Saturday

It's been a few days.  I'm not making excuses, but here's a pretty damn good excuse.

I got wrapped up in reading all of this and watching a lot of this.  It's been great.  I'm exhausted.

Musings from LD24 part IV.

I woke up Saturday morning, and for some reason, felt compelled to create animations for my game characters.  My characters were squares.  Not square as in describing their general shape.  Squares as in literal squares.  I settled on simple, geometric shapes for all my characters before the theme for Ludum Dare was even revealed.  This decision was a pragmatic one as I didn't want to spend time creating art assets when I could be spending that same time creating interesting and enjoyable gameplay.  For some reason, contrary to this reasoning, that morning, I wanted to plop some blinking eyes on all the squares.

I focused on two animations: blinking and breathing.  I guess I thought these animations would make my characters more cute and therefore more appealing.  Probably true, but on that Saturday morning, I didn't have a game made yet.  I barely even had an idea for a game.  I wasn't properly managing priorities, and in the end, I wasn't impressed enough by any of my animations to use them.  I got caught up in visual aesthetics.  Looking back, this time seems wasted.  It was a lesson I thought I knew, but I'm glad to have learned it firsthand.

Sometime in the afternoon, over the course of many lazy hours, I finally decided how my game would play.   Building from the generational idea I had previously, here's where I ended up:

• The player character will age and die on a timer.  I was thinking of a 60 second lifespan.  After the first 30 seconds, the player grows too old to reproduce.
• Every time the player character mates with an NPC, a new character is born that the player is given control over, and the life timer resets.
• The player character improves with each generation that passes.
• The player character's abilities that improve are dependent on which NPC characters are mated with.  NPCs live in clusters throughout the game world.  Each cluster possesses a unique ability.
• Generally, the longer that player character survives, the faster that player character will be able to run, the higher that player character will be able to jump, and the longer that player character will be able to swim.
• In addition, I wanted to include special abilities for the player character to attain such as flying, breathing underwater, and climbing vertical faces.
• The entirety of the game world cannot be explored by the player unless that player evolves his/her player character through many generations improving his/her player character's abilities with each one.
• The goal of the game is to survive for as long as possible.
• The game will keep track of and display the number of generations that has elapsed.

Two new prototypes:

Here, the player character's jumping ability increases every time he/she jumps on an NPC.  Try to get the red "fruit!"

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Stencyl/LD24%20Jump%20Higher%20Prototype.swf

Here, I figured out how to implement a simple head-up display.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Stencyl/LD24%20HUD%20Prototype.swf

Move left and right with the arrow keys.  Jump with X.

It didn't take long for me to realize how ambitious of an idea this really was.  Especially considering that at this point, I only had 24 hours before the competition ended.  It didn't matter, I was committed.

Cheers,

Danny

LD24 Prototype

Musings from LD24 part III.

Friday, 11:06 PM.

I was still doubting my ability to create a compelling game experience from my color idea.  I knew dwelling on this doubt and uncertainty would only waste time, so, instead, I decided to prototype what I believed would be the primary mechanic  - two squares mating with each other.

First, I listed out everything I thought I'd need to implement in order to get this mechanic into a playable state:

• I need to be able to detect when the player square is interacting (colliding) with an NPC square.
• I need to be able to detect player keyboard input for movement and the "sex" command.
• I need to create a new character on screen after the "sex" command has been input.
• After this new character is created, I need to transfer player control from the currently controlled square to the new square.
• I need to perform some process so that characters who have already mated cannot mate again.

Next, I opened up Stencyl and started learning.

A few hours of tinkering later, this popped out:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Stencyl/LD24%20First%20Prototype.swf

Move left and right with the arrow keys.  Jump with X.  Have sex with F.  You must be on top of an NPC square to have sex.

Cheers,

Danny

Evolution

Here's my submission for Ludum Dare 24.

The theme was Evolution.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Stencyl/LD24%20Submission.swf

Move left and right with the arrow keys.  Jump with X.  Have sex with F.

I learned a lot.  I'll be ruminating for the next few days.

Note: I didn't actually submit my game into the Ludum Dare competition.  I just used the competition's theme and deadline as a motivator.

Cheers,

Danny

Stencyl

A little over a week ago I made a list of game making tools I wanted to learn.  I've made my decision!  I'm starting with a tool called Stencyl.  Check it out!

Stencyl is advertised as a "game studio in a box."  Coding is not required to make games with Stencyl.  Instead, Stencyl has a library of code blocks that users drag, drop, and snap together to create the desired behavior.

Here's how Stencyl won my heart:

• Using Stencyl, it's possible to distribute games on lots of platforms (iOS, Flash, Windows, Mac, and the Chrome Web Store) without any additional work on my part.
• StencylForge.  StencylForge is a service offered by the curators of Stencyl that allow users to share content with other Stencyl enthusiasts.  This content includes art assets, music, sound effects, and actor behaviors.  For me, right now, I want to focus on mastering the tool, not on creating content.
• This is still a question mark, but the Stencyl community looks like a promising one.
• Finally, Stencylpedia.  Stencylpedia is a collection of tutorials, advice, and best practices that boot users new to Stencyl onto the fast track to game development.

I haven't used the tool much yet, but I did spend about an hour going through the Crash Courses on Stencylpedia.  These crash courses held my hand and led me through the process of making two simple games.  Here are my results:

My First Stencyl Game!

(Arrow keys to move.  Space bar to jump.)

My Second Stencyl Game!

(Arrow keys to move.  Z to shoot.)

Not bad for an hour's work.

Cheers,

Danny