Developing from the Abyss

This is the @agar3s non work development blog.

[agar3s]

working on a ninja running animation for my… #js13k entry

[agares]

Yep I want to create a 1bit game 

:D

[agares]

runner sprite

[agares]

My new publisher

After posting the game in newgrounds a publisher contacted me to distribute Evil Glitch, so... Soon the game will be available on Steam \m/

[agares]

This is the first gameplay not made by me, is cool watching people playing Evil Glitch and dying time after time :D Good feedback about music and user interface.

[agares]

My game has been copied

It’s normal the people start copy and paste my game and upload in other websites. Last Saturday I submitted a new Evil Glitch’s version on Newgrounds (www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/690436) and today I decided to check if there is any new about the game in google, I found my game inside other platforms, some of them give me credits others don’t. But is ok as is a promotional version, one of the most curious description about the game I found said the following:

Inside one of the greatest spatial ship games, there has just entered one of the biggest glitch ever and until now, no one can get rid of it successfully in order to let the player shooting each other so that's why there you come! First of all, you should use the mouse in order to aim and shot successfully, each boss glitch, which produces more and more little kind of glitches soldiers, which are chasing any player who stands between them and accomplishing their goal, to regin over the whole serve. Unlock the server by rezisting against those glitches, killing the little ones sent by the boss by shooting them successfully and of course, using the W, S, D, A keys in order to wander there, moving all around the game screen. Also, you need to pay attention to the details, shooting so right every piece of glitch coming out from the big boss one so let's get to the work right now and try to find out what to do with those glitches. Good luck once again and of course, you need to run from their way and from running, aim and shot them with your special bullets and laser projectiles. Good luck for the last time and improve your amazing and so cool shooting skills right now!

This is another one:

There is an evil glitch inside a classic spaceship shooting arcade game. Destroy all the minions created by the evil boss and fix the glitch. Move around and tap to shoot. Dodge all bullets and missiles, or else the spaceship will have to begin the level from the beginning to stop the evil glitch.  

It’s funny how the people starts to invent stories about the game as the game itself in this new version does not provide any at all.

[agares]

Evil Glitch Highscores

Yesterday people reached the 180k points in EvilGlitch that's mean that they defeat the most difficult boss in the game, after that the game just throw you random totems... I didn't expect this happen too soon, good for them! I'm going to create more enemies and more deadly levels.

[agares]

100k gameplays goal

I was thinking about what are my biggest problems at the moment to launch a game, obviously the main problem is the marketing part. I have been planning a strategy to be known by gamers around the world but after release any game I need to grow up a fanbase, for that purpose I set it up a goal, reach 100k gameplays on evilglitch hopefully in less than 4 months after I release the social feature.

I know people like to play evilglitch, but the problem is I haven’t achieve to converge all the people that played it in a place that I can reach them later.

[agares]

Winners don’t use drugs

If you like please follow me to get updated

[agares]

Game development process for the JavaScript 13kilobytes I almost done later I guess... I will write a  post morten blog.

[agar3s]

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Flower of life enemy - @js13kgames #js13kgames #js13k #js13k2016 #nofilter #sacredgeometry #glitch #gamedev #retro #arcade

[agares]

https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/profile/agar3s

[agares]

Project Zero - Drawings and early game graphics concepts

These are drawings I made two months ago based on images of famous creepypastas, at the beginning I only was sure about the main concept of the game: “a well know character is going to fight against the most terrible monsters from our days”, then I decided to draw some of these guys...  Today I did some photoshop work to experiment with the drawings and convert them into game graphics... I’m still not sure about how the game its going to looks like...

What do you think about them?

[agares]

Project-zero - implementing dynamic rooms 1

About the dynamic rooms, I started with a first implementation: an infinite one room space.

Using a simple tilemap(room) as a base for the level, a 3 times bigger “world” is created and is populated with the same exact tilemap, creating a grid of 3 by 3 rooms.

The character is allocated in the central room, then when the character moves and reach the red zone or the half of the mirror rooms the character is placed in the central room again using the same coordinates and the camera is properly set to follow the character at the same position, giving the illusion of an infinite world with the same room replicated.

This is how I implemented in phaser checking the X character position: 

  if(player1.x<limitWidth){     player1.x = width*3*tileWidth/2;     game.camera.x = player1.x-game.camera.deadzone.x;   } else if (player1.x>width*3*tileWidth-limitWidth){     player1.x = width*3*tileWidth/2;     game.camera.x = player1.x-game.camera.deadzone.width-game.camera.deadzone.x;   }

and this is a simple demonstration:

The next step is to add a space between rooms I called it transition zone 

[agares]

Project Zero - simple update

Finally a define a key mechanic related with exploration, I called it “Dynamics Rooms”, as the game happens in a nightmare there are no coherence in how the world is displayed to the player.

The idea is inspired in Mario 64 when you can´t reach the final bowser stage:

The idea is the rooms are part of the map level, but in order to reach a room you need to accomplish certain rules if not you are going to go to a different room.

[agares]

Project Zero - week #1

For the first week I just finished a first sketch about the things are going to happen in the demo, and the core mechanics the game is going to use.

I have a first pitch for the demo: This is the story of a cursed man that have only 5 days to destroy a creature that torments him, he must to find help browsing in the most forbidden places on the internet and use that information to fight against the beast in his nightmares.

The core of the gameplay is to destroy enemies, solving puzzles and retrieving information from the game’s characters. To achieve that there are going to be two interfaces for the player:

2d top down exploration: to find items, solve puzzles and fight against enemies.

chat screen: to know the characters, convince them to give you the information about the enemies and their weaknesses.

I thought about 4 different ways to destroy the boss depending on how the player communicate with the other characters in the game. Also I have 7 characters in mind for the demo including the main character and the boss.

For this week I’m going to start programming the necessary code to have a first usable version of the 2d top down visualization and maybe a first player character to control.

[agares]

Project Zero - week #0

As I have not decided a proper name for the game yet, I’m going to call it “project Zero”, there is nothing related with starfox or something like that, it just the first thing that came into my head.

I created a trello board with the things I think I need in order to create a first playable demo in about 10 weeks. This first week is going to be more about the gdd, I have a good idea about what I am going to build:

Terror Game: I must say that this was the first thing that I realized when I decided to create a new game, I have in mind the perfect character that matches and inspires the whole idea behind this game. (I am not going to talk about him because I do not want to create too much expectations right now).

An HTML5 game: I want my game be accesible for most people as possible (the game is going to be free to play), I used to work with HTML5 and JavaScript, also I have some experience with phaser.io one of the greatest HTML5 videogame frameworks by now. (I considered to use game maker too, but is quite expensive use it to export the game in HTML5 and also I do not have any experience with it, maybe I will try it in a future project).

Top down view: the game is going to be about exploring and some action, I really wanted to try an isometric approach but by now the current tools I research are not so good and I can provide a similar experience with a good 2d top down implementation.

Black and white art: I am not a good illustrator, but I want to make all the game by myself, as I have some basic drawings experience and the game is going to be about nightmares is a good option to create a proper environment using dirty sketches and a terrific aesthetics that I can do with my current skills.

With these main ideas in consideration I need to do the following: design the characters, write the first script of the story, and the most important thing: the core game mechanics.

Thanks for reading.

[agares]

2016 - Game project

Last year I decided to leave bomberbot because I was not agree with the direction the company made, I really believe that the learning process for something like software programming basics could be done without a full teacher/school support but with the process of learning how to use the mechanics the game provides, also I have serious irreconcilable problems with the CEO that is not worth to talk about.

Then In April 2015 I joined to a great company in SF as software developer, is a great team of very smart and talented people, and I must to say… I don’t carry the stress to manage a startup.

Meanwhile a group of friends and me started a game creators community in Bogotá (juegosindies), we made 6 meetups and we have 441 members registered in, I learnt a lot about not just how to program a video game but how the make a good game, with fun mechanics, good rules, interesting characters and a good level design. I decided to use that knowledge to create a game, but I have not started it I just thinking about it and I have some ideas about how the game could be. I know that the most difficult part is to start and that’s the idea of this post, to write about the beginning of this new project, I hope to post a weekly blog about the game development process in that week.

As usual  I am starting writing about my goals for this week considering that I have around 10-20 hours weekly to work on it. For this first week I am going to start writing a list of milestones I need to achieve in order to release a demo for the first level in no more than 10 weeks, hopefully I made that stuff today and I can post the corresponding blog with the specific tasks for this week.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.