The game has gotten off to a rough start. None of this is the team's fault, this squarely falls on me and my troubles these past few weeks. Programming wise, what has been done in the game hasn't been too difficult. Marquee selection ended up being incredibly simple after I did all the necessary research and at that point selecting single units was a few extra lines of code. Swapping between scenes worked without a hitch. Much of the time spent wasn't even in the code, it was tweaking the camera speed and angle to best suit each scene and its controls.
Now, in to the issues the problems that have gotten this game off to a rough start. First would be communication. In week two this was a big issue because Andrew was unsure how to talk with me about what he should do on the project, and as such we lost any potential work he could have added programming wise. He did get all the documentation done though so not all was lost. We fixed this in week 3, starting with our first meeting where we outlined which pieces of the current project each person would work on, and during the week when we used our slack group to ask each other questions about the specific direction the game was going.
Second would be a mix of time management and life just getting in the way. Between work and classes, I have a fairly busy schedule week to week. As such, I try to set aside time to work on homework for class and on programming this game. Last week I was behind on both and with the class happening earlier in the week than the week two deadline, I put my attention on that first. All fine and dandy, except I was so tired from lack of sleep that I was unable to finish the work I had started on the game in time for the team's review. The next day I made sure everything was done and ready for our team meeting, but it was still technically late. This week was another monster all together. During the week my roommate seriously injured himself and needed to be taken to the Emergency Room. The time was 2 am. I did not sleep that night which was immediately followed by one of my most exhausting days at work yet. I fell asleep as soon as I got home and lost the entire day's worth of free time, time I had planned to use on the game.
Now, both these situations could have been mitigated is I set aside time earlier in the week. I need to work a lot on my time management in these coming weeks for not only this game but whichever we choose to go forward with. Right now it's not looking good for this one even though I personally feel it has a stronger and more manageable direction. By the end of next week though both games should be in the spot we want them and we will choose from there.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Let the Games Begin: Ideation and Iteration
A new year. A new team. A new game to create.
When said like that it all seems so simple, yet game development rarely is. For a ragtag team of three programmers, a designer, and a producer, we have a blessing and a curse. We lack a dedicated artist. This means we are free to create what we want gameplay wise, but on the flipside we won't have any art to back it up if the gameplay alone falls flat. However, we have enough programming power to create something fairly complex and special, so we headed into the ideation phase with high hopes.
That's the thing about ideas though, they are cheap and anyone can make one. Many of our ideas fell into this category. Two stood above the rest when all was said and done, a 2D Survival Game and a Guild Management Simulator. We had also considered a form of Tower Defense, but some of the ideas were adapted into a potential direction for the Survival Game. Art wise, these games could be rough, but we plan on sticking to a simpler, almost pixel art style to keep the art load low but still presentable.
The Survival Game is fairly simple on the outside, survive the dangers present in the world around you. The complexity comes in with our potential design directions. The dominant choice right now is to have a city system. The player could enter the cities and interact with the townsfolk, but ultimately have to head back into the wild after and indeterminate amount of time. The cities themselves would change overtime as well, with some cities completely disappearing off the map due to some natural disaster. We have also considered having base building that must be defending from roaming enemies. Possible settings include post-apocalyptic for something closer to Earth or a Rim World for a more science fiction feel.
The Guild Management Simulator is the idea I am the most attached to and have contributed the most to design wise. Set in a Fantasy or Medieval setting, you are the Guild Master ad you must recruit adventurers to help you complete jobs and clear out dungeons to keep the guild running. It's a two part game. On the management side you send adventurers out to autonomously complete jobs given to you by Non-Player Characters(NPCs), maintain and build up the guild, as well as recruit new members. You can decide what rooms you want in the guild to best maximize your members effectiveness and where they are located. There will be a main hall in which you can choose a specialization that will help the guild attract more members, make more money, or somewhere in-between. This room can be customized as well which might have an effect on how effective your specialization is. On the other side is the combat missions. These take place in the Dungeon, a multi-tiered structure found in the city that is infested with monsters. The combat system will be a variation on the standard Real Time Strategy (RTS) style gameplay. Defeating a combat mission earns great rewards than those normally received from sending your guild members on jobs. It also unlocks the next floor of the Dungeon and allows you to send parties of adventurers to clear the defeated floors. This game would benefit from both a 2D or 3D style, and the one that is chosen will greatly influence how we design the game later on if we chose to go forward with it.
We hope to have both prototypes done by this time next week so we can make our decision on which game to move forward with. And then the real fun begins.
When said like that it all seems so simple, yet game development rarely is. For a ragtag team of three programmers, a designer, and a producer, we have a blessing and a curse. We lack a dedicated artist. This means we are free to create what we want gameplay wise, but on the flipside we won't have any art to back it up if the gameplay alone falls flat. However, we have enough programming power to create something fairly complex and special, so we headed into the ideation phase with high hopes.
That's the thing about ideas though, they are cheap and anyone can make one. Many of our ideas fell into this category. Two stood above the rest when all was said and done, a 2D Survival Game and a Guild Management Simulator. We had also considered a form of Tower Defense, but some of the ideas were adapted into a potential direction for the Survival Game. Art wise, these games could be rough, but we plan on sticking to a simpler, almost pixel art style to keep the art load low but still presentable.
The Survival Game is fairly simple on the outside, survive the dangers present in the world around you. The complexity comes in with our potential design directions. The dominant choice right now is to have a city system. The player could enter the cities and interact with the townsfolk, but ultimately have to head back into the wild after and indeterminate amount of time. The cities themselves would change overtime as well, with some cities completely disappearing off the map due to some natural disaster. We have also considered having base building that must be defending from roaming enemies. Possible settings include post-apocalyptic for something closer to Earth or a Rim World for a more science fiction feel.
The Guild Management Simulator is the idea I am the most attached to and have contributed the most to design wise. Set in a Fantasy or Medieval setting, you are the Guild Master ad you must recruit adventurers to help you complete jobs and clear out dungeons to keep the guild running. It's a two part game. On the management side you send adventurers out to autonomously complete jobs given to you by Non-Player Characters(NPCs), maintain and build up the guild, as well as recruit new members. You can decide what rooms you want in the guild to best maximize your members effectiveness and where they are located. There will be a main hall in which you can choose a specialization that will help the guild attract more members, make more money, or somewhere in-between. This room can be customized as well which might have an effect on how effective your specialization is. On the other side is the combat missions. These take place in the Dungeon, a multi-tiered structure found in the city that is infested with monsters. The combat system will be a variation on the standard Real Time Strategy (RTS) style gameplay. Defeating a combat mission earns great rewards than those normally received from sending your guild members on jobs. It also unlocks the next floor of the Dungeon and allows you to send parties of adventurers to clear the defeated floors. This game would benefit from both a 2D or 3D style, and the one that is chosen will greatly influence how we design the game later on if we chose to go forward with it.
We hope to have both prototypes done by this time next week so we can make our decision on which game to move forward with. And then the real fun begins.
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