Today is my 21st birthday, woo! Looking forward to hanging out with friends and family this evening, but first just thought I'd share something cool with you all.
Many of you are probably familiar with this 'creepypasta' story about a hacked Pokemon cart that someone supposedly found. Recently a guy named Reidd has been working on a playable version of the game and myself and a few others have been helping out with a few sprite edits here and there and the game is now finished and playable! Check it out here.
I definitely would recommend reading the story before playing the game, mainly so you don't get stuck. If you're not sure where to go, it would also be wise to refer back to the story too.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Monday, 23 August 2010
Ludum Dare 18 entry and write up
Here's my LD18 entry
Here's the non compo version, with music for funs
As with most of my games, it was programmed in Flash with AS2.0 and drawn in Photoshop, with sounds via SFXR.
For this Ludum dare, I decided to be a little more ambitious with my project than I was with the previous mini LD and I decided to work at it as hard as I could, as opposed to the leisurely pace I took for the mini LD. I feel that this was a good move, because although I was exhausted by the end, I was able to get a lot done on the game. However the pace that I took to work at the game did wear me out quite quickly. I remember at one point seeing I had about 8 hours to go and really starting to slow down. At this point I had nearly finished the game, so that wasn’t an issue, but I felt if I had kept my pace a little better, the end product would have been better for it. I finished with about 5 hours left on the clock and although I could have spent those 5 hours tweaking the game, I chose not to just because I was exhausted. I think if I had been more lenient with taking breaks, I would have actually had more energy when it came to the final push, so I might have achieved more – though it is hard to say for sure.
Although my initial idea for the game was a platformer in which you picked up enemies and hit other enemies with them, I felt that this would be too simple, having already made many platformers before. I chose to make a game that would challenge me a bit more when it came to the programming, which I think was a good idea. I was able to drag out old memories of vectors and trigonometry from the recesses of my mind and actually put them to use for the first time in my life.
Overall I really like the game, I think it’s really fun to play. I’ve always been a sucker for these types of physics based games, so I still enjoy messing with it and making ridiculous shots. The game is certainly hard, but give it a bit of practise and you will get through it. I can complete the game without losing a life now. I’ve been criticized for the games difficulty and people have suggested that maybe a ‘continue’ option would help the game, but I stand by the choice of making it difficult, as I do with all my games. I think the difficulty is reasonable considering the length of the game, there’s only 8 levels after all. Now if I were to extend the game to 20 levels or so, I would probably make the initial levels easy, with latter ones being much harder, but when you retry you just retry at the level you were just playing, rather than starting again. This way the difficulty in completing the game would stay constant and it would probably take the same amount of time to complete both games.
One failing of the game I feel is the lack of music. There is a music version of the game, but it couldn’t be entered into the competition because it’s not my music. This kind of makes me want to give making my own music a shot, but I know I don’t really have any talent for it and it would be a big time investment for relatively little gain.
In conclusion, I like my game, I had a lot of fun and learnt a lot. LD18 was, for me, a big success!
Breakdown of time spent: (until I forgot to update this)
DAY 1
8:00AM-9:00AM: Woke up, starting to think about theme. Did a bit of brainstorming, came up with an idea.
9:00AM-10:00AM: Drawn idle and walk sprites, as well as some tiles
10:00AM-11:00AM: Programmed walking, jumping and idle into game, collisions with blocks. Started work on rotation of the cannon, but it’s proving difficult.
11:00AM-12:00AM: Rotation of cannon fixed and limited between 90 and 270 degrees (shooting backwards looks silly)
12:00PM-1:00PM: Firing sprite that rotates properly too now.
1:00PM-2:00PM: Enemy sprite, lunch break and shower
2:00PM-3:00PM: Trying to work on firing bullets, lots of maths involved, argh
3:00PM-4:00PM: Significant progress on firing bullets
4:00PM-5:00PM: Can fire bullets, which bounce around screen. Explodes after 5 bounces or if it hits an enemy. Little buggy atm.
5:00PM-6:00PM: More enemy sprites, tiles
6:00PM-7:00PM: Dinner break, placing tiles, drawing sucking sprites
7:00PM-8:00PM: Can now suck an enemy to gain a bullet, then fire it at another to kill it. Lives system implemented.
8:00PM-9:00PM: Level up added, text drawn, starting drawing title art.
9:00PM-12:00AM: Title art! Sleeping at 12, starting to feel tired.
12:00AM-8:00AM: Sleeping!
DAY 2
8:00AM-9:00AM: Woke up, worked a little more on title art, starting to design new levels.
9:00AM-11:00AM: Trying to fix a really annoying bug & lunch
11:00AM-12:00PM: Figured out bug, back to level designing
12:00PM-2:00PM: Fixed lots of bugs by making the levels progress in a much cleaner way. Took a bit of work, but it’s all good now!
Hour by hour updates totally slipped my mind at this point, but the rest of the time was basically spent drawing a few new sprites, fixing some bugs, designing new levels and programming the end movie.
Here's the non compo version, with music for funs
As with most of my games, it was programmed in Flash with AS2.0 and drawn in Photoshop, with sounds via SFXR.
For this Ludum dare, I decided to be a little more ambitious with my project than I was with the previous mini LD and I decided to work at it as hard as I could, as opposed to the leisurely pace I took for the mini LD. I feel that this was a good move, because although I was exhausted by the end, I was able to get a lot done on the game. However the pace that I took to work at the game did wear me out quite quickly. I remember at one point seeing I had about 8 hours to go and really starting to slow down. At this point I had nearly finished the game, so that wasn’t an issue, but I felt if I had kept my pace a little better, the end product would have been better for it. I finished with about 5 hours left on the clock and although I could have spent those 5 hours tweaking the game, I chose not to just because I was exhausted. I think if I had been more lenient with taking breaks, I would have actually had more energy when it came to the final push, so I might have achieved more – though it is hard to say for sure.
Although my initial idea for the game was a platformer in which you picked up enemies and hit other enemies with them, I felt that this would be too simple, having already made many platformers before. I chose to make a game that would challenge me a bit more when it came to the programming, which I think was a good idea. I was able to drag out old memories of vectors and trigonometry from the recesses of my mind and actually put them to use for the first time in my life.
Overall I really like the game, I think it’s really fun to play. I’ve always been a sucker for these types of physics based games, so I still enjoy messing with it and making ridiculous shots. The game is certainly hard, but give it a bit of practise and you will get through it. I can complete the game without losing a life now. I’ve been criticized for the games difficulty and people have suggested that maybe a ‘continue’ option would help the game, but I stand by the choice of making it difficult, as I do with all my games. I think the difficulty is reasonable considering the length of the game, there’s only 8 levels after all. Now if I were to extend the game to 20 levels or so, I would probably make the initial levels easy, with latter ones being much harder, but when you retry you just retry at the level you were just playing, rather than starting again. This way the difficulty in completing the game would stay constant and it would probably take the same amount of time to complete both games.
One failing of the game I feel is the lack of music. There is a music version of the game, but it couldn’t be entered into the competition because it’s not my music. This kind of makes me want to give making my own music a shot, but I know I don’t really have any talent for it and it would be a big time investment for relatively little gain.
In conclusion, I like my game, I had a lot of fun and learnt a lot. LD18 was, for me, a big success!
Breakdown of time spent: (until I forgot to update this)
DAY 1
8:00AM-9:00AM: Woke up, starting to think about theme. Did a bit of brainstorming, came up with an idea.
9:00AM-10:00AM: Drawn idle and walk sprites, as well as some tiles
10:00AM-11:00AM: Programmed walking, jumping and idle into game, collisions with blocks. Started work on rotation of the cannon, but it’s proving difficult.
11:00AM-12:00AM: Rotation of cannon fixed and limited between 90 and 270 degrees (shooting backwards looks silly)
12:00PM-1:00PM: Firing sprite that rotates properly too now.
1:00PM-2:00PM: Enemy sprite, lunch break and shower
2:00PM-3:00PM: Trying to work on firing bullets, lots of maths involved, argh
3:00PM-4:00PM: Significant progress on firing bullets
4:00PM-5:00PM: Can fire bullets, which bounce around screen. Explodes after 5 bounces or if it hits an enemy. Little buggy atm.
5:00PM-6:00PM: More enemy sprites, tiles
6:00PM-7:00PM: Dinner break, placing tiles, drawing sucking sprites
7:00PM-8:00PM: Can now suck an enemy to gain a bullet, then fire it at another to kill it. Lives system implemented.
8:00PM-9:00PM: Level up added, text drawn, starting drawing title art.
9:00PM-12:00AM: Title art! Sleeping at 12, starting to feel tired.
12:00AM-8:00AM: Sleeping!
DAY 2
8:00AM-9:00AM: Woke up, worked a little more on title art, starting to design new levels.
9:00AM-11:00AM: Trying to fix a really annoying bug & lunch
11:00AM-12:00PM: Figured out bug, back to level designing
12:00PM-2:00PM: Fixed lots of bugs by making the levels progress in a much cleaner way. Took a bit of work, but it’s all good now!
Hour by hour updates totally slipped my mind at this point, but the rest of the time was basically spent drawing a few new sprites, fixing some bugs, designing new levels and programming the end movie.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
New website up and running
Hey, been awhile but I finally got stuck in and got my new website going. Shifted this blog over to the new domain and restyled it to fit with my new site. So that's pretty much it for website stuff apart from a few minor changes that'll be happening.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Zombies progress
Hey, quick update to those interested in my progress. Game going well, as far as I can remember, I have every feature from the prototype transferred, with significant improvements.
Some noteable differences:
-Enemies are solid, you cant walk through them any more
-As well as regular death animations, I have a dynamic gore and blood engine for a cool gibbing effect. Gore increases when you make a critical hit. There's also a gore multiplier which I'll have to find a use for (setting it to x1000 is hilarious, despite the considerable slowdown)
-Gore engine isn't just for show either! Rather than use points or coins to exchange for skills and upgrades, you can pick up assorted viscera dynamically created by the gore engine to use as currency.
-2 extra enemies! (With more on the way)
-Attacks will hit just the closest enemy now (not all enemies) and you have to be facing an enemy to kill it. Adds some much needed difficulty to the game, original prototype could very easily be played without losing any health.
-Jumping! This will be an enormous part of this new version of the game. In fact, I am considering changing the name to "SUDDENLY, JUMPING" and releasing it right now.
-Unique jumping attacks for each weapon
-Ability to hold more than one of each type of item
-Destructible background pieces (destroy for bonus items!)
-Scaleable background objects
Here's a screenshot of everything for fun, including sadface Kristen Bell wallpaper (click for big (it really is big, I have 2 monitors)):
Some insight for those that care about flash game development: Black outline is what the player will see. Background stuff moves to the left rather than the player moving when the level progresses (opposite to how it was done for Applez, makes loads of things way easier). Green box, orange box and red box at the bottom are the lanes the player will stick to. Green boxes covering zombies are hit boxs, grey are collision boxes. Looks way off, but they are colliding with the players hit box (yellow box behind player). It seems like this would be a harder way to do things, but it makes it easier, trust me. All the coloured boxes that look out of place will be invisible as soon as the actual game starts.
Coming soon!
-Spells and techniques to make use of the mana bar
-Trade gibs for techniques/perks
-More enemies, enemies in multiple colours
-Bosses (I'm hoping for 3, some sprites drawn for the first already)
-More items, weapons, etc etc
Updates might be slower for awhile, I'm starting work in September, but I'll try and add whenever I can, it's mainly just spriting now so that should be fun enough to do in my free time.
Some noteable differences:
-Enemies are solid, you cant walk through them any more
-As well as regular death animations, I have a dynamic gore and blood engine for a cool gibbing effect. Gore increases when you make a critical hit. There's also a gore multiplier which I'll have to find a use for (setting it to x1000 is hilarious, despite the considerable slowdown)
-Gore engine isn't just for show either! Rather than use points or coins to exchange for skills and upgrades, you can pick up assorted viscera dynamically created by the gore engine to use as currency.
-2 extra enemies! (With more on the way)
-Attacks will hit just the closest enemy now (not all enemies) and you have to be facing an enemy to kill it. Adds some much needed difficulty to the game, original prototype could very easily be played without losing any health.
-Jumping! This will be an enormous part of this new version of the game. In fact, I am considering changing the name to "SUDDENLY, JUMPING" and releasing it right now.
-Unique jumping attacks for each weapon
-Ability to hold more than one of each type of item
-Destructible background pieces (destroy for bonus items!)
-Scaleable background objects
Here's a screenshot of everything for fun, including sadface Kristen Bell wallpaper (click for big (it really is big, I have 2 monitors)):
Some insight for those that care about flash game development: Black outline is what the player will see. Background stuff moves to the left rather than the player moving when the level progresses (opposite to how it was done for Applez, makes loads of things way easier). Green box, orange box and red box at the bottom are the lanes the player will stick to. Green boxes covering zombies are hit boxs, grey are collision boxes. Looks way off, but they are colliding with the players hit box (yellow box behind player). It seems like this would be a harder way to do things, but it makes it easier, trust me. All the coloured boxes that look out of place will be invisible as soon as the actual game starts.
Coming soon!
-Spells and techniques to make use of the mana bar
-Trade gibs for techniques/perks
-More enemies, enemies in multiple colours
-Bosses (I'm hoping for 3, some sprites drawn for the first already)
-More items, weapons, etc etc
Updates might be slower for awhile, I'm starting work in September, but I'll try and add whenever I can, it's mainly just spriting now so that should be fun enough to do in my free time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
