May 10, 2013

I haven't updated the home page in a while. I've finished yet another game! Tower is my fourth completed game, and I'm really proud of the results!

Although it was followed by success, it also taught me a few valuable lessons. First, I need to playtest my games more! After I watched my friend frustratingly struggle through the game (me laughing the entire time), it occured to me that the main game play mechanic needed a little work. Although I would've had time to do something about it, I was pretty tired of working on Tower.

Second, I need to test on more platforms before uploading! As you can see from the Tower main page, I had to issue a warning that the game did not play as intended on Windows computers. The game didn't crash, but for some reason I have not yet figured out the objects are locking at 0, effectively destroying all of the game play. As soon as I have some extra time I need to get to the bottom of this problem as it could occur in future projects!

Finally, I learned the value of planning ahead, the only lesson that didn't sting. Both Oh Ship! and Altar had extremely rushed development. SideStep and Tower were made one or two weeks before the end of the month, giving me plenty of breathing room.

This month I am planning on doing the April & May Experimental Gameplay Project from May 13 to May 20. I will submit the result to One Game a Month as well. Here's my planned schedule for the game:

Monday, May 13: Get the idea fleshed out and create a few prototypes to feel it out. Begin full steam development.

Tuesday, May 14: Code nearly all of the game.

Wednesday, May 15: Playtest the game with several different people. Make adjustments accordingly.

Thursday, May 16: Do more playtesting, then wrap it up and add art, sound, and music.

Friday, May 17: Finish all of the loose ends, then package it and test on a few different platforms. Release the finished product.

Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19: Emergency days. In an optimal world, I will not have to use these, but I'm guessing it's best to plan for failure!

I'm really excited to see what I can build this next week!

UPDATE: I will be moving it back until May 20th due to hand pain.

April 1, 2013

I have just completed and uploaded Altar, my third #1GAM game! Make sure to check it out! I also made a presskit() that summarizes a lot about Au 79 Games.

I finally finished my postmortem I've been talking about! It summarizes all I've done game dev-wise from 15-16.

March 14, 2013

The TSA Idaho state competition was on March 7th-9th! It was great fun to meet new people who share my same interests. Initio was the game I entered, and it ended up getting...

FIRST PLACE!

It also ended up scoring me an article in the local newspaper! I'm the one on the far left, and am actually a sophomore (rather than a junior). His article did a good job representing me in that it did not dumb me down or anything. I'm really proud of doing this! Sorry for the bad image quality.

I'm still going to do a post-mortem for February and March at the end of this month, as well as decide if I want to continue with the podcast.

February 27, 2013

After a few hugely productive days, I've finished #1GAM's February game, Side Step, and am on the very last song for Primus (my album)! February has been a great month for me! I'm planning on doing a post-mortem of sorts soon, so keep an eye on this page.

February 14, 2013

With January behind me for #1GAM, February started with a keynote recommending that we include sound or music within our games. This is the perfect time for me because I haven't ever integrated sound into any of my games. February has been a very busy month for me, so expect the February game to be very simple but still accomplish the goals I have technologically.

I've been craving a new experience lately, so I decided to participate in #FAWM, which is a challenge to make 14 songs in the month of February. As of today, I've created nine songs! It's definitely different to me, but I enjoy doing it. At least one of my songs will be integrated into February's game. You should check out my #FAWM profile and my music on SoundCloud.

I also learned from last month that my games aren't very accessible (you have to have Linux and compile SFML 2.0 source code yourself), so my main goal is to get my Windows porting going smoothly. This involves making sure the interface to my custom game library is the same for the SFML 1.6 and SFML 2.0 versions.

Finally, I've been recording episodes for some sort of podcast about my adventures in game development. It's called "Indie to Be". In the first two episodes I talk a little about myself and what has happened recently, but it doesn't seem like a very good format for a podcast. The main point is still not perfectly nailed down, which is why I haven't released them yet. If I plan on continuing to make the podcast, I'll release it once five episodes have been recorded.

January 31, 2013

I ended up turning in Initio for TSA. I was working extremely *** a ship battling game, but it ended up failing extremely hard. You can download Oh Ship! from the Projects page.

January 19, 2013

I recently realized that a game competition that I enter every year is coming very soon, and I need a game done this month to enter. I'm having some serious troubles with 2D collision detection and resolution (it's always tough for me), so the January 1GAM game will have to be delayed till February. I will turn in the TSA game as January's entrant.

A new game must be constructed in the next ~7 days that will be suitable for entrance to the TSA competition. This has been a stressful time for me because I'm still learning how I personally develop games, as well as what to look for in a new game idea. My main constraints are these:

• Must be completed by January 25 or February 1 (I'm not sure on this)
• Shouldn't need any collision resolution, especially with the tile map, due to my difficulty with collision resolution
• Cannot be terribly violent (in the rules it states an "E-rated game")
• Must run on Windows via CD or DVD or on an iOS device

January 3, 2013

First of all, happy New Years!

One Game a Month has officially started! You can view my profile here. I'm using this homepage as my blog on 1GAM.

So, it begins...

I just started on my game for this month. It's going to involve patterns/fractals and spelunking. I generated the topics using my own topic list and a random number generator.

December 29, 2012

As you may have realized, it took me more than 3 years to finally possess the knowledge to create and publish games. I"m definitely a slow learner!

Any ways, I am now ready for a more rigorous development cycle. One Game a Month is starting this January and I am wholeheartedly excited to participate. I will release one game every month to this website in order to learn a ton and get my ideas out of my head. I will add the games to Projects and write Articles about my experiences.

I have a strong resolve on this one. I will make a game every month!

Also, Initio is still available for purchase! The price is $0.25, so save up :)!