To the Ebay of Flash games!

Pocket Protector's testing phase is over, and I'm now officially calling the game complete. The testing helped immensely, and it led to many significant changes in the usability of my game. So, I'm really glad I took the time to do that.

Pocket is officially up for bidding at FlashGameLicense.(well, currently going through the approval process) Now the real crunch time begins!

Pocket Protector is almost complete!

All eight beautiful stages are complete.

The shops are full of items.

The enemies are plentiful.

And the hats are elegant as ever!

Pocket Protector, ladies and gentleman, is nearing it’s very final stages of development. It’s been a long time since I started this game, almost eight months ago, and to see it nearing completion is almost surreal. It’s a satisfying and wonderful feeling, to be honest. After all of the time I’ve spent pouring my creativity into this game, it’s almost ready to be called a product.

Here’s a fun little fact I calculated! If I were to have spent the same amount of time on this game at a day job at minimum wage, I’d have made $21,840. Even so, I don’t regret a single minute I’ve spent on this game! It’s been a wonderful creative and learning experience. That said, I am still kind of hoping to get some sort of return on this.(can you blame me?)

Anywho! I’m looking for testers now! Here’s a little criterion, but don’t let it scare you away!

• Must provide detailed first impressions
• Report any bugs found, giving as much situational information as possible.
• Give detailed suggestions to improve the game.(if you have any)
• Must explore all of the various game options and give detailed feedback on how they work both individually and as a whole.(in this case, I mean try all the weapons and spells and tell me how well they worked individually and also how well they worked in comparison with each other, same for spells, etc.)
• Provide a video of you playing, preferably for the first time. Audio is not necessary, but commentary is appreciated.
• You may not under any circumstances share this game's file with anyone else. Sure, your friend can play it, but don't go giving the game file out or uploading it to a file sharing server. I have no way to prevent you from doing this, so please just don't be a dick.

All done! It’s just here to help insure I get quality feedback. If you’re interested in testing my game, email me at jackmakesgames@gmail.com. Tell me who you are, why you’d like to test my game, and how well you’ll be able to comply with my requirements above.

Thank you!

Blue Sweatshirt signing out.

Upcoming: AI

For my next (trick) article, I'll be writing about my approach to game AI, how I define AI, and what makes AI different from "behavior". Stay tuned!

Photographilia

To settle any potential picturelust, I’ve uploaded these three pictures for your enjoyment:

OOOOH, shiny! I’m guessing this is the Mineral Deposit.

Frickin’ glowing mushrooms, mannnnn!

Spoiler: The mushrooms restore your MP, so in this stage you’ll get wreak havoc with your Magic. Plotline justification not included!

Awww, how cute!

Spoiler: He’ll kill you.

Let's finish this!

Hey everyone! My school year has just finished and I am now officially in my last year of high school. My personal agenda aside, this summer my goal is going to be to finish up Pocket. I have so many cool features planned, and I plan on working quite hard getting them all in over the summer. I'll have plenty of time, after all!

Among the features planned:
• a clever skeleton
• an overprotective arachnid
• a vein to strike riches
• summoning the power of a bartender

Circle Pads and Peep Shows

No blog is complete without a proper dosage of “porn”, so first I’ll give you a little peep show on what’s up at the moment:

Oh snap! So what can we dissect from this… Hmmm… There’s a little circle thing on the bottom left instead of the minimap, there are strange boxes with doors which have enemies crowded around them…. And the stage is purple with gold bits strewn about.

I’m not sure where this is, but it’s pretty obvious what that circle pad is for, right? Duh…

Touch screen controls have arrived!

And with that there is the option to replace the minimap with the circlepad. While many touch screen devices with flash embedded probably have a keyboard, we obviously don’t want to leave the others out. So in the options menu(by the way, I added an options menu) you can now toggle on/off the circlepad as well as change it’s size. It’s important that you can change it’s size to accommodate different screen sizes and player preferences. My circlepad also supports easing—The farther the player presses to the outer ring the faster the player will go. There is error with a direct implementation of that idea, though. The player would have to consistently float their finger around that outer ring to sustain maximum walking speed. Ouch much? Therefore I implemented it so that you only have to be 50% towards the outer ring for max speed… Much better! It’s the little things.

I’m adding more things for you to fight in the Cave

And I’ll just leave it at that—letting your imagination take you the rest of the way. One hint for you, though: Gauntlet.

Top-Down Attacking

Time for a technical post!

So today I was working on an AI of a smarter variety for Pocket, and rather than flinging itself at the player or shooting them, it instead attacks them with a sword. This is a different “hit box” entirely, which extends from their normal “hit box”. The enemy closes on the player and hits them. But since my game has entities facing left/right/up/down, I faced a problem. Check out my diagram here to see the problem and how I tackled it. I hope it helps!