgia's sake. And finally, aside from all that, it's been very refreshing and fun doing hand drawn game art! I'm enjoying it a ton.

Writing
I've begun writing a short novel in the spirit of NaNoWriMo. I missed the actual event, so I'm just doing this for the sake of it. I think pushing myself to write a 50,000 word novel in a month will seriously propel my storytelling skills. I'm just over a week in and I'm already building technique like crazy. I can't guarantee the novel will be any good, but it will exist. So far it's relatively cohesive, but we'll see if that changes. Once I'm done I'll be putting it up at my site for download.

UI Programming
Macs are awesome to write UI with. My nuances with Xcode aside, I've found designing and programming UI with Cocoa to be a pleasurable experience. Some things, like populating a table, require somewhat crazy amounts of effort in the eye of a beginner like me, but now that I've learned how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together I'm finding it to be a very effective and well thought-out model with lots of flexibility. My current project is a UI level editor for a secret game project I have an idea for. I'm making it both for the learning experience and for it's application, because I can see this game as being one that requires a ton of level design. If the level editor comes out any good I'll open-source it for all you peoples. I'm going to try to make it as user-friendly and efficiently coded as possible. *ahem* Let's see how well that works out.

Film
I'm beginning work on a short series called "Zombie Fast Food"(name may change). You may or may nor recall me making a trailer for this series earlier this year. Yes, well, so far they're related in name only. There is zombies, food, and survivors though, I assure you. This project is being done for my film class at school. The main goal with this series is to gain experience in a wide and balanced variety of film making elements and to use my surrounding resources well. Visual storytelling, cinematography, post-production, pre-production, makeup, etc. There are lots of run-down and rickety buildings amidst a forest-like setting here, so I thought that would work perfectly for a somewhat-cliche zombie movie. It breaks off from the zombie movie cliche in that it's not really a horror or action movie, per se, it's more of a drama. We'll see how this goes.


Anyway, that's all for now! I'll post results as soon as things materialize.

Wondering how Nutella got in the title? Keep wondering.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

A lot has been going on lately! So I'd like to give a quick summary of what I've been up to.

The Good
Three new projects have been started. While I am not ready to announce two of them, there is one that I will share: Pocket Protector is being revamped completely. I'm going back and expanding on the game to better take advantage of the engine I built and to realize the vision I had for the game. Some new features include an entirely redone menu system(you're welcome, right??), redesigned enemy AI, new spells, more enemies, and a redone dungeoning system. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, guys, I promise.

The Bad
I haven't had nearly as much time to work on things in the past few weeks. I got sick, have tons of schoolwork, and have been swamped with preparing for college. Despite that, I've been doing what I can to try to keep my pace.

The Ugly
Z4R is coming along just fine, but it's taken the backseat for now in lieu of my other projects. Technical issues from working with the iOS platform have slowed development greatly due to my unfamiliarity with it's innards, so it's nice to be working on a game like Pocket Protector again where I can focus on the content & features rather than the technical side of things. I expect that development will be slow on Z4R for quite some time while I continue to familiarize myself with the iOS platform.


To close things off on a POSITIVE note, I'm opening a suggestion box for Pocket Protector in case there is anything you'd like to see in the new version. I'm very interested in your feedback!
Suggestion Box

How I Design Games

For the past eight years or so years I've had a fixation for creating video games. For the longest time, I was under the impression that the key to success was having an amazing planning document. It's taken me a long time to figure out my ideal way of doing things, and I'll give you one hint: it doesn't involve making your planning document amazing.

First of all, clear you mind of the concept that a planning document should be to any extent pretty, organized, specific, or "finished". Worrying about these things is pointless. You're out to make a game, not a planning document. Don't lie to yourself. Don't worry about appearances at this point, either. You can work on the concept art of your characters another time-- the game design document is about behavior and how things act. Specific details are best left to work out during the actual development, where you can actually test if certain things work well or not.

Next, clear your mind of the notion that your planning document is a "document". Clear your mind of the stereotype you place on creating a "document" and what you try to achieve in doing so. Now, let's recreate your definition of a game design document: "A place to write down all my ideas and keep notes of things I should try".

Notice I said "try", not "do". A decision in a game should never be final. Not until the game is "done", and I mean it. Your goal is to make a good game, and at any given time a mechanics shift might make it necessary to rework other elements of the game. It's fine, it's usual. Get used to the mindset that no idea is cemented in once you write it down, it'll be a service to yourself.

In fact, I would specifically encourage you to keep "try" lists. If you have a mechanic you're hazy on, write down a list of your different ideas on how to approach it. All too often I made the mistake of trying to design the final idea first. Bad! Write ALL OF YOUR IDEAS DOWN. Use a deductive approach, and eliminate the approaches you dislike until you're left with your most favorable one. I've found that in the process of this testing, you'll sometimes even think of a totally new approach which you'll like and end up going with.

Finally, I'd like to share what I think is the most important idea of this post. Don't write your document top-to-bottom. Don't work out every little detail of a concept before moving onto another. Outline your whole game, and then get more specific. I'll repeat. Outline, and then get more specific. You do this so you can see a picture of your whole game as soon as possible, and design it with everything on the table in front of you. When you work on things by just going top-to-bottom(not referring to writing on the page, but in your approach to working out your ideas on paper) you tend to get all stuck up in designing one concept without considering the others. It then becomes easy to focus on a small, possibly insignificant, chunk of your game when you really should be paying attention to the game as a whole. I can't emphasize enough the importance of this point. This approach has become absolutely fundamental for me to get anything done.

Bringing everything together:

• Don't worry about style, neatness, or polish.
• Save the artwork for later
• Don't try to be super-specific. "Come on, don't sweat the details!" - Hades(Hercules • Disney)
• Leave working out the details to testing.
• Write all of your ideas down.
• Try all of your ideas before settling with something that's "final"
• Be open to reworking concepts as the rules of the game change
• Design your game as a whole, not "top-to-bottom".

Hope it helped!

If anyone else would like to share their approaches, please email it to me or post a link or something in the comments. I love this kind of stuff!