iat 410 || advanced game design

Last week I managed to get the player next turn system to work for out game. Darrell and I also combined each of our Game Maker files (Menus and Core Game respectively) and found that his menus didn't work.

Well, they did work, but the code telling where to draw them did not specify which view to use. After tweaking the code, everything was back to normal and both of our codes were running smoothly together.

The art team had to take a brief hiatus on their work to clear some essays out of the way. Sound was a little misdirected, but hopefully we'll get that sorted out.

Project Aquila

Mechanics:

• Digital prototype – up, down, left, right, to move
• Mouse clicks to initiate attack

Dyanamics:

• More variety of weapons to use
• Different class strengths and weaknesses

Aesthetics:

• Players grew attached as they began to understand how the game works and care about their infantry and airforce

Project Chopstick Chung

Mechanics:

• Digital prototype
• Point and click to try and squish fly
• Mini games like Warioware

Dyanmics:

• Hitbox for chopsticks too small, hard to squish fly
• Player immersion as character a bit lacking

Aesthetics:

• Improvements of visual and audio cues coming, showing combos, and bonus points attained
• Art style very fun and easy going

Project Deep Field

Mechanics:

• Physical game – tester is player
• 360 degree defense of self from moving balls – block balls with hands
• complete a level and obtain a ball to throw at any target

Dynamics:

• Changing height of balls for player to increase challenge
• Allowing players to use one or two hands depending on difficulty of level

Aesthetics:

• Challenging, good ramping of levels
• Good FLOW – simple to complex
• Constant pressure and danger of being hit, while trying to attain high score

Project Dynasty

Mechanics:

• Board game – grid map like Zelda
• Fog of war to hide traps, enemies, dead ends, and puzzles
• Collect enough URLs and complete puzzles

Dynamics:

• Improved instructions for players after completing objectives

Aesthetics:

• Compelling story – based on history (5 dynasties of ancient china)
• Collect missing items to solve puzzle – like Qin the game

Long days ahead...

This past week has been extremely challenging. I've been trying to program the core mechanics of the game for the digital prototype session, while Darrell has been working on programming the menu architecture. Reverting back to Game Maker has allowed us to slowly, but surely build up our game.

The Game Maker Community forums have been extremely helpful and its users are very passionate about using the platform to create games.

This Sunday has been very tiring. Half a day of straight programming is not my idea of relaxing, but it had to be done. I started to lose focus on what I was doing and began to start and stop many pieces of the code, which obviously gets nothing done. I had to stop and now I'm typing up my posts for this week.

Hopefully we can have something for Tuesday...

What works:
- randomizing player spawn points
- walking on surfaces, up hills
- gravity
- displaying HP, damage taken
- player collision detection with weapons
- initializing a countdown timer
- destructible terrain!!!

What almost works:
- fog of war, works but doesn't seem to want to cover the entire room

Work in progress:
- player turn system, next turn at the end of timer, next turn at the end of throwing weapon, skip player if dead, game over if team is dead, etc

What stopped working:
- player can't jump anymore...weird bug

Lots more to do... woo!

Posting through SFU's ftp system was creating a lot of trouble for timely posts...so I've set this blog to be published on Blogger's own servers. It's a lot better now!

Project Stick Ninja

Mechanics:

• Dice rolls
• Blunt weapon > Ethereal enemy // Sharp weapon > Physical enemy
• Player makes choice as to which weapon to use
• Obtain enemy traits after defeating them (Kirby)

Dynamics:

• AI (human) dice rolls for real time feedback
• 4 levels for player to go through and defeat lvl mini boss, then fight big boss

Aesthetics:

• Stick, quick sketch style quite appealing
• Obtaining enemy traits increases player’s choices (Mega-man)

Project Zodiac War

Mechanics:

• Turned based RPS
• Player vs Com (tester)
• Pick action before round, then show action
• Build up points and you store energy for special attack

Dynamics:

• Game speed needs to be balanced
• For a fighting game compared to Street Fighter/King of Fighters, prototyping as a turn based RPS is very slow
• Attack variations for RPS limited to 3, but real fighting games, have multiple options, and combos to build up

Aesthetics:

• Zodiac theme is interesting
• Would like to see how each zodiac animal is balanced out
• Who is strong against who, weak against who

Project Crack Quest

Mechanics:

• Digital prototype – up, down, left, right, space
• Throw syringes, crack grenades, dodge enemy attacks, navigate through level

Dynamics:

• Spawn enemies from all directions to increase game intensity
• Ability to shoot down enemy bullets is overpowered, needs to be “nerfed”

Aesthetics:

• Animations nice and simple
• Player is given too much power and so game isn’t as challenging as it should be
• Making a game out of a topic that isn’t considered “safe” and “risk free”, increases the players interest in playing as the danger and illicitness of the idea is alluring

Troubling Times...

The past week has been very stressful. Being a project manager for another course, this course, and the lead programmer for out game...I had to take a step back and look at what I was able to accomplish this week. Since making the critical decision of switching to XNA in week 8, I have had to withdraw that decision and switch back to Game Maker.

On Friday and Saturday, I discussed with Darrell about what we were able to understand and piece together, I realized that with two weeks of XNA, we weren't even able to get 1/4 of what I managed to build with Game Maker in a day. I spent most of my Saturday trying for a last push into XNA, but realized that I could only visualize what was needed to be done in terms of classes and funtions and arrays, and that the task was just too insurmountable for two mediocre programmers.

Tutorials were plenty and I'm sure the TAs and instructors could provided some help, but it was just too complicated to piece all those sources of information together so that it could work for us.

Having been a project manager and team leader on past and present projects, switching to XNA has been the worst decision I have ever made. I failed to look past what we were able to accomplish in Pong and didn't realize the depth of our knowledge and understanding. I suppose the illusion of the enthusiasm and efforts made for XNA were too great to pass up.

With XNA behind us, I spent my Sunday cracking through the Alpha I made in Game Maker. In the few hours of working on it, I managed to produce more results than when I was working in XNA...

The Plague

I was hit with the evil cold/flu/plague virus on Monday. I rarely get sick, but when I do...I get sick BAD. Sadly, this basically decommissioned me for the good part of the week. Didn't get much done on my part, which is not good. Fortunately, Darrell (my programming partner) has managed to figure out collision with hit points and importing audio into his modified version of Pong.

I am going to have to get going on the Alpha/Beta this week for the review on Nov 13. This week will be a week of stress :D