OneDollarProductions Blog

We have moved!

2010-02-25T21:12:00.003Z

OneDollar Productions has now officially said goodbye to Blogger and moved onto Wordpress. You can find the shiny new blog at www.onedollarproductions.co.uk/news/. All that remains now is for you to update your RSS feed by visiting http://feeds.feedburner.com/onedollarproductionsnews or by going to www.onedollarproductions.co.uk/news/ and clicking the RSS link. See you on the other side!

Blogger stops FTP, I'm off to Wordpress

2010-02-03T08:35:00.002Z

Blogger announced on the 22nd of January (though I don't read their blog so only found out by email today) that they're discontinuing FTP and SFTP publishing services after March 26th. Unfortunately I rely on FTP to publish here because I don't want to host my blog on Google's servers.

I've not been overly happy with Blogger's service, so this is probably going to be the catalyst for me moving to Wordpress. I'm going to have to do some reading to see how that's going to work/happen but it's likely webpages, RSS feeds and so on are going to change so if you're still interested in what I have to say watch this space for news.

Robbing the Princess reviewed

2009-12-14T20:27:00.002Z

Robbing the Princess got a pretty favourable review over at The Blue Cup Critic. You can read the full review here.

Robbing the Princess

2009-12-13T21:58:00.004Z

I have finally put Robbing the Princess, my latest game and entry to the November 2009 MAGS competition, on my website.

It may be 18 days after it was first released, and already be on it's third version, but better late than never right?

Expect some form of analysis of the game in a day or five, but for now click the picture above to play it or click here to view some of my other games.

Novel

2009-09-27T21:38:00.003+01:00

Some more practise with my graphics tablet, this time a little more constructive. Click the picture below for the full comic.

Why you shouldn't let me play free games

2009-09-21T20:40:00.005+01:00

Many thanks to SSH and his AGS Blog I downloaded my free copy of 'Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal' on 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' and spent the next several hours finishing it.

Unfortunately I wasn't particularly impressed.

It wasn't that it was a bad game... it's just that it felt rushed, amateurish*, the puzzles and plot were all over the place, the interface was clunky, every line of dialogue was scripted (seriously, what's the point of giving you four options to choose from in a conversation when Guybrush ignores your choice completely EVERY SINGLE TIME**) and it was a Telltale game, not a Monkey Island game***.

Feel free to disagree with me on any or all points, my arguments probably won't stand up to fearsome interrogation. This post was as much an excuse to draw something with my tablet as a rant anyway.

- - -

*Except the graphics, animation and I guess the acting.

**I have a theory about this - in the classic LucasArts adventure games you could choose your response to a conversation from a number of options. Naturally you choose the one that you found the funniest, which means you're tailoring the jokes towards your sense of humour. With Tales: Episode 1 Guybrush says the same thing no matter what you choose thus destroying all replayability, denying you control of the character and leaving you with the feeling of a potentially hilarious missed conversation.

***Monkey Island is about grog-drinking, unwashed, unpleasant, skull-digging pirates, hunting treasure and sailing to exotic Caribbean Islands. Pirates playing with dolls, scientific contraptions and frilly pink underwear do not belong here (or at most are only as background jokes ala Largo's "laundry", not shoved in your face as puzzles).

Runaway - not a road adventure

2009-09-16T22:00:00.005+01:00

A few days ago I got an email from someone who had stumbled across this post that I made on the AGS forums about an adventure game called Runaway - or Monkey Run? - by a German group called Pixel Team (not to be confused with the later Runaway adventure games by Péndulo Studios).

I've got a demo of this game from a CD collection and it has always intrigued me because although it's rather buggy and has an awful interface, it also has several nice touches that seem to have had a lot of thought put into them. I spent a few free evenings recording videos and trying desperately to remember how to complete it (which I'm sure I've done, or nearly did).

I couldn't figure it out, so here's a video of the first puzzle to show a bit of the game in action instead.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find much out about this game (especially as searches for "Runaway" and "adventure game" find the Péndulo games), so I'm fairly sure it never got beyond this demo. If you have any more information I'd love to hear it.

The demo was released as shareware, so if you fancy playing it I've uploaded a copy here. It works fine under Windows XP using DOS-Box. If you manage to get into the keeper's house (which I think is the next step from where I'm stuck) let me know how because I really can't remember how I did it last time! If I manage to get much further I might put up a full playthrough.

Tip for playing:
When picking up items you can click the 'Pick Up' option, then the item. With the other interactions you generally have to click on the place you want to interact with, *then* click the verb...

Working Title

2009-08-19T22:34:00.006+01:00

On a bit of a coding high at the moment... found and fixed several bugs in the aforementioned Mystery Project and implemented starting and naming projects. Here, have a screenshot and (working) title!

Don't get too excited, there's still an awful lot that needs programming and AGS could still come crashing to the ground with all I'm asking it to do... but its holding up remarkably well so far.

OneDollar's Demos - Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships - Part 2

2009-08-12T21:40:00.010+01:00

Continuing on from yesterday's post...

OneDollar Presents...
A biased and uncharitable review of Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships (Part 2)

I'm sorry but this isn't a door lock, somebody's just fitted an electronic game to your wall. I'd call your locksmith and ask for a refund.

Success - I opened the door! Now I can dress up in a diving suit, then attempt all the other challenges while still wearing it. According to George, Nancy has “...solved mysteries in every corner of the world”. The map shows the locations of all of Nancy's mysteries, so “every corner of the world” actually means North America and four places in Europe. How cultured.

I can deduce one of two things from this book of instructions: either Sonny stole a monkey's brain, or Sonny stole a monkey's hairdo.

“You look just like this bird I met in England” sounds like another way of saying “We already rendered a parrot once, lets use it again”. I assume this previous meeting explains why Nancy shows no surprise at a bird that can carry on an intelligent conversation. Seriously, a bird like that should not be left sitting in an empty lobby, it should be on TV hosting a chat show or doing the weather or something.

George told me this golf cart needed water to work, but it runs fine. This is the person we've got repairing our one and only satellite phone? It doesn't work on grass (after all, why would you want a golf cart to work on grass?) but fortunately most of this 'ecotourism' island is covered with winding tarmac roads.

After beating the monkey at his own game I get to choose a prize from a thrilling range! Don't get too excited about puzzle solving though, Nancy's quick to remind me that the parrot wanted fruit. If only this were a real adventure game, just think of the puzzles you could solve with an eye patch and a goldfish keyring...

This means 7-9-2-0-4 in international signals. Now there's a fair chance that anyone wanting a sail is going to be using it to sail a boat, and there's an equally fair chance that said sailor will know the international flag signals so really all this does is weed out the amateurs. Changing this code must be a real pain. Do they have a stock of little flags to put on the bin?

I found this picture hidden in the lobby. It brings home a stark realisation that somewhere, somehow a real game creator made this game and was pleased enough with it to hide a photo of his wife (or daughter, or sister or next door neighbour) in the background. Kind of touching, unless of course that picture *is* the game creator in which case its just creepy.

Having ticked off everything on the task list that the game will let me, all I've got left to do is to look for Bess. She clearly came to this beach but the demo won't let me go there, so I guess I've been abandoned to drive the golf cart in circles around the map. Anyway, leaving the demo without a proper ending seems a good enough reason for me to do the same to this post.

End.

OneDollar's Demos - Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships - Part 1

2009-08-11T21:45:00.013+01:00

Time for something a little different (although I've done something similar before). I got bored on Sunday evening, fired up Steam and downloaded a demo of what I fully expected to be a rubbish game. What follows are my experiences.

OneDollar Presents...
A biased and uncharitable review of Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships (Part 1)

If there's one thing that immediately made me want to play the full game, its the promise of "Mild Violence".

Maybe they got the monkey to count them?

I always visit the options page before starting a game. Here I'm glad to note we are given not one but two resolutions: 'small' and 'would fit comfortably on the screen of my phone'. Who is this game made for, those casual gamers who never found the resolution settings on their PC?

Although it's meant to set the scene, this introduction raises more questions than it answers.
- Shouldn't that be George and I? If you're going to keep a journal at least learn to use correct grammar. (If not write a blog instead).
- Who on earth holds a father-daughter banquet? As a side note, arriving a day late to one of these things is never a good plan. I can only assume everyone will be dead, missing or replaced by a robot lookalike by the time Nancy arrives.
- An ecotourism resort that you can only reach by plane? Well somebody dropped the ball there. Does the cost of your ticket include carbon offsetting?
- Floatplane is a stupid name for a kind of aircraft. Not a question, just an observation.
- I guess this is the same journal Nancy will use to record all the grisly details of whatever 'Mild Violence'-containing mystery we come across. I'm sure the red-purple frilly borders will offset that marvellously.
- “Shark Diving Resort” is possibly the worst name for a resort I have ever come across.
- Seriously, how big is this book? Judging by the size of those poorly paper-clipped postcards... erm... 29x33 centimetres closed. I'm not going to ask where she keeps it.

I have no idea what's going on here but AHAHAHAHAHA! I'm just disappointed the actor didn't read the “pppp” at the end of “Stooooopppp”. Also a nice contender for 'worst water render in a modern game'.

If I were ever to kidnap someone, I don't think I'd do it on a tiny, inaccessible island with no planes to escape with. Okay, so the story's wholly unoriginal and the characters look like they were made in Poser, but we've already got intrigue, danger...

...and a task to “Win a game against a monkey”? I assumed the introduction was supposed to make me sympathise with the characters and draw me into the game's plot, but why bother when five seconds later you're going to a literal list of mini-games I have to play. There are many things that drive people to crime. Need, greed and apparently an insatiable urge to create treasure hunts. We're dealing with one seriously messed up villain here... do you reckon you actually have to go diving for number 8, or is it just an excuse for them to watch Nancy dress up? Let's not think too hard about that one.

George demonstrates how to fix a satellite phone: glare at it and shake it up and down. Also if you make the mistake of hovering your mouse over her...

“Hey George, can I talk to... ooh okay...”

Venture back tomorrow, if ye dare, for the terrible conclusivness of part 2!

RE: Mystery Project

2009-07-29T23:15:00.003+01:00

Little update: I am still working on it when I have the time (and can motivate myself). I could claim that I've been busy with work and preparing for an upcoming exam, but frankly I've just had a weeks holiday and didn't touch it once.

Anyway, I put in a good stint tonight and I'm now well on the way with the hardest part of the project, at least from a programming point of view. The problem is I'm doing something very different from what AGS was designed for, so I've no idea if what I want to achieve will actually work. I'm getting very close to finding out.

Much more info to come when I've decided it's going to work and I won't have to scrap the whole idea.

Work In Progress

2009-07-12T22:48:00.004+01:00

I've been spending some time with the game I previously referred to as "Mystery Project". Having told several people about it, its not much of a mystery anymore, and seen as I'm rather pleased with it at the moment here's a screenshot:

(Click the image for full size)

Exciting, huh?

Breakdown behind the scenes - Part 6 - Releasing the game

2009-06-14T16:46:00.004+01:00

Sorry for the delay in posting this one, I've been on holiday and the Blogger website is blocked by my phone's internet connection.

SPOILERS ALERT! If you've not played Breakdown yet go do so before reading these posts as they contain, amongst other things, a full walkthrough!

So finally I'm there! I've got a game I'm happy with, it has all the bits in it that I wanted (within reason) to put in and I've played it through a couple of times to make sure it's all working and makes sense. It's almost time to submit it, but there's a few last touches. Hopefully I've stuck to my plan and still have a day or two left.

First I send the game to as many of my friends as I can convince to play it and look for bugs. It's amazing how many spelling mistakes and grammatical errors you can miss in the scores of times you've played through different areas. Plus they don't know the way AGS works and so they won't be following the same rules you will. Example: In Alan Saves Christmas there's a door that you need to get through, and in order to do that you need to solve a couple of rather difficult puzzles. I was surprised when one of my friends had managed to complete the game in about 10 minutes with no hints from me, and on questioning him further discovered that he had never solved either of these puzzles. He'd simply clicked on the wall near the door and Alan had walked straight through the door to the area behind it, sending him to the next room.

I also try and get my brother to play through the game, mainly because I can watch him doing it. Watching someone else play can be very eye-opening as they'll try things you'd never have thought of. Sometimes they'll do something you didn't realise could happen and you'll find bugs that they don't even know are problems.

Also this is the point where you turn debug mode off. Actually I never use it for testing so I usually switch it off when I start the project, but it's really easy to forget.

Fix any last problems and test your fixes thoroughly. Now it's time to show off. I use IconArt by Conware to draw custom setup and exe icons, write massive manuals that hardly anyone reads, write even longer EULAs that nobody reads (these essentially boil down to "Don't sell my game and don't pretend that it's yours", but they're kind of fun to write and give me some form of legal standing if I ever wanted to threaten anyone who was misusing my games). Upload the game to my website and create a page for it. Test the download. Mirror it somewhere. Test that download.

Now it's time to tell the world about it. Generally I make a games database entry first so that I'll have somewhere to link my posts to (also because I love getting feedback and seeing how many times the game's been downloaded). Then there's posts, almost simultaneously in the completed games and MAGS threads with everything cross-linked. That's maybe a little overboard but I've just spent 25 days working on a game, I want people to play it!

Now it's time to sit back and watch the comments coming in, hoping nobody finds a major bug in the first day. Oh, and this is also the time you promise yourself you'll never do another time-limited game again.

Fin.

Breakdown behind the scenes - Part 5 - Pulling the game together

2009-06-14T15:42:00.008+01:00

SPOILERS ALERT! If you've not played Breakdown yet go do so before reading these posts as they contain, amongst other things, a full walkthrough!

Everybody likes different bits of game making. Personally I love coding - coming up with a cool idea, putting in a rough implementation of it, thinking my way around all the possible problems, tweaking the code until it works just right and finally sitting back and seeing it working perfectly in game. This is the reason there is, for example, a fully working sliding door in the engine room corridor.

Unfortunately there's another side to games called artwork. Pixeling a character can be fun, and I enjoy doing some animation (though not walkcycles, everybody hates doing walkcycles), but you can't build a game without backgrounds and characters.

When it comes to putting the game together in AGS I focus on the areas I like doing (programming and writing) and do as much of those as I can until I have to draw the next bit of art. This way you can motivate yourself by thinking about all the great things you'll be able to do once it's finished.

With big things like backgrounds I also go through lots of versions. When I first start to put in walkable areas, walk-behinds and major hotspots I'll have an accurate line drawing of a room. By the time I start to put in objects or do animation I'll have at least coloured it in. Finally I'll get fed up of looking at it in it's half-finished state and put shading and texture in.

The same goes for the main character. When I'm just setting up rooms in AGS I only really need one standing graphic for the main character. When I'm testing walkable areas and putting in FaceLocation functions I'll need all four directions. Finally I'll get fed up of looking at them sliding around the floor and put in the walk animation... at least for one direction to start with.

Sometimes I do things that I don't need yet, to avoid doing something more productive. For example the main character has a full set of speech animations. Later I decided to have them never speak, so none of them are ever seen in-game.

From this point it's just a case of going through the cycle of Implement - Test - Improve until each piece of the game is at an acceptable level of quality.

I also try to work on sections of the game according to importance by dividing them into a set of categories:

Must be in the game
These are things that are vital, so the requirements of the competition must be met, major game breaking bugs must be fixed, the game has to be completable.

Really ought to be in the game
Almost vital things. All other game-breaking bugs need to be fixed, there should be a story or something to tell the player what they're supposed to be doing. Walkcycles.

Nice to have in the game
These are the areas that start lifting your game out of the average. Nearly all bugs need to be fixed, everything that's vital to completing the game should be put in and fully interactable and you should start adding in extra items/interactions that aren't necessary but add to the atmosphere or humour of the game.

Would make the game really good
This is where I would start putting in sound effects, music, extra animation, title screens, cutscenes etc. Basically the icing on the cake. Masses of testing leading to 100% of bugs eliminated.

Would be awesome
Unfortunately this is where my plan to have loads of death sequences fell, so it never made it. Basically this category is where you put your ideas that realistically are never going to make it into the game (under the current time limit) but, if you were to discover you had an extra couple of days, you could put in.

In reality I don't religiously stick to these boundaries because 1) I wouldn't want to release something that wasn't at least in the 'Nice to have...' category and 2) I have a habit of avoiding boring (and vital) parts of the game while I make something fancy and fun.

To be continued...

Breakdown behind the scenes - Part 4 - Layout

2009-06-13T22:45:00.010+01:00

SPOILERS ALERT! If you've not played Breakdown yet go do so before reading these posts as they contain, amongst other things, a full walkthrough!

Now that I've got a complete set of puzzles and solutions, it's time to work out where all those will physically fit into the game.

Of course the number and type of rooms needs to be considered during the puzzle writing stage. It's very demotivating spending 6 hours working on the background to a room that's only going to be used as a corridor to get to another room. Fortunately the way the puzzles and story panned out in Breakdown I only needed four 'action' rooms, and with a scifi setting I didn't have to worry about access to those rooms because I could use a teleporter.

The picture above also shows some simple sketches of the physical layout of my four rooms. You need to fit all the major objects in while leaving room for the character to walk and interact with them. I try to avoid scrolling rooms because it's already hard enough to make your background look interesting when you've got huge areas of single coloured wall or floor. There's also a nice big user interface (work in progress in the top picture) to take up some more screen space. I hate drawing backgrounds.

Before starting work on any backgrounds I also needed to design my GUI (Graphical User Interface). For instance, there's no need to put in inventory scrolling arrows if the player's never going to be able to pick up more items than there are slots. The picture above shows me working out the maximum number of inventory items that the player can have (and the overlapping bars are something to do with the timing of the automatic door in the engine room corridor).

By the way, we're still on about day 5 or 6.

Once the GUI size has been decided, and therefore I know how tall each room needs to be, it's time to start turning the very rough sketches into actual rooms. I used single point perspective to make everything accurate, which basically means the very first thing you do is draw the back wall of your room and pick a vanishing point on it. Everything is then drawn roughly using construction lines on a different layer, then converted to a detailed outline before being coloured and shaded/textured.

The AGS critics lounge is rather obsessed with single point perspective. If you submit a background for comments and criticism it's almost certain somebody will start drawing red lines all over it telling you how the table doesn't line up with the fridge. For the most part they're right, and single point perspective is a good starting point to draw a fairly realistic background, but it does have it's share of problems. Most noticeable of these is scaling. Unless you want scaling walkable areas in every single room (and I really don't - I spent time carefully placing every pixel of that character to make him look as good as I could, I don't want AGS taking a bunch of them out to draw him at a different size) your character is bound to look too small when they're in the foreground and too big when they're in the background. Take a look at the mirror above the sink on the left. It looks fine when the character is next to it because it lines up with his head, but it's really far down the wall.

Every background in Breakdown is rigorously drawn to single point perspective rules. Every background except one where it really wasn't working. Did you notice which one? Honestly? Sometimes it's better to sacrifice realism to make something look better.

To be continued...

Breakdown behind the scenes - Part 3 - Puzzles

2009-06-13T17:07:00.011+01:00

SPOILERS ALERT! If you've not played Breakdown yet go do so before reading these posts as they contain, amongst other things, a full walkthrough!

Now that I had a rough story I got a pad of paper and sat down for an hour or two working out all the puzzles and effectively writing a step-by-step walkthrough of the entire game. I'd say this is an almost essential step because it shows you exactly what you need to get done, and lets you see how far you are into the game's development.

Neat handwriting is purely optional. This walkthrough also isn't as detailed as it could be, the reason being that because the game is so short most of the design is in my head so this only has to act as a reminder of all the components and their order.

Puzzles are difficult things to come up with. The basic method I use to create them is to focus on the overall objective and come up with a series of tasks the player must complete, or obstacles they must overcome in order to get there. In Breakdown the objective is given in the MAGS rules - the ship cannot move and the player must repair something.

Ok, so lets say the player has to repair the ship's engine. What could be wrong with the engine? Well, what things do you have to do to maintain a car engine? How about the radiator needs filling with water.

*Water + Engine = Repaired Engine.

That's a little simple. Ok, where do we get the water from and how does the player transport the water to the engine?

*(Container) + Tap = Water in (Container)
*Water in (Container) + Engine = Repaired Engine

Where can we hide a tap? Well, how about in plain sight? Let's put it right in front of the player in the first room they can interact with, the sleeping quarters, where it also makes logical sense. By the time they've discovered they need water, they'll probably have forgotten all about it!

What about the bowl? Well, we could leave it lying around, but that would need somewhere logical for it to be like a kitchen or dining room. I can't think of anything else I want to do with either of these rooms, so how about a food vending machine like they have on Red Dwarf? I can put that in any old corridor and it'll add some character to life on the ship by making the player interact with background objects. What's more If I can think up a use for another item of food I can make the player use the vending machine more than once so it seems less of a gimmick. How do I stop them ordering all the food at once though? By making the food cost money, and giving the player different amounts of money at different points in the game so that they can't buy the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Suddenly something as simple as topping up the water level in an engine's radiator has become

*Money + Vending Machine = Bowl of Soup
*Bowl of Soup + Tap = Bowl of Water
*Bowl of Water + Engine = Repaired Engine

Add to that a need to top up the oil level and the fact that you can't even get to the engine in the first place, and you start to get an adventure game.

Some puzzles are born of necessity to make something more difficult, others are put in because they add character or make a good joke. I already mentioned the joke about the ship's captain being bald (like Picard) and having his head polished. Suddenly I've got an opportunity for two puzzles - one in which the aim is to get the can of polish, and the other in which the solution involves a can of polish!

To be continued...

Breakdown behind the scenes - Part 2 - Characters and story

2009-06-13T17:05:00.007+01:00

SPOILERS ALERT! If you've not played Breakdown yet go do so before reading these posts as they contain, amongst other things, a full walkthrough!

Continued from part 1...

Ethel (nameless at the time) was the first character I drew. Top tip - aliens are really easy to draw because you don't have to worry about proportions. As I drew him I started coming up with a bit of backstory to add to his character, like him having a rubbish grade in some science subject that made him the most qualified crew member (and therefore rather full of himself). I also decided I wanted humans on the ship as well as aliens (and a human as the main character would be easier to relate to). Humans and aliens working together on a space ship? That's a bit like Star Trek... Add a Star Trek-like shirt, badge and joke about lack of trousers and the game's premise started to fall in place...

Norman was the next character. Another alien because they're easier to draw and its easier to motivate yourself to draw hard things (like people) when you've already got other things done on the project. Different shirt colour because he's a different type of officer, though I hadn't decided what yet. I used contrasting ideas in his design, heavy-set and muscular, but very short, which lifts him from just being another background character. Meanwhile I started thinking about the Star Trek red-shirt - the extras who's only purpose is to die instead of the main characters. What if the main character was a red shirt, sent in to do the dirty work because the other characters couldn't be bothered?

(Another idea, which I would have loved to put in but got cut because I didn't have the time, was that the ship would be filled with dangerous items. Doing certain things - trying to pick up sparking wires for example - would kill the player. However instead of the game ending like Sierra games used to, you'd get a new character - who looked identical to the original - taking over the quest and inheriting all the items you'd picked up. Kill yourself in enough different ways and you'd unlock a secret ending.)

A ship is nothing without its captain, so that was the next character I drew. Like every good parody captain he would appear to be strong and heroic, but never do any work (and he'd probably flee from the first sign of danger). Sticking with the Star Trek parody I made him bald and came up with a joke about him having his head polished by a subordinate. I liked this idea and raised it in the design from a background joke to a part of the game. Now all I had to do was come up with a good use for a can of polish...

To be continued...

Breakdown behind the scenes - Part 1 - Idea

2009-06-13T16:09:00.011+01:00

SPOILERS ALERT! If you've not played Breakdown yet go do so before reading these posts as they contain, amongst other things, a full walkthrough!

"The theme of this month's contest is a classic sci-fi setting - you must have your main character(s) on a ship afloat in space that is, for whatever reason, unable to move (other systems may be malfunctioning at the creator's discretion). Are the characters scavenging the ship? Or is their own ship out of commission? The cause of the malfunction is up to the creator."

It'd been a while since I'd entered a MAGS competition and, as is often the case when you already have a project on the go, I was feeling inspired to do something different. When SpacePirateCaine's very open ruleset came along I decided to think up some possible games I could make to it.

My first plan was to do some kind of horror game, big on atmosphere. I'd love to do something serious that really grips the player, but ultimately decided I couldn't pull it off in the time. Next idea was to return to my game-making roots and do something in an RPG Maker style - top down tiled graphics with a focus on exploring and environmental rather than inventory puzzles. Again another idea I'd love to return to in the furture, but some quick attempts at drawing tiles went badly and it would have been cheating to have used someone else's free tileset.

I have a general rule of 5 days planning for MAGS. If I'm going to make a game in such a short amount of time I'll need to know (more or less) what I have to draw, script, test and so on. So on the 5th of April (a Sunday) I had a last ditch attempt at coming up with a game idea and opened up Graphics Gale and started pixeling characters...

To be continued...

Feed fixed. Again.

2009-05-25T21:41:00.004+01:00

I moved my website between servers a while back which resulted in some slightly changed file paths. I remembered to change some Blogger details, but missed the feeds and archive paths. Because I post so regularly it's only taken me a month to notice. Whoops!

Anyway, everything should be up and running again.

Also Eegra linked this video yesterday. It's both hilarious and sweet.

JD Reviews Breakdown...

2009-05-22T14:59:00.002+01:00

...about 2 weeks ago. Anyway, apparently the game was short but funny, so that's good! Review here.

MAGS April 2009 Finished

2009-05-06T22:23:00.003+01:00

Well ok it was over days ago but I've been busy recently. There were three entries in total, but my entry, Breakout, managed to secure the most votes. This means I get pick June's competition rules - this month is special because it marks the 5th anniversary of Klaus being the MAGS host.

I'll write a more lengthy 'The Making Of Breakout' type entry at some point which might interest some people. Stay tuned and thanks for your votes!

Breakdown released!

2009-04-26T17:41:00.005+01:00

After many hours of hard work Breakdown, my entry to this month's MAGS competition, is finished and released! You can download it from the games page.

Here's a couple of screenshots...

I should have posted this earlier, but I've been busy catching up with all the things I should have been doing while I was making it. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, although I had several interesting ideas that never quite made it into this version. I also wanted to do another commentary, like I did in Erk, though I ran out of time. When MAGS is over I'll probably write something about how I went about making this game and what I focused on, but in the meantime please download and play the other two entries, and vote for your favourite of the three!

The Cat, the Player and the Cupboard

2009-04-14T22:27:00.001+01:00

I'm now more or less tied in to entering this month's MAGS competiton, having spent at least 3 solid days working on an entry. My main problem at the moment is how much I want to put in, and how little time I actually have to work on it. This evening I managed to spend an hour or two implementing a puzzle involving a cat and a cupboard...

April whatever day

2009-04-01T21:51:00.003+01:00

So it was April Fools day today and I suppose I should have knocked up some fake screenshots of an awesome looking game and released them. Instead I just went "Huh? Oh" at several websites and the 6 o'clock news. Unfortunately there was no big AGS prank this year, though there was the odd smaller one pulled by various forum members.

Progress on mystery project since my last post has been one bug fix and one cool extra bit of code. The game is loaded with fancy and unneeded effects and rather lacking in actual game because fancy additions are quick to add and generally not very many lines of scripting, and once in they usually work first or second time. The main engine (if you can call it that) that I should be working on will take hours and hours and will need a lot of testing and fine tuning once done. Further delays may come in the form of this month's MAGS competition which looks very interesting. If I can come up with a good, unique idea I may well enter...

On a completely unrelated note here's a video of a water balloon being dropped in slow motion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XngQJzAmVm8&feature=related.

Latest game developments

2009-03-30T20:57:00.005+01:00

I said last post that I'd write something about the games I'm working on at the moment. Since then my web hosting went down and then I got distracted. Still, here we are.

Aside from the millions of ideas floating around my head (most of which need an artist and writer to ever get anywhere - hint hint) I've got two games on the go. The first one which, owing to its secretive nature, I'll code name 'Secret Project' has been around since October last year. Its something of an experiment created as a sequel to another experiment and I'm not the only one working on it. In fact I have no idea what's happened to it so far. For a game that was supposed to be finished in a little over a month it's certainly been around awhile...

The second game is, owing to its surrounding air of disappointment-dissipating mystery, code-named 'Mystery Project'. I'm reluctant to reveal too much about this one because although I know (nearly) exactly what I want to do with it, I'm not sure if I can actually do it in AGS. I will say that while I'm making it in my favourite game-making program, Adventure Game Studio, it's not an adventure game. But it does have something to do with adventure games. Also its at 640x480 resolution, so if it ever gets done I'll have done a different res in each of my main games.

Also here's a small cut out from a screenshot of Mystery Project...