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

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 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~

Design Process: Project Voyage (Day 6)

I love this mock-up style, but I think I may change it soon.

DESIGN PROCESS: This is where I will be choosing a project and discussing it's design decisions over a period of time. Expect frequent updates.

So, writing a daily blog is horrendously difficult (at least when it's focusing on a game that's not in production). To that degree, I will not be doing daily updates. I'll try to get around 3 updates a week, but daily updates are too much for me, especially since I have a social life to attend to. Haha. ANYWAY.

Jacques (who would like everyone to know that his name is actually Jack and that I'm writing his name this way to distinguish between ACPCP programmer Jack Storm) and I began to discuss some of Voyage's gameplay two days ago. (Then, I went to a party and afterwards, slept for 26 hours straight...) We broke the basic gameplay down into five categories. Each of these categories was expanded upon briefly so that we could look at all possible venues of gameplay, then remove what we didn't like/what didn't make sense with the theme of the game. We call this subtractive design.

1. Fishing
• A fishing system implies some sort of developmental system for better equipment, lures, wires, reels, etc. I've considered that fishing will probably be a big part of the early game and that there'll potentially be a trading and bartering system so that you can actually do stuff with the fish that you have caught. This introduces the need for a system of communication with the locals and maybe a food system so that fish also serve a purpose for the player. A food system would then imply something like a health system or even a cooking system where you can get achievements for catching and cooking certain fish. Soon you see how quickly one system can develop into many, many more! 
2. Diving
• A diving system also implies some sort of equipment system where you can acquire things like diving helmets, scuba gear, a snorkel, etc. These types of things would allow for the player to dive for longer and have a greater chance of finding secret underwater treasures! This adds another layer of gameplay and exploration, all taking place underwater. This system wouldn't only exist on the seas, but potentially on islands and in lakes as well.
3. Finding Islands
• Since finding islands and exploring the world is supposed to be a large part of gameplay, a primary method of exploring the world would be sailing from island to island and then exploring said islands on foot. This system of discovering islands relies on a deep movement system that would allow for sea, land, and interior/exterior exploration of environments. Interaction with the environment and NPCs, as well as combat with "enemies" would also be important. We determined that a land motion would be very platformer-esque, while sea exploration would be more "Castle Crashers". We want a seamless world, so designing this may become an issue.
4. Sunken Treasure
• Locating sunken treasure is sort of a hybrid of diving and boat development. There would be a hook that grabs chests from the ocean floor, but this would be some sort of upgradeable purchase for the vessel and would prevent the player from having to dive for treasure. This system would be incorporated to allow players to just completely avoid diving altogether if that's what they want.
5. Sea Encounters
• There would either be planned or random scripted events where you both meet and interact with sailors just like you! Just without real people behind them. These conversations imply some sort of communication system involving little thought bubbles. You could probably also challenge them to battles to steal their shit.
• This system could be broken into two parts.
• Combat with other sailors
• Trading with other sailors

Over the next few days we will be detailing and drawing various infographic-esque diagrams for these systems. THEN WE GET TO REMOVE THE ONES WE HATE or keep them all because we suck at removing systems. ;D

Shitty Design Sketches. :D (Decipher at will.)

Showing basic system of entering/exiting water. There is a zone where it occurs.

Showing how underwater would show up when you are fishing/diving.

Showing the movement system and the layers of the movement system.

Resketching the disembark location so that it is closer to the angle
we actually want the game at.

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Design Process: Project Voyage (Day 5)

VISUAL SPLENDOR. ;P (Clusterfuck or Rebirth concept)

DESIGN PROCESS: This is where I will be choosing a project and discussing it's design decisions over a period of time. Expect frequent updates.

Sadly, it seems like we may be coming to the end of concept art for a little while. I'm getting to the point where there's pretty much nothing else left to conceptualize visually (for now besides objects and stuff). If I do any artwork now, it'll probably be for my other projects which actually require ridiculous amounts of concept art and I'll plug them in here at the end for the visual SPLENDOR.

Ahem. So, I didn't do any actual design stuff today because I'm getting into the swing of coding some stuff for Dolphin Squadron and there aren't enough hours in the day to spend time (seconds) with my family, work on Dolphin Squadron, procrastinate and then work on Voyage with enough time to blog! So, what I'm posting today is something that I said while I was talking to Jacques and my friend Joe (Distorted Travesty) about Voyage. These things give you a pretty fucking raw look at how I sometimes choose to explain projects to people and justify my design decisions and visions for the games I've worked on. Be forewarned that these are IMs, so my grammar/spelling may not be spectacular.

This here is me rationalizing (to some extent) why basic combat should be included in the game; I also kind of touch on some aspects of gameplay elements. Something interesting that I've noticed about having these conversations with Jacques is that about 90% of the time, I haven't actually considered the ideas that pop up (and then pitch to him) while I'm rationalizing things. Almost every single one of my games has been fleshed out in this way at some point or another. Even City Across the Sky went through this process! The issue with that game was just the botched production phase. The design I think was fairly solid. Anyway. Here is Part 1 of 2 (and some music to go with it [vertical re-orchestration]).

1. I think that players will want to be able to like see a crab and let it scurry away, or murder and eat it though
2. Nothing serious
3. Maybe there's a dude on a bigger raft
4. or like a legit pirate ship
5. that one day you want to overthrow and take the crew
6. Or you just avoid them
7. and explore the world
8. the message bottles say something that peaks your interest
9. They're out of order and you piece together a little mystery
10. relaxing, nothing dire
11. you find a shipwreck and a skeleton
12. You wonder where such a big boat came from
13. since you just have a raft you can't go far
14. you're like, "That'll be me one day, just not dead. Hopefully."
15. The first night, it's cold. Your character shivers while he sleeps. You're like, "Oh, that's sad. He needs somewhere warm".
16. Etc
17. That's what I want. A game with little to no words.
18. at least spoken words
19. Just player thoughts. A player making connections with the world.
20. The music soothing them. The gameplay enticing them to explore more of the world.
21. The early game has to be filled with the character making a bunch of small discoveries that have actual meaning.
22. So the player knows that, in this world, things matter
23. You're not going to find a crashed ship for no reason.
24. I hope I'm explaining the idea/feels well enough

After this, I go on to try and clarify some of the problems that Jacques brought up with some of the concepts. Nothing serious, but this is a much more structured idea being explained. It also, in my opinion, almost completely describes the type of game I'm trying to create. This response was directly related to Jacques heckling me about liking science fiction as a way to describe things "different". Haha. Part 2 of 2

1. What I imagine is a dude who, for whatever reason, decides to abandon his life in society and explore the seven seas. He gets as far away from society as possible, builds a raft, and just goes. He ends up somewhere and yeah, you play the game. The sci-fi aspect was just a way to say, it doesn't happen on a planet where society has taken over everything.
3. Anyway. As you're playing the game, you explore, you find some message bottles, you uncover like, let's say, a stereotypical treasure map. In the context of the game, that's fun, but only if you establish a desirable atmosphere or something that you can be. Think megaman X, you're megaman, you're cool, but Zero, Zero is a fucking baller. You wanna be just like that guy.
4. Zero (as a concept) is like some benevolent, elderly pirate that maybe teaches you something at the very beginning of the game or just drops you off at your destination and sails away.
5. He looks cool, he acts cool, he is cool. (He says nothing)
6. But whatever, you want to explore and shit
7. You've got your raft.
8. So this treasure map leads you to a cool hat or something. You put on the hat. Now you're an explorer. That wasn't so hard, but it's a pretty shitty hat.
9. I don't want this crappy hat
10. The old seafarer had a dope hat
11. You want a hat like that
12. But you only have this hat
13. What do?
14. This happened the night that you realize that your character was shivering at night or something pressing, but subtle.
15. Now what's important is making a life for yourself, but this island is shitty
16. You want to go somewhere else
17. You travel to the end of this small island where you saw on the map that there might be something, there's nothing there, but there's nothing anywhere else. You've got to explore.
18. You set sail
19. Now the aesthetic is very important.
20. You're sailing and eventually you find another island
21. It doesn't matter which of the nearby islands it is, but it's an island
22. You mark it down on your map
23. This exploration positive cycle happens for a little while with a bunch of other cool, soothing things and then one day, while you are sailing you see another boat. It has a flag. Then suddenly, you realize, wait." I don't even have a boat..or a flag. I'm really sad aren't I." Those pirates see you floating around and they sail right past you. You don't even matter. The dude on that boat wasn't as cool as the elderly guy, but he was still cooler than you. It's like, maybe...maybe I can get cool like them, etc.
24. You see this whole pirate thing
25. is just a metaphor for growth.
26. When these bigger boats pass by, you see your character like, just stare at them.
27. You want to make him/her that cool so you explore, you discover things, maybe you even discover things that haven't been discovered before.
28. You're not trying to change the world. You're just trying to understand it.
29. You're having fun and relaxing as the player and hopefully, if done correctly, unlocking that feeling that children have
30. Just like the wonder of discovering something you maybe can't explain.
31. Imagine a game where you are the fucking dude who like discovers magic
32. But you don't know it
33. Yeah
34. So, if you read that
35. I wonder if that explains anything other than my vision for the game. haha
36. There aren't pirates necessarily
37. There are like
38. other people seafaring
39. Maybe while you are sleeping one of them steals your hat
40. You don't have a hat anymore
41. you're exploring and you see this fucker with your hat
42. So you follow him, but he gets away
43. you keep sailing in the general direction and you end up at a new island
44. behold
45. a new land
46. Then you find a new hat
47. and suddenly your old hat doesn't matter as much? Or maybe it still matters
48. and you get (steal) it back
49. and then you feel like, "Yeah fuckface, don't steal my hat"
50. And then you're on your merry way

Whether or not I'm going to allow the player to actually "lose" things like with the stolen hat (this is a negative experience and I'm advocating the positive), I'm unure. However, if you think about it, setting up the player with loss, and then having a quick positive reinforcement (finding the new hat or something else cool) might be even more uplifting if the loss comes first. There might be severely scripted events like this in the game, but I may try to avoid that as best as possible.

I have to look at the goals of my game--my theme, per say--and determine what kind of gameplay, or "everything in the game" as Joe says, should compliment that idea.

For now, that idea is this: "Trying to convey the feeling of discovery that you feel as a child, but lose as an adult because of science and shit." I don't think it gets much better than that!

I'm running out of concept art. Haha. Alas.

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Design Process: Project Voyage (Day 4)

Here you can see the player floating behind an island. :D

DESIGN PROCESS: This is where I will be choosing a project and discussing it's design decisions over a period of time. Expect frequent updates.

Boy, is it difficult to get work done on a schedule. I'm usually so chill about getting work done on side-projects that actually trying to adhere to some kind of design schedule is mildly difficult. It's mostly because I've got SPACE working in Dolphin Squadron though, so I've been coding that. Haha.

Anywho, this morning, I took a shower (I do this occasionally) and was thinking about this whole movement system nonsense. I'm not 100% sure about the details, but I've been tinkering with the idea of traveling towards the background in my head and I don't think that I'll use that mechanic in the game. Whether or not it's possible to code isn't the issue, but the design practicality of it is. Unless I'm doing the game in full 3D (which I doubt right now), I don't think that traveling into the far background would be cool if you could just sail there uninhibited! I think having to lose sight of your destination for a while and traveling through unknown territory to get there would be cooler and ultimately feel more like an exploration. A system like this doesn't necessarily need to implement 2.5D, though we still might depending on this camera zooming thing (another day's post).

Regardless, what I'm thinking of is closer to a system where the designs of the levels make it look like you're actually making progress towards a goal that you've maybe passed recently (or not so recently) in the background. For example, let's take a look at this concept image.

Sweet Concept Image Portion

This might be posted again tomorrow for another discussion.

In this image you can see that there's something at least mildly interesting in the foreground (trees). So, let's say that your character has washed up onto this random island after being capsized by a storm (an idea I hope to exploit occasionally ;D). You wake up, and since the area is brand new, it'll probably stick in your mind for a few minutes longer than usual. So, you start exploring to the left of this new world (there's water to the right and your raft is kind of busted [maybe]), wondering what kind of new island you've ended up on, all the while thinking, "Maybe there might even be dragons here, or something!" Eventually, after a long enough trek, and maybe finding some things along the way, you'll end up at those triangular objects in the background (now as pyramids in the foreground). Then you'll suddenly see the trees that you left behind in the new background. A semi-circle of exploration! Something like this would add to the sense of scope in the game because it could be an indicator of some sort of progress.

I like this idea better than a purely 2.5 dimensional world where you can sail directly towards the background, maybe because I can simply imagine it working like this better in my head. And while a 3D-esque world might be nice, I think that something like this overall would just be a cooler experience for the player. Agree or disagree, it's currently just what I think is right for the game. I haven't discussed it with Jacques yet, but that's going to happen after this blog post.

On a less designerly note, Jacques has mocked up an example of vertical re-orchestration (which is something I plan to talk about in more detail tomorrow [along with my musical flairs system]). The gist of this system is that it'll allow us to easily do music that adapts to events in the game. After hearing it for myself, it sounds wonderful, but also sounds like it'll be pretty easy to code! Awesome! The song itself should be up on Soundcloud for everyone to hear sometime tonight or tomorrow, so check back soon!

And that ends today's Design Process.

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Design Process: Project Voyage (Day 3)

Rain's a'coming! Also, yay! A hat! No sail though. Bummer.

DESIGN PROCESS: This is where I will be choosing a project and discussing it's design decisions over a period of time. Expect frequent updates.

I decided that I should probably write this blog post before I got too caught up doing art and lost track of time, and then all of a sudden, I'd have two blog posts to write in a day! Uncool. So, today was mostly a Dolphin Squadron day, since Brook sent me some art assets to throw into the game, but that's information for another day. Over the last couple of hours or so, I've been thinking about the atmospheric systems that would have to be made for Voyage and they've made me realize that this'll probably be a somewhat long-term project after-all... Alas.

So, Mother Nature is a powerful woman who don't need no man--and is probably not a deity to be trifled with--as such, I've determined that any seafaring game in it's right-mind should take weather and atmospheric factors into account. Things like time of day, incoming weather and the general atmospheric conditions are super important for both the "feels" and, to a  lesser extent, the actual gameplay.

Speaking of gameplay, I haven't really put much thought into it yet; I like to develop worlds A LOT, so I'm holding off on that for now. A different approach is art-style and gameplay first, story and world second. I'm trying to make a game that's fun, but that's also atmospheric as fuck. A background story and a deep world are key, but not quite important at this stage. Granted, as far as animation and art goes, I'm not the best in the world (or even close), so I think I'll have to find one or make all this shit myself. Whatever, let's take a look at atmosphere for a little bit.

These atmospheric concepts are easily my favorite so far. 

When you think of the prettiest time of day, you don't usually think of mid-afternoon. You think something like, "Oh, oh! Sunsets are pretty!" or "Pretty sunrises are also pretty!". Sometimes you maybe think of both. If you're weird, maybe you do think that the most beautiful time of day is one of the regular, average-Joe times. That's cool, but I like sunsets. I love sunrises too. But what I really love is stars and how sometimes you can see them as the sun is rising or setting. I was never able to really see stars living in a city, so they were always double the beautiful to me. Therefore, that is what I'd call beauty; it's also what I've tried to capture it in this here concept.

As far as systems go, the dynamic-time-of-day-and-sometimes-atmospheric-effects-plus-weather system is going to be a very complicated one; but the way I see it is, if I can design it in a simple way, I can probably code it with enough time, effort and outside assistance. I mean, can you even imagine a game where you can actually see a lightning storm happening in the background? And then maybe watch it get closer until you're right inside of it!? Then you capsize and end up on a remote island, but with all of your stuff so it's just like being lucky, but also exploring. That's a game worth playing.

I can imagine it. It's a pretty cool game. It also probably exists somewhere else. But I'm not trying to innovate my life away here, I'm taking something I love about nature, about perspectives and seeing if it'll work in a 2D game (my favorite kind). So, let's hope it comes together one of these months.

Perspective of clouds makes things better. And that aura! ;D

Expect Greatness.

Ryan Huggins~

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Design Process: Project Voyage (Day 2)

Oo, birdi--oh shit, a fish! I CAN EAT! Or I won't, whatever. 

DESIGN PROCESS: This is where I will be choosing a project and discussing it's design decisions over a period of time. Expect frequent updates.

So, it's Day 2 of progress on Voyage and I'm excited to say that the image in my head is getting just a bit more complicated (this is good). Yesterday, I wasn't quite sure how I wanted the game to look; I only had the concept for the "feels", you know? Well, now I'm getting a little closer to a vision of a playable game; and something that would allow me to keep the style of my concept art (maybe). Also, I have a musical concept here from Jacques Yeates. He says, "Imagine sailing to this." (He also says "It's very early concept music." :P)

But enough about that (the vision) for now; let's take a look at the concept image from up at the top of the screen. I was thinking about gameplay briefly and wondering whether or not I should include any kinds of spoken text. I discussed it with Jacques and we determined that dialogue might take away from the "feels" and detract from the game's purpose/our desire for players to just enjoy the world! I figure that talking with words is too "society" anyways, and our little 40-year-old friend is trying to escape from that, so we don't really need any of that. 

Note: We think it's important to keep the character goals, as well as the gameplay goals, in mind  when deciding on the "rules" of game world!  

What I did decide on, though was keeping these "!" and "?" things from the concept art. I used something like this in City Across the Sky (poorly), but I think that implementing them from the beginning, instead of later in the process, will make them feel more integrated into the overall experience. These symbols would include more than just "!" and "?", but maybe include things like hand-drawn emotes, animated effects, etc. I was thinking that some forms of communication could occur with these things popping up or fading away and the rest of it would be more passive. I'd like to keep the game relatively HUD (heads-up-display) -free (as far as persistent HUDs go) as well, but we'll see how long that dream lasts.

The way the camera works has been established in my head as well. I'm thinking of a little bit of Castle Crashers at a potentially more severe angle (to show off more of the horizon) and with more vertical scrolling. I'm also thinking that a little bit of 2.5D action will make the world feels like it has some depth to it. Castle Crashers never really gave the player any sense of depth as they moved towards and away from the camera, though I'm not sure that it'll be necessary to have lots of depth with this game. 

I was thinking of using techniques like pseudo contra-zooming to add some depth, but it might be more disorientating than anything, so I'm not sure yet. I still plan to have player controlled zooming active, but it may, or may not, be necessary with the goals I have in mind. ANYWAY. I have a movement concept art.

Arrows represent movement. Obviously.

Getting back to the vision, this concept is the closest one I have to the playing field depicted in my head. Right now, the player is standing on land. While the player stands on land, their vertical (z-plane) movement is dramatically limited (represented by the small and concentrated nature of the land arrows). However, get a boat and while at sea, your movement is limited significantly less. This is my clever way of metaphorically exploring the idea of "open seas". 

Note: While the player only has their raft, their paths of oceanic travel will be limited as well, but not as much as on land (probably). "How limited?" I haven't planned anywhere near that far yet! ;D  

This would also remove the conceptual issue we were having where if it was 2D (x and y planes only [and ala most two dimensional platforming games]), then the player would have to disembark on literally every island in their mostly linear path. A 3D transition may have fixed that, but I like the style a lot, and 2.5D might let me keep it! Yay! If I could get this to work correctly, you might be able to travel to the islands in the waaaaay distance. The ones that you've (probably not) been wondering about this whole (2 days) time. I'm not sure how this would work coding-wise, but I'm sure I can figure something out (or just use 3D?)! ;D   ...D;

That concludes today's Design Process.

Dolphin Squadron: Update

Yes. We understand that PETA may be an issue.
But we also doubt it because we're noobs.

Yeah, just a mock-up for Dolphin Squadron. In MOTHERFUCKING SPACE. How you get there will forever remain a mystery, but it'll happen somehow. Haha. Obviously, Brook (artist) didn't really try too hard on the bg in this mock-up--or maybe he just couldn't figure out space. Regardless, I'll probably use particles or parallaxes anyway, so it doesn't matter too much!

Also, high-tech PETA will definitely be a mid-boss (our description of mini-bosses). We will probably also have other classics such as...

• Aliens
• Cthulu
• Megladon
• Magikarp (probably not)

Expect Greatness.

Ryan Huggins~

Current Project: Dolphin Squadron

DOLPHIN SQUADRON

So, Dolphin Squadron has been in development for about a month now. Originally, it was supposed to be an arcade-inspired game for Steam's Greenlight program. Sometime during the beginning of development we realized that we liked the game beyond it just being a school project and it went from a shitty school project to a shitty personal one. 

In Dolphin Squadron, you are a dolphin hired by the US Marine Corps to intercept dangerous underwater mines that are being used to covertly destroy coastal cities around the world. The core game is a vertical scrolling shooter where you play as a weaponized dolphin fired out of a deep-sea submarine. Starting at the bottom of a trench and traveling up towards the surface, the goal of the game is to destroy a mine before it reaches the surface by first, catching up with and destroying a mechanized escort fish that's carrying it to the surface, and then destroying the mine with your dolphin's body. The hook is exploding dolphins. To destroy the mines, you have to destroy the mecha with your dolphin lasers and then slam your dolphin into the mine.

There's more than just dolphin lasers now, but this pitch was what sold the game to my class and teacher and from there we began development on a game that was pretty much about blowing up marine wildlife. Ironically, only one person was concerned about the potential for people to become offended by the game's core theme of kamikaze dolphins, but we ignored them and continued to work on the game.

These kind of things still make me happy. Haha

Presently, the game is on a smooth development course (with an February-April release window), but there are a few issues with the core design and some mechanical issues that I'll need to iron out before a release. Of these, one is establishing a clear method of level progression and another is the difficulty of creating "procedural" (read : random) obstacle generation that doesn't fuck up and create impossible gameplay at higher difficulties. I haven't heard any complaints about the enemy/obstacle locations being "dickish" (direct quotes) from the most recent versions of the game, but reaching a happy balance for difficulty (as far as concentration of obstacles goes) is getting very difficult.

Currently, the spawning of enemies and obstacles is pretty random--and that works fine for now--, but I'm wondering if there should be a more dynamic system for spawning enemies and obstacles. I figure that once I reach a middle ground for obstacle concentration, I can tone up the difficulty through other means such as providing the level boss (the mecha) with weapons and introducing mid-bosses in some levels. Weapons balance was a minor issue for awhile, but at this point, the weapons seem to be suitably balanced, though they'll definitely change a little bit before the end of development.

Our goals for the game aren't terribly crazy, but we do plan on polishing the game for at least a month or three before releasing it. Figuring that we can implement all aspects of the levels, get all of the art done and add a fun number of gameplay secrets before sometime in late January/early February, we could have the game ready for a release sometime in April. Eventually, I'll release a video or two of the gameplay and how it's progressed. :D

Expect Greatness,
Ryan Huggins~