I may return to a more normal update routine in December. That said, there’s going to be a Felix drought for while.
While there won’t be any development news, there’s plenty of my rambling to go around.Today I’d like to ramble about one of the goals of my next game, attention to story.
Wow, news is getting slower and slower isn’t it? Considering the plethora of games on the verge, laying low a while may not be a bad idea. Still, I feel it is important not to go too long without anything so I guess I’ll ramble about something on my head.
One of the things I wonder is why this project took so long! I started this back in about February of 2010 and here it is, almost 2 years later and I’m still working on it. I used to be able to finish games in around 2 or 3 months. Ahh what perfectionism will do to you. I remember making this project because the original project would’ve taken too long. HA, yeah this one is just zooming by right?
Typically when I encounter errors within my program, it snowballs into me redoing a large portion of the program. Well whenever that happens, I usually get something cool out of it that I couldn’t do before.
Mr Sticks
Well this time I got stackable boxes, lots o’ boxes. I could do boxes like this in the old program but it was so wonky I could barely stack 3 up. I had no intention of really using this feature it’s really just a bonus as development progresses. The collision really just works better as a whole from the ordeal.
Also, I took issue with the way my textures were being colored, which lead to me reinventing the way I colored textures. I’ve created a method where I can create ANY texture and change it to any color without the texture looking fake. It works PERFECTLY, I’m honestly wondering if other people have thought of how to do it. Anyone that has tried to change the color of a brunettes hair to blonde or black in photoshop and have it look real, probably gets why I’m so happy about it. I’m not even sure if anyone has else done this before.
Lastly I’ve been working on my finalized Felix model, which is why I’ve been avoiding showing him in any pictures. I simply don’t think the model matches the art all that well. The model was created during the transition from the terrible Felix model in Tale of the Night so I guess it’s natural for it to miss some of the refinements I’ve made.
I’ve really been busy! All together, it was a great month.
Sorry about the lack of updates, been super busy.
Well since I still have nothing new to show yet, I decided to dig up something old. Before I made the main song for Tale of the Night, I was working on one before it that I never finished. Actually I do remember getting very very close to finishing a song right before that but something went wrong with my computer and I had to start over.I could never remember if the song was something entirely different or an improved version of this:
I have never gone back to an incomplete song and finished it. I’m not sure why. I’ve always wanted to finish Lost in Trees, though.
Maybe one day.
When creating the level design for World of Whimsy I noticed something strange. My level design for World of whimsy feels drastically different than something I would do for Lithodora of Despair. It’s been a while since I split the project so I thought I’d mark a few differences as of now.
There will obviously be a ton of other improvements from Whimsy to Lithodora but going from project to project the taste will definitely be different.
I haven’t even finished Whimsy it already seems that next project will have a different feel from the last. I can’t seem to make 2 games that play the same.
I’ve changed the website around to something a bit simpler, which seems to be somewhat of a trend as of late. I had a few issues with the previous page.
I haven’t put much towards promotion over the past few days. I’ve been reconstructing my entire methodology of production in preparation for a full-length game rather than a single stage. That’s helped emensely.
With a more rigid foundation, I can at least confirm a few things.
Some of those things are repeats of what I said I wanted to do, but this is an official confirmation of what’s in the end product.
While I may not be done with the prototype, I do at least have something to show.
What’s the cause for delay this time? Well, after tinkering around with the stage almost endlessly, I just couldn’t get it to feel right.
You may recall this image on the left that I posted 2 months ago. Finally, got the bright idea of actually working off my concept art, (which is what it’s for in the first place!). 
Long story short, I ended up with this. picture on the right. I’m pretty satisfied with it! I also found it funny how the recreation points how barren the scene actually is.
I know I don’t make my dates, but I”m going to set another one! This time I have a date that’s kinda special to me because I keep remembering for whatever reason, July 24th! How much can I do in 9 days, stay tuned and find out!
My apologies for the lack of updates. I’ve been on a bit of a development bender but I’m back on course.
The game isn’t seaming together as well as I thought it would. Turns out building all the pieces and then trying to glue them together near the end isn’t the best approach, so I’ve been scaling the project back and introducing one thing at a time. It really highlights how much you’re missing when you focus on the basics, but it’s a bit of a trade off knowing that unplanned additions can offset the foundation of the game (which still managed to happen several times). Even so, I like the basic approach, as everything tends to feel more whole.
Because the prototype version of the game won’t feature any combat, I’ve been forced to become more creative with my level design. That has been very time consuming but interesting because I’ve never had to be creative with level design before. Sprinkling enemies over miscellaneous landscapes was very easy.
Don’t trust me on this but I think I’ll have something to show around July 15th. Maybe later in case I want to add some music. : )
This prototype will be purely a 3D platformer.
It’s no secret that my 3D games have been well.. a blocky mess, but all that is set to change.
While my previous tools had the capacity to have a more refined setting, it was just so time consuming that I just opted to go with the ugly blocky style that you’ve been seeing the past few years. It’s funny how games I think look pretty good are considered ugly when I read reviews (there have been times where I’d agree upon playing them though). Honestly it doesn’t give me much hope for myself, as I’m not exactly an artist, and one person can only do so much (to make matters worse, that one person is a bit of a minimalist).
That doesn’t mean I’m not trying of course! Ultimately my graphics will depend on how I model my stages but I’ve been giving my tool extra special attention so that I’m able to make detailed environments in a timely fashion. I’m very proud of my little level editing tool. I’ve come a long way since using notepad to make stages.
One thing you’ll see a lot more of in this game, is curves. The screen on the right shows a few hills I made very quickly. Sadly, you could play through any of my games and never find anything as smooth as this picture. That said, I consider this a nice start. I believe that making many detailed environments won’t be a problem this time around.
With the amount of effort going into this I’m beginning to wonder if I should bump this up to an Arcade release. The project has already gotten bigger than I originally planned. Either way I’m very pleased how this is turning out!
Hopefully the music can follow suite.
It’s amazing how ideas evolve over time. One of the things I could never wrap my head around was the chapter select. As strange as it sounds, I’ve always looked at my game in an RPG style fashion and one thing I never notice with RPGs is chapter selects. Of course there are technical issues that would make chapter selects very complex, but is that really the only thing stopping companies now? I believe, in terms of RPGs or more story based games, people have simply become use to the idea that the integrity of the story is upheld only by one long continuous stream of actions that can’t be changed.
I feel that approach to be too limited. The user should be able to pick out portions of the game they wish to replay without having to experience the whole thing over. This can be done with books and movies, why not games? (They’re all essentially in the same category now)
So with World of Whimsy I will be introducing a Chapter Select system, that will pave the way for ideas I plan for future titles. The game will likely be so short I probably wont really need one, but because it’s so short, I can give it a really thorough testing.
This may seem like reinventing the wheel, but trust me when I say there are a lot of hidden benefits. The only time I don’t see this working, is with games that have choices (Mass Effect).
This idea was actually inspired by the Phoenix Wright series.