Update and Boatventure: Log 3

Just messing around with some boat ideas

So, it's about time I return to a roughly weekly update schedule. This last semester has been the semester that's supposed to weed out all of the bad game designers and it has been reasonably difficult, but as far as I'm concerned it wasn't hard enough. A lot of the work was just busy work that prevented me from working on side projects, like Boatventure, but didn't actually teach me much. That's why I haven't been updating these last couple of months.

Luckily, ACPC Productions and a few other developers at our school just recently started a game developer's association, the Extracurricular game Developers of Champlain (EDC). We've just begun a three month development cycle called the Marathon and I'll be working on Boatventure. Other than that update and some new concept art stuff I don't have much else to say this week!

Click for the fullsize image!

Us wondering how the world will actually be built.

Boatventure: Log 2

Newer concept art. Not in new resolution.

After roughly a week of development, there's actually not a great deal to discuss. This week has been spent mostly organizing some bits of code, adding in very small functions (like health bar drawing, screen shake, and zooming in and out (automatically)), and tracking down a memory leak that was INEXPLICABLY caused by Game Maker: Studio's absolutely awful debugging console. Literally, I spend every day for FIVE days rewriting all the code in Boatventure because I honestly thought that the memory leak might have been my fault. It really impacted how well-written I thought my code was and in a lot of ways burned me the fuck out; all for me to just figure out (on my own btw because Yoyogames apparently doesn't respond to tweets or questions about memory leaks) that the memory leak was being caused by the Game Maker debugger.

Needless to say I was extremely upset that I wasted so much time when Yoyo Games' "professional" software, that costs roughly 400 (soon to be 700) dollars, causes unexplained memory leaks in your games because they can't spend a few hours to fix their debugger.

To be honest, this experience has in a lot of ways soured my opinion of Yoyo Games and their Game Maker: Studio software; but if their 1.2 update is as good as they make it sound I might consider sticking around and using it. Otherwise, I will probably port the project to Unity and make it there instead.

Regardless, because of this situation I've burnt myself out and decided to recover by doing a "thunderdome" with the team. We just decided to begin writing an actual story for the game, so we thought a thunderdome would be a good way for all of us to end up happy. A thunderdome is a technique where each person on a team comes up with a fully fleshed out and detailed design for a certain thing, independent of one another. After everyone has their fully developed idea, they all present them to each other as equals and discuss the merits of every idea presented. Ultimately, the team chooses the best ideas from each proposal to make it into the game. We're currently doing this for the history, characters, story "beats" and overall feel of the story.

Outside of that though, nothing new to report, but here are two older pieces of concept art.

This was made by Jack, our musician. He scaned in some textures and was testing them in this image.

This was one of the original concepts for Boatventure. We don't really like it as much anymore, but it's nice to show!

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Student Developer: Microsoft Surface Pro - Log 3 + Boatventure 2013

WHO IS SHE? She is the co-lead of BOATVENTURE 2013!
Boatventure 2013 Dev Log located below the Surface Pro: Wrap Up.

The Surface Pro: Wrap Up

It's been roughly 2 weeks since I decided to use the Microsoft Surface Pro as a tool for game development and in these two weeks I've decided that the Surface Pro is a great tool for developers on the go, but not yet a perfect replacement for a desktop development environment. Most of the problems stem not from the internal hardware or the power of the system itself, but in the available software and the size of the screen (which surprised me in how much it could hinder productivity). The Surface Pro did a lot of great things for me--it ran pretty much everything, let me draw and sketch ideas like I was using paper, connectivity was solid and the type cover made it comfortable to program for hours--but there were a few issues that slowed me down and helped me determine that, for a software/game developer, the Surface Pro is a stellar secondary device, but only a decent primary one.

For a primary device, the screen size was much too small for me to easily multitask, especially when it came to managing 8+ code windows at once. That was probably my biggest issue and it ended up inhibiting me more than I would like to admit. A few other smaller issues, like the length of the charger and the quirks of Windows 8 also, upset me, but it was definitely the screen size that convinced me to return to my desktop for big projects.

However, where the Surface Pro truly shines is in its ability to be an amazing portable device. If I was to go out for a few hours--an example would be a class--where I needed a light device that could power through all of my college activities, let me sketch ideas, and make code edits (or even create full programs in a reasonable amount of time), the Surface Pro would absolutely be the device I would choose. It's just when you ask it to become a primary device that it may fall short for heavy developers.

Do I recommend it? Yes. And I already have to several people. It's just important to ask what you want the device to do before you purchase it.

Boatventure 2013: Development Log 1

A great example of prototyping in action.
These five silhouettes are no longer part of the game.

Today marks the beginning of the weekly (or occasionally bi-monthly) development log of Boatventure 2013 (20XX)! I was working on the first draft design/prototype of the game during my two week test of the Surface Pro as a development device, but sadly (or wonderfully), that prototype bombed and helped us to determine that our core mechanic just wasn't fun! First, here's a bit of background

After many years of global warming, the majority of planet Earth has found itself submerged beneath a torrent of rising sea levels while much of mankind has been wiped out by the resulting influx of superstorms. In recent years however, with humanity at the brink of extinction, the Earth has finally begun to stabilize itself. The majority of those who survived this global warming-related apocalypse have taken refuge on what little dry land remains, while others have taken to the seas themselves, searching valiantly, for any remains of civilization until the depths claim their lives as well. Thrown into the fray without any hesitation for adventure, you play as a boat scouring the ocean world, searching for a way to kickstart a new civilization, and somehow resurface the world that now lies beneath the tides.

If you take a look at the images above, you'll see five ships and a submarine. In the first design of the game, the player would be able to unlock new, larger ships and then cycle through them at will during the gameplay in order to solve puzzles or just lay down the law to other ships. The system was based around a mobility-power dynamic, where the smaller ships were more mobile, but the larger ships were more powerful. Luckily, it became apparent during prototyping (and prior to that, in some arguments with the musician, Jack Yeates) that the system might not be fun, or at least be terribly difficult to balance. (On that note, check out one of our MANY concept songs and maybe let us know what you think!)



In a true designer fashion, I don't like really like scrapping cool conceptual systems without testing, so I insisted that we prototype it out; and for a few days, I thought it would work out, but it quickly become more and more apparent to me that cycling through different boats was a fun mechanic, but that the power vs mobility dynamic was not. At all.

In the end, we got rid of the different sized boats, but kept the idea of cycling through multiple specializations of ship. This means that you can unlock new ships with a new type of weapon (like how Megaman unlocks new weapons) and cycle through them in real time. In addition to this, we're considering a Cave Story-esque mechanic where each ship can "tier up" by doing well, obtaining a more powerful weapon in the process. Like Cave Story, however, they can also level back down.

It's important to note, that unlike both of the mentioned games, we plan to make sure that every type of weapon has some sort of gameplay purpose (akin to The Legend of Zelda's items) to aid in the exploration! So cannons might be able to break down certain walls, torpedoes can destroy underwater rocks, and battering rams could maybe let the player push objects that would normally damage them. Each different weapon corresponds to a different specialization. (We're still coming up with more like an anchor grappling hook.)

A bit of a very basic platforming scenario. TAKING PLACE AS A BOAT!!! :D

In addition to the combat, it's important to remember that the game is an exploration-adventure game where the player is literally a boat. We've spent a lot of time thinking about how the player can get around (and we have a lot of ideas!) Though, one of the tested mechanics that was really positively received, was the submarine mode. Since your boat has the special ability to change into different ships, it can, naturally change into a sub to explore the deep-sea depths! In addition to this, the player can unlock a lot of other cool tools for exploring and getting past obstacles that they couldn't otherwise get past.

Submarine mode is my personal favorite though. It literally and figuratively adds depth to the game and will let us design some really cool areas to fight in, explore, or solve puzzles in, whereas the other ideas are more combat orientated with the added bonus of increasing mobility (Castlevania-style).

So, hopefully, you like the idea of Boatventure! It's really shaping up to be an amazing, beautiful, stylistic adventure game that we can be proud of; and our secondary protagonist at the top of the page, is shaping up to be a great character. More on the main character in the coming updates. :)

More sketches of our super cool co-lead! 

Quick Rant: Ugly "Journalism"

EDIT: This was written while the Phil Fish and "Annoyed Gamer" debacle was going down on Twitter. I was mostly upset by the comments about how developers should be grateful to journalists for covering their games and less upset about Phil getting bashed (because he retaliated in some not-so-good ways).

Let me begin by saying that no matter how successful a developer is, it's NOT okay to attack them; even if it's just "on the Internet".

To be honest, I'm not even sure what to say about how, today, Phil Fish and Jonathan Blow were disrespected by the latest Invisible Wall video at gametrailers.com (source). They were essentially insulted and slandered for several minutes because they were tired of being called upon to comment on every little rumor solely due to their success as indie developers. Some people get tired and upset when they're bombarded by questions and asked to comment on every little thing. Of COURSE they'd eventually speak up about it. They're not journalists who always want to talk about the next big story. They're barely celebrities. They don't get PAID to comment on things. They get paid to make things--to make games that people like. So WHAT if they don't want to comment on everything that has to do with the industry. Especially rumors that are commented on, over and over and over again like the new generation of consoles.

But then, that's not even the issue or what I'm upset about. Who the fuck cares about that. I'm upset that after this happened and after Phil Fish got upset about someone BLATANTLY attacking him on the internet (who wouldn't be upset and take to twitter to vent?). I'm upset that the internet took this as an opportunity to just go crazy and start personally attacking him and--to a lesser extent--Blow on the internet. I mean what?! These people make great games. They dedicate so much time to making games that people will like and that can stand as pieces of art and then they get slandered and insulted for being successful?! Even if you don't like them as people, they're successful developers. And yet, as the "annoyed gamer" in the Invisible Wall video put it, Phil Fish and "Blowfish" should be grateful to journalists for promoting their games.

Let's think about that. The developer of a good game should be GRATEFUL when a journalist, whose JOB is to find games they like and promote/talk about them, promotes their game. Journalists (usually) don't choose to write about games out of the goodness of their heart. They choose good games so consumers get the greatest product or that drive the greatest number of hits. Phil and Jonathan aren't EVIL people, they're just outspoken developers; and even if you think they're assholes, you definitely shouldn't be insulting them publicly.

I'm personally insulted that this is the kind of place the industry has become. A place where successful developers can't be outspoken about their success and where journalists think that they are entitled to comments and time from developers just because they choose to promote their games. No game is ENTITLED to promotion by journalists and they're not "lucky" when they get promoted. Promotion happens to good games or to games that people like. Just like a journalist can refuse to promote a game, a developer should be able to refuse to give a journalist a story, or a comment without getting shit for it.

My heart goes out to Phil Fish for being insulted like this and if I ever make it into the limelight with my team, we're definitely going to make a change.

And that's my rant. My Surface is dying and I have to make some lunch.

Expect Greatness,
Ryan Huggins

Student Developer: Microsoft Surface Pro - Log 2

Windows 8 metro/desktop multi-tasking can be good and bad.

It's been three days since I started using the Microsoft Surface Pro (in conjunction with Game Maker: Studio) as a tool for developing games. At the same time, it's been roughly two days since I've begun using Game Maker: Studio as an engine for game development (the first day was spent setting up my Surface for development). This mix of new experiences doesn't quite make for the perfect experiment, but it has given me insight into how a student (read: inexperienced) developer may fare using the Surface Pro as a portable solution to any number of problems.

The Surface Pro has many advantages over traditional laptops and tablets such as being portable (vs laptops) and blazing fast (vs tablets), but at the same time, it also has a long list of software and hardware bugs common to first generation hardware that don't exactly make it the perfect tool for everyone. Having known about these issues prior to purchasing it, these past few days with the Pro, have been a mixed bag of feelings as I adjust to the new work environment.

What Went RIGHT

Speed:

The Surface Pro is more than fast enough to handle the development of traditional 2D games in pretty much any situation. Outside of Game Maker: Studio, I've not had any problems in particular with any tool I've had to use to get things done. Photoshop, Paint Tool SAI, Visual Studios 2012, Steam, Chrome--pretty much everything runs smoothly. Game Maker: Studio seems to be slightly glitchy, though I'll chalk that one up to Windows 8; and it doesn't impede my progress much at all.

Art:

Making 2D art is CHILD'S PLAY on this thing. Open up Photoshop, break out the Wacom digitizer pen, and you're set to make game art at blazing speeds. Considering I'm not one of ACPC Production's artists, I don't actually make the art for Boatventure 2013, but since I originally bought the Surface for use as a drawing tablet, I've done extensive research and testing in this category. With the new WinTab drivers finally out (get them here), this thing is great for your artistic needs.

Programming:

Programmers with larger hands might want to get a nice Bluetooth keyboard (Logitech k810 or better) for long hours of programming, otherwise the type cover (not the touch) is actually pretty good for programming once you get used to the strange placing of some keys and disable the function lock (press Fn and caps lock together). Overall, without investing in an external keyboard, I've been able to reach my normal typing speeds without any perceivable discomfort at all.

What Went WRONG

DPI Scaling:

The DPI scaling is awful. This is a Windows issue primarily, but I almost wish they went for a lower resolution because of it. At 125% scaling (which I recommend to avoid the bitmap stretching), using non-Metro apps is pretty much impossible (sans mouse) without closing something by mistake. Text is super crisp though; and with a Bluetooth keyboard, I could TOTALLY see myself using the Surface in portrait mode for some portable epic programming marathons.

Track pad:

Pretty much, the standard track pad on the type cover is awful for development purposes. Coupled with the small size of things on the screen due to the DPI scaling, it's pretty much unusable. Absolutely necessary to purchase a wireless (Bluetooth) mouse if you want to get anything done in a reasonable time outside of minor tasks.

Battery Life:

This is an issue everyone knows about, but the battery life on the Surface Pro is not good at all. You could, if you wanted, plug it in when you're working, but isn't the point to do work away from home and the convenience of unlimited electricity? A Haswell upgrade or a battery pack keyboard could make this a non-issue, but I find myself stopping work to let the Pro charge, which could be a deal breaker for a ton of people. I personally use this time to workout, calm down and figure out how to fix programming bugs, but being forced to leave and come back (with fresh eyes, might I add), is not necessarily a good "feature".

Misc.

Other things to talk about might be 10.1" either not being enough room to work for some people, or the perfect size for others; or to perhaps gush more about how great the pen is, but I'll talk more about those things in coming logs.

Next time, though, I plan to talk a bit more about the actual project and how the Surface is influencing it's development.

Expect Greatness~

Ryan Huggins.

Student Developer: Microsoft Surface Pro - Log 1

The Microsoft Surface Pro on my dad's table.

Roughly one month ago, I decided to sell my laptop. This is an important part of my technology cycle and usually, I purchase a new one within a few days or so. Disappointingly, this time I was a little lower on money than I would have liked and was forced to default to strict desktop development for a few days. Coincidentally, it was at around that time that my friends and I decided that it would be a great time for me to visit them roughly 200 miles away in New Jersey; and so, without a laptop for the first time in years, I was forced to remove myself from the development equation and just chill out for once.

It was an amazing time and a needed break from all the stresses of life (I ended up going to a lot of parties...), but, sadly, all things come to an end and I was in dire need of a new portable computer to develop on during my travels. After a lot of research and inquiry from Internet dwellers, I decided to look into the Microsoft Surface Pro as it was an interesting device that did a lot of things well, but not perfectly. Despite this issue, I believed that the device was one that would fit the needs of a game designer in a lot of important ways.

The Microsoft Surface Pro

The Surface Pro is small, so it'd be portable for those designers who like to travel a lot. The pressure sensitive pen would allow art-focused designers to draw with it on the go, creating prototype and even complete art in much the same way they would with a regular tablet; while the type cover (not the touch one) would offer a pretty solid experience for the programmer-designers. In addition to this, it could (seemingly) run pretty much all of the development tools that you could throw at it (with a few obvious exceptions such as heavy 3D modeling or video editing tools that you'd be best working with on a desktop). With all of this in mind, I purchased the Surface Pro 128 GB version for roughly 1400 dollars ($999 (the device) + 130 (type cover) + $150 (complete warranty) + tax).

Now, with my, relatively new (I've had it for a week or so) Surface Pro in hand and two weeks away from home at my dad's house, I'm going to test the device as a portable tool for game developers while I begin development on Boatventure 2013. I hope to update frequently during the week, but I will primarily be tweeting about my experience so follow me! @TheRyanHuggins.

Expect Greatness~
Ryan Huggins.

Two Things: Dolphin Squadron and Boatventure 2013

If I wasn't happy about this, then I don't know what happiness is!

So, Dolphin Squadron released on May 31st at 12PM and since then, the game has been fairly successful and at the very least has completely blown my expectations out of the water! The pun, ...sadly was intended. To recap the events up until now, here is a list.

Demo

• Featured on Indiegames and Russian indie blog, True Indie Games. Pretty fucking awesome day for us before we even did anything! Inspiring.

Release (DOWNLOAD HERE: http://acpcproductions.com/ds)

- Featured in a mash-up at Indiegames with games like Mutant Mudds Deluxe and Teslagrad!
- Feature at IndieStatik and our longest feature (word count) yet!
- DS was top 3 at Reddit r/IndieGaming for roughly a day. Dropped steadily afterwards.
- Front-page primary feature at GameJolt for a few days. Currently secondary feature.
- 4.8/5 review score at GameJolt.
- Featured again by True Indie Games.
- Blogged about by my friend's game blog, Distorted Travesty.
- Five or Six LP videos of DS and one First Impression (so far).

- Ryan befriends editors and administrators of GameJolt, IndieStatik and Indiegames. :)

I'd actually say that I'm already more than fucking happy with the turn out.

I'll update with the general statistics of the game on Friday when I wake up! At the same time, don't expect ridiculous numbers! Haha. It was still my first actually complete game and my expectations were low, so I was ecstatic even with my reasonably low numbers. :)

Boatventure 2013

Open in new tab for full size!! And follow us. ;P

I started doing some mock-ups of how the game would actually look using the assets we made at the ACPCP Official Progress Jam a few months ago. I'm honestly, extremely satisfied for the most part. The bottom picture is the most recent and depicts what the game would look like earlier on in the game. The top picture (made before I found the bigger assets...hence blurriness) would be like JUST starting. 

Notice how the game zooms out as your progress. This will be to accommodate the larger ships and action as the game progresses. I was going for an exponential growth type of idea, but we'll see how the artists (and Flash) feel about that kind of stuff. If it doesn't work here, I like to consider all of my games polished prototypes, so perhaps I'll revisit it in the future...says Ryan who hasn't even really started on this game yet. :X

Regardless, I'm a happy duck (subtle reveal of another game? Perhaps.) So...

Expect Greatness~

Ryan Huggins

P.S: It was a reveal.

Ducktics.

Dolphin Squadron has been RELEASED!

The game still looks wonderful when played in portrait mode. Kinda looks like a long tablet. Haha! (From early demo)

We've been developing Dolphin Squadron for about three of four months now (mostly on and off development because of school), but it's finally finished! Yay!

The game is a vertical scrolling shooter where you play as a mechanized dolphin hired by the US NAVY SEALS to intercept dangerous underwater mines in order to save various coastal cities from utter devastation! 

Gameplay Description

PERFECT LAUNCH!

The game begins as your dolphin is fired out of a deep-sea submarine in an effort to catch up with an angler-like mecha that’s carrying a city-destroying mine up towards the surface. Starting at the bottom of a deep-sea trench and traveling up towards the surface, the goal of the game is to destroy the mine before it reaches the surface by first, catching up with and destroying a mechanized angler fish (a mecha) that's carrying it to the surface, and then destroying the mine with your dolphin. Sadly, to safely detonate the mines, you need to slam your flimsy dolphin into it...

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE GAME AT THE WEBSITE http://acpcproductions.com/ds/ !!!

DOLPHIN SQUADRON!

If you play the game and like it, show your support by visiting Jack's Extended Play (EP) page at http://blueskybleu.bandcamp.com/album/dolphin-squadron-soundtrack-ep and maybe even purchasing his music! He's made music for so many of my/our games and deserves some serious attention as a musician and composer for games. :D

Other News

Now that Dolphin Squadron is done, I will be working full-time on Orphan Adventure Game with artist, Matt Barrett and composer, Jack Yeates.

I also never got a chance to write part two of Motivated Design due to release date issues with Dolphin Squadron, but I will be getting ready to write that as SOON as possible!

Expect Greatness~
Ryan Huggins.

Summer 2013: Week 2

So, as far as game development is concerned, this week was a moot point. I didn't really do anything at all and honestly I'm not sure why. I've been feeling a TAD unmotivated I guess, but I think I can fix that through some room cleaning and willpower. I actually almost forgot that I needed to write a post this week, but here I am, scraping up stuff that I've done, but not shown and creating a post!

Anyway, the only thing I made progress on this week was Dolphin Squadron. I quickly designed and made the art for a website which will be active in a few days with a trailer that has yet to be made. >_> I still have a bit to do before the release at the end of this month/beginning of next month.

In other news

I did do a substantial amount of art (by my average output) for Project Clusterfuck (game) and Project Duo (web comic). It wasn't technically this week, but it is work that I haven't shown off yet, so I figure I'll talk about it for a little while. I might make it a goal to draw a test page a week over the summer to get into some sort of rhythm, but I've given myself way too much work I feel... I seriously need to reduce my workload so that I can focus on something and stop stressing out. :U Anyway.

Project Duo!

Project Duo is a story/game/web-comic that I've been working on for some time, but have made very little progress on. If I'm going to focus on any two things this summer (3 months now :<), it will be this and something else like Orphan Adventure Game.

Story

I don't have a very solid synopsis of the story yet, but it's a story about two young adults (Decus and Sera) leaving home and going on adventure so that Decus can become a hero. Obviously it's more intricate than that, but I find that the best stories are the ones that aren't cluttered or over-hyped. Those are the stories that end up being the most charming in my opinion. This story is primarily character-driven, so I plan for it to have a substantial amount of character development and dilemmas sprinkled throughout, but I also hope to keep it pretty simple overall.

A slightly more attractive synopsis of the story is this one.

Without his brother home to distract him anymore, Decus realizes that he's the only person in his family who hasn't saved the world. Being the type of guy he is (crazy and ridiculous) he buys a spaceship so that he can search the cosmos for a world without a hero; one that he can save! Sera tags along (as the main character) because she doesn't want to lose the only person that she really trusts. The story follows the duo on a mission to find an inhabited planet that needs to be saved. Their goal is to save whatever planet they find from utter destruction. At some point in the story, they get derailed in their mission, but the goals are always the same. Be heroes. Define justice. Save the world (universe [multiverse]).

Artwork

Here is Sera, the main character of Project Duo.

Sera is the co-lead/main character of Project Duo and in many ways is a difficult character to explain. She was born on the same planet as Decus (below) and shares a special bond of friendship with him because of some hectic events that went down in the past. She has some serious trust issues and can be extremely straight-forward at times, but ultimately just wants to be happy. She thinks that she can find happiness by attempting to becoming a hero with Decus, but she's not quite as dedicated.

Decus is arguably the real main character, but we don't tell anyone. He's a "fan" favorite.

Decus is a character that helps to drive the plot of Project Duo forward. He is absolutely and utterly dedicated to any task that will allow him to reach his goals, but because of that, he's also kind of ridiculous and dangerous. He uses his unnatural levels of charisma to get what needs to be done, done, but despite this, he is also the only member of his family that hasn't become a hero yet. 

This is Alice, our resident strange-ass character.

Alice is character that suddenly appears on the duo's ship early on in their adventure and cannot be identified by the ship's AI (MAHM). She can be severely unsettling and deranged at times, but she's also a little girl. Aww, look at her. She's playing with a butterfly. <3 

This is Charlie, a mid-game/story character. She's kind of a hipster of the future.

Charlie is Decus' brother's partner-in-crime and somehow ends up as a part of the party. Tragically she's a bit of a hipster.

I was asked to sketch some weapons for a lizard race in PD, so here is 40 minutes of sketches (I'm slow).

I have a writer on-board for Project Duo so that I can focus on the art and development. He asked me to sketch him some weapons for a lizard-like race, so I drew some stuff. I hope to slowly fall out of my comfort zone with this project and improve dramatically as an artist in the process.

This is a draft of the crew's spaceship. It's like a duck. Yay!

This is the Schietern, the Project Duo spaceship. It's pretty small, but pretty cool at the same time. At least Decus really likes it.

So, that's really all I have to say today. The next part of Motivated Design still needs to be written, so I'll post it as it's own post tomorrow probably. :D

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Summer 2013: Week 1

Getting prepared for an Orphan Adventure Game.

This is the first of a series of weekly updates for the blog and today, I figure I'll talk a little bit about Orphan Adventure Game. If you are not interested in OAG, then at the end of this blog post I introduce a new topic that may offer insight to the world of student developers (at least at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont).

Orphan Adventure Game

OAG is currently a project that I plan to prototype and develop with Matt Barrett and Jack Yeates over the next seven to eight weeks. I explained the concept of the game in my previous update, but to simplify, it's a three phase RPG where you explore, shop and battle as a rag-tag group of musical orphans. The phases take inspiration from various rouguelikes, Second Wind, Final Fantasy, Mother 3 and The Binding of Isaac, though these mostly inspire the exploration and shopping systems. The battle system is based on musical orphans using sounds and music to defeat their foes, but it's not a rhythm-based system. It's in it's early stages, but as time goes on and more progress is made, I'll reveal more about it.

The game's prototype is going to be made in AS3 as to give it a large, easily-accessible target audience and distribution stream, but the full-game, assuming the prototype(s) pan out, will be written for other platforms. I'm aiming to release a full-version of the game as a multi-platform, browser/mobile/personal computer venture, but judging by how poorly AS3 handles sound, I may end up abandoning browsers. We will see.

Currently, I am working on making sounds work smoothly in AS3 and as far as the prototype is concerned, I think that I am satisfied with what I have. I'm more or less brand new to the platform and I'm not using any libraries or anything (since I'm preparing for college classes that will make me use AS3), so next on my list of things to figure out is moving between phases and therefore between "rooms". My projected path is as follows:

1. Make sure sounds are working and write fade-in/fade-out functions.
2. Determine how to switch between phases (combat, exploration, and shop) and move between rooms.
3. Begin prototyping of combat phase without an inventory. This will require basic character classes and stats.
1. While doing this, I will also work on a message-box/dialogue/text-handling system to display text elegantly.
2. I will also begin messing with animations and visual assets.
4. Begin work on exploration phase.
1. This will include writing something that will randomly generate rooms, but will allow me to create scripted events for the plot progression.
5. Begin work on shopping phase.
1. This will involve writing an basic inventory system, though this system may be written sometime earlier.
6. After making sure the phases are fun, I'll begin polishing the phases.

Motivated Design: Part 1

Aside from creating Dolphin Squadron and starting on a variety of other projects like Orphan Adventure Game and Voyage, my freshman year at Champlain College also introduced me to a slew of potential problems that I didn't know existed, namely the lack of motivation, cloud of resentment and propagation of rivalry (sometimes negative) among some aspiring game developers. The most startling thing about this though was that these problems were being partially created by me and my team! This realization was definitely a sort of wake up call for myself and for the rest of us (we were trying to inspire people, not demotivate or upset them!), so, over the next couple of weeks, I think that I'll discuss the issue of motivated design and developers at Champlain College and abound.

An Introduction to the Issue

The issue arose when we found that our loosely defined "team", ACPC Productions, was being resented for being composed of people who, as freshmen, were very vocal about wanting to make games. Because we had actively sought out and "allied" with talented people that we worked well with, we had inadvertently upset a pretty large group of people (freshmen and upperclassmen included) that saw ACPCP as two things: an entity that was attempting to "steal" talented people away from the other developers and a clique of pretentious asshats that thought that because we had a team, a name, and ideas, that we were better than everyone else.

At first, I found it absurd that people would think something like that about us--all we wanted to do was make games and as a group that's what we did--so when we heard this from Brook, the team was more or less devastated and many of us took the news to heart. But as time went on, we began to realize that we could have potentially been upsetting people because of what we were trying to do. We wanted to make games, but so did everyone else. The problem was that with the way we approached game development, we came across as pretty self-serving or at least cliquey. We wanted to inspire people, but we were doing the opposite.

All Talk, No Games

We actively work on a lot of projects. Screenshot from the document I use to manage our "teams" and projects.

Because we work on a lot of projects (not all games), speak openly about most of them and then create and release a lot of promotional artwork (but few prototypes), we can be seen as a team that is all talk and no games. And judging by this list, which doesn't include a couple of my projects like City Across the Sky (prototype) or Voyage (concept), you can see that we do, in fact, work on a lot of projects, with only two being anywhere near completion: Dolphin Squadron and End Love. 

In addition to this, we were fairly large. This upset people and made it look like we were just arbitrarily adding people to the "clique". This was especially harmful because the whole team is usually never working at the same time. Dolphin Squadron, for example, was developed by myself, Brook and Jack Yeates, with the rest of the team occasionally doing QA and usability testing. Even more so than that though, was how we over-scoped our games at various game jams in an effort to push ourselves as hard as we could go. This led to the development of the idea that we couldn't really finish anything and spread it through a public, developer-centric space. 

A New Idea: The EDC

At that point pretty much, ACPCP and the idea of us being the group to inspire other groups at our college, was fucked. We had to improve our image, get rid of the name or do something else. James Shasha (Designer) was keen on the idea of getting rid of the name and starting anew; Brook Chipman (Artist) wanted to reduce the size of the team down to the original members (the Project Clusterfuck team); I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't want to kick anyone out and I didn't want to lose the name that we started with. I also just wanted to work on and finish Dolphin Squadron. I just wanted to make games.

We decided to reorganize around this idea of a community of student developers. A place where anyone could go and work on anything they wanted. We designed a club that acted as a place for people to go to pitch ideas, form teams and make progress. Pretty much what we did within ACPCP, but open to everyone and not just the members of our clique. That was the idea behind the EDC, the Extracurricular game Developers of Champlain. We turned it into a club and suddenly, a lot of the negative emotions began disappear, and people seemed genuinely interested in the idea.

PART TWO OF MOTIVATED DESIGN NEXT WEEK.

Expect Greatness.

Ryan Huggins~

Weekly Updates and Orphan Adventure Game

It's a little weird for me to not have any new art to head my post with, but this will be a short one regardless. For the remainder of the summer, I will be adhering to a roughly weekly update schedule. Having mostly completed Dolphin Squadron means that I have a lot of free time that I can either waste or use to make more things. Today, in a way, has been a waste (granted I was sick last night), so I'm using this blog post to ground myself and prepare myself to get some serious work done on a project(s) in the coming weeks.

Orphan Adventure Game will be my primary focus for the next 8 weeks of development and hopefully by then I'll have a mostly complete game/cool prototype to show for it. Having said that, I have decided to approach the game from a more musical angle than usual and design a battle system that involves music directly in the gameplay. I'm not particularly interested in rhythm games or all of the micro-coding I'd have to do to deal with the timings and such though, so it won't be a rhythm-based system. What I hope I end up designing is something that probably won't be completely new, but will at least be cool.

Anywho,
Expect Greatness~
Ryan Huggins.

Dolphin Squadron: Final Moments

A little Gurren Lagann is never a bad thing. :P

It's been an entertaining run, but it's finally coming to a close. Dolphin Squadron is officially in it's final stages and will be ACPC Production's first game. That's pretty fucking exciting to me! The game's been in active development for four out of the last eight months and I'm happy to say that the end-product is actually pretty fun. It is also brutally difficult at times, but the controls were partially an experiment and I think they were successful overall.

DOLPHIN SQUADRON :D

IT IS DONE. :D

Over the coming days, I'll be writing up a postmortem for Dolphin Squadron and the development of a student game as a freshman; and, in general, I'll be trying to get Dolphin Squadron some publicity.

SPEAKING OF WHICH. When I put the game up at Tigsource for usability testing a week or two ago, Indiegames.com picked it up and wrote a small thing about it. For a team of college freshmen with very little marketing experience and a desire to just improve, not really to make popular games, it was nice to know that our game was at least a cool enough of a concept/execution for a game journalist to pick it up. :D It also gave a bit of a motivation boost to the team and was great for me to use to inspire the game developers around campus who want to make games, but don't feel like they're good enough!

Regardless. I put this final stuff into the game yesterday at 11:57 PM and that means that the game now goes into a recluse state for about a week or so. During this time, I will be catching up on some ARTING and then later on, competing with my team for the rest of the summer to expand our worlds (for Project Clusterfuck) through web-comics. I'll also be making two games in AS3.

Orphan Adventure Game

A short RPG with a Forum Adventure art style. :P

One of our artists was having a bit of an issue actually getting art done for awhile, due to a variety of reasons, and as such, I had to intervene. He wanted to make something with a fun, quirky theme and a somewhat unusual art style for games. Enter Orphan Adventure Game, an RPG about orphans rising up and, uh, saving the world? defeating the evil ice cream man? We're not quite sure yet to be honest, but I'm designing and programming the game, while Matt Barrett is coming up with the concept and will be doing art and such. We're both writing it.

Boatventure 2013

Gotta get to work on this. Haha

After Orphan Adventure Game, I reaaaally need to get to work on Boatventure 2013. Jack Storm, one of our programmers working on a sweet secret SRPG project I designed, told me that I had like, 270 days or something to make the game. I figure if I spend like a month or two making Orphan Adventure Game, I'll be able to finish Boatventure in time. :X Let's hope, otherwise the name will be changing slightly!!! D:

Expect Greatness~
Ryan Huggins.

Finishing Up

Finalizing the art!

Dolphin Squadron

Today, I'm adding the final touches to the first game that I'm actually happy with and the second game that I've brought past prototype. The development of Dolphin Squadron has been pretty solid overall and it's definitely been a learning experience for myself and Siifour/ACPCP. I'll be writing up a postmortem soon and the game will be released sometime before May 1st. Hopefully it'll find itself an audience because I'm aiming for a ridiculous number of downloads--around ten to twenty. :P Haha.

[UPDATE]: I got pretty sick during finals week, so the new release date has been pushed back a little. I still hope to be done by May 1st, but a release may occur a little later.

What's Next?

So, now that Dolphin Squadron is nearly complete, I have to ask myself an important question: what's going to be next on my agenda? Honestly, I'm not sure. Realistically, I'm going to be diving headfirst back into Flash and AS3 development on a new project--one that actually needs to be finished before the end of 2013, but at the same time, I really, really want to write some things and develop some sweet stories.

So here are the possible games that I'll be working on this summer.

City Across the Sky

:D

City Across the Sky, in it's previous form failed as my first project, but in it's original form, it had a cool gameplay concept and a wonderful story that I'd like to maybe try again at some point. If I decide to do any work on this game, it'll probably just be a lot of writing and design stuff, as well as concept art and base mechanic prototyping. I refuse to work on this project again and fail, so I'll make sure to do it right if I come back to it.

Project Fall

Awesome stuff.

Project Fall is a prototype that I was working on to create solid platforming mechanics and gameplay that was influenced by weapon physics. I don't think I ever really talk about it in previous blog posts, but I was interested in making a game where each weapon would be useful for solving different types of puzzles. With the prototype, I didn't really end up doing that, but if I revisit the game, I'll definitely work on designing weapons in that vein. Additionally, I think that the mechanics would work in a variety of different game environments, so Project Fall may end up being a game made up of multiple games. I think that would be cool.

Boatventure 2013

Original concept artwork. The game assets look similar.

Boatventure 2013 is a game designed and "arted" during one of ACPCP's official Sleep Jams. The original concept was a protect-the-castle, mini-strategy type of game where you play as an upgradeable boat reeling up treasure from the seas while protecting yourself from enemy pirates, helicopters, etc. Having designed the game in a weekend, some of the design decisions aren't the best, so I'll probably redesign some portions of it over the summer, but ultimately, it's called Boatventure 2013, so I'd need to make it before the end of the year. Boatventure 2014 just doesn't have the same ring.

Voyage

Concept artwork. Game assets may be different.

Voyage is an interesting beast of a game that I may progress on during the summer. I'm not sure when I'm going to start actual development, but I'll probably work on something akin to a paper prototype and a public design document over the summer. Voyage is, in a sense, a project that I would like to keep developmentally public so that people can see how a game progresses from beginning to finish. If I do work on the game over the summer, updates will be frequent and hopefully detailed and personal. :D

So these are the games I plan to work on during the summer.

Expect Greatness

Ryan Huggins~

ACPC Productions

ACPC Productions :)

So, as usual, my update schedule hasn't been the best, but I'm making a post today for the sake of posting. There are so many things that I could talk about, but I only have 21 minutes until ACPC Production's next meeting. So, I guess I'll briefly talk about ACPCP.

ACPC Productions

This is the moniker for what I guess you could call a game studio/publisher that I'm trying very hard to make a "thing". Founded in October of 2012, we've been developing a small following around Champlain College and the New England area for the last couple of months, though we haven't released anything yet. The team is composed of 12 people, but I figure that it'll expand to around 15 or 20 within the next year.

The Team 

The team in pixels.

--From RIGHT to LEFT--
Jack Yeates (the cat): Composer
Ryan Huggins: Game Designer/Programmer
Matt Barrett: Artist
James Shasha: Game Designer
Hunter Garnish: Artist
Jack Storm: Programmer
Brook Chipman: Artist
Meghan Willis: Artist
Ian Robreno: Programmer
Phil Smith: Writer
Stephen Walsh: Programmer
Andrew Poirier: Writer/Designer


With ACPC Productions, I'm attempting to work with the team to make a bunch of games, organize events, and develop the indie game scene here in New England. We're small now, but with the personality of the team and the support of Champlain College behind us, I'm certain that we'll expand very rapidly.

We're working on several games at the moment: Dolphin Squadron, Boatventure 2013, End Love, Ducktics, and Project Clusterfuck. Dolphin Squadron and End Love are currently in heavy development, with Dolphin Squadron looking at a mid-spring release!

Expect Greatness~
Ryan Huggins

Second Semester: Clusterfuck, Voyage, Dolphin Squadron

Catalyst. A game from Clusterfuck. 

So, it's been awhile and I'm a little upset that I let myself just not update for such a long period of time, but I'm ready to get back to business.

Well, actually, let's start with a short look at my last three weeks. During break (and after Voyage) I went to a couple of parties and had some fun. I found it ironic that I left college and partied, but that's not important. I was a little upset that I didn't get any actual work done, but I'm usually overworking myself anyway, so it was fine. Then, suddenly I came back to college. I was ready to work--then I went to more parties and socialized too much. This took me over for a few days.

Now, I'm actually back and prepared to work. To be completely honest though, I feel that the partying was a pretty solid experience. Socializing at these things gives you a pretty good view of the world. I learned a few things about people that I wasn't quite expecting, but that's neither here, nor there. You are here to read about games! Our games specifically.

So, Clusterfuck 

This is video game design in action.

Project Clusterfuck has been advancing at a pretty solid rate. The artists legitimately love working on the game, but we're still in pre-production, so they haven't begun to hate their lives yet. What we're doing now is working on the concept art, developing a style, working on our stories, running into design problems, etc. The image above is from one of our first meetings where we were taking a look at control schemes. As you might be able to see, Clusterfuck is being designed for controllers. We also make sure we keep the scope in check because being in-scope is absolutely essential for any game. We want to be ambitious (because this is a project about learning our limits), but we don't want to actually make a clusterfuck of a game. Ya dig?

Updates about Clusterfuck will be made from time to time. I'm not actually sure how much the team wants to reveal about the game before we've figured things out; and while I am the game designer, I'm not the project lead. We don't even have one of those yet. Right now, Clusterfuck is just our game. As such, information about its development will be sporadic, but awesome and artsy!

Some Clusterfuck Art

Tenebrae (By Meghan)

A Story (By Hunter)

Catalyst (By Brook)

A representation for 16 of the Clusterfuck characters. Sans Project Duo.

Project Voyage and Dolphin Squadron

Progress on Project Voyage has been interesting. I try not to work on it unless I'm certain I have time to blog, so, for the last few weeks, I've gotten little to no work done on it. Jacques has created a few new songs that I'd like to show, but I'll wait until I have time to write a specific post about it. As for Dolphin Squadron...we only need like seven assets (which has become a joke around ACPC Productions). I'm sure we'll get it done sometime after the Global Game Jam, but until then, I'm back in direct contact with Brook (the artist), so I'll try to make him do it over the next few days. :P

Consensus (with myself)

WE'RE ALL JUST TOO EXCITED ABOUT CLUSTERFUCK TO WORK ON OUR OTHER GAMES.

Alas,
Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~