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~

Design Process: Project Voyage (Day 1)

Voyage Concept Art.

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, I'm currently on break from the college life and my goals are very specific. First and foremost, I want to complete the alpha version of Dolphin Squadron, implementing the last of the gameplay features, adding a reasonable tutorial and getting some music done for the game. Secondarily however, I've had this new idea floating around in my head and I want to mess around with it.

Design Process: Day 1

So, I got home from college yesterday for my semester break. It turns out, that being in a car/on a bus for eleven hours really kills my desire to work on anything productive and I almost did nothing for an entire day! Bummer. I've been in that mood before though; that mood where you don't want to do anything, but know that you should be doing something productive. Usually, I lose and don't do anything, but this time I did something a little different. I decided not to fucking waste any time. So here I am, writing this Design Process entry. I will be spending about an hour every day for the next few weeks updating this design journal with what I've been doing pertaining to game design and development. Today, that focus will be on Project Voyage. 

Project Voyage is simply a side-project. Moreso than Project Fall or Dolphin Squadron where I've actively developed the games for a few weeks, I'm just messing around and designing the shit out of Voyage. It's going to be a pretty transparent design process and the goal is to end up with a pretty comprehensive guide/discussion of how a game is conceptualized. Granted, I'm still a student of game design and I'll probably do a lot of things wrong, but I think that just being able to see the process will be a good thing for anyone who is new to game design and just wants to see how it's done.

Project Voyage

Open skies, open water, open shore. What do? Explore!

Voyage is an artistic game where you play as a 40-something year-old man/woman who gives up life in society to explore the seven seas as a sailor. The core of the game would take place primarily on the surface of the ocean and be seen from either a side or angled frame of view. Throughout the course of the game, the player will explore the world, discovering a variety of different methods of “play”. These methods of play--things such as fishing, exploring, finding treasure and shipmates, discovering new things about the world and sea battling--will all be core to the gameplay and progress the metagame. The game will begin at a deliberately slow, relaxing pace and ultimately speed up as time goes on. Ultimately, your goal is simply to discover everything the world has to offer to you. I don't want to pressure the player and I don't want to have them feel a constant tinge of terror. I want them to relax and enjoy nature. Through it all, the player character (PC) will become more and more like a seafarer who gains control over the seven seas. Whether or not you’re a good or a bad person is both up to you, and determined by the rules that you set for the seas and for yourself.

So, the idea for Voyage came up while I was thinking of what kind of mood I wanted to evoke from my next projects. I liked the colors and oceanic atmosphere of Dolphin Squadron, but wanted to capture it on a different front; a deliberately slow-paced game was what I wanted. One where I would create my atmosphere primarily through music and animation. A stark contrast to what I'm doing with Dolphin Squadron (which is a fast-paced retro action arcade game). 

Just something artsy I put together to find some more of the "feels".

The "feels" as I like to call them, are core to any art game. They're the emotions evoked through play. You get them through a mix of music, pacing, graphics and gameplay. In a game like this, gameplay is very important, but it can't be overly complicated or frustrating. I'm not trying to break the trend or anything, but I'm trying to create a fun, relaxing game concept. Not a micromanagement survival simulator. Something that's parts Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery EP, a little bit of TAG (Treasure Adventure Game) and maybe a little bit LoZ: Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks. In discussing it with Jacques Yeates (the composer), he described a game where you're not pressured to be good. We agreed that a survival game Voyage was not.

Survival games are too micromanagement-y; and there are just too many things to worry about. We definitely don't want a game where the player is too scared to try and go somewhere because they'll die, lose all of their stuff, and suddenly be back to square one right after discovering something new and cool (like a sexy hat). At the same time, you never want a game that feels like there is no weight to your actions, so we're still determining how to give weight to character actions.

Art and music are pretty straightforward when you're doing shitty concept art and linear musical scores, but what happens when you have to give real life to them. I don't even know what the game itself is going to look like yet. I wonder if I should take a straight up 2D approach to the game (ala Another World [land] and Castle Crashers [sea]?) or do something 3D, which I'm completely unfamiliar with. We had considered a Zelda-style perspective, but then I made the concepts and they just felt "right". Now we know we need a horizon, so we're still working out the perspective kinks. I'll draw out something tonight, probably.

Musically, Jacques has made some stuff that I'll start showing in the next Design Process entries (maybe a new song every entry for a few days?). It's really good and definitely captures the atmosphere, but we're also looking at how we're going to implement it. Dynamic music? Oh boy, I can code, but I'm still a newbie with anything musical. 3D? What's that? 2D is my home. And don't even get me started on what I'll be doing with the art. Hopefully someone from ACPC Productions (a college "studio", to which I design, program and produce for) will help out. Otherwise this will take forever!

Anyway. As usual...

Expect Greatness (and daily updates).

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~

Welcome Back, Me

Well, it's certainly been awhile since I've last updated. For the last few weeks (months?) I've just been acquainting myself with the college life. I'm now attending Champlain College for game design and so far it's been a pretty fun time. ...But no one cares about my college experience. What's important is that I've been improving my skills as a game developer and designer for the time I've been gone and here I am, returning prepared to make some games. So, let's talk about those.

Project Fall :

My previous project, Project Fall, hasn't been updated too much, though I'll potentially be releasing the prototype to the wild soon. Currently, I'm working on developing an artistic style for the game before I dive head-first back into development and turning it into either an arcade-style platformer (a murderbox as I like to call it) or a full-fledged platformer. Who knows. Maybe I'll do both! The design is solid, the testers like/love it, the controls are sexy--it's a good prototype...now to just make something with it.

Concept Art for Project Fall

Dolphin Squadron :

Here is the project that I'm currently working on. Dolphin Squadron! Dolphin Squadron is an arcade-inspired scrolling shooter where you play as a dolphin employed by the Marines/SEALS to intercept and destroy deadly, coastal-city-destroying, mines...with your flimsy dolphin body. I like to call the game Exploding Sea Battles sometimes since there are a lot of explosions, many of which are friendly sea creatures simply getting in your way.

I designed the game for my Game History and Development class here at Champlain College, but it was an idea that I had previously come up with while I was showering. Figuring that a radical game about exploding sea creatures and a weaponized dolphin would garner at least a little attention, I decided to use the concept for the game. Right now, the game is a little more than a prototype and I plan to throw up some updates and videos here to show progress as the game develops.

A friend of mine actually turned his monitor to play the game...

Dolphin Squadron was developed over 4 weeks (for class), though arguably, I coded pretty much the entire current version of the game in less than a week (the last week :P) before the game was due. We plan to finish the game and add some more crazy shit to make it sexier and overall more fun to play. Current issues include difficulty, a minor lack of understanding the goal (for new players), and a shitty tutorial.

Hanriot :

Hanriot was our (ACPC Production's) first game jam game. We formed at the game jam and have decided to stay a loose group pretty much during our time at college. Hanriot was a game designed for the theme of disavantage and our lead designer (I programmed), James Shasha, decided on an Italian Pilot who crash-lands in the Alps, behind enemy lines, during WWI. The goal of the game is to get through the Alps and reach the city at the end of the game.

We didn't manage to complete the game because of mapping bottleneck issues with Game Maker 8.1, but we did create a visually pleasing game (even though it wasn't perfect) in 48 hours, with a bunch of freshman game developers. We were very pleased with ourselves.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE GAME HERE.

WELL, ACTUALLY HERE.


Project Clusterfuck :

So, I wanted to make an RPG/Adventure game and thus, Project Clusterfuck was born. Generally, I develop games under the Siifour Studios name, but this game is currently being developed under "my" side-studio ACPC Productions (you don't want to know what it stands for) and the final game will probably fall under the ACPCP and Siifour Studios production houses (Siifour's designer and musician and ACPCP's artists, testers, co-designer).

The game is literally a clusterfuck of five different RPG stories because we thought it would be cool to have the player transverse through a series of different RPG stories. Whether or not the idea will hold up is up for speculation, but based on our current designs, we're more than ready for the hurdle. I'm producing, coding, and designing the game, but with five people writing five different stories for the game, I figure that I'll be more of a mediator and balance maintainer than a full-fledged designer. :P

Project Clusterfuck is my current large-scale side-project. While I work on Clusterfuck, I'll probably develop at least 5 or 6 games of a Project Fall or Dolphin Squadron scale and hopefully they'll be just as fun as those two games are shaping up to be.

We will also have a fuck-ton of art and concept assets.

Now here are the artists:


Brook (Revocare) :

Some of Brook's OCs.

A mecha and it's rider (WIP)

Brook is our key artist. 

Megahn (Nanrie) :

Two Clusterfuck characters together. 

One of Megahn's OCs.

She can drawn with pencils too. Who does that anymore? ;D

Hunter (Totalblatherskite) :

They got infatuated by a cat in a movie. He drew a cat.

OCs from Hunter's story. 

Matt (Pseudosutra  I don't currently have any of his art, but here are his character designs) :

One of Matt's characters drawn by Brook.

An ACPCP fan favorite. Gungie (I think that's how they spell it...)

MOTH CHARACTER! :D

Ryan  (Project Duo) :

The main character of Project Duo.

I'm not a colorist. Haha

The above character's brother.

Note : All of this art (sans Hunter's) is for Project Clusterfuck. ;D

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

Working With Flash

A great environment.

After working in Game Maker 8.1x for a pretty long time to build games, I figured it was about time I started learning another environment for designing and developing games in. Game Maker 8.1 is a good program, and is very capable of doing what I wanted it to do with my 2D projects, though I felt limited only knowing one or two programs for game creation. Enter FlashDevelop + FlashPunk. (To be honest however, I may end up using Game Maker (Studio) to make a lot of my older game ideas because I know it best.)

It's been a blast messing around in a new engine/language...so finding myself reading code snippets on my phone in the middle of the night to learn the language pretty much sealed the deal for me and Flash (at least for Project Fall). Moving over from Game Maker 8.1 to FlashDevelop + FlashPunk has been a fairly smooth transition and the object orientation of FlashPunk has been very helpful in allowing me to learn AS3 quickly. Still though, I'm kind of a noob, so I have a bit of practice before I can actually make anything worthwhile with the program!

I've been using the FlashPunk official website and official forums to learn the language and build games and Zachary Lewis's tutorials have taught me pretty much everything I need to know to get my hands dirty with the program even if I'll have some trouble for awhile.

To be honest though, the only real issue I'm having right now is that I'm having trouble referencing variables from other classes and I figure that it's only my newbie-ness preventing me from doing something so basic. I figure that I've learned enough about the engine to begin porting the Fall prototype over into Flash and I can only hope that the performance issues that plague Flash as a game development platform doesn't become a serious issue for me! -.- Wish me luck!

Expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~