While I’m back to my productive streak, it’s pretty obvious I won’t be making that demo May.
Here’s the part where I say June is most definitely the month, but I’m not going to say it. I don’t see the prototype going pass June but still I won’t say it. It’s almost like I jinx myself. The good news is, once the game is in prototype form a release shouldn’t be very far behind. It took roughly a month to put Tandem Tales together.
Is the demo done yet? Nope, I’m still waiting for that spring in productivity. I have a feeling it will hit very very soon. ; D
I’m always looking for new ways to stay productive and during that search I ran across this website.
I’m a sucker for personality quizzes, so I found the Programmer Personality test on the page to be interesting. According the the page I’m a…
Doer
High Level
Solo
Conservative Programmer
Which in summary means I like to get things done, using simple and object-based code, by myself. How does that help me stay productive? Well… it doesn’t but I thought it was a pretty fun test. : )
Besides the test, the website seems to be chocked full of indie tips, so anyone in the same boat as I, may want to have a look.
Its been a slow week due to being burned out earlier in the month, but things still look good for May. I have the feeling the game will suddenly spring up over the course of a several days.
So after the beta/prototype version is done, where do things go from there? Obviously comes the release version of World of Whimsy, but what about after that? Well if things go as planned, Kitasia will proceed as follows.
Everything is looking good for a peer review this month. I’m a bit stressed due to the amount of work that will need to be done tool side at some point. It seems like I’m always thinking of ways of doing things faster, which causes me to do thing slower in the short term, but I think it’s more important that I focus on the short term right now. In terms of the core game, I’ve learned getting things done can be more important than getting things done efficiently. Still, it’s been an awful week.
Well, since the World of Whimsy is prepping for a tad bit of lime light, I think now is as good a time as ever to start talking about the most recent release, Tale of the Night. After having spent some time with the new project , I’d like to go back and express my opinion on the previous one. Here are a few things that went right and wrong with Tale of the Night.
Another quick doodle!
Beating up on animals is something that’s been occurring every game. Seeing as the story is completely based on fiction this time around, I decided to actually capitalize on that.
A group of enemies you will see popping up throughout the game are the card knights. Given the whole, Alice in Wonderland theme the game has, card people carrying spears just felt right. A lot of the story is actually inspired by Alice in Wonderland but in the end result it probably won’t show very well given the wily nature of the story.
The cards will not be appearing anytime soon because the combat system is going to take some time to get running but they’re likely to be the first thing you see when it is.
I don’t think I”m going to be able to send the first build in this month. Not making dates is nothing new but it’s not for the lack of trying. I’ve been trying to get the most out of my lighting system right now because this is likely the last time I’ll be fiddling with it. I want to do what I can to make this game stand out because quite honestly indie games do not stand out at all.
After lighting is done I think things will begin to progress very quickly.
You know those items you pick up to use in a game in order to solve puzzles? Most games simply call them items, but isn’t that a bit too ambiguous? Health Items, Quest Items, Key Items, and then there’s just plain items.
I think I’d like to coin the term utility item, which isn’t much more than something useful in terms of problem-solving. When I hear the term utility I often think of a plumber, or something but the definition is so spot on I think I’ll get pass it. It’s more broad than the term Equipment Item and more specific than simply just Item. For example I wouldn’t want to call a paper towel an equipment item. Plain objects which are utilized are known as utilities and it works so well because my entire puzzle system is based on utilizing objects around you.
Am I nitpicking? Yes, I am most definitely nitpicking, but it’s maddening when I hear such specific objects used with such as general term! So for future reference, I will be referring to my general items as utility items or utilities.
Okay to make up for my rant I would like to introduce one confirmed utility, the giant leaf. I always think back to The Wind Waker when I think about its functions but I’ll try to think of some uses that weren’t used in Zelda. That said, you can expect Felix to use it as a parachute or to reach higher areas using wind currents.
I noticed that may texture shading system made things look a bit unreal when I was trying to get my stage theme correct which lead to another detour. Sometimes I feel as though I’m stalling on purpose. This little detour, I decided to try bump-mapping. It has such a scary reputation, I kinda avoided it to as to uphold the 60fps standard. I may need to make sacrifices later on but so far it’s not really a problem.
The shot to the right is a quick scene I made to test how much juice it would use. I tested it out using texture on everything in the scene (including Felix). The shading is going to need some work but thus far I like it.
The forum is dead, or dead”er” I guess you could say. Why did I kill the forum (you didn’t ask)? In addition to being just depressing to look at, I realized something that made me decide to get rid of the forum.
“The Tandem Tales” some multi-player online game starring Felix consisting of multiple tales and downloadable tales and custom made tales using the character studio and level studio, yeah, that never got finished. Poised to be somewhat of a community juggernaut, I never even got to test the early battle mode online with anyone (any strangers at least). “Tandem Tales” was the first test build of the project. I didn’t think it was good enough so I moved on to “The Tandem Tales” which used XNA and focused on online play and battle mode. Even after paying to advertise a free game I didn’t get much play out of it. I tried adding a quick adventure mode to maybe make things more appealing and got the same result. After getting tired of PC ad work, I did a quick XBLIG release of “The Tandem Tales” and renamed it Tale of the Night (I should’ve renamed the first one honestly). After seeing that people actually play things that go to XBLIG my focus completely shifted away from the PC, and I’m in a much much much much much happier place right now.
With no focus on online play or user created content, I don’t see the point of a forum. Feedback can be placed on the game page and anything else can be posted at gamefaqs.com or somewhere. Maybe I’ll get my own forum one day if things get big enough for me not to need to run it. That spam was so annoying. If you’re reading this nathanYoung22, understand that you and your stupid bottle cooling company or whatever are a menace to society!
In summary the forum is dead! Next up could be that Facebook page….
I suppose social networking isn’t so useful if you never update.
Just when I hit a stride I always seem to hit a bump somewhere. I spent this entire week trying to make the game move fluid and I’m still just not satisfied. I’m beginning to think sleek movement has a lot more to do with animations than the physics. I guess I’ll take a second look at things when my animation system gets an upgrade. One of my main goals is getting the player to actually feel how nimble Felix is. I have a lot of big goals now that I think about it, if I had to rank them, I’d put them in this order….
3. Story
I’ve never given story a proper treatment despite that I’m the type of designer who bases gameplay on the story. Originally I did this because every game thus far is actually a sequel to the main game and I didn’t want to reveal too much on what happens there; but now I don’t see the point so much.
2. Fluid Platforming and Environment Interaction
This may sound like I just want good animation and physics, but it’s more about how the player seamlessly flows through the stage, like a ninja made of feathers.
1. True Puzzles and Object Interaction
I haven’t been acting like it but I really want some decent puzzles this time. Puzzles have always played second fiddle, often showing up last or not at all during development, but trust me when I say you will use your brain this time. Still, while puzzles may rank at the top it’s really only by a hair.
An honorable mention goes out to Music.