Hammering Away

These last few weeks have been fairly productive. I am getting closer to having the rules system nailed, I have finished my design document, have a lot of the game logic diagrammed in UML, have a small bit of concept art done, and getting closer to having website ready to launch for Aeges Road. If all goes well, I may have the website up some time next week containing a bit more info on the up coming game. A lot of this wouldn't take so long if I were a bit faster (better maybe) at artwork.

The not so Solo Independent Game Developer

For years, several friends and I attempted to make a game together, and for years we were unable to coordinate. The talent was there, the ideas were there, but the organization and structure never came about and it failed every time. The last attempt really looked promising, but with both of us going back to school and living 80 miles apart, the project sunk un-noticed into the mire. On a side note, even though the project failed to appear, I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent on the project and learned a lot about game engine code.

When I was facing a solo hobby, I was feeling a bit lonely. I had no doubt I could have done it with help, but now it was all on me, or was it? As I began to do more research on the industry as a whole I began to find that I was only as alone as I wanted to be. There are endless forums and blogs, many of them wanting to share their findings with others to help build and structure a strong community. I found myself quickly getting sucked in to a small bit of the community at Rampant Games where I try to add my little contributions here and there, and learning a lot more than I am teaching.

If you are just getting into the independent game development community I strongly encourage you to get started here. There is a lot of knowledge stashed away in that blog with links to even more blogs and small communities. Solo game development may seem a little intimidating at first, but don't kid yourself, you are not alone. :-)

History

OK, I have missed a few days posting, I am trying to get this game planned out. For several weeks this blog will probably not get daily updates. Any how, here is the history behind my upcoming game.

The Shree were an ancient culture of unknown origin. Unlike humans who are carbon based, the shree are purely water based. They have no initial form so they usually take on a similar likeness to the creatures around them, they said it made social acceptance a much smoother process. It wasn't long until the humans and the shree forged a common bond and worked together.

As time passed, a long drought took the land, and both shree and human life were in danger. The shree needed fresh water to lay their eggs, and the humans just needed fresh water. An idea was suggested and work began. A plan to turn salt water into fresh water and channel it inland.

Much of the land near the sea had been reduced to dessert, so the first part of the plan was simple. They needed a shallow flow of water downward for several miles in order to sift out some of the salt. This area soon became known as the Dead Flats. An army of humans gave their lives in the process of digging this massive shallow river.

While the humans were working on the river, the shree were busy constructing an underground cavern. The cavern was covered in an undead organism much like coral. The coral would quite literally eat the salt out of the water. The water would then flow through various caverns until it landed in one of many hot pockets, in which the water was heated and shot to the surface. Together they had saved the land, but something did not feel right.

Things changed. Gem stones would now fuse with their wielders giving them power to manipulate matter it self. The shree had spoken of this before, but humans had lacked the capability, until now. And now that the quest for water was over, the quest for power soon began.

Mining sites cropped up all over. Huge gem stone rushes and clan wars were breaking out everywhere. The shree along with several human clans were forced to play the part of the peace keeper, but not with much success. Two civilizations were forged and immediately went into war with the powers of the gem stones before them. The Western Civilization was beginning to crumble when an unknown wizard showed up with a solution derived from some very special stones none had seen before. These stones proved powerful, and the East was soon crushed. But that was only the beginning.

The wizard had discovered that fresh water shree eggs would crystallize when salt was introduced to their water source, making powerful new gems called coral stones. He had ordered shree eggs stolen from their nests and brought to his lab for processing. This angered the shree and another war broke out. The shree fought only long enough to reclaim all of the coral stones, and with the help of a small group of people led by a young woman named Aeges, they forged a new realm and sealed themselves away from the humans. They did however leave a key, Aeges Song. Only Aeges singing this song could break the seal to the realm of the shree.

When the wizard heard of this, he devised a plan. He tricked Aeges and her husband into entering a dimension he had created for the sake of preserving their lives for all time. Upon entering Aeges was turned to evil and her husband was left trapped there for all eternity. The wizard wisped Aeges away to the sealed gate, but her song failed to open the gate. When the wizard corrupted Aeges, the song was corrupted along with her. She nor the wizard were ever heard from again.

The Programmers Art

I know for me as a programmer, I have always wanted to develop large video games. The problem has always been the fear of having to do my own art. For this reason I have spent a few years programming more along the lines of business applications, but the barrier is slowly dissolving.

Artwork has always been hit and miss for me. Some days I seem to do decent, and others it seems I should never insult the paper again. :-) Of course these are the same frustrations a person goes through with any new thing they are learning. Anime and Manga have long been a favorite art style for me, and I have tinkered with them before, but never to the degree of diving into them for a productive purpose.

I have looked for software to simplify some of this, but none of it seems to fit my needs. I would love to become a good artist, but find myself lacking the time to truly master the art. I can draw some semi-decent characters, but they fail to look the same from drawing to drawing. If anyone else has found successful techniques in anime and manga style art, I would love to hear suggestions from you.

Get Started Making Games

As it should be noted, I am no authority on game programming. Most of my programming has been either desktop applications or web scripting. So, not being a master of the art puts me in a great position for growing the talent and taking notes for all who might be interested in pursuing game development. Even though I had never written an entire game, I spent several years putting together four different concepts of infinite terrain loading in Java. I had also made partial games, not full functional, but interactive. I have also worked on several theories of simplifying 3D level building using JOGL, but never got it fully functional.

My first full game was VOTA. VOTA was based off of an idea I had a few years ago and never implemented. When I discovered the 4k competition, I immediately began working on VOTA, had the game fully playable in 2 days, refined game play within the week, and the rest of my time was spent learning sound programing and how to shrink everything down to 4k. It all took less than a month. For the most part it was a success, but several things still bother me about it.

My biggest bother was sound. Sound was not easy to implement (much less squeeze into 4k). It took some serious work getting sound programmed into the game. When everything seemed finished, I rebooted to windows to test it there, and no sound. After several weeks, sound was choppy in Windows, and the music would not mix well. Very disappointing, and I had done all I knew to do without using a soundbank, and soundbanks were against the rules of the competition. So there it was, one of the few games with sound, the only game with music, and no dice either because of my poor skills, or Java's poor sound implementation.

A week before the contest was going to be over, I had another idea. Choppacide, a chopper style video game with some very fake physics. Since I only had a week, and been burned out by Java sound, I decided to make this one purely based on game play. I had a lot of fun making this game. The pressure was off, I already had submitted a game and this one would be extra. This game was fully playable in just a few hours. In three days I had refined the game play to what I felt was close enough to perfection, and submitted it.

Neither of the games are doing well in the competition, but they were a great learning experience. I would encourage any new game developer to start with some small projects and get them working quickly. Do not bother with impressive graphics at first, save that for the refinement of the game. If you know of any upcoming competitions, enter them. You may not win, but if you are having trouble finishing, a deadline often times helps get you motivated to complete it, and you might get some good constructive criticism of your game.

My Game in a Year Entry, Aeges Road

A Little About the Game

With a very busy schedule, there is little hope that this will be done in a year, but a little hope out ways no hope by refusing to try. Personally, I have found that deadlines imposed upon me, motivate me. My first imposed project was a small desktop application contract. It took a while, but persistence brought it to completion, and taught me a lot along the way. I was also able to finish two small games in a months time for the 2007 4k Java competition at http://www.javaunlimited.net.

With my newly imposed deadline Aeges Road, a turn based rpg, is the intended outcome. Aeges Road is going to feature a hybrid approach to the turn based battle system. None of it looks truly revolutionary, but rather a new spin on many theories surrounding turn based rpg combat. My goal is not to be revolutionary, but rather to bring forward a game that is both fun and intriguing. Too simple a combat and stats system will bore a veteran RPG player while making it too difficult will scare away the new comers. It is important that I find that fine line between a fun game, and a game you can't wait to play again.

I have purchased Torque Game Builder for the game, and am currently working on it in linux since I already have compilers set up. I have been a Java programmer for the last 2 or 3 years, so I am very rusty on C/C++. In fact, the name Code Ugly was inspired by my attempts to brush up on C/C++. Good thing too, my previous web hosting service quite literally, and quite legally stole my old domain which I had owned for a total of 3 years and built a small business on, so watch out for leased domain names when you sign on with a web host.

A Little History

Ever since I was a kid, I have dreamed of making video games. I was mesmerized by my first gaming console, the Atari 2600. I started out with three games, Jungle Hunt, Donkey Kong Jr, and Joust. Soon after getting my feet wet with the Atari, I had a chance to watch a friend of mine play The Legend of Zelda on his Nintendo (he had the robot too). That game sparked an interest in me, and in the fourth grade I began designing game levels on wide ruled with a No. 2 graphite when I was supposed to be doing my homework. Not much has changed. :-)

When I turned 15, I was finally introduced to the game that would change my view of video gaming forever, Final Fantasy 3. I had never played an RPG before, I had seen them and they looked boring. No dancing mushrooms to jump on, no aliens to shoot, nothing. Well, as the story began to develop the hook sank deeper. The game play may not have been reflexive, but it was addictive, and the level growth added to the excitement. We played the game into the late hours of the next afternoon, could not go to sleep, and still today, an RPG will turn my wallet inside out faster than any other genre.

As we played more games, we got the urge to try and develop a game. We had some success, but we all got bored, and none of us were great artists, least of all me. Two of us could code C++, but not to the extreme of designing and bringing together an entire graphics and gaming environment. We eventually adjusted to mostly talking about making a game with little progress toward a final project (yes, I am very guilty). School caught up with us, and we eventually parted ways on the game design frontier.

Hello

Not much for my first title, and not much for my first post. I would just like to say welcome, and give a little bit of a heads up on possible future content. I am currently involved in the game in 1 year competition at http://www.mydreamrpg.com. My intended game is a 2D anime style RPG. Most of the posts on this blog will have to do with development, artwork, or gaming in general.

Hope to make this more interesting soon!