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Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!
Yup, you read that title correctly. Tutorials are making there way back to the blog soon enough. I've been planing out tutorials for a new introduction to coding course followed by some more advanced coding tutorials. I'm also going to do some tutorials or the art side of game development for both 2D and 3D. I also want to do some more theory based blogs discussing game design. I'm still in the process of considering if I'll make any Youtube tutorials or if I'll keep this purely on the blog. The tutorials will most likely kick off with the new introduction to coding tutorial series. If you have suggestions for tutorials you would like to see, feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email on the contact page! Until next time! Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!
I've spent quite a long time making games. So, naturally, over the years I developed my own pipeline if you will for how I make games. This has been changing over the last year with the introduction of new tools for art and asset creation. Combined with a hectic college schedule, I've had to change and adapt to how I make games. At first, there's a natural resistance to this. However, since making these changes, I've actually been making far better projects. The combination of time restrictions and scope forces my creative side to work that bit harder to make something fun and interesting in a shorter space of time as well as taking more risks with ideas. So, if you're resisting a change, don't. Give it a chance and you'll start to see how it can result in you improving your projects. Until next time! Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!
So, with college being very hectic this year with constant projects and exams, I've had very little time for game dev work outside of continuing work on the long term project. While that's fun to work on, because it's a long term project, it's hard to get that sense of completion from making a game. So, I've decided to remedy that by using the extra time I'll have over the Christmas break to make a bunch of small games. I've been keeping a list of small projects I've wanted to make. I'll make them in a somewhat game jam style structure. I'm going to give myself two days per project but if one takes my interest, I may spend longer on that. The goal is to create a few small yet polished little games in a short period of time. It'll be a way of releasing some of the creative energy I've had to bottle up as of late with college work. Once, I have these games made, I'll more than likely put some if not all online for folks to play. I'll post more about that at the time. So, be prepared for a mini explosion of games from me after Christmas! Until next time! Hey there, Gamers and game Makers! Have you ever decided to start learning something new? It's great, right? You get so excited about it and you gather everything you need. But, have you ever noticed that excitement fade away quite quickly? In this week's blog, we're going to look at the three states of starting something new. #1 Buying/Getting ToolsStarting to learn something new is pretty exciting. You get excited about the tools/software you're going to need to get. You get excited about the possibilities of what you can do after you've learnt this tool or process. This stage of the process is the most exciting because it's basically the concept or planning phase. It's still new and captivating to you because you haven't actually done anything yet. It's all still possibilities.  #2 LearningThe learning stage starts off great. You're still excited and enthusiastic about this. However, this is where we tend to become less excited as we go. Sometimes the learning curve is that bit steeper than we first thought. It's when we hit this little bump in the road that we can become disheartened. Don't feel bad though. This happens to us all at some point. Keep in mind learning something new can take time. If it interests you, then keep at it and you'll start to get past that initial block.  #3 PracticeNow, here's the part where most people fall down. You've just spent a lot of time learning this new tool or skill.. But, if you don't keep practicing it, you'll very quickly lose all that progress you made learning it. To avoid that, it's simple enough. Practice. Yeah, it's a pretty cliché line, but, it's true, practice makes perfect. Or as near too as possible. So, I'm not saying spend hours and hours of each day practicing. You can but, you don't have too. Rather, simply spend a short amount of time often keeping basic skills sharp. Try to keep learning new elements of your tool or skill in order to expand. You'll find the more you enjoy this, the easier it is to practice.  Until next time!
Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers! In this week's blog, I'm going to be talking about why I think everyone should build a robot. No, I'm not super lonely and need to build a friend.....maybe. I'm talking more so about why things like the Arduino and Raspberry Pi are so important. Before college, I was very much a software focused guy. I had basically no interaction with hardware beyond the basics of my PC. All that changed one fine day when my hardware lecturer introduced me to the Arduino.  So, for those who aren't familiar with what an Arduino is. It's a microcontroller which basically means it's a small computer on a single integrated circuit. The great thing about an Arduino is that you can build nearly anything with them. During my first year of college, I built things ranging from temperature sensors to rhythm pattern locks which was basically a lock that would not open unless a specific knock pattern was made. Taking the secret door knock to the next level! Outside of college, I ended up ordering both an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi along with a bunch of parts and sensors. I ended up using an Arduino to build a robot car that could find its way around the environment either by line tracking or using sonar sensors. The really cool thing about building these things is that you still need to code the logic for all this in an IDE for the Arduino. The great thing here is you're not only learning to code but you're seeing a physical real world result of your code. It's a pretty satisfying feeling seeing a bunch of parts and sensors come to life when you write good code behind it all.  The Raspberry Pi is much similar to that of the Arduino except it's more like a fully fledged computer. While not that powerful compared to a desktop, you can still do amizing things with a Pi and they're a great starting point if you want to get down and dirty with coding a computer or learning about Linux based systems. My advice would be, if you have an interest in code but also like the idea of building something. Try your hands at something like the Arduino and you'll be amazed at all the things you can make and that it'll actually make you a better programmer.
Until next time! Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers! It's that time again when we dive into one of my past games and see what worked and what didn't work. This time we'll be looking at my most recent game, Hide The Body.  So, as you can probably guess, Hide The Body is a game about hiding bodies. Specifically about doing so in a short space of time before the cops kick in the door and pin the crime on you. Hide The Body was born from a similar concept I had already made. A stupid game I made in a short space of time called Hide The Porn. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what that was about. While Hide The Porn was very rough around the edges, it did have a solid gameplay loop. One that would fit very well with Hide The Body. Now, with Hide The Body, I wanted to create a game that implemented that core gameplay loop and improved upon the games mechanics. While the theme of Hide The Body is quite grim on the surface, it was important that the game not take itself seriously. The idea was the game been very difficult yet amusing and down right goofy. Visually, I went with a low poly style as it was the most disempowering to the grim theme. I gave it a noir black and white style. This served two purposes. One, it was visually a style I found very appealing and two, it acted as a game design element to keep visual gameplay uniform.  As for the gameplay loop itself, it was simple. Hide all traces of a crime within a short amount of time. The actual time duration from level to level was unknown to the player. The only cue was the rising tension in the audio. This served to stress the player even more. If you hid everything in time, you won. If you didn't, you lost and time was always very tight. Balancing this was very difficult as there is a fine line between hard yet fun and just purely frustrating. It was also important that replying a level was fast as if you were stuck on a hard level and you kept having to wait a minute to reply the same thirty seconds of gameplay, you'd soon become frustrated at the waiting.  So, let's look at what worked. The gameply loop was much tighter and refined from what it was in Hide The Porn. It felt a more polished game overall. The game struck the balance between difficult and fun very well providing that real sense of satisfaction upon beating a level. Visually the game felt like it was its own thing. It felt very cohesive and very much suited to the theme of the game itself. The game was also my first game to be published on the Steam store which in itself was a success to me. This brought a new market to the game along with new reviews and feedback I wouldn't have gotten elsewhere. The game had a successful launch and was met with largely positive reviews. While the game is quite niche, it found an audience that enjoyed it and provided feedback that led to patch updates that greatly improved the game.  So, what didn't work? Well, this is not so much something that didn't work as it's just a wish. I would have liked to have had more levels at launch but time simply didn't allow for that. But, given the difficulty of the game, having 20 levels at launch was still a good number. I would also have liked to have had more animations in the game but the drawback in that was being a game that focused on fast time sensitive gameplay, adding in animations for every action would have been counter intuitive to that process.
While the game had a decent market launch, it didn't break any sales records. On the upside, the analytics gained from the launch and maintenance of Hide The Body has provided fantastic information for future releases and marketing. Overall, this game is one I'm very proud of. It's a game that has a solid gameplay loop with good visuals that doesn't take itself seriously. It's a game that knows who it is and it's one I still enjoy playing. Until next time! Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers! In this week's blog, I wanted to do something a little different. I enjoy reading a lot and I read various types of books from Science Fiction all the way to Physics and Cosmology books. Each book I read leaves some kind of impression on me that in turn influences what I make in some way. So, I thought it might be interesting if I started sharing some of the books I've been reading and the ones that stood out for me. #1 Hex: Thomas Olde Heuvelt Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt is probably my favorite book of the last year. It scratches that Stephen King itch while bringing a very new and fresh twist on the supernatural. I won't go into any spoilers or even detail for that matter as I think this is a fantastic book to go into blind and enjoy the ride it takes you on. It's a book that I couldn't put down and it's definitely influenced me. #2 Strange Weather: Joe Hill Strange Weather by Joe Hill is a collection of four short novels that I found to be very entertaining. Each one strikes that perfect balance between the strange and the unnerving of both the unknown and of human nature. With each novel providing a twist that packs a punch, it's the perfect book for firing up that imagination. #3 The Physics of Everyday Things: James Kakalios The Physics of Everyday Things by James Kakalios is the perfect book for those of us who want a better understanding of physics but don't want to get bogged down by a very theory heavy academic book. The book instead takes you on a journey through physics through the perspective of an average day in your life. Breaking down the physics of your everyday interactions in a way that not only makes sense but leaves you with a sense of not only a better understanding of physics but a practical and useful knowledge of the subject. I very much suggest reading this book if you're interested in physics but nervous about jumping in.
Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!
This week, I want to talk a little bit about something I've noticed with my designs as of late. In the past, when I was working on a game, I viewed that game project very much as a product. Now, of course I still enjoyed working on my past games and I'm very proud of some of those ideas. Hide The Body being a prime example of a game which had such a goofy premise and yet was a great deal of fun to both make and play. Yet, I viewed it as a product. Since, I've been back in college for year 2 of my computer science degree course, I've had less time than last year for my game design work. Now this doesn't mean I haven't been working on games. I have one long term game project that I'm chipping away at. I also have several small game ideas on paper that I think I'll breath some life into in the coming Christmas break in the form of short jam style game projects. The thing about working on these games by chipping away at them in what little spare time I have is that they've become more of a hobby than a job. I feel as if I've gone back to making games purely for me as opposed to for a market audience. Having removed the very strict deadlines I used to work towards and making the long term project on a much more flexible timeline has taken away a lot of the pressure I once put on myself. The addition of making small random games in short spaces of time has become that creative outlet that I very much crave amongst the day to day work of my computer science studies. It provides me with a creative outlet that still requires a lot of the technical knowledge I need to keep sharp. Making these kind of short games also allows me to take risks with game ideas I normally wouldn't take. The great thing about this is while you may make a lot of stupid games, you might make one or two gems that hold potential for a more developed version. So, I guess what I would like for people to take away from this post is that it's ok to simply chip away at a game project for a longer period of time or just make short stupid little games. You'll enjoy it more and do better work as a result of not rushing your game. Have fun with it. Wasn't that why you started in the first place? Until next time! |
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