Game 11 - Cowboy Shootout

Over the Christmas holidays I've been playing with a new prototype based on the terribly difficult section of my favorite game, Rayman 1 where you get to fight 'Space Mama'. Put simply, there is a section in the fight when she shoots laser beams at different heights towards Rayman, and to dodge them you either need to jump or crawl. The aim is to get as close to 'Space Mama' as possible in order to inflict damage, but obviously doing so reduces your chance to react to the next shot. I like the simplicity of the fight. 

I wanted to simplify the movement of the characters to only y-axis with bullets traveling along the x-axis

I was also inspired by 'Nidhogg's'  vast depth within it's simplicity; elegance. Every attack has a counter, every defense has a weakness.

It's inspirational knowing that such a deep fighting game was made using the same software I use; Gamemaker:Studio.

I played with a lot of different variations of the idea and I'm considering expanding the game into a space cowboy themed, shooter/platformer similar in part to Gunman Clive. 

Not that Gunman Clive was one of the original inspirations of the idea, it certainly shares some aspects of what I've created.

What I've created

Cowboy Shootout Collection V1

A variety of different prototypes about the same idea.

2 Player Mode:

Shoot your friends and dodge their shots. The simplest version of the game.

Arcade Mode: (3 different difficulties)

Shoot the red rings and dodge the bullets. Watch out for recoil as the speed increases every turn.









Dodge Mode:

Dodge multiple shots at the same time as they bounce back from the wall behind you.

If I ever made this into a full game I'd certainly include these fun mini-games/prototypes as bonuses.

I'm currently working on a Cowboy Shootout/ Jet-pack Cowboy Collection V2 with more variations on theme, updated graphics and a night/day cycle (which will effect game-play). Watch out for sandstorms by day and Spaceships by night. 

I've also started experimenting with the x-axis and platforming too.

Game 00 - Beneath The Skin

My Ludum Dare 29 entry; my first ever (finished) game

 I am a Download Link

This game doesn't actually have it's own post so I thought I'd give it one.

The theme was 'Beneath the Surface'.

Since my bi-maxillary ostectomy operation (under-bite operation) was coming up I wanted to play with my anxieties 'under the surface' of what my face might look like after the operation as well as the physical act of seeing under the surface of my skin. The game isn't particularly well programmed as it was my first game (a lot of it is drag 'n' drop') but I learnt a HUGE amount from the process and it's what started me really making games. 

The player has the option to remove facial features, rotate, rescale and replace them with various other objects in order to 'play the surgeon'. The game was partially inspired by 'Dead Baby Dress Up' by Edmund Mcmillen and by the surgeon from 'Bioshock'.  

The soundtrack is a recording of me playing a song I wrote on the piano. It gives the game a spooky, yet sad and melancholic feel.

'Beneath the Skin' is probably my most personal game to date and is certainly one of my favorites. I'd like to work more in this direction for my next game (most recent game being 'Too Many Windows').

If you'd like to play 'Beneath the Skin' you can download it HERE

Game 10 - Too Many Windows

My entry for Ludum Dare 31
play the game HERE

 The theme was 'Entire Game on One Screen'

It wasn't a theme I was particularly happy with but it could certainly have been worse. The problem is that MOST games fit in to the theme of 'one screen' so part of the challenge was trying to find a way to limit myself further. Meaning comes from conflict so in respect to the theme I wanted to focus on the conflicts that one screen could bring to the game. The most common reason someone might want a second or third monitor would be to increase the amount of screen space in order to see everything they want to at the same time.

That's the conflict I went with, I'll limit the information the player has by restricting the amount of things the player can see at one time due to their limited screen space.

Everyone can relate to the troubles trying to find specific windows in the crowd of other windows so I played along with that theme being careful to make sure that it was absolutely impossible for the player to have perfect information.

I like the way moving one window in order to gain more information directly reduces the information you get from another part of the screen by the way the windows all overlap. This is where the fun is generated because the player has to be constantly moving things around in order to get the information they need to keep playing. 

Another huge source of the fun in this game is the scoring mechanism. I think the way I decided to make it was possibly the most important decision in the whole process. 

The player starts with 10 seconds on the clock and a score of 0. Their goal is to increase their score as high a possible.

Every time the player clicks a button, their score is increased by 100 and their time is increased by 2 seconds. This would potentially lead to a remaining time well above 10 seconds and in play-testing this was common. The problem being that when the player has a lot of time to find the buttons, the game loses a lot of its suspense and the gameplay becomes quite mundane. 

So I changed the way the scoring works whereby if the time is less than 10, the player is awarded 2 seconds per button click and if the score is above 10 the player is only awarded 1 second of time. This way, as long as the player hovers much more closely to 10 seconds remaining, which keeps the anxiety and thrill consistently high.

Also, for the really good players, if their score gets above 10000 then the 2 second bonus is only awarded if their remaining time is below 5, requiring even greater concentration.

I think it was Tom Francis who said that a good game is fun to play around with even without goals. With that in mind I juiced the game up. The windows retain their momentum after you move them so you can essentially throw them around the screen and they'll bounce around with various 'bouncy' noises and particle effects. This is satisfying because the feedback loop is very short. It also makes the game particularly entertaining when the player starts to panic, throwing windows all over the place. It also creates a conflict between being both quick and accurate with your clicks. 

I also juiced the game up with explosions which occur every 1000 points. Screen shake occurs as a satisfying explosion noise is played and the windows all move off at random speeds in random directions, bouncing everywhere. It makes the game briefly more difficult but is also really satisfying and acts a little reward for gaining another 1000 points.

I don't claim to be musically talented and the soundtrack could certainly have been improved but It was enough to give the game some level of tension and immersion. If the 4 bar loop does get annoying though, I have included the option to turn music off as well as the option to turn SFX off If the player wants to listen to their own music or something. 

Every commenter so far has stated that the game is very fast paced and fun, as a ludologist this makes me very happy. One commenter mentioned that the windows could've been things like web-browsers and addware, and honestly I wish I had realized the importance of that sooner. I think it's a brilliant idea and would've certainly improved the game. I could've randomized the windows somewhat as well with subtle variations on webpages and it wouldn't have taken too long to implement.

I'm very happy with how the game turned out (although it would've been nice to add in those window variations). I think it'll score more highly than my previous two entries on 'fun' and maybe 'theme' and 'overall'. I'll probably score lower than 'Beneath the Skin' on 'audio', 'innovation' and 'mood'. I'll probably beat 'Micro-System' on every aspect because it was honestly not very good.

Play 'Too Many Windows' HERE

Game 08 - Procedural Silhouette Generator

For ProcJam 2014 I've been developing my procedural Silhouette Generator. It's now much more useful with options to change the width and height of the generation area, the complexity of the silhouette and the shapes the silhouette is made up of. The opacity variation is now consistent between silhouettes.

You can download the updated Silhouette Generator from itch.io or right here with this widget

Game 09 - Instrument: Bit stuck

 I don't know particularly much about music theory. It's been very difficult to figure out a way to reward good play. I'd like to make this game into something but I'm not sure where to take it.

Here is an image of the current state of the game. 

Controls:

C,V,B,N,M - play sounds

(hold) left shift - higher octave

(hold) left control - lower octave

Download here:

LINK

For now, I think I'll focus my attention to the top down version of Deep Rising (but with fire). 

Perhaps I'll give this instrument another go.

Game 09 - Instrument

I keep saying that I want to make an instrument. What I mean is that I want to create an abstract game controlled through improvisational music. 

 

LINK to INSTRUMENT 

This is what I've made so far. I've spent less than an hour on it. 

You can make noises with the ASDF keys (the KL keys do the same as DF) and the shapes react. So far all they do is grow slightly larger, then shrink back down to their original size. 

I plan to add more shapes and sounds as well as a scoring mechanism which rewards good sounding music, based off timing and complimentary sounds etc.

Also, I'd like to make a really pretty game this time. Previously I've hardly focused on the graphics (although I did spend a fair amount of time on Rising Deep's aesthetic). This time I'd like particle effects, screen shake, and all that juicy stuff.

Game 08 - Random Silhouette Generator

The first project for my course requires me to develop a character as well as an environment. The first part of character development normally comes down to drawing lots lines on a photoshop canvas until it looks like a potential character, then moving on and doing 100 or so more.
I decided to play with the idea of randomly creating shapes since it's particularly difficult to express randomness as a human, so I made a random silhouette generator in game maker to do it for me.

LINK

Controls:

spacebar - generate a new silhouette

left shift - increase opacity

left control - decrease opacity

A compilation of some silhouettes I made using my software (Compiled in Photoshop)

The way the generator works is it creates a random number of shapes (within a range), the shapes then randomly turn into other shapes (for diversity), They then move their point of origin to a random x and y axis within the canvas, they spin around a random number of degrees and deform their height and width by a random variable (within a range) too.

Since the random number generator in game maker always chooses the same numbers, the software results in the same 'random' shapes every play, unless I change an argument or variable slightly between plays. Since then I've also added another variable that increases every step by 1 until it hits 11, at which point it returns to 1 again. This way, the player unknowingly has an influence on the generation of the shapes. Since it's almost impossible to time something to 1/120th of a second, the player should get different shapes every play. 

There is a 1/10 chance of getting the same first shape, but that probability reduces exponentially every shape the player makes and even then, it's not a big problem.

Game 07 - Kings Game

Today I rapid Jammed an idea I had.
 Initially I made the game because I wanted to play with making an Ai.
  Quickly, the idea became a spin on the stalemate end section of a chess game where both players are down to just their kings.
    I thought that giving the option of moving 2 spaces at a time might turn this stalemate into an interesting game; simple enough to quickly develop an Ai for.

In hindsight I was ignorant.

Nevertheless, the game was still worth making; not only because it took under an hour from idea to completion but because I'm sure it's gotten me back into that gamedev mindset I lust so much.

And it's another game to add to the list. I think it's good to have some failed projects as it shows that I've been experimenting. I do believe however that with enough work, this game could still be interesting.

It actually plays very smoothly and has absolutely no bugs that I know of, so I suppose that's an achievement for 1 hours work.

Also, I didn't make the Ai in the end. It's 2 player instead.

LINK

Controls:

White - Arrow Keys

Black - WASD

Double tap to move twice. You can move around corners like this too. Eg, right, up (both in the same move).

 

After making a game as complicated to understand as Rising Deep (I think I may be the only person in the world who actually knows what they're doing in the game), It's been nice working on something so simple. I'd like to do that for my next game too. Something you can just pick up and play.

Game 05 - Deep Rising: Version 1.11 - Bonus Levels

I've been experimenting with level design a little and I've created 3 alternative levels which all take place in one view. No camera scrolling. All characters must be 'safe'. Water does not rise.

LINK TO 1.11

They're all possible:

Level 1

This first level is very interesting and quite possibly the MOST difficult of the 3. This level veers much closer to strategy than puzzle I think. The primary reason being that if you fuck up at any point then you're dead. It's seems initially fairly clear how to go about achieving the goal but in reality it can be rather more difficult. A fun, yet somewhat frustrating level. If you'd rather not, then skip it with 'P'.

Level 2

You really have to understand how the game works in order to beat this level. The main reason I think this level is more difficult that level 3 is because I removed as many red herrings as possible.

Level 3

Having designed these puzzles, it's very difficult for me to say whether one is objectively harder to solve. The reason I put this one 3rd is because I figured that anyone who got this far is probably willing to put in the time to solve it, whereas if I put it first I think people may be put off the bonus levels. There are a few crazy moves you have to pull off in order to beat this level but the main difficulty point I think is figuring out how to go about going about solving the puzzle; which characters you need where and when.

 Level 4

Super secret BONUS LEVEL. This level is a secret. The only way to get to it is with 'P'.

The reason I made this level so difficult to get to is because you actually have to exploit a glitch in order to beat it. I wasn't sure if this was fair or not so I panicked and got rid of the link. The level is still in the source code though and you can still get to it in game.

I may actually like these level more than the actual levels. I might consider making this way of designing levels for this game into it's own game.

I'd also like to create a top down version of this game.

And I'd also like to make an instrument.

Nevertheless, time is precious at university so I'll probably be spending a lot less time making games from now on (even though I'm taking a course in 'making games').

Game 05 - Rising Deep (Sinking Ship Game): Post Mortem

I've worked really hard on this game. I even gave myself temporary repetitive strain injury due to programming so much. I think I've spent somewhere in the region of 150 hours on the game +- 20 hours or so. It's difficult to be exact.

Honestly the making of the levels probably only took about 10% of the total time. If you include testing in that you could probably ramp that up to about 20%. The tutorial alone probably took about 12.5% of the total time. It took me about 30 minutes per block of text + planning, tweaking and removing things.

A lot of time was spent recoding the movement. Twice.

But probably not as much time was spent on fixing bugs.

I haven't stopped thinking about this game for the last 2 months.

Art:

I'd quite like to see the game with alternative (not minimalist) graphics (especially for color-blind people). But I think that keeping the art so simple has helped me to focus on the gameplay more, which is, obviously more important (being that I'm a ludologist and all).

Tutorial:

Although I love the game, there are a lot of things I would change for the 'expanded?' version. First off, the tutorial would be spread over multiple short levels (similar to the one explaining how to carry people with the climber). They would introduce characters and their respective mechanics one by one before introducing the player to many of the secondary mechanics found in the game. 

Characters:

Talking of characters, I have lots of ideas for new characters too, which would be introduced later on in the game (all of which will require new ways of thinking) . I plan to have different sections of the ship with different hazards and characters and music. Basically just like different 'worlds'.

Thomas Was Alone:

I see a lot of similarities between 'Rising Deep' (by myself) and 'Thomas Was Alone' by (Mike Bithell) although it wasn't an inspiration to the game initially (atleast not consciously). That's great though because Thomas Was Alone is awesome. 

Narrative:

One thing I didn't include in the game was a narrative. I would quite like to include one in the expanded version if I ever make it.  Originally I had planned to have a kind of relationship thing going on between the swimmer and climber where if either died, the other one would 'move slower'. The engineer who's a bit jealous of the swimmer would 'move faster'  if the swimmer died. The character deaths would carry over as well and the ending you got would depend on which characters you got all the way to the end. I decided that this idea was pretty stupid though. The movement increase thing is fairly pointless and over complicated and the amount of limitations this would introduce to the level designs is huge. 

Another idea I had was to have short skip-able cut-scenes/visual novels between each level explaining the characters pasts before they ended up in this situation. I cut that too simply for the shear time it would take to make all that stuff for how little it would actually improve the game. Nevertheless, it's something I might consider for an expanded version.

Although I've finished this game, I can't stop thinking about it.  It's still a very interesting idea to me and I know it has a lot more interesting things unexplored.

If I ever get the opportunity to spend large amounts of time on a project again I'd love to spend it exploring the unexplored.

If I did, I would remake the game from scratch. One reason being that my current build has loads of unused code and assets from failed attempts at solving bugs/ recoded things. The main reason though is because this game was never intended to be a FULL game. It was planned to be just a prototype but I got a bit ahead of myself. Nevertheless, the way the game is programmed is very non-general. What I mean by this is that every time I add a new character or mechanic, the amount of programming I need to do to make it work increases exponentially. I have to program each characters interaction with every other character and back again separately as well as each characters interaction with everything else in the game. What I want to do in an expanded version would be to make it so I could just code something like 'if a character is here, do this' in a script and then call that script in all characters. Then just program specific things for specific characters.
Basically, my organization has been pretty sloppy =P
I think it's worth practicing these organizational skills and how to use scripts and stuff anyways =]

 Also:

I had the idea of translating the game to a top-down perspective. I suppose you could can it a sequel. A 'shopping-center/large building with lots of floors'  is on fire, you must get all of the characters to the safety of a stairwell and every move you make, the fire spreads, blocking off exits which were once free. Different characters would have different abilities, such as rewiring doors =P, different 'movement speeds', the ability to set up barricades, etc etc. I'm sure more ideas will show themselves to me as they did with Rising Deep.

PS. I've actually been working on some super secret BONUS rooms for Rising Deep. They are all single screened (no scrolling up or down) and the water doesn't rise. They focus on the puzzle solving of the characters alone and not how efficiently you can solve them. As a result, the puzzles are all vary condensed and VERY difficult. These bonus puzzles may actually be MORE fun than the rest of the game but it's hard to speak without bias. I'll update the blog soon with version 1.1 =]

Game 05 - Rising Deep (Sinking Ship Game): It's finally finished!

Rising Deep

LINK TO THE FINISHED GAME

I don't know what to say.

Suddenly I just knew it was done.

I'll do a write up tomorrow or maybe this evening.

So until then...

Game 05 - Sinking Ship Game: Tutorials, and Challenges

NEWEST VERSION OF THE GAME

So I've spent around 14 hours on the tutorial so far and it's pretty much done (with a couple of things missing). Somehow I managed to forget to teach the player that they can carry characters with the climber -_- I've been looking for some way to slot it in without having to completely redesign the whole tutorial.

I've fixed a couple more bugs too.

I've also included a lovely .txt containing, controls, challenges and credits.

The challenges are just a way for me to add some replay value for the hardcore players. I really wanted to push players to want to try and perfect a level rather than just complete it. This way allows me to keep the game easy enough for the average player but challenging enough for the dedicated player.

Think of them like achievements but without the obtrusive popups.

I'd like to get some more music if possible for level 3 and for the credits room but I'm not too fussed. 

I'd consider the game 9/10ths done now. Am I falling into the classic 'my game is never finished' trap?

All I need to do now is:

- Teach the player that carrying other players with the climber is a thing (a very important thing).

- polish level 3 a little bit (I'm still not entirely happy with it yet)

Stuff I'd like to do but might not due to time and effort constrains etc etc..:

- make it so the whole character has to be in the safe room for it to count?

- fix the bug causing characters to snap back under the climber if they try to step out from under her whilst she's climbing and they are not on the ground?

ENJOY =]

Game 05 - Sinking Ship Game: Now with credits!

 LINK to newest version

Many thanks to Skullbeatz for permission to use his track 'Press Pause Part 2' in the game.
Check out his Newgrounds profile here - LINK

Since the last update I've added:
- UNDO - with the 'O' key (you can currently only undo movement of characters, not cables or water) and only once too (It's tough to program okay).

- Credits - still a little unfinished. Get there via completion of level 3.

- Settings still does nothing. Maybe I'll switch it to 'credits'.

- bug fixes.
    eg. stopped flashing 'drop' macro.
    eg. doesn't charge you time for trying to step into an occupied place.

- other stuff probably

I might have to go and buy Gamemaker: Studio Professional + html5 export so I can embed this game in webpages and stuff.

Money is expensive

Game 05 - Sinking Ship Game: Still Sailing

LINK to newest version (0.8)

Menu's, levels 'n bug fixes. Also, cables now work slightly differently (and a bunch of other stuff)

Although I haven't updated the blog in a little while I've been working on the game every day. I've been really pushing to "Actually finish a game". My previous projects have been arguably finished if not haphazardly but I think the reason I've been so reluctant to stop working on this project is because it's simply not finished yet. I want something I can put in a portfolio and show proudly to people (not that my other games are any less important).

This game's shaping up to be just that. I have 2 weeks until I move away and I am planning on getting the game finished in just 1 week. If time spills a little then spending another week is of no great expense, although I would like to spend that week preparing for the move and potentially working on another project if at all possible.

Meanwhile

I smoothly like how the new cables feel. This new design fixes a couple of prior gameplay problems also. I've redesigned parts of Level 2 and it's honestly my favorite of the 3 levels (+2 tutorials) now. The 2 tutorials btw is because I still haven't decided which one I'd like to use yet (Skip the with 'P' if you like (or navigate the menu's)).

But yeah, I'm currently loving the game. I've found myself in so many interesting scenarios whilst trying out different strategies that I've really had to think through. It feels strangely satisfying to sacrifice a character to save the other two.

Controls:

change character - '1','2','3'

move left and right - left and right keys

move up a step - up AND left/right (move up 2 blocks with 3 block high characters)

climb ropes - up 'n down 'n up 'n

'USE' - 'Z'

'DROP' - 'X'

'ROPE' - 'A' for left side, 'S' for right side, (or click the relative macro)

reset the level - 'R'

make the walls checkered - 'U' (easier to work out distances)

open the menu 'ESC'

One new thing I forgot to mention is the ability to 'staircase' with the Hacker. Stepping up whilst crouched allows him to climb zigzag like wall patterns (as shown on the right side of the above image). It gives him quite a unique way of moving past obstacles which the other characters cannot do.

Once I 'finish' the game I might consider making it again with more general systems to allow for more characters, procedural generation?, level editor? 

Just a full game really =] I'm expecting it to take about a year. 

Of course this is only IF I decide to work on it full time =P