tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73968429128809061062024-03-13T09:09:38.702-04:00LZorro StudiosMy experiences and philosophies about video games and the game industryTimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-54350704604233257122016-02-07T18:56:00.000-05:002016-02-07T18:56:03.064-05:00Global Game Jam VIII, January 29-31, 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Another year, another Global Game Jam! One of my favorite events of the year. This time was different in that I came to this one with a team already prepared. We had met a few weeks prior in preparation of the Cartoon Network Game Jam (much more about that later!), and we were looking at the GGJ as a practice run for how well our group would work together.<br />
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This year's theme was "ritual", which is an awesome word to build around since it can be interpreted many ways. We opted to go with a more traditional interpretation, where the player would perform a series of small rituals/tasks. From the set of diversifiers, we focused on not using any dialog or cutscenes within the game, and creating a non-violent game. <br />
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What resulted is Life of Lumby, where you guide the titular character through various stages of his life, performing a set of rituals to aid his community and gain favor with deities. </div>
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<a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2016/games/life-lumby" target="_blank">Download and play the game here!</a></div>
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On the positive side, the game looks and sounds great. It was an interesting challenge to have created a kind of game that's more of an "interactive experience"/story-based game than anything technically complicated. As such, we didn't really have much experience telling a story through game, so our design was a bit disjointed and required us to take some time during lunch on Saturday to flesh out some of the specifics. Additionally, while we managed to get all of our minimum design requirements in and (mostly) working by the end of the jam, our cohesive story and overall vision didn't quite make it through. For example, one idea we focused on was to have Lumby ascend and reincarnate once he's completed his rituals (and his life)...that's only hinted at with the white-out at the end of the game. We realized we could have done more to incorporate additional ideas - such as more NPCs - even if they would have been programmer art. </div>
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Overall, I'm pleased with how everything turned out. I'm particularly glad how well our team has gelled over the last few weeks - be on the lookout for more great stuff from us soon!</div>
Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-43759355567535877012015-09-14T20:32:00.000-04:002015-09-14T20:32:22.467-04:00Ghostly Garden and PIGSquad Summer Slow Jams 2015This summer, <a href="http://www.pigsquad.com/" target="_blank">PIGSquad</a> hosted a series of game jams. Dubbed Summer Slow Jams, since they lasted a week as opposed to the 48 hour format I'm used to. <br />
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The goal of the first jam was to encourage people to make a game that they could easily present in the many events PIGSquad hosts, akin to a convention or festival. The idea was to, in addition to the game, create flyers, cards, Twitter accounts, and other similar promotional materials. The creative themes were taken from the themes of <a href="http://www.omsi.edu/" target="_blank">OMSI</a> After Dark. I met some guys during the kickoff event, and our team started brainstorming with the theme of "Explosions". As we continued, the focus moved away from that as we incorporated the themes of "Seed" and "Spirits". We ended up with our competitive gardening game, Ghostly Garden, which you can <a href="http://www.faunlily.com/ghostlygarden" target="_blank">download for yourself here</a>. It was very encouraging to go from "barely tested controller input" to "we ran a full single elimination tournament among the attendees" in a matter of hours at the jam showcase!<br />
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The second jam was to utilize the tools used by <a href="http://www.gameeducationpdx.com/" target="_blank">Pixel Arts Game Education</a> (a local non-profit that runs game creation camps and classes for underprivileged youth). The tools are free and browser based, and the goal was to show the students what was possible with these tools from experienced game developers. The creative prompts were educational concepts and various social issues, distributed from a random generator using said tools. My prompts were "Projectiles and Trajectories" and "Air Pollution". I worked by myself on the project to come up with <a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/70227632/" target="_blank">Calamitous Cleanup!</a><br />
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The third jam was intended to create 4-player local multiplayer games to put onto <a href="http://www.flintandtinderstudios.com/" target="_blank">Flint and Tinder Studios'</a> Tinderbox, an arcade cabinet prototype to showcase locally made games. In addition was their public rollout of <a href="http://www.progfrog.co/" target="_blank">ProgFrog</a>, a blog where anyone creating any kind of project can post updates of progress - plus it was an easy way to pull the latest jam builds onto the Tinderbox. Our team decided to use the time to polish <a href="https://www.progfrog.co/projects/42-ghostly-garden/log" target="_blank">Ghostly Garden</a> up from the first jam (and we had build it as a multiplayer game to begin with knowing this jam was on the horizon). So there is a 2 vs. 2 player mode available in the game.<br />
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I presented Ghostly Garden at the <a href="https://www.omsi.edu/maker-faire-pdx" target="_blank">Portland Mini Maker Faire</a> this past weekend at OMSI, and we're planning on adding more features and more channels of distribution. <br />
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In the meantime, I've also been working with someone else on a mobile puzzle game prototype. I'm not quite sure what I'm at liberty to share, but I think we're close to opening it up for alpha testing - so keep an eye out for more information about that!<br />
<br />Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-53249044542129816652015-02-16T18:52:00.001-05:002015-02-16T18:53:55.818-05:00Global Game Jam VII, January 23-25, 2015There have been some changes in my life recently, the chief one being my move to the greater Portland, Oregon area. But that doesn't mean I was going to miss out on another <a href="http://www.globalgamejam.org/" target="_blank">Global Game Jam</a>. It was through GGJ that I was able to find the local Portland indie game community <a href="http://www.pigsquad.com/" target="_blank">PIGSquad</a>.<br />
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There were a couple major changes to how PIGSquad runs their game jams over how I'm used to them being run in Boston. First of all, our jamming space at the Art Institute of Portland was open for the full 48 hours, whereas in Boston we were encouraged (and required) to leave at night for sleep. Thankfully, I live fairly close to Portland, so I had no problem commuting back and forth. The last couple jams in Boston required me to venture back and forth for an hour's drive each night.<br />
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When we used to form groups, we would get the jam theme, come up with ideas, and then pitch them to the entire group. We would then form groups based on who wanted to work on certain projects, making sure each group had an appropriate spread of disciplines. This was great for starting off with a relatively clear vision and being passionate about the project you're working on. The tradeoff here was group members, with varying degrees of experience, sometimes struggled in finding a common technology to work with. In Portland, we started off forming groups first, and the theme was presented to us afterwards for each group to then come up with their own idea. I can see how this can be an advantage to some people, who already know who they like to work with (if they like to work with anyone at all), and you can form groups around the technology being used.<br />
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It was this group forming first that I think my group hit a bit of a snag. The <a href="http://globalgamejam.org/news/introducing-ggj-2015-diversifiers" target="_blank">diversifiers</a> (optional constraints to use on your project) for this year's jam were released early, and one that interested me the most was "Chimera", to make a combination digital and non-digital game. It was relatively easy to start rounding up the people who expressed an interest in creating a board/card game, but since the computer component, and the design of how the pieces were to interact, was so up in the air, we recruited quite a few more people for the computer part than was ultimately necessary. It's not that everyone didn't contribute in some way; I just personally felt we could have been more efficient as a group.<br />
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<b>Our game - Space Goats: Galaxy to Galaxy</b><br />
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The board game half of the group ended up designing most of the game, and the name must have sprung up as a kind of joke and ended up driving a lot of the aesthetics. The game is presented as a card game for 2-6 players. You draw Resource cards to boost your defenses, and Action cards which help you earn more Resources or redistribute what you already have. Starting with the last player, at the end of your turn you then use the computer component (we designed it as an app, so a mobile device could be easily passed around between the players), where you set off a bomb with a timer to explode after a certain number of turns. The bombs can either destroy a certain type of resource, or destroy half of your total resources. There are also options to delay the timers of the bombs already in the queue. If you don't have a particular resource available to destroy, you can substitute 2 of any other resource to make up the difference. If you don't have any resources you are out of the game; the last player remaining is the winner. This results in a very fast paced game, as the longer it goes the more likely it is multiple bombs will explode on a given turn.<br />
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<b>What we did right: </b>I'm glad we ended up with a overall simple game. It's quick and has a goofy charm, with Space Goats and Rocket Chickens and such. While there can be a bit of strategy involved, particularly with small number of starting players, the real joy is bombs exploding and reacting to the consequences. While modern game design eschews eliminating players from participating, the game is fast enough that the next game is never too far away.<br />
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Looking back, it's probably for the best that our digital component is as simple as it is. When I first heard about the diversifier, I was trying to brainstorm ideas on how to incorporate a board game into a complex digital game (like an FPS). We talked to some people present during our recruiting phase about the possibility of augmented reality or code readers. Even early in our design phase, we discussed ideas about two simultaneous games, and how the digital players could interact with the board game players and vice versa.<br />
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<b>What could go better: </b>As I mentioned before, we didn't start with any kind of pitch or vision, so we overbuilt the team. I'm happy to include first-time jammers, and certainly you're going to get varying levels of experience. I guess I was just a little disappointed that the digital component could easily have been completed by one competent person in an hour or two. I think I was expecting more from the digital side, but that might have jeopardized the project as a whole. It's a learning experience, and good to remember when team-building for next time, if anyone wants to do a hybrid game.<br />
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I also would have liked a bit more wider coverage of the distribution of the digital component. we designed it and worked around a 1080p resolution Android device. I would have liked to have seen it on an iPhone (I didn't realize you needed an actual Mac to get that far; something I probably should have learned long ago), and the screen gets funky when trying to run the stand-alone version.<br />
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<a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2015/games/space-goats-galaxy-galaxy" target="_blank">Check it out for yourself here!</a>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-2826633337322609742014-05-15T16:43:00.000-04:002014-05-15T16:43:18.882-04:00MIT Cardboard Jam, May 3-4, 2014That's right, another game jam for me! It appears as though the <a href="http://gamelab.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Game Lab</a> is looking to run game jams more often during the year, and of course I had to take the opportunity while I could.<br />
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A couple interesting quirks about this jam compared to others I have attended. First of all, there were quite a few people who showed up who have either never done a game jam before, or weren't really part of the game industry. I suppose I've been so used to working with similar people, but it's refreshing to see people who just like games come together and try something new. Secondly, the jam organizers spent a lot of the first morning running through rapid-prototyping workshop exercises, something I hadn't experienced before. <br />
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For example, one exercise involved using <a href="http://www.tiltfactor.org/growagame/" target="_blank">Grow-a-Game cards</a>, where everyone spent 15 minutes in groups coming up with a game design based on a few concepts, and slapping together a prototype for another group to play. I particularly enjoyed this exercise because it's just fun to discuss game ideas with some constraints to focus your mind. The trick was, you want to flesh out an idea enough to be able to explain it to someone else and have it be moderately fun and/or interesting, but the fast turnaround time didn't allow for much of that.<br />
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<b>Our Game - Green Team Revolt</b><br />
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The theme for this jam was "cooperation". Simple enough, I particularly enjoy the cooperative style genre of board games. A couple of minor constraints where to avoid the over-tread genres of sci-fi, infrastructure, Euro-game conventions that a ton of board games have already done, and to avoid "quarterbacking", i.e. avoid having one person dictate the actions of the other players.<br />
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With that in mind, I worked on a project we called "Green Team Revolt". The idea is that the players are the Planeteers, working together to stop a rogue Captain Planet from his rampage while simultaneously protecting the environment. It's a goofy enough concept to be fun (even if it's a little copyright-infringy, but it's a game jam, who cares), and there's plenty of room in the game design for us to try out lots of ideas. The central game mechanic is that everyone plays a card in order into a queue, which when it's resolved, ends in a certain amount of damage against Captain Planet and, depending on the type, causing some collateral damage on the current location of the players based on a separate deck. The idea is to defeat Captain Planet before either the environment or any of the players are taken out.<br />
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As we left it, there were plenty of ideas we could have tried to see if it would make the game any more fun and/or difficult. The players tend to win after a few rounds, but at a significant cost to the environment. We hit that point of the game where we're needed to come up with a whole bunch of cards to fill out the decks, which is time-consuming and would require a lot of playtesting to weed out all the bad ideas. Still, I think it makes for a fun game.<br />
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Check out our postmortem presentation here (our group is first, starting at 3:54):<br />
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<br />Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-18757507500161496142014-02-14T19:03:00.000-05:002014-02-14T19:04:40.151-05:00Global Game Jam VI, January 24-26, 2014Once again it was back to MIT for my sixth year participating in the <a href="http://www.globalgamejam.org/" target="_blank">Global Game Jam</a>.<br />
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This year, the theme went back to phrases with "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." I can see how such a vague phrase opens up creativity, as opposed to the last couple of years (an ouroboros and a heartbeat).<br />
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The logistics worked slightly differently as well. We were back in the same old familiar classrooms in building 26, though the big change this year was that not all meals were provided. This makes some sense, as there's usually a lot of leftover food anyway and I'm sure they're trying to save money. Still, walking back to Kenmore Square to find lunch in the bitter cold was something I would have preferred not to do.<br />
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I ended up on a team where the pitched idea had to do with two players navigating a maze, where one player could see objects the other player couldn't, and vice versa. We spent quite some time talking over the design, figuring out what there was to do in the maze. For example, one idea early on was to have a player-monster chase the other player, but the cameras were attached to the opposite character. (Luckily that idea was dropped...thinking about it, that probably would have been a horrible experience to play.)<br />
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The idea coalesced into what we named A-Maze-ing Co-Op (brilliant, I know). The artistic theme we were aiming for was this kind of temple exploration, one player was a human and one was a robot - we ended up with only the floating robot due to time constraints - the human could be hurt by traps he couldn't see but was the only one that could disarm them due to his opposeable thumbs. The robot's job is to seek out and mark the traps so the human knows which areas to be cautious around...and the robot can't see the trap keys, for whatever reason. The traps and keys take the form of pedestals with certain shaped holes, of which there is a matching key elsewhere in the maze. The idea is to disarm all of the traps and then both players need to exit the maze together. <br />
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<b>What went right:</b> The scope of the actual gameplay was kept fairly small, so we were able to get a functionally-complete game done by the end of the weekend which was moderately fun to play.<br />
Our original plan was to have each player on their own client, with the games connected over the network. I was trying to get a very simple server-client model set up in Unity, but by lunchtime on Saturday, whether it was faulty code or the inexplicably slow MIT network, it just wasn't in the cards. Thankfully the gameplay did not require separate machines, and I'm glad we made the decision to alter the game into a single-machine split-screen game with each player using their own set of controls on the same keyboard, that we could focus on the game and not trying to get network code to work.<br />
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<b>What could go better:</b> Source control was a huge headache for us. We opted to use GitHub, since free is good, but we only had a small amount of experience using it between us. Git doesn't provide a lot of useful intuitive information when it's performing its actions. We wound up with 3 repositories, 2 of which were false starts just trying to get a mostly empty project established for us to share. I believe in source control, and I know how it works fundamentally, but I'm going to need to work with Git some more to get comfortable with it.<br />
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<b>What to do different:</b> Perhaps another half-day would have been nice to give the game some polish, and had some other people playtest it. We had one of the audio designers ask us if we wanted sound for our game - that would have been nice to have, given some better planning or a dedicated sound person on our team. One of the projects I'd like to work on coming away from this is to develop a procedurally-generated maze in Unity, since this and last year's project would have benefited from that from a replayability perspective.<br />
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<b>Links:</b><br />
<a href="http://www.globalgamejam.org/2014/games/maze-ing-co-op" target="_blank">The project page on the GGJ site</a><br />
<a href="http://www.lzorro.com/projects/AmazeingCoop/" target="_blank">Play the game here!</a> Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-3341219823581181162013-01-28T01:35:00.000-05:002014-02-14T19:03:51.281-05:00Global Game Jam V, Jan 25-27, 2013Once again, it was Global Game Jam this weekend!<br />
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I was again jamming at MIT, though now that the <a href="http://gamelab.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Game Lab</a> has dropped the GAMBIT part and moved onto the main campus, the logistics were a bit different this year. The presentations were held in one of the auditorium-classrooms, and everyone jammed in some of the classrooms in building 26. They were pretty lax about the food, which was nice, compared to the Boston FIG Jam which was held in the same rooms. The funny thing is, I've only been to MIT a handful of times, but every time has been in these same classrooms - despite the large campus, I'd think these were the only classrooms available in the entire school.<br />
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The theme this year was another simple one - a heartbeat.<br />
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I had brainstormed a bit with one of the sound guys there, and ended up with a game pitch where sound factored heavily into gameplay, because of course. However, he decided to go with another project, and I ended almost by myself, though awesome sound designer Dan Perry opted to join the project. I had worked with him a couple years ago on the Punk is Dead project.<br />
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Yes, a rather uncreative working title. The game is a first-person maze/labyrinth navigation game. It takes place in two parts - the first half where you maneuver around normally, as you might expect with any videogame. When you grab the icon in the center, the game shifts to the second phase, where you have to find your way back out in near-total darkness, using your sense of hearing to guide you.<br />
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There are two mazes here, so finding your way back out is not as simple as retracing your steps. The original pitch included the idea that the "visual" maze remained visible while you had to navigate the "audio" maze - open passageways might be blocked, and you could walk though some walls on the screen. Luckily, the overall game design was simple enough that the prototype was finished fairly early on Saturday, and we were able to playtest it. We had found that our progress in teaching the player to navigate by sight was negated by literally changing the rules midway through, and it was very frustrating and confusing trying to push in certain directions fruitlessly. So, we changed it to darkness, where your sense of sight was instantly disabled. The goal object in this half emanates a heartbeat, which gets louder as you approach - this came from a thought I had about not approaching a sound, but rather you hearing your own heart beating in your chest as you approach the end. <br />
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A lot of the tweaks from there on involved adding hand-holding for players. None of the feedback systems (player movement, sounds when approaching walls, sounds when hitting walls) are terribly robust, so a player can get lost or frustrated quickly. So, the "sky" was set to a very dark gray rather than black, so there is a little bit of light available. We also added lantern flashes, crudely added as the walls lighting up, to give the player a brief glimpse of where they are. We also found, with the mazes I had slapped together, that reaching the goal in the dark half required the unintuitive task of moving away from the heartbeat (where the goal was) before rounding a corner and heading back. This was fixed by altering the hidden maze a bit to avoid backtracking.<br />
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<b>What Went Right: </b>Thankfully the design was simple enough that I felt the game was adequately complete early on, allowing for time for tweaking rather than trying to get it to run at all. Since I decided upon a 3D first-person perspective, I felt Unity was a good engine to develop in. While I don't have a lot of experience developing in Unity, I know the basics, and I felt this was a great opportunity ti dive in and have a "trial by fire". And because I was the only developer, source control wasn't a great concern as everything was saved on my machine.<br />
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<b>What Could Go Better: </b>That being said, ideally I would've liked at least one other person, familiar with Unity, to have been on the team. A lot of really basic things probably could have been solved early on (and special thanks to Michael Carriere and Alex Schwartz for helping me with such issues) that could have left time for more feature development. An artist of some type would have helped too, whether it was by making the game not look so ugly, or perhaps helped with the lighting to aid gameplay and provided a better sense of atmosphere. One of my stretch goals was to include randomly generated mazes, which might've happened if someone else was there to share the burden of development.<br />
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I'm really pleased how the game turned out, though, despite the prolific "programmer art". Further tweaks that could be made are cleaning up the movement and audio feedback, sound optimization, and the aforementioned random mazes.<br />
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Another nice thing about programming the game in Unity - not only does it run on PC and Mac, but you can export a web build! So you can <a href="http://www.lzorro.com/projects/SoundMaze/" target="_blank">play the game right here</a> - like I said, the sound needs optimization, so it'll take a while to load...please be patient.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-39884681629259120962012-09-28T20:37:00.001-04:002012-09-28T20:37:44.731-04:00Boston Festival of Indie Games - September 22, 2012Quite an exciting time this past weekend as MIT was host to the inaugural <a href="http://www.bostonfig.com/" target="_blank">Boston Festival of Indie Games</a>. The festival was an effort put on by us <a href="http://www.bostonindies.com/" target="_blank">Boston Indies</a> to showcase the development talent available in this area.<br />
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I was asked to be part of the curatorial committee, which I was flattered and quite pleased to be a part of. It wasn't much - just playing some of the submissions and deciding whether or not they should be included in the festival. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see much of the festival proper, since there was a Game Jam to participate in!<br />
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The theme was "independence" (since it was an Independent Game festival, after all). The group I worked with created a game we called <i>Choice Blocks</i>. Effectively a <i>Tetris</i>-clone, but the idea was to include an "independence of choice", by allowing the players to augment their gameplay by choosing which blocks were included in the game. After some amount of time, a selection window would appear, and players would select from some randomly-generated pieces using the points they've earned, much like the deck-building mechanic of <i>Dominion</i>. These pieces, while awkward to place, would earn more points.<br />
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The game was written in C# using the XNA framework. I worked on the piece generation bit, as well as the user input and state transitions. <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g3Zk0G4N8Ss/UGY9yOZrQSI/AAAAAAAAAHc/PTLluk0nruw/s1600/choice_blocks_screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g3Zk0G4N8Ss/UGY9yOZrQSI/AAAAAAAAAHc/PTLluk0nruw/s320/choice_blocks_screenshot.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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The festival was only one day, which meant the game jam was only one day. Even then, we were presenting at the end of the night, so we had at best 8 hours to create a game. This was a blessing and a curse. The biggest issue was that we didn't have time to implement the "choice" part of the game, so in the end we remade <i>Tetris</i> but a randomly-created piece will occasionally fall. It turns out that even then, it throws an interesting wrinkle into how you play <i>Tetris</i>.<br />
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<b>What Went Right: </b>The time constraint helped because we really had to keep the scope down, and we didn't introduce a lot of risk with complicated, untested features. I was actually a bit surprised that all of the groups made a mostly functioning game by the end of the jam, which I can't say about other jams I've participated in.<br />
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<b>What Went Wrong:</b> This isn't so much "wrong" as it is "somewhat disappointing". Of course the big thing is that we didn't "finish" our game, at least enough in my opinion to distinguish it from regular <i>Tetris</i>. I think with the extra day of the usual game jam we could have finished our basic vision, added some sound, and cleaned up some stuff like the sticky controls and scoring system. I suppose it was a good thing that we Googled "open source XNA Tetris" to get the ball rolling quickly, but it feels a little hollow that we didn't really create anything new. I mean, creating a platformer is one thing, but <i>Tetris</i> by itself is a well-established game.<br />
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Another problem, one that we couldn't really do much about, was the logistics that we were in a random classroom at MIT, and therefore couldn't have food or drink. We plowed through the day with only a short time set aside for a couple slices of pizza for lunch out in the hall. It just didn't feel as fun and relaxed as other jams.<br />
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That said, I'd do it again (you know I'm a sucker for jams), and I'm looking forward to next year's FIG!Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-84600394462423854992012-06-07T17:07:00.001-04:002012-06-07T17:08:29.165-04:00Global Game Jam, January 27-29th 2012This was the fourth annual Global Game Jam, and I've been lucky enough to attend every year - it's an event I look forward to. Aside from the usual "achievements" (optional restrictions to help focus your game designs), this year's theme was pretty simple: an ouroboros.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Ouroboros-simple.svg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="319" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Ouroboros-simple.svg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This year's theme. This exact thing.</td></tr>
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Luckily, an image such as this can be interpreted several ways, and the game pitches reflected that. The team I ended up on took the theme a bit more literally, borrowing a concept from American folklore: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_snake" target="_blank">hoopsnake</a>.<br />
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<h4>
What Went Right</h4>
Our goals for this project were to build on what has been successful in previous years: keep the game simple, and keep the humor high. In that regard, we did quite well.<br />
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<i>Hoopsnake!</i> is a side-scrolling platformer, utilizing only one button as the game mechanic. The hoopsnake constantly grows larger; grow too large and he'll fall apart, Game Over. Press the space bar for him to take a bite of himself to get smaller; go too far and he eats himself out of existence. You want to be small to fit through narrow passages, and you want to be large to be able to catch yourself on ledges after being propelled up by spring-coil copperhead snakes. Eat all the doughnuts on the level to continue.<br />
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The humor is best exemplified by the soundtrack. When you hit a spring-snake and are propelled upward, the game goes into a bullet-time state, and a bit of The Ballad of the Hoopsnake plays (also available as a separate track). The overall goofiness of it earned us a standing ovation during our presentation. <br />
<h4>
What Went Wrong </h4>
Our team of programmers (myself included) didn't feel particularly strongly about a game engine, so we tried to pick something that we could all share. Ultimately we settled on Java, using MarteEngine. We made it work, although it's not the best engine for the design we had. Most notably, MarteEngine is a tile-based platformer engine, where something like <i>Hoopsnake!</i> may have better benefited from something smoother or vector-based, like Flash. As such, we had to get around this weird problem of the hoopsnake effectively falling down stairs, instead of rolling down a hill.<br />
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I felt the art could have been crisper, as well. MarteEngine uses sprites, and one of the issues I worked on was making the animation of the hoopsnake work. There was a lot of futzing with sprite animations and scale percentages, and ultimately we couldn't get it to look the way we wanted - but it doesn't matter so much because the hoopsnake rotates so fast that you'd barely notice the animation anyway.<br />
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As is usually the case with these projects, it would have been nice to have a bit more time at the end to polish what we had and focus a bit more on level design. I feel it looks a bit clunky and rushed, but then again, it was only built in a weekend!<br />
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<h4>
What to Improve</h4>
I think the successes of <i>Hoopsnake!</i> outweigh its shortcomings. I only wish I had the time and money to learn several game engines to be better prepared for working with other programmers, or to invest into a single game engine, take the lead on the project, and be able to teach others. But, that's more of a personal problem, and I enjoy tackling this problem with more game jams.<br />
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<a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2012/hoopsnake" target="_blank">Download the <i>Hoopsnake!</i> project at this page.</a>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-60655510606778229362012-06-07T16:13:00.000-04:002012-06-07T17:09:18.474-04:00Cardboard Jam II, October 8-9th, 2011Back at MIT for another Cardboard Jam (board and card games). The theme chosen for this jam was "occupy" - this was in the middle of all of the "Occupy Wall Street" business going on at the time.<br />
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Our group's initial brainstorming included expanding on multiple definitions of the word occupy, such as occupation (jobs) and occupying space, which is the direction a lot of other groups went in. We moved toward a more current-event angle, the genesis of what we uncreatively called "Occupy Boston Game Jams".<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4lOd3_DAsi4/T9EB7ZpUJYI/AAAAAAAAAGs/DuslLTiVy74/s1600/IMG_0111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4lOd3_DAsi4/T9EB7ZpUJYI/AAAAAAAAAGs/DuslLTiVy74/s320/IMG_0111.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early iteration of our game.</td></tr>
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The idea behind the game is that the players are leaders of an "Occupy" protest movement, and you have to balance between recruiting new people to the cause, keeping everyone engaged and fed, maintaining a positive public image, and not getting dissolved due to apathy or police intervention. It's a cooperative game and the players have roles with certain bonuses.<br />
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We hit a snag early on where the gameplay simply wasn't engaging, and we weren't quite sure how to fix it. So, in a bizarre move for a game jam, we opted to abandon the project for a majority of the weekend. I think the idea was to "sleep on it", and hopefully have a kind of epiphany like you do after a good night's sleep or when you're in the shower. Luckily for us, that's what happened!<br />
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In the interim, we spent some time futzing around with some other prototype ideas - one being a game where the battle mechanic involved poker hands.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dHjKSWkQkas/T9EJDpgLhII/AAAAAAAAAG4/r611J0eyXFo/s1600/IMG_0112.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dHjKSWkQkas/T9EJDpgLhII/AAAAAAAAAG4/r611J0eyXFo/s320/IMG_0112.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A playtest.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the big changes we made when we finally decided to give the game another try was switching the dice that determine success/failure from d20s to d12s. Partly because you rarely see d12s used, but it helped with the overall statistics. <br />
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Overall I think the project was a success, despite the actual development time spent on it was about half of what it should have been. Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-24601143300392599612012-06-05T16:32:00.000-04:002012-06-05T16:41:56.323-04:00A (little more than a) Year in ReviewSo, obviously, the website and blog have endured a bit of neglect. And I'm updating it now, which indicates something major has happened which prompted me to make such updates. So, here's an outline of some of the major stuff that happened since the last time I updated the blog:<br />
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<ul>
<li>The last post I made was in April of 2011. I didn't mention it here, but I was let go from QUICKHIT that previous February. So the jam occurred as I was looking for new work.</li>
<li>I found such new work at 38 Studios, in July of 2011. Hooray! Again, I worked in QA, for their Digital Presence team, on their websites for their game <a href="http://reckoning.amalur.com/" target="_blank"><i>Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning</i><sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">TM</span></sup></a> (released in February 2012) and the expanded lore site <a href="http://www.amalur.com/" target="_blank">Amalur.com</a>.</li>
<li>Another Cardboard Jam was held in October. I'll be making a separate post about it.</li>
<li>The Global Game Jam was held in January of 2012. Again, separate post.</li>
<li>38 Studios was hit by some financial troubles which, if you follow game industry or New England news, you might have heard about. I'm not going to go into detail about it (I'm not even sure if I could), but I felt <a href="http://t.co/XraNb20o" target="_blank">this article on Gamasutra</a> provided a mostly fair synopsis of the events.</li>
</ul>
So, as of this writing, I'm currently looking for a job again. The <a href="http://www.lzorro.com/">website and my resume</a> have been updated with current information. I'm fairly optimistic I won't have to wait too long for my next job. In the meantime, I guess I've got plenty to write about.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-80167939976921725952011-04-12T16:15:00.015-04:002012-06-07T17:09:06.879-04:00Cardboard Jam, April 9-10th, 2011We had another <a href="http://www.bostongamejams.com/">Boston Game Jam</a> this past weekend, this time focusing on board and card games. A bit of a departure than our usual video game creation, and it really had a different flavor because the weekend was all about game design. <a href="http://www.jeffongames.com/2011/04/cardboard-jam-best-jam-ever/">Jeff Ward wrote a quick write-up</a> that highlighted these points, so I'll point you there instead of stealing/paraphrasing him.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Our Project<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>I worked with <a href="http://blog.gameroom.io">Gabe Warshauer-Baker</a>, Kevin Jackson-Mead and Nick Troy on a project that Gabe had pitched. The concept was "Other People's Tools", with the inspiration coming from a mechanic from the game <a href="http://www.ystari.com/wpe/?cat=5">Caylus</a> - the idea being that you gain some residual benefit from letting other players use "tools" that you own.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">First Prototype</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DG8yf_366ts/TaS5CsteYQI/AAAAAAAAADk/S7-ablI9KVY/s1600/prototype1.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DG8yf_366ts/TaS5CsteYQI/AAAAAAAAADk/S7-ablI9KVY/s400/prototype1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594800093113770242" border="0" /></a></div><br />Here's a sample of cards that represent our first stab at creating the game. For resources, we played with a set of <a href="http://www.looneylabs.com/whybuy/LooneyPyramids.html">Looney Labs' "Icehouse" pyramids</a> because, well, we happened to have a set.<br /><br />The white cards are the tools, and the yellow cards are the objectives a player has to meet in order to win. Each player was dealt a hand of 3 tool cards and given 1 objective card. The players presented their tools to the group all at once, and play went around to each player, where they selected which tool they wanted to use. When the round ended, if a player happened to fulfill their objectives, they won and the game was over.<br /><br />We started with the tool cards on the left, which came to be known as the "gather" tools. They consisted of taking the appropriate number of "triangles" from the resource pool at no cost, and the tool's owner received a triangle for their trouble as indicated on the bottom of the card. We found quickly that there wasn't a lot of strategy in which tool you offered the others - you picked the tool that gave you a benefit that matched your objective, and hoped that the others would provide a tool to help you along, as well. Often you had a choice of three tools that didn't really help you in any way, so the choice was kind of "meh". Players were focused more on meeting their objectives instead of providing helpful tools (which we meant to be our core mechanic).<br /><br />We played around with other changes - making the objectives private knowledge, more diverse objectives, even adding an "Apples to Apples"-style system of presenting the tools anonymously. By the time we got to adding the "conversion" tools - which we knew we needed - the prototype was dying. (Notice that there aren't any benefits listed on the conversion tool cards in the middle column above.) The biggest problem was that of divergent goals. It boiled down to "I want to help you win (by giving you a tool you want to use), but I don't want to help you win (because I'll lose)." So, back to the drawing board.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Game Takes Shape</span><br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rBya6dz_2gU/TaTLUa8NoeI/AAAAAAAAAEM/ywXKgbl0F9M/s1600/design1.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rBya6dz_2gU/TaTLUa8NoeI/AAAAAAAAAEM/ywXKgbl0F9M/s400/design1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594820188790694370" border="0" /></a><br />Our goal for the second prototype was focusing on the basic premise - to provide the most useful tool to the other players (and be rewarded for it). So, the tools became the resources, with their value determined by the core "elements" they provided and by what the other players bid on it to claim it, poker-style. Players cannot bid on their own tools (it is forbidden among gnomes), but this was balanced because they were holding the auction and gaining income. At about this time we were also trying to add a bit of flavor with a story, which we settled on a group of gnomes in a silly, steampunk setting. So each tool provides one or two of four elements: whack, hole, cut and fuse. A basic hammer provides 1 whack, where a hammer-saw could provide 1 whack and 1 cut. And so on, up to the Semi-Automatic Blade Pipes and such.<br /><br />The singular objectives were gone, and now the players were using these tools to build "projects". The projects were priced such that a player would need to use at least two tools to claim it, and they provided additional income. The economy was changed to a single currency (coins, since we were using pennies). Whoever had the most coins at the end of the game won.<br /><br />At first, we determined the end of the game simply by exhausting the project card pile. But, then we added a lot more projects, which would have dragged the game on. We tried stopping the game when a player built their fourth project, but an interesting wrinkle came up during playtesting. One player had 3 projects and was poised to built a fourth, but he didn't have enough money to win the game. So he declined, postponing the game further until someone else could gather the tools to end the game. Game time was already averaging an hour, so to curb this unnecessary prolonging of the game, a "Game Over" card was added randomly toward the bottom of the project deck (Tourist Season, when the humans flock in to buy up the gnomes' projects).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What's Next</span><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v6jPq0jqG-I/TaTR7thBevI/AAAAAAAAAEU/md8QHuI4iMw/s1600/playtest.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v6jPq0jqG-I/TaTR7thBevI/AAAAAAAAAEU/md8QHuI4iMw/s400/playtest.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594827460861590258" border="0" /></a>And so, we are left with our game, Gnome Economics. We plan to complete the cards by adding all of the names and flavor text, and get them set up in a file with graphics that can be printed.<br /><br />Overall, I think the project was fairly successful. I'm not much on bidding games, but the series of checks and balances inherent in our auction system (created almost by accident) keeps the game from favoring any one particular strategy.<br /><br />If there's anything that "went wrong" during the game's development, it's that the game is too long for us to get a lot of iterative game testing done. The mechanics of the game are simple, so a lot of our adjustments were minor value tweaking. And an hour-long game isn't too shabby, considering that about how long most modern board games are expected to last. But we found that playtesting among ourselves was slow, because we were discussing the game as we played it, and playtesting with others was slow because they were analyzing the game, trying to figure out the optimum strategy and calculating expense versus returns (which is to be expected - this was a room full of gamers, after all!)<br /><br />Keep an eye here, I'll make an update when we get the files finished so you can try the game out for yourself!Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-61360035803711320102011-01-10T00:23:00.003-05:002011-01-10T01:15:13.991-05:00HTML5 Tools JamOn the weekend of January 8th and 9th, <a href="http://www.darrentorpey.com">Darren Torpey</a> and <a href="http://www.tinysubversions.com">Darius Kazemi</a> hosted the first <a href="http://www.bostongamejams.com">Boston Game Jam</a> of 2011. Which is a bit of a misnomer, since this was <a href="http://bostongamejams.com/game-jams/html5-tools-jam-2011/">a tools jam</a>. The idea was to spend some time working and collaborating on a bunch of tools using HTML5, with the idea being not only to learn about this relatively new technology, but to make some ready-to-use tools in the upcoming <a href="http://www.globalgamejam.org">Global Game Jam</a>.<br /><br />This was an intimate affair, with only about 10 people participating, and once again held at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab in Cambridge. The <a href="http://wiki.bostongamejams.com/HTML5_Tools_Jam">projects</a> were interesting - it's really cool to see this technology work "in browser" instead of going through the rigmarole of compiling and various file types and stuff. I can't claim to be an expert in HTML5 or even Javascript, but I'm learning, and the potential here is really exciting.<br /><br />My own project was inspired by the <a href="http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/">Akihabara</a> engine, specifically the "toys" that are built into it, which provide the framework to create various arcade games. My goal was to build a similar toy to create card games - partly because card games are easy and cool, and partly to share since people will have the opportunity to create card and board games at the Global Game Jam this year. Darren and Darius quickly talked me out of that, since there's a lot of overhead into learning and using the Akihabara engine. So the project evolved into creating a Javascript library, with the cards being displayed in browser using CSS3.<br /><br />By the end of the day on Saturday, I had most of the framework written, designed and tested out, and Darren had a crude card system working early on Sunday. The goal was set to put together a solitaire game to make sure the system would handle most everything that someone might expect it to, and by the time presentations were due, most of it was in place.<br /><br />There are a few things left that I'd like to get done before I call it finished. One, finish up the functionality. Two, clean up the code and make sure things can be written easily (more for my own benefit, especially on the CSS side). Three, make sure it's all documented. Then, at least, we should be able to write card games with a standard poker deck.<br /><br />My ultimate goal is to make the library more extensible and abstract, so that someone could write <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> kind of card game. This goal kind of got in my own way...I had grand plans for this project, when in reality it isn't all that complicated. But at the very least, I'll have the libraries to work on my own games. I'll be sure to post again when I've got something ready to show.<br /><br />Special thanks to Darren who worked with me on the project on the second day, to Darius for his occasional help with Javascript and Git, and to <a href="http://www.jonathonmyers.com/">Jonathon Myers</a> for letting me use his spare laptop. :)Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-56808596487435901262011-01-10T00:08:00.002-05:002011-01-10T00:23:40.406-05:00New Year's PostIt is lame for me to make New Year's resolutions a week into January?<br /><br />Yeah, probably.<br /><br />Either way, resolutions seem so final, which is perhaps why people rarely follow through with them. So here are a few of my plans for 2011 - and the nice thing is, plans can change.<br /><br />In 2011, I plan to:<br /><ul><li>Update my website more often. Hence this post. I know I've been slacking for the last few months.</li><li>Learn Unity. Like, really learn it, and not just keep saying I will. The makers of the Unity 3D engine <a href="http://unity3d.com/2011/">had a contest</a> where they'll give a Pro license to 4 winners to create an idea they tweeted about. I doubt I'll win, but it's still a noble goal. I was even a little reluctant to share - afraid someone would steal my multi-million dollar idea, of course - but since it's now a matter of public record, <a href="http://twitter.com/LZorroTim/status/17392048378224642">here it is.</a><br /></li><li>Make a game I can share. The machinations for this one have already begun, which I will outline shortly. I want something tangible and recent, and not just half-baked game jam games or inaccessible student projects.</li><li>Continue being awesome. <br /></li><li>...okay, plan to BECOME awesome.</li></ul>That's good enough to start with, don't you think?Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-82108972519961154352010-08-22T21:54:00.004-04:002012-06-07T17:09:34.348-04:00"Immigration Jam", August 20-21, 2010This weekend was a game jam even put on by <a href="http://www.gtproductions.net">Alex Schwartz</a> and <a href="http://www.darrentorpey.com/">Darren Torpey</a>, as part of <a href="http://bostongamejams.com/">Boston Game Jams</a> - a group seeking to foster a sense of community among local area game developers. We met at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab for a weekend of game development fun.<br /><br />The reason the theme was immigration was in honor of fellow WPI student <a href="http://yilmazkiymaz.com/">Yilmaz Kiymaz</a>, who's looking to come back to the United States since his student visa expired. So, many of the games developed had to do with immigration, ranging from the satirical to the tangentially related. Keep an eye on the Boston Game Jams site to see them and the presentations!<br /><br />Fun fact: This particular game jam had an exceptionally large number of participants dealing with audio. Usually it's the audio people that are the hot commodity; this time around it was some of the artists who were juggling their time between groups. So at the very least, this was a very good sounding jam.<br /><br />I ended up in a group with Greg, another WPI alum, as well as three Berklee students, Leah, Kristen and Lawrence. The original proposal was a combination of two similar ideas, one featuring plants in garden, and one about the Chinese Rhino beetle (I think he meant the Asian Longhorn beetle). Both ideas had the central theme of balancing an ecological system, with the idea of migrating species presenting a challenge in maintaining the balance. I added the suggestion of styling it more as a strategy board game. For lack of a better name, we've dubbed it "I-Migration".<br /><br />We chose to use the <a href="http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/">Akihabara</a> game engine, which is a relatively new system that's essentially a set of Javascript libraries to access the Canvas element of HTML5. In short, the entire code of the game is on a webpage and runs in-browser. (Well, except Internet Explorer, but that's because it just sucks.) Darren gave a talk about it at last month's Boston Indies meeting, and has been working with <a href="http://www.tinysubversions.com">Darius Kazemi</a> to provide documentation and tutorials for the engine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>I felt the decision to use Akihabara was a good one. Because it's basically Javascript, it's fairly easy to pick up and learn (despite the lack of in-depth documentation, although Darius and Darren's efforts are a good start). Because it's HTML5, compile time is negligible, and we can use things like Firebug to get real-time debugging information. Also, adding art and audio assets isn't complicated either. <a href="http://lzorro.blogspot.com/2010/01/global-game-jam-2010-postmortem.html">At the last Global Game Jam</a>, I mentioned one of my great regrets was not being able to get sound working in our game. This time, music was one of the first things we had working!<br /><br />There was a bit of a learning curve where the two programmers of the group were essentially learning a new game engine, and as such the initial struggles were getting the game to load art assets, and yet most of the game came together within the last few hours. The other problem came because I shot myself in the foot. Despite the fact that we were working in the GAMBIT Game Lab, we didn't have access to their equipment, so the jam was bring-your-own-computer. And I don't own a laptop, so my role on Saturday was mostly relegated to that of design and support. And while I love the design aspect of it, there comes a time where you can't tie up the people actually creating the product. Thankfully Greg was able to secure another laptop for me on Sunday. But even if I had a system to work on the whole weekend, another issue was source control. It wasn't a big problem since it was effectively one programmer working on one file, but there was a headache when I was able to contribute code and it was a matter of hunt-and-peck-and-copy-and-paste. But that's understandable, given the short time span and jam-mentality of "throw everything in a bucket and just get it to run".<br /><br />I'm pretty proud of what our group was able to accomplish at the end of 36 hours. It's effectively a vertical slice, offering one round of play. It has some awesome art and sound elements, thanks to our talented Berklee members. But, due to time constraints, it's not as complete a round as originally designed. And it's not as automatically as I'd like - there's a lot of hand-holding, and even then the user doesn't really have an idea of what's going on unless they pay real close attention. But hey, given the ease of development, we may still poke at this some more, and move closer to a complete game.<br /><br />Another interesting twist to this whole weekend was the food. <a href="http://vickiewu.com/">Vickie Wu</a>, Darren's fiance, had a one-woman "food jam", making a variety of snacks and tidbits for us through the whole weekend, which was great because otherwise the official "meals" were all pizza. Delicacies included berry smoothies (yum), peanut butter/banana/yogurt smoothies (more like "thickies", way too sludgy - the only real misstep of the weekend), Waldorf salad in lettuce cups, two different kinds of hummus, freezer pops and ants on a log (reliving childhood!), microwave s'mores (marshmallows need to be fire-roasted, but they still tasted good), frozen coffee mocha drinks, and strawberry/mint soda spritzers (I could have done without the mint - too earthy and not minty enough, plus the cup full of tiny leaf-chunks is off-putting). I'm not entirely sure why she did this (other than "she wanted to"), but I'm glad she did! Plus, Yilmaz brought some honest-to-goodness real Turkish Delight. I had heard the closest thing to it was jellybeans, which it was, but a little chewier, but not as chewy as say, candied fruit. It's also flavored like almond and had almonds in it (though there was a mint variety), and completely covered in powdered sugar or coconut. Of course, the only time anyone's ever heard of Turkish Delight is from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe</span>, so it's neat to actually try some.<br /><br />In conclusion, as much as I love game jams, I'm not 100% sure at this time if I will participate in the next Boston Game Jam, unless I can definitively secure a laptop to work on. I think everyone did a great job and I had a fun time!Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-56316603188544869722010-06-30T22:44:00.002-04:002010-06-30T23:39:43.274-04:00Games Review: 6/29I'm getting involved with another group of game players, this time <a href="http://www.cardsconversation.org/">Boston Cards and Conversations</a>, a <a href="http://www.meetup.com">Meetup.com</a> group that usually meets in the northern Boston area. They had their monthly New Member Mixer last night, and here's some of the games we played at the table I sat at.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Guillotine<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/116/guillotine">Guillotine</a> is<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span>based<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span> </span></span>on the French Revolution, where the players are trying to execute as many nobles as possible over a 3-day period (rounds). Action cards are played to shuffle people in line for the blade...the idea being you want to move up more valuable nobles to the front of the line for you to collect into your score pile when it's your turn. It comes with a little cardboard display of the namesake device - cute, but unnecessary - and the real charm of the game comes in the art design. Very Disney-esque. Fairly simple and straightforward.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fluxx</span><br /><br />We then played a couple games of a game that I own - <a href="http://wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/MontyPython/index.html">Monty Python Fluxx</a>. Not sure if I mentioned it before that I have this game, but there it is. I do like the basic premise of the game - that every card changes the rules - but I find that Fluxx is a lot like sex: either it's a long marathon session of whirlwind activity, or it's over so fast that you're left quite unsatisfied.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gloom</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG1250.php">Gloom</a> is a very depressing card game...by design. Actually, it's not, but it's got that macabre feel, a mash-up of the Addams Family and Tim Burton and Lemony Snicket. You are a family of five, and the goal is to do cause events to your family member that depress them significantly (decreasing your score - which in this game, is a good thing), and then you put them out of their misery. Alternatively, you can cause positive things to other player's cards, make them happy and raise their score. The game ends when one player's family is all dead, and points are totaled.<br /><br />The really cool thing about this game is the core mechanic. All of the cards are clear plastic. The family cards are at the bottom of the pile, and as you play your cards on top of them, parts of the cards are obscured, while other parts show through. Say you put down a card that shows a -10 score in the top slot. Then someone else could put a card with a 0 in the top slot and +15 in the middle - the 0 covers up the -10, but you still read the +15. You can then put another card with a -10 on the top and -10 on the bottom, which ends up as a -5 (-10 + 15 -10). Then at some point you play Untimely Death cards and those scores get locked. And of course, most of these cards (especially the ones with significant scoring) have additional abilities. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Archaeology</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31105/archaeology-the-card-game">Archaeology</a> is a real charmer of a game, because it plays so quickly, and the strategy is pretty simple. The game only takes like 20 minutes to play, so it's fun to get a lot of games in (sadly, it was getting pretty late at this point, so we only played twice). The idea is that you're a bunch of explorers collecting artifacts in Egypt. You draw cards, then sell collections of artifacts to the museum (your score pile). Usually the more cards you have of a kind, the more points you get. You can trade these artifacts at the market. There are also maps to explore the pyramid (getting you a stack of cards), and there are thieves and sandstorms to contend with, too. The trick is figuring out when to sell to the museum...do you save up to get the points, or do you risk losing them, or not being able to sell pieces back before the game ends?<br /><br /><br />This group plays a ton of different games, from traditional trick-style card games (like Hearts or Spades) to toy-store party games (think Scattergories or Pictionary). I've already been to one of their Magic: The Gathering nights, and I'm hoping to make it to more of these events.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-52682281109112121522010-06-13T17:24:00.002-04:002010-06-13T18:15:16.943-04:00Boston Unity Day<a href="http://www.bostonunitygroup.com">Boston Unity Group</a> is a new off-shoot of the Boston-area game development community, founded by <a href="http://www.elliottmitchell3d.com/">Elliott Mitchell</a> and fellow WPI grad <a href="http://gtproductions.net">Alex Schwartz</a>. B.U.G. is a meetup group centered around the <a href="http://www.unity3d.com">Unity</a> game development engine. <br /><br />On June 12th the group had its first meeting, dubbed Unity Day. Over 100 developers met at Northeastern University to hear from Unity's "product evangelist", Tom Higgins. The morning started off with Tom giving an overview about the Unity engine - how the company started, about himself and how he got involved with the company, some features about Unity, both current and what's in store for the future, and some business information about what's involved with licensing the engine. Then people had the opportunity to show off the projects they've been working on in Unity.<br /><br />After an impressive lunch spread (thanks to <a href="http://www.demiurgestudios.com">Demiurge Studios</a>), we headed back in for some tips and tricks about using the Unity engine. Unfortunately, this part got off to a late start - a lot of people were engaged in conversation - plus I had to leave early for a previous engagement. So I missed out on a lot of the tutorial talk, which is a shame since that was my main motivation for attending. <br /><br />Overall I think this was a good start to what will be a great group. Personally I would have liked to see things stay on schedule, since this had a very strong conference vibe to it. And I'm not sure what the group's plans are for the future (aside from the next meeting at the end of August), but I think it would work well to follow the format of the Boston Postmortem and Boston Indies - to be able to meet and talk with people, with a short presentation. I thought the conference could have used a little refocus. Tom gave a lot of talk about how to get involved with Unity, but it seemed like everyone who was there is already on board with it. <br /><br />I'm excited about the Unity engine. I'd like to work with it more on my own, which I really should, since it's available for free on Windows. But then, I need to sit down and do <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span>, really...not just go through Unity tutorials. Although I wonder if I should wait a bit, considering the cool new features that will be available with Unity 3.0 when it's released later this year.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-76193329934928226822010-05-07T21:19:00.004-04:002010-05-07T22:21:40.118-04:00Recent board games reviewIn an attempt to socialize more, expand my knowledge and experience in games and game design, and just to have fun, I'm on the lookout for gaming groups...specifically, board games. Right now I'm averaging about 3 or 4 game nights a month with varying groups. I thought I'd share some thoughts about some games I got to play last week.<br /><br />Last Tuesday I went to the board game night at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. There I got to try a couple games:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Innovation</span><br /><br />I don't quite remember, but I think this is the name of the game. It's a card game that represents man's progression through society and technology. There are 10 "eras" of cards (ranging from the Stone Age up to the Information Age) as well as up to 6 color-coded categories (one might be technology, another may be more abstract like philosophy or mathematics). The trick is to build up your collection of tech and put cards into a score pile, which can be used to buy achievements which win the game.<br /><br />I liked the general feel of the game - all you were basically dealing with were cards, and the interesting mechanic was that each card had an ability as well as up to four symbols. The more symbols you have, the more likely you'll be able to use the abilities and draw more cards. Plus, there's the possibility to "shift" your piles of cards, thereby exposing more symbols. The problem I had was, since I was learning the game, I didn't have a good sense of what I needed to do. As I found with Settlers of Catan, I'm more interested in building up my part of the board and prolonging the game instead of doing what it takes to win. Additionally, since each card comes with an ability, more of my time was spent reading the abilities and figuring out if they were worth activating - a similar problem I have with another game that's popular with another group I play with, <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1463/girl-genius-the-works">Girl Genius: The Works</a>. Because of this, the beginning of the game took a long time, but by the time we got to the end game, it went really fast, we breezed by what might have been more interesting abilities, and, because of my aforementioned problem with not getting the right resources, I didn't have enough score points to come close to winning. Not that I play these games to win, necessarily, but it's not good when you cripple yourself from even being able to win.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Royal Palace</span><br /><br />I've come to two conclusions. One, I've found I have a growing fascination with modern board games that use little wooden pieces. As such, I've decided that any game from <a href="http://www.riograndegames.com/games.html?id=292">Rio Grande Games</a> gets an automatic pass from me unless I play it and decide otherwise. This game feels an awful lot like a game last time I went to Gambit Game Night, <a href="http://www.riograndegames.com/games.html?id=254">Stone Age</a>. Except this time, instead of building a tribe, you're influencing and trying to gain the favor of aristocrats. Unfortunately we were a bit pressed for time when we were playing this game, so it was cut short, and as such we didn't get the opportunity to really dig into the meat of the game with the added special abilities that gaining more nobles into your area allows.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Battlestar Galactica</span><br /><br />We played this in a game group we're trying to start up at work. I was reluctant to try this game, since I never got into the show it's based on (the modern one on Syfy...though I never saw the original either). But, it came highly recommended by the others in the group, so I was willing to learn.<br /><br />Much like <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic">Pandemic</a>, the idea is for all players to work together to "jump" enough times to make it back home. The problem is, you're dealing with crises on every turn... and then there's the Cylons. We played with four people, and I played as "Helo", so I got to act as Admiral.<br /><br />What I like about the game is that there's lots of stuff to do...lots of options and little ships and pieces and dials and cards. The thing I don't quite like about the game is the part of the game that everyone likes and makes the game somewhat unique...that someone may or not be a secret Cylon agent and trying to sabotage the humans' efforts. I mean, I understand that this part of the game needs to be there - for flavor, and otherwise the game would be pretty straight-forward - but it's that meta-gaming that I can't wrap my head around. Not only do you have to worry about what actions to do, but you have to be aware of how the others in the group will view those actions ("Oh, he did <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>action...does that mean he's the Cylon, or is he just stupid?"), plus you have to keep track of everyone else's actions to analyze THEM for possible Cylon activity, PLUS, if you happen to be the Cylon, make sure you do enough to sabotage AS WELL AS cover up your tracks. Bleah. It's like that Truth-teller/Liar Cannibal mind puzzle.<br /><br />During the second half of the game I was exposed as the Cylon Sympathizer. Once I <span style="font-style: italic;">had</span> to be a Cylon (effectively), I found it quite liberating since I knew what my actions had to be and didn't have to worry about everyone else's motives. Which is funny, since I started as human and probably did the most to get us home (as Admiral I chose to jump the furthest I could, which triggered the second half and turned me Cylon). In the end the humans lost due to running out of food.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-42909592816931458702010-03-29T21:52:00.007-04:002010-03-30T00:24:26.700-04:00PAX East 2010The big thing going on last weekend was the <a href="http://www.paxsite.com/">Penny Arcade Expo</a>, being held for the first time in Boston. Apparently PAX has gotten so huge it's now branching out.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">PAX Eve</span></span><br /><br />Things actually kicked off for me on Thursday night, with a "Made in MA" party held at the Microsoft offices in Cambridge - the New England Research and Development center, or as some call it, NERD. Most of the Boston area game companies had set up tables and showing off their latest and greatest (or in the case of <a href="http://www.38studios.com/">38 Studios</a>, just kinda standing around ;) ) Even we at <a href="http://www.quickhit.com/">Quick Hit</a> had a table...unfortunately paling in comparison to the <a href="http://www.harmonixmusic.com/">Harmonix</a> Rock Band setup next to it.<br /><br />The event took place on the 1st and 10th floor of the building (which I thought was a little weird...but then, I don't know what's on the 2nd-9th floors). On the first floor was some smaller setups, including <a href="http://imgd.wpi.edu/">WPI</a>, Macguffin Games' <a href="http://allheroesdie.com/">All Heroes Die</a> and <a href="http://www.firehosegames.com/">Fire Hose Games</a>' Slam Bolt Scrappers. The last one I gave a try, and it's pretty fun once you figure out what's going on. It's come a long way since I saw its prototype, and I think it's got a lot of potential - I hope it does well.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">PAX: Day 1</span></span><br /><br />I showed up to the Hynes Convention Center at around 11:30am on Friday, and since I didn't really have anything better to do until the doors "opened" at 2, I waited in line. I'm not sure who's diabolical idea this was, but it really set the tone for the rest of the weekend. The main exhibition hall on the first floor had a small area where you could pick up tickets, but the rest of the hall was roped off into one gigantic queue. So there we were, sitting on the floor, some playing with the free pack of Magic cards that came in the swag bags (okay, bonus points to PAX there), plenty with their DSes out. The room had two huge projection screens which <a href="http://www.getinlinegames.com">interacted with the crowd</a>. To be honest, it was the most entertained I've been waiting in line since Disney World.<br /><br />Eventually we were let in for the keynote speech, presented by Wil Wheaton. I wish I had taken some notes, but the basic theme of his speech was: welcome home. We are geeks and we are gamers and PAX is a celebration of both. He shared his thoughts about his own childhood and what gaming meant to him. I thought it was a good speech.<br /><br />Afterwards, I wandered around seeing as much as possible, one sardine in the expo hall can. Partly because it was the first day, but mostly because they probably oversold the convention, but there were a TON of people there. And there were lines for EVERYTHING. To groups gathered around every booth, to the interminable lines to get into the panels, to the wall of bean-bags for people to chill and play more DS. <br /><br />The main expo hall on the second floor was where most of the action was. I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I didn't find a lot of interest in all of the hardware-related booths, nor the games coming out in a few months on systems I don't own. But, it was still fun to walk around amid all the loud noises and shiny things. Oh, and free swag. Though not as much as I could have gotten, were I more patient.<br /><br />Friday evening was spend in the tabletop gaming area. There were a couple vendors of game start-ups showing off their games, so I gave them a try. One was Summoner Wars by <a href="http://www.plaidhatgames.com">Plaid Hat Games</a>, which I found quite enjoyable. You get a deck of cards of your summoner and troops, and you place them in a specific way on the playmat. You then take turns moving, attacking and summoning more troops to destroy your opponent's walls and summoner. Added bonus is that expansion packs are more decks of cards - there's no blind purchasing - which excited my frugal side but didn't quite sit well with my collector's side. But still, recommended. I might've bought a set if I had someone to play with (with the groups of people I play with, a multiplayer game would work better). The other one I tried was Battleground:Fantasy Warfare from <a href="http://www.yourmovegames.com/battleground_index.html">Your Move Games</a>. Basically, it's a miniatures war game without the miniatures. Instead, you use cards representing units of troops, which can be drawn on with dry-erase markers to issue commands. That's an interesting mechanic, as well as the fact that the stats are kept track on the cards - you don't have to do constant checking with tables in books. My problem was that this is still a wargame, which isn't my particular strong suit, so the other guy I was learning the game with and I were having some difficulty remembering all of the different modifiers in certain game situations - and we didn't even get into flanking or pinching or any other more complicated maneuvers. Plus, any special abilities that the troops have are written on the backs of the cards, against the table - so you tend to forget them anyway. So as nice as it was to walk away with some free stuff, I wasn't particularly impressed by the game.<br /><br />Friday night was also when I caught my first infection. My aforementioned wargame opponent infected me with LARPcolepsy. This was part of a social game, <a href="http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/paxpox.php">PAX Pox</a>, by the MIT GAMBIT Game Lab people, as a parody of the fact that many people came down with the H1N1 flu at the last PAX in Seattle. So Carriers went around giving willing participants stickers representing these silly diseases. Saturday I was infected with Wii-coli, and there was also MMORPGingivitis and DDRLS (Dance Dance Restless Leg Syndrome). Sunday the Cüre was released. And reporting to the GAMBIT booth, I got a +1 HP bandage holder for my trouble.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">PAX: Day 2</span></span><br /><br />When I arrived Saturday morning, I didn't bother waiting in the mega-line. I'm just minding my own business hanging out in the hallway, and I turn around to see I'm standing by G4TV's Adam Sessler. I am kicking myself now for not getting the nerve to introduce myself or get a picture or something. The weird part was, there were a few times I noticed Sessler when navigating the escalators...I was an accidental stalker. And speaking of random encounters, I managed to, at random intervals throughout the whole weekend, bump into what seemed like almost everybody I've met over the last three years, between WPI classmates, former and current coworkers, and other game industry people. <br /><br />One of the other items in the swag bag was a coupon for reduced entry fees into Magic: The Gathering tournaments, including something called the Intro Pack League. For $15 ($10 after the coupon), I received a starter theme deck and a booster from (I think) the latest set, and I could play as much Magic as I wanted against others who signed up for the league. Every 3 games you played you could pull 3 random cards from a box they had - I managed to pull a couple rare cards. So, I ended up playing more Magic on Saturday than I think I've played my entire life so far...which isn't saying much. But it's especially weird since I'm barely even a causal Magic player, and I certainly didn't attend PAX with the intention of playing Magic.<br /><br />Throughout the con, because I was playing games, I managed to miss out on some panels I was somewhat interested in attending. But I wasn't too sad since none of the panels really inspired me, that I <span style="font-style: italic;">had</span> to be there...plus, the aforementioned stupid queues. Besides, I was doing what I really wanted...playing games.<br /><br />Saturday I also found what I had missed on Friday - the arcade and classic console rooms. It was a nice nostalgic trip to look at the old school pinball machines and Ms. Pac Man and Dragon's Lair and Atari and Colecovision and all the old Nintendo and Sega consoles. There was also some quasi-nostalgia as I peeked in the modern console gaming area and watched quite a bit of <span style="font-style: italic;">Street Fighter 4</span>. <br /><br />As much as I would have liked to have gone to the concert on Saturday night (featuring the Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Johnathan Coulton), I didn't for two reasons: (1) the inevitable line, and (2) the concert would go very late, and I had to make sure to leave early enough to get the T back to where I was staying. I did go to the <a href="http://www.loadingreadyrun.com">LoadingReadyRun</a> panel, and there's a chance I might show up in a future video, so I'll keep an eye out for that.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">PAX: Day 3</span></span><br /><br />I signed up for a Dominion tournament, and ended up playing that for most of Sunday morning (missing out on yet another panel - the XPlay Live panel). But again, playing an awesome game trumps that. The tournament had a weird format - basically it was an accumulation of victory points, instead of any brackets or total wins or something. So when the second game started, we had a gentleman's agreement to try to amass the most points possible for everyone before causing the game to end. Thanks to that second game, where the Gardens was in play (1 victory point for every 10 cards in your deck), someone earned like 80 points and shot up from the like the 5th place table to the first, and ended up winning the silver medal. It was also neat that, since everyone at the table knows how to play the game, turns were just flying by.<br /><br />After another afternoon of pointless wandering, having already seen what there was to be seen, and sitting in half-heartedly in one last panel, I got into line for the closing ceremony. Not the super-line downstairs, but the one to get into the balcony seats, since I was up on that floor anyway. So, no entertaining video boards, which sucked because whatever they were doing beforehand went over and we waited in line an extra hour than was necessary. Now, I opted to attend the closing ceremony because I wanted to see the entire con from start to finish; plus, I have never been to a con's closing ceremony before, so I wanted to see what it was all about. Well, at PAX, it turned out to be the final round of the Omegathon (their weekend-long videogame competition). Which was cool and entertaining and all, but when it was over, Gabe and Tycho said, "See you next year!". And that was it. Not exactly what I had pictured it to be.<br /><br />While waiting to board the T to get back home, an little old Indian woman passed me and noticed my lime green swag bag. She asked me, in a tiny little voice, "You were at expo? Penny...Penny..." "Yes, Penny Arcade", I replied. She then wanted to see the free stuff I had gotten. So I tried my best to rummage through the bag for interesting things (I didn't end up with much cool swag), but I showed my Magic deck, which she seemed to recognize. "Oh, it's dat game." One last looksee and she walks off saying, "Dey give too much stuff." It made my day.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >tl; dr</span><br /><br />Overall, I had a great time. PAX is awesome, except for long pointless lines and too-high people density.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-15286495867946766902010-01-31T22:04:00.004-05:002012-06-07T17:09:50.521-04:00Global Game Jam 2010 PostmortemI participated in the 2010 <a href="http://www.globalgamejam.org/">Global Game Jam</a>, held (among many locations) at the <a href="http://gambit.mit.edu/">Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab</a> in Cambridge. <a href="http://lzorro.blogspot.com/2009/02/global-game-jam-2009.html">I did it last year</a>, and it was so much fun I opted to do it again, despite the fact that I haven't had a free weekend yet in 2010. (We've been in something of a crunch mode at <a href="http://www.quickhit.com/">Quick Hit</a>.)<br /><br />The theme for this year was "deception" and "abstraction", as well as the local constraints of "rain, plain and/or Spain". The project I worked on was called <a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/define-yourself">Define Yourself</a>. The original pitch was that you started out as some abstract avatar, and your actions at the beginning of the game determined how the character was defined until you were much more fully realized. We were throwing back and forth ideas as we discussed game design on Friday night, when we developed the core concepts of an exploration space. Eventually concepts crept in borrowed from fellow programmer/developer <a href="http://designerscroll.blogspot.com/">Darren Torpey</a> about an idea he had about a Facebook college simulation game. The game, as it stands now, is more that as a freshman entering college, you are very loosely defined as a person (abstract, if you will), and the choices you make in college - which classes you attend, how often you socialize, etc - define who you are by the time you graduate.<br /><br />I think I'll move onto a list to outline what went right and what went wrong in typical postmortem fashion, but it's not to say it wasn't fun, that it's not a bad game, and that these aren't in any particular order or importance. I am not placing any blame on anyone for any perceived failures; I'm just mentioned who worked on what on the team.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What Went Wrong</span><br /><ul><li>The initial design. Of course, with a game jam game, with the time constraints and the limited options you're given, either you come up with something simple and you do it and that's it, or you come up with something vague, and the design can go in multiple directions. Ours was the latter. One of my ideas early on involved nurturing a creature <span style="font-style: italic;">Pokémon-</span>style in order to solve puzzles (hell, I still may make that game). Honestly, the Friday night design session is one of my favorite parts of the Game Jam, and game development in general. I would have loved to spend all night taking several ideas and molding them into basic game designs. But, unfortunately we only have two days to make a game, and we can't afford to "kill our babies" and run through several prototypes.<br /></li><li>Over-designing. Once we came up with our idea and we started hunkering down on the technical parts of it, our original pitchman Dan Roy and consultant Ravi Purushotma continued to make further designs. It's great that they nailed down the details of some of the things we planned to build, but they also added some features that weren't discussed during the initial design. So it got to a point where we were like, "oh, okay...guess we'll have to build that as well"<span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span></li><li>Technical difficulties. For some reason, Darren had a hard time getting Visual Studio working for him on the MIT computers. I wasn't familiar with the repository system Darren set up for us (not that it was difficult, it just took a while to set it up, plus I'm prone to making mistakes. I'm still not used to working with repository systems :P). All told we were really kind of spinning our wheels until Saturday afternoon, so we had a lot of ground to make up. Additionally, some of the things I was working on were really simple things that I shouldn't have had problems with, and are really probably quite easy to fix, but with the deadline looming there just wasn't enough time to worry about it. Specifically, I'm thinking about the sound system. I don't know what kind of crazy format XNA expects its WAV files to be in, but apparently we couldn't figure out which magical settings it needed in time.</li><li>Didn't meet all the constraints. This is a minor issue. We can make up arguments/excuses as to exactly where it is in our game that shows "deception" (and I think there were some good ideas thrown around in the design session), but the rain/plain/Spain kinda got left off to the side. Plus there were additional optional achievements, such as using all organic sound effects or using only 16 colors. But, we felt that these were more guidelines than rules, and there really more to spark creativity than to hold us to some arbitrary game conditions.<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">What Went Right</span><br /><br /><ul><li>Choice of platform. We chose to develop the game in C# under the XNA format, and specifically AngelXNA, which is an open-source port of the Angel prototyping engine developed by Darren and <a href="http://www.fuzzybinary.com/">Jeff Ward</a>. Now, I haven't programmed in a while (and never really in C#), so it took me a short while to get reacclimated. And since I was learning a new system, I was bound to make some rookie mistakes. For example, Darren questioned why I bothered to communicate within the game using AngelXNA's messaging system when I could have much more easily done a method call. And the answer to that was, well, I was mentally stuck using the messaging system since that was how it was reading keyboard input, and the sparse documentation didn't help to break me of that mental lock. However, it's still in its infancy, but the system made it much easier to build systems that would have taken us hours to build ourselves in XNA...which, of course, is the whole point of AngelXNA.</li><li>Art and Music. Our artist Dan Salsberg came up with some great art with a nice visual style. And I have to both thank and apologize to our musician Alex Liberatore. I really do admire the Berklee students that attend these Game Jams, and game audio designers/engineers in general - it's really an under-appreciated aspect of games. He wrote some nice music and sound effects, and he and Dan Roy designed some really cool ways to implement the music as a function of the gameplay...but unfortunately you won't hear them because I couldn't get the sound system to work (see above). </li><li>Complete prototype. It may not have sound, and the controls are a little sticky (for Darren, for some reason - they were working fine for me), some features were dropped, and it might not be terribly <span style="font-style: italic;">fun</span>, but we accomplished the core concepts of the design, and it <span style="font-style: italic;">works</span>. And for something that was only built in 48 hours, that about all I can ask for. Plus it looks good.</li><li>It was fun! It was great meeting old friends and making new ones, and it's wonderful to go through the whole creative process of making a game.</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'd Do Different<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span></span><ul><li>Simplify. Maybe it'll take a bit more practice, but I'm slowly learning what kinds of things make for successful Game Jam games. First, come up with a simple yet specific "elevator pitch". Make sure the design is locked down by the time we leave Friday.</li><li>Prototype, playtest, iterate, repeat. Make sure we've gotten a prototype done by Saturday afternoon, and a first playable by Saturday night. Sunday should be for polishing and fun-making, not "oh yeah, we should probably put all of the pieces of the game together and make sure they work before we need to upload our final game to the website in an hour".</li><li>Get the sounds working in the game early. It's one thing if I'm using clunky sound effects I've borrowed from the Internet, but I don't want to waste another audio engineer's time again if I can help it.</li><li>Don't forget the small stuff. If I were producing, for the first-playable I'd dedicate at least one hour to make sure we have a title screen, end screen, credits, and all other the other little things that tend to get forgotten that end up being slapped together. </li></ul><br />That being said, it was a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to do it again next year.<br />We had a lot of other great games made at MIT:<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/runrunrunjump">RunRunRunJump</a>: a platformer with text cues. Looks great in 3D Unity (even if it is mostly text in blocks).<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/quest-stick">Quest for Stick</a>: a platformer where you can alter the platforms. Great visual style.<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/jumble-trademarked">Jumble is Trademarked</a>: a word jumble where the solution is not what it seems. My second choice when we were organizing.<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/hunt-alone">The Hunt Alone</a>: first-person shooter where you're a visually-impaired hunter caveman. Had they gone with their original idea of "blind caveman", I can't help but think, with some tweaks and more innovation, it'd make an interesting <span style="font-style: italic;">Daredevil(tm)</span> game.<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/last-bullfight">The Last Bullfight</a>: first-person perspective where you're the bull. I think given a little more polish time, this would have had a real emotional impact.<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/press-x-not-die">Press X to Not Die</a>: Flash game that's all quick-time events.<br /><a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2010/pigmalion">Pigmalion</a>: action-stealth game. Worth playing if only for the opening cutscene.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-38882948622322184692010-01-20T21:39:00.003-05:002010-01-20T22:12:25.423-05:00New Year, New PostThings have been chugging along for me quite smoothly. I've taken a step back to work on getting into a routine, and kind of settle into my job. At least, that's my excuse for not blogging or making games. Some notes:<br /><br /><ul><li>The job at <a href="http://www.quickhit.com">Quick Hit</a> is going great. People ask me how I like the work, and I like it just fine. Sure, some of it is tedious, but it fits right into my mentality and the way I work. There's a checklist of tasks, and I do them until they're finished. If there's a problem, I figure out the circumstances behind it and try to fix it (or more often than not, go talk to the developers and have <span style="font-style: italic;">them</span> fix it). The only downside is that it's a temp job (which means no paid time off) and it doesn't pay terribly well. I worked all through Christmas break to make up hours. I worked all last weekend to prepare for a release we're making this week, and will be working again this weekend for the release next week. But, I'm getting paid overtime, so I suppose it's not all bad.</li><li>Coming up next weekend is the <a href="http://www.globalgamejam.org">Global Game Jam</a>, which I'll be participating in again. Last year was a good time and I hope this year is just as good. There's a good chance I'll blog about it here again. It will be great to get back into creating and programming, even if it's only for a short while.</li><li>I have finally joined thousands of others and have gotten an iPhone. My old phone was really unreliable...could barely hold a charge, and I couldn't hear through the earpiece - I had to constantly use the speakerphone. Well, I don't have to worry about that any longer. It's really quite liberating to have access to the Internet pretty much anywhere that I go, and luckily I'm one of those types that doesn't have to constantly check my messages and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/LZorroTim">Twitter</a> so I get in trouble. I just check when I have a few free moments. ;)</li><li>And part of the reason I really wanted to get an iPhone is to develop games for it. It's the wave of the future! And now that the <a href="http://www.unity3d.com">Unity engine</a> is available for free, I bet I can actually do it, too. Of course, it's a matter of taking the time to sit down and actually learn how to do it, which is easier said than done. Still, it is my goal to make at least one iPhone game this year, and hopefully even maybe sell it in the App store.</li><li>I will be attending <a href="http://www.paxsite.com">PAX East</a> this March. This will likely be very awesome. <br /></li><li>Speaking of board games, one that I play regularly, <a href="http://www.wizkidsgames.com/">Heroclix</a>, is back after a long hiatus. We're in the middle of the tournament season for the latest expansion, <span style="font-style: italic;">Hammer of Thor</span>, which I'm actually helping to organize at the place where I play, <a href="http://www.friendlycomics.com">Friendly Neighborhood Comics</a>. Also exciting is the next set that will be out, DC's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Brave and the Bold</span>, as well as a new, <span style="font-style: italic;">Blackest Night</span> themed started set!</li><li>And segueing nicely into comics, <a href="http://altdelusions.comicgen.com">my own comic</a> has been in a hiatus as well. (See: the aforementioned "routine"). Well, just a quick note to say that I think I've gotten a good storyline worked out and I hope I can get back on that horse again soon.</li></ul>So as you can see, it's not that I'm not staying busy; it's more that I'm just neglecting my website.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-38112295533157171172009-10-13T01:22:00.003-04:002009-10-13T01:45:26.637-04:00New Job Achieved!It's been three years since I was laid off from my factory job. Three years since I decided to refocus my life and get back to working towards a career - not a job that was just a paycheck. Three years since I made the commitment to follow my dreams.<br /><br />And now, I am at the threshold of achieving those goals.<br /><br />As previously mentioned, a couple weeks ago I had a phone interview with Demiurge Studios concerning a QA tester position. Well, the short of it is, I didn't get that job. But, you don't close a door without opening a window (or something like that), and I discovered another QA testing job, this time at <a href="http://www.quickhit.com">Quick Hit, Inc</a>. I previously applied there for a programming position, and so I had a connection with someone already there. So, I asked to pass along my resume.<br /><br />A couple whirlwind weeks later, and now I've landed the job of QA Tester at Quick Hit!<br /><br />There are some provisions, however. This is a temporary contract, but that's to be expected with most QA jobs. And QA isn't <span style="font-style: italic;">precisely</span> what I wanted to get into. But, the important things to note are that<br /><ul><li> QA is a very popular way to break into the game industry,<br /></li><li>my background in programming lends itself very well to QA in regards to close attention to detail, being able to find and diagnose problems, and in a more direct sense, as part of my job will entail writing automation scripts,</li><li> I might come to find I enjoy QA,<br /></li><li>this is giving me the industry experience I'll need later on to get a more permanent job,</li><li>and perhaps most importantly, <span style="font-style: italic;">I'm being paid to work at a videogame company</span>.</li></ul>As I write this, I've only worked one full day. It's been a little bit crazy, since I'm being subjected to a baptism by fire. I'm jumping right into a busy schedule while I haven't quite gotten my bearings yet. But, it's only the beginning. Perhaps more details to come (if I'm even allowed to give them).Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-79560159708248643302009-09-22T14:50:00.003-04:002009-09-22T15:13:28.896-04:00Status ReportI feel a little bit guilty about not updating my website, or anything else really, lately. What's been happening is that I've been focusing more on temporary work in order to secure some kind of income, for two reasons. <br /><br />One, I'm very near broke, and student loans are looming over the horizon. I opted to sign up with a temp agency, and they've been pretty good about finding me work. I spent almost a month working at the <a href="http://www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet.asp?id=10">Wrentham Premium Outlets </a>at the Nike Factory Store in the backroom processing inventory. They had a lot of inventory coming in, and a few other associates and I were tasked with taking apparel out of boxes, pricing them, adding security pins, and hanging them up. It's repetitive, sure, but actually I like that sort of work. I enjoy it where I have a known amount of work and do it until it's finished (or at least get to a point where I feel comfortable leaving it for the next day). I've had another assignment since then, doing a similar thing but with auto parts. <br /><br />I also have an interview later this evening for another position for quality control for a medical supplier, but the most important news is that I have a phone interview this Thursday with <a href="http://www.demiurgestudios.com">Demiurge Studios</a> for a QA tester position. I'm super pysched about that...wish me luck!<br /><br />The second reason is, I simply haven't been aware of many game job opportunities lately. Announcement at the Boston Postmortem have been very sparse the last few months, and those that are looking are looking for artists, mainly. I know I should hit up the contacts that I have and get a feel for how things may have changed since the spring.<br /><br />So, unfortunately, I've put my personal game development on hold because of all this. Also partly because I seem to have gained writer's block...not only for my game but for my comic as well. Plus, what I'd also like to do is prototype in idea or two, and at the same time familiarize myself with some other technologies. But of course, that takes time, some of which I can hopefully muster up soon.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-40338740818641042432009-08-23T18:43:00.004-04:002009-08-23T19:37:53.042-04:00Game Spotlight : Puzzle Pirates<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >As I previously mentioned, something else I wanted to do with this blog was share with you some of the games I've been playing recently, both casual games as well as MMOs. I don't plan to go into any real in-depth review, and these likely won't be very long...just sharing a few thoughts I have about the game. It is my hope that you might find you like the game yourself, and perhaps get a glimpse into my personality and taste in games.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates</span><br /><a href="http://www.puzzlepirates.com">http://www.puzzlepirates.com</a><br /><br />Genre: MMO, puzzle<br /><br />I've been playing Y!PP off and on for about 5 years now. So far it's the only MMO to which I've ever subscribed, but then, I'm the kind of person who prefers to finish a game before moving on to the next one...usually. <br /><br />In Y!PP, you take on the role of a little chibi-style pirate, and how you want to go about building your pirate fortune is up to you. Most of the activity in the game takes the form of puzzle mini-games, from duty puzzles (sailing, bilge-pumping, carpentry, navigating) to carousing (poker, hearts, spades, drinking) to labor puzzles (shipwright, distilling, blacksmithing). <br /><br />I heard somewhere that how you play an MMO reflects how you operate in a real-life work situation. If that's the case, then I'm most useful as a grunt. There's the chance to become captain of a crew, or even royalty of a flag (a group of crews)...but I'm not sure how well I'm suited for management - I'm a middle-manager at best. There's also quite an economy built into the game. One can set up their own shop, bring in supplies, set competitive prices, etc. But I'm not that big into economics, either...and besides, I don't want my game life to be like a real job. No, usually I play Y!PP to play the puzzles. But I don't think there's any shame in that. That's one nice thing about Y!PP...it's varied enough to appeal to different types of gamers.<br /><br />Another cool thing they added was trophies (achievements, basically). Sure, it makes trying to collect them fun, but the downside is also the way the experience system works. Pirates don't level up in the traditional sense; they're rated by how good they are at the puzzles. So it's really difficult to get some trophies because you have to be better than everyone else on the ocean, and there are some good players out there. And you can't get better at the puzzles by constantly playing them and making a little number get larger; you have to constantly play them and actually get better at them.<br /><br />One thing I've realized is why I don't put as much time into this game as I'd like. Partly because I tend to get "puzzle vision", and that I don't do very well at the "social puzzle" (that is, I don't tend to make a lot of good friends in these games because I don't talk). But also because there's no real incentive to advance. Sure, there are blockades, flotillas, and the recently added monster hunts (blockades against special, stronger NPCs), but there are no "quests" like in other MMOs.<br /><br />Of course, don't think that I don't enjoy the game anyway...I wouldn't be writing about it if I didn't. I'm sure like with most things, there are parts you like and parts you don't like, and different parts appeal to different people.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-85912960017549018982009-07-27T17:07:00.005-04:002009-07-27T18:07:39.723-04:00Game Development - Escape Game #2The "Escape the Room" game (working title)<br />Progress: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Prototype phase</span><br /><br />All right, I think I've gotten over the initial hurdles of game navigation. I decided to redesign the inventory to stay on-screen at all times. The retractable inventory was getting a little unwieldy, plus I like the idea of seeing what objects you have available at a glance. The only problem is that the inventory "slides" along with the rest of the room when the player changes views, but it's more of an aesthetic issue that hopefully no one will notice. Well, unless they've read this. To help combat that issue, I've placed the inventory at the bottom of the screen.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BjMYxEfghD8/Sm4YQkyXazI/AAAAAAAAACI/WO3gmvz9pTw/s1600-h/escape_screenshot002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BjMYxEfghD8/Sm4YQkyXazI/AAAAAAAAACI/WO3gmvz9pTw/s320/escape_screenshot002.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363250879276739378" border="0" /></a>So here's how it works: the player clicks and drags items from the inventory onto the screen, and the item snaps back into place when the player releases the mouse button. Unless it happened to be over the hot spot (the red square, in this case), in which case it will set the item there and disable it from the inventory. And by disabled, I mean the item stays there, but is grayed out and can't be clicked or moved. As an early design decision, I figured, like some escape games, that I'd have a fixed inventory - <span style="font-style: italic;">usually</span> when the inventory is full but all the items are used, you're at the end of the game. It's an easy fix to just wipe the item out of the inventory if I need more storage space, so to speak.<br /><br />By the way, the "S" on the wall there indicated that it's the south wall. I've got an "E" and "W" wall as well, and the door (as seen in the previous post) is on the north wall. Hooray for programmer art!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BjMYxEfghD8/Sm4aPP8lIEI/AAAAAAAAACQ/3J2FRPpQ_Bc/s1600-h/escape_screenshot003.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BjMYxEfghD8/Sm4aPP8lIEI/AAAAAAAAACQ/3J2FRPpQ_Bc/s320/escape_screenshot003.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363253055525822530" border="0" /></a><br />I've also implemented the close-up feature seen in many escape games. Typically you can zoom in on an object for closer inspection...this is most often for combining two objects for another purpose, or there's some clue to another puzzle hidden on the back or inside the object. Here, the player toggles the button on the lower right to engage "zoom" mode, then clicks an item in the inventory. A gray screen pops up with an enlarged picture of the item. The player cannot resume play until the close-up screen is closed with the button in the upper right.<br /><br />One helpful side-effect of writing this all out in a blog is that I'm realizing potential pitfalls when it comes to my game design. For example, I just remembered that I effectively disabled clicking-and-dragging inventory items when the item is in close-up, to prevent said item interacting with what's going on behind the close-up "window". This will no doubt hinder any future puzzles if I plan to combine items. So, I wrote myself a note, and will see to fixing that later.<br /><br />With the higher level components of the game mostly taken care of, now comes the hard part - puzzle design!Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396842912880906106.post-36072801838917021892009-07-21T19:18:00.007-04:002009-07-21T20:27:05.043-04:00Game Development - Escape Game #1All right. Here it is. If I'm going to be talking this project up to people, I'd better follow through on my promise to myself and get some actual work done on this.<br /><br />The "Escape the Room" Game (working title)<br />Progress: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Early prototype phase</span><br /><br />As I mentioned elsewhere on my website, some of my favorite games to play online are the "escape the room" games, which I usually find at <a href="http://jayisgames.com/tag/escape">Jay is Games</a>. It was suggested to me that since I like them so much, I should make one. So, here is the beginning stages of that project.<br /><br />For those unfamiliar with the genre, "escape the room" games are pretty much just that - you find yourself locked in some kind of enclosure, and you have to use the objects found inside the room to escape. This takes the form of logic puzzles, ranging from the simple (use key on locked desk drawer) to figuring out codes (combination locks) to sometimes bizarre leaps in logic (tie a sawblade to an eggbeater to fashion a drill). It seems that these games are popular in Japan; therefore, you'll occasionally have to sift through some Engrish. And sometimes it devolves into a tedious pixel hunt. Luckily, on the Jay is Games site, a walkthrough is usually posted within a few hours if you get stuck.<br /><br />If you'd like to try these kinds of games out, one of my favorites is <a href="http://neutralxe.net/esc/vision.html">Vision</a>. This one is a bit long, but anything else by the developer, neutral, is also very good.<br /><br />I've decided to start out by developing this in Game Maker. Why? Because it's free, I know how to use it, and it's what I have. I would do it in Flash, if I could afford it to tinker around with it. These kinds of games are a little complicated for something in 3D, although maybe if I had the resources and art software, I could do that. But for now, Game Maker.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BjMYxEfghD8/SmZajqZkWyI/AAAAAAAAAB4/43ybd5kwG3o/s1600-h/escape_screenshot001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BjMYxEfghD8/SmZajqZkWyI/AAAAAAAAAB4/43ybd5kwG3o/s320/escape_screenshot001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361071975154604834" border="0" /></a>Right now, all I have is the room itself, and a crude navigation system. The nice thing about Game Maker is that it's set up as a series of rooms. My plan is that each view, or side of the room, or close up, can be represented with a separate room in Game Maker, and the inventory and such can be dealt with by "persistent" objects. <br /><br />My main sticking point right up front is exactly how I'd like the game to operate. Oftentimes these games have an inventory on the side of the "room" picture. Since I'm experimenting here, I have currently implemented a retractable inventory (as indicated by the blue "I"). I'm deciding how I want the player to interact with the inventory, whether to select and highlight it in the inventory, or allow the user to drag the object around with the mouse. I need to sit down and either design out how I want this to work, or just fiddle with it some more until I get something I like.<br /><br />So that's what I got so far. I'm going to attempt to get a fairly intuitive interface finished (at least by escape-the-room standards), and then I'm going to write up a story/design some puzzles.Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17731511397653302908noreply@blogger.com0