Game development and all that jazz

Ian Keefer - 20 - Shippensburg University - Software Engineering

[iankeefer]

I'm on a roll!

Lots of content updates to celebrate about. Before I get into it I'd like to say I'm surprised how far this project is progressing, it's so nice to see it come along well. Much more to do though!

Content

Combat

Much of the entity vs entity combat has been created. This includes all weapon physics and functionality. All the micro-managing of weapon stats like rate of fire, range, accuracy, etc is all finished.  

Weapons

Weapons are capable of all their functionality including, but not limited to shooting, reloading, having up to 5 different categorical attachments, and much more.  All have noticeably different ways of working. I chose to make all of the same weapon types the same base and just have their variants be a different visual change. (i.e. 2 assault rifles will have the same stats, but their sprites will be different) I chose these decision because it's simple for the already heavy amounts of balancing I will have to do, but for the simplicity and how I always hate when my favorite weapon in a game is sub-par compared to it's other varieties.

Characters

I now implemented a fully working player save/load system which technically has encrypted data which is pretty much overkill for the fact that no personal/important information will ever be stored on it. Oh well it's nice to have regardless. Players will now be able to get achievements with a newly created system, these include achievements for weapons, game play, and much more!  I soon to hope getting into the creative side of things with customization beyond a players load out. (*hint* *hint* cosmetics)

What's next?

I plan to start getting basic game play ready to deploy and demo once I get the weapon customization feature out, basic enemy AI, and basic game features.  Sounds like a lot, but the hardest part is finding the time to do it.

I also hope to start working on concept art and assets as soon as I can. Perhaps tomorrow! No photos now for the basic art, but I will have yet another video up again for showing off the combat.

Thanks!

[iankeefer]

Design updates

During the week I spent a lot of time throwing ideas down on paper. The portions of the game I have loosely designed so far are as follows:

Weapon/Attachment/Bullet design & stats

Shield and upgrades

Equipment

Loadout system

Enemy system w/ ways to handle intellect

Core story idea that correlates to having a 2 sided conflict with no right or wrong.

Minigames/Core game difficulty add-ons

A lot of my ideas certainly resemble some inspiration from big AAA, but I feel very confident for the amount of creativity I can have it with as a independent title. No semantic details yet as the ideas are very light and I'm 100% willing to change them all in a moments notice if they do not work out, but what I do wanna say is that the amount of depth I want to add to this simple arcade shooter is really deep and I certainly believe it's going to work out extremely well. In addition to those features I want to share some of the inspiration and the quotas I'm following during development. I want this game to be as simple as a "toilet game", but with the depth and impressiveness of any story driven title with a little "stupid-fun" flare to mix in. Games are too serious nowadays, even in smaller titles, and I don't want this game to be a chore to play. 

[iankeefer]

Here’s some updates on the game in video form! As you can see movement, emitter system, rotation. (Behind the scenes: bullet cleanup, weapon/attachment system)

[iankeefer]

Ashley Entity Framework and Progress!

So more progress has been done on the project. First things first, basic rendering/listening components have been added so sprites could be rendered, controllers can be used for input, etcetera. Bare bones of the project basically. Next we get into the more complex additions. I've been consulted a few times to use the Ashley entity framework (https://github.com/libgdx/ashley) on the project for the amount of things I may be rendering and at first I was skeptical and up until today I was very defensive about it because the framework went against most programming designs I personally strive to create (i.e. programming towards mocking real-life models/objects).  After some in depth looking and practice with it I started on a bullet/emitter system.  A little difficult at first to create without past knowledge on this framework, but after I got used to it and understood that the class structure was nothing I was used to, it became obvious that this would become a very powerful tool to utilize in this project. I foresee the rest of the system and future content to be easier to manage with this new framework for the simple idea that things can be categorized by components, entity type, and family.  This makes selecting/modifying these objects very quick and efficient so I don't need constant linear searching to change what I want.  Probably won't be complete enough for any screenshots soon, but that's something I wanna work on shortly so I can get back into the screenshot Saturday routine!

[iankeefer]

Project finally started

So I started up a new project. This is still the top-down shooter idea. So far I have been experimenting with LibGDX technologies and I'm REALLY impressed so far. Menu, particle, camera, controller, networking, etcetera support is just really mindblowing. I can really see a future using this library. Hopefully I'll be done messing around and finally start doing some screenshot saturdays. Stay tuned!

[iankeefer]

Wacom tablet

So I spent the $100 and purchased a Wacom. With no past skills with art I'm fairly impressed with how well it works with software like CS2, CS6, and GIMP. Here's 2 of my works so far. Love environmental concept art and I'm going to continue using it as a hobby and perhaps for future game development!

[iankeefer]

I've been getting thoroughly inspired lately to develop games. Reading blogs like http://makegames.tumblr.com/ and http://www.cokeandcode.com/main/ give me great design ideas. Basically I have 3 core game ideas I really, really want to explore. One is a very basic core shooter idea with some depth in terms of customization and achievements. Another is a longer term game that focuses on story and art with a really neato idea that I'm not going to say at this point in time. Last of all is a very long-term idea that would end up using technologies such as the Kinect 2 SDK which I haven't even begin to explore. I need to find more time. Of course I still have yet to complete 1 game. SOON.

[iankeefer]

New Internship

So at last a few days ago I officially got my internship at SoulSplit (.com) that I've been wanting since the beginning of the year. At first I was extremely, extremely intimidated to support a game with so many concurrent players on it. So far my experience has been nothing but positive. I have an excellent team to work with that has been extremely helpful and a great community of players. So far I have done a few fixes, but I'm in the middle of my first large update for the game and it's rewriting a old piece of content that wasn't well written at all. So far I've written an excellent base for it and I'm adding content to it very quickly. I'm running into some problems from other bugs that the game code previously had and I'm figuring out ways around it for now.

Basically this is one of the best things that has happened to me so far. I'm getting excellent experience, a good resume addition, and boy have I never felt so enthusiastic to wake up on a Sunday morning and want to work. 

[iankeefer]

Hi, I play Soulsplit and I was wondering what aspect if the game will you be focusing on? ~Makkam

Haha wasn't expecting this. Anyhow that's not confirmed yet. Bug fixing until I get used to the game/code.

[iankeefer]

New Content

After like 2 weeks hiatus of not programming and doing other stuff I added new content to Treasure Trails. Previously enchanting was something that I wasn't sure if I wanted to add, but with more contemplating I've decided it was the right thing to do which will be implemented with a few neat features down the road. Currently the way the game is structured each item is an Item object. Nothing more, nothing less. They're all given the same attributes regardless if it's weapon, armor, etcetera. (keeps things simple!) Each item is given an enchantment and the effect of the enchantment is given on creation of that object. I am saving old attributes of that item too so I can easily remove/overwrite the enchantment. I was looking at adding the Decorator Pattern (http://marktruran.net/?page_id=71) but, I fear adding that will just complicate things more. I'm aiming for a concept of creating objects that model real world objects so having an enchantment have an item, vs the item having an enchantment just didn't flow right with me. Hopefully this decision won't hurt me in the long run an I won't have to rewrite it.

[iankeefer]

Starting a custom tileset. I'm sick of all the boundaries associated with using free-to-use game assets. Some are pretty and detailed and it's great, but as soon as you want to add an object that goes right out the window because you can't keep the art style to save your life. So what I'm trying to do is create a more minimal feel with added detail to the world and objects within it. As you can see the current version is very basic and it's simply a prototype to see the work load, etcetera. So far that took <5 minutes which is very good. Spend a little more time on them, add some variety and I'm looking at 30~ minutes a tileset this size which is absolutely amazing with the added plus that I can add anything I want and keep the art style with EASE. Feedback would be appreciated as I'm not an artist.

[iankeefer]

I’m so thankful I had a childhood before technology took over

[iankeefer]

Treasure Trail Updates!

So I'm transforming the vision of Treasure Trails into a new game idea. Previously it was going to have a lot of procedural generated content and a load of hack n' slash rouge-like dungeon (or forest) crawling. Now currently the vision is to make it into an open-world RPG. I started a new project because there were a lot of inconsistencies with how I programmed some things, but this doesn't mean I'm rewriting everything. LOOOTS of reusable code. Anyhow currently the state of this game has no copied code and totally new stuff. So far it has different game states, a new graphic component system for UI, map loading and proper clipping for objects. I'm also doing a cool little idea that I totally didn't steal from the development of The Dungeoning (http://www.thedungeoning.com/) which is I'm saving a screen capture of the game every time I close the window. This means I can put a compilation video up of the entire development once it is done. Here are some photos from that:

Would love to hear some thoughts via submission!

[iankeefer]

New project started!

After some thinking and pros and cons I’ve decided to start up a new game for a few reasons. 1. Because Treasure Trails is going to take a loooong time to finish. 2. Because I’ve learned so much in the past 2 years that I want to put my new skills to use 3. Because I want to finally have a game on the market.

This does NOT mean Treasure Trails is closed.

I’m really inspired to make this new game and so far it’s working fantastically. I’m still using Java, Slick2d, and LWGJL, but this time around I’m REALLY taking advantage of what the new libraries have to offer. So far I just started an hour ago and have the core game on a high level planned out, have all the major game states/transitions added, and I created the api for managing different resolutions. In the future I want this game to be on multiple devices and OS’s so hopefully I can achieve that.

So currently the major game idea is to keep it 2d. It’s going to be a Top-Down, Action shooter that focuses on wave based fighting with major focus on achievements, customization, and unlockable items. I want the replayability factor to be insane in this game and for it to just be ‘stupid fun’. 

The current plan is to release this on Windows, Mac, Linux, and possibly associate it with Steam. It should already have multiple controller support then so porting to the Xbox 360/One is going to be a large interest of mine because my main gaming platform of choice is the Xbox One. One reason this game was started is because Treasure Trails is taking so long on development and some might say “If this game is going multi-platform it’s going to take awhile.” While this is mostly true, Treasure Trails is planned to be a full blown RPG and I don’t believe there is a genre that takes longer to develop. There are also a few things in Treasure Trails that I can directly transfer to this new game because they were made in that respect. (Such as the item container system).

Hopefully some solid progress will be made within the coming weeks and I will have something to show for this game. Really excited at what the future holds.

[iankeefer]

New blog, same URL

I basically moved all content from the old blog to this new one because Tumblr has some technical boundaries when it comes to secondary blogs. So that means this is a primary blog on a new account. If you see a follow from me that's the reason!