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~

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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