Project : Old School Mashup

Since my last post over a month I've been working on a new idea that I got laying in bed one morning at 4am with a case of insomnia. I haven't really posted any progress on it, but I will shortly.

The idea is based around mashups. Musicians and artists have been doing it for a while now, and I thought since it seems every game we pitch these days follows the same formula "it's meets ...." but then trying to make it seem unique, I thought what the hell, I'll just be obvious about it and mash two classics together.

So for the first project I chose Pac-Man and Asteroids (which I have dubbed "PacSteroids"). The challenge to myself was to be as true to each game as possible while still creating a fun experience. It's also a great exercise in learning ActionScript 3.0 because the sprites are either readily available or easy to recreate, and the simplicity of the gameplay allows it to be finished in roughly one month.

My ideal goal, after this one is finished, is to do a mashup each month. Since this year is the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man, it seems to be a perfect place to start.

More soon....

Project Nimoy - Calling it for now

I haven't had a chance to do any work on this project for more than a month. I started teaching a Pre-Production class at Vancouver Film School so my focus was on getting course material ready. I can talk to a class of 30 students if I'm well prepared, but I'm not good at making shit up on the fly.

Now that that's done I'm looking at taking a job at Microsoft Game Studios as well as helping out a friend on an external independent project. There's another game I want to make that I'm really stoked about, so for now I've decided to shelve this project and move on.

I'm not 100% happy with the game (maybe 70%?) but this was only meant as a learning exercise and it's carried on for much longer than I expected. Adding the music would mean a lot of extra time and learnings, and right now I'm more interested in learning to code/script and design small games than making cool music.

Project Nimoy, signing off. For now.

Project Nimoy - Still Almost Done

After spending 8 hours - first trying to fix a bug, then realizing that what I thought was the problem wasn't really the problem, then tracking down the new problem, then finally fixing it - it turned out to be a problem with calling a "1" when I should have called a "0".

2 second fix. 8 hour headache.

I learned a lot though, including the importance of planning your code ahead of time. Considering this game was built on-the-fly, that's something I will definitely keep in mind next time.

I've posted the "Almost Done" version here. It needs a slight bit of tuning for difficulty and spawn rates, but the main component is the whole point of this project in the first place - the music. I'm working with FamiTracker to write the music for the game, but that will likely be a whole day project. Once it's in, it will just be a matter of tuning the sound effects and volume so that it sounds good, and the project is officially finished.

Unless I decide to tackle a non-interactive intro sequence....which would REALLY make the game come together. So I might do that too.

During one of my mornings when I'm lying awake at 4am I had an idea for my next game. I'd aim for two weeks, but realistically I'm going to give myself a month.

After that, I want to tackle a larger project - a month to get a playable level going, then I'll see if it's something worth pursuing. My hope would be that I could submit something for this year's Independent Games Festival.

The deadline for submissions for next year's competition will be the beginning of November, which would give me 7 months. If I'm smart about the scope it's possible to be ready, but I'll have to see how the next few months go. I also need to keep in mind I currently have the luxury of not having a job (other than a one day a week teaching position at Vancouver Film School that starts next Wednesday).

Enough rambling for now.

Project Nimoy : Short Week, Extended Design

It's been a very short week for me so I only managed to get in about two days of work. I owe this to a clash between two sides of myself, the "this is a learning project so don't spend too much time on it" and the "if I putting this out there it's gotta be something I'm proud of". The latter won without much dispute.

Adding the lasers in introduced a new element by giving the play something other to do than simply dodging enemies and grabbing fuel pickups, but it still wasn't enough. And it made it like every other scroller out there. I want to do something different, because the only client to please is myself.

Ahh the joys of Indy.

I decided that rather than having the enemies just kamikaze at your ship, they actually launch those little green sacs attached to their bodies at you, which explode before they reach you and send out little projectiles.

I've given the player a Shield, which is active only when the Fuel Gauge is near Max, giving more incentive to keeping it full. Also, this Shield stops the enemy projectiles from hitting the ship, though they do slowly deplete the shield.

I said that enemies accumulate at the top of the screen. They also respawn sacs to launch at the player. This can result in a constant hail of projectiles. However, these can actually benefit the player.

If the Sacs are hit by the player's Laser, the projectiles actually fire back at the enemies, destroying them in one hit as they are more powerful than the lasers.

I think the player's Laser will be ineffective against the Aliens, meaning the player's only offense will be to use their sacs against them....(if you saw some of the Variable names I used in code you will understand why I should have called them "blobs" or "balloons" instead).

Anyway, I will post this at the end of next week, hopefully in a state I can call "complete". I know it's an extension of the original timeline but no one's signing my cheques at this point.

Project Nimoy : Second Milestone

I've posted my second version of the game here.

A quick changelist:

• sped up the background speed
• did some tuning to the player movement
• added lasers that deplete when used too much
• added new art for player, aliens and gas clouds
• added a parachute animation for when the player runs out of fuel
• moved HUD elements around
• added new sounds
• cleaned up some code (you'll have to trust me on that)

Next week I'm going to do a final polish to AI and movement. I really want to try and add a screen shake every time the player gets hit by an enemy, and a small into sequence showing the scientists getting into the rocket as it blasts off, but I'll see if I have time for that before Friday.

Bike Lights and Olympic Nights

My girlfriend and I grabbed our cameras and tripod and headed out to photograph the vector light exhibit here at the olympics.

While shooting photos I decided to grab the light off my bike and do a little light painting to show some olympic spirit. Sadly my attempt at a maple leaf didn't go quite as well.

Animation and Xbox Woes

I decided to take a stab at actually making an animation for the aliens. This was the result after about an hour and a half of work.

I didn't like the way it looked as the animation looks to cycled so I decided to separate the animations for the tentacles and the eyeball. I also added a "downward look", so rather than the animation cycling it stops at the last animation when the eye looks down. This way in game it looks like the eyeball has spotted the player and it attacks just as the animation finishes.

My Xbox also crapped out on me. Surprisingly not the Red Ring Of Death. The heat generated from about 4 hours of playing Mass Effect 2 (or maybe it's just that my game skills are so damn hot) the glue on a small magnet above the disc tray melted, dropping the magnet onto the disc and making a very loud noise. The tray now refuses to close. This is a(nother) known Xbox issue, and since it's past warrenty I'm going to have to open it up and fix my $300 next generation console system with a tube of $2 SuperGlu.