Jordan Dines

This is my blog for AIE Games Design and Production

[jordan-dines]

Game Jam: Global Flavoured

So, I participated in Global Game Jam 2018, and oh boy, it was a blast! Here’s the end result:

Download here

Here’s how this came to be:   Throughout the holidays, I had been pretty burnt out from working on games so I hadn’t any motivation to create anything...so I owned it, and I did nothing but play games and relax in my time off.   This proved very helpful as I am coming into my second year of studies in game dev and that much needed rest has given me the motivation to make things again.   I started off wanting to be in a team of complete strangers. In the end, I couldn’t find a team that I would fit well in, so I paired up with my good friend Gene, who I had worked with previously. Best guy, great programmer, puts up with my shit: 10/10.   We then ran into another programmer who was looking for a team to join. He wasn’t as experienced as other programmers, and he only did game dev as a hobby, but was quite capable and contributed quite a lot.   We were given our theme, and we were off. We didn’t have an artist so we just had to make the most of it and just go full minimalism. This helped with our mechanics idea generation but also hindered it. We had a great idea, we wanted to go far with it, but struggled thinking easy-to-implement interactions.   In the end, I believe we did really well with what we had, and it’s proud moment for me to be able to look back on a game that I made and be happy with what I accomplished.

Oh yeah,

I also decided that I needed a break from working on our game, so I decided to make some music for my friends 80′s neon puzzle game. 30 minutes later... You can listen here: https://soundcloud.com/deadthread/echo-command-theme

[jordan-dines]

It’s all over

It’s finally over. The Thunder Pigeons (my team) have completed their End of Year Project: Rummy Robots. After all of the blood, sweat, and tears (mostly tears), its time to put this chapter of my education to bed, learn from my successes and mistakes, and move forward having gained the knowledge I’ve acquired from the last 16 weeks.

Here’s a small snippet of the game we ended with. I’m very happy with the progress we made given the short time frame we’d been given.

http://gph.is/2ju1l1O

We also added in a ‘Box’ mode which made it rain boxes from the sky. A last minute addition to lighten the mood.

http://gph.is/2juOqN2

[jordan-dines]

Let’s see how far we’ve come!

The day before Gold after 12 hard weeks of working on this project, and it’s finally come to an end. Some would say it’s been quite the journey, I would say that it’s time to sleep. Menu from Gold:

Menu from Alpha:

The largest lesson that I’ve learnt from this project is that the clearer your initial vision is of the game, the stronger your game will be for it. I know for a fact, that because of this project, I will be able to know what I need to think about when designing a game. I am glad that this project is over, but at the same time, I wish is was a little longer so our team can really sand off the rough edges. Oh well, onward and upward!

[jordan-dines]

Angles? What are those?

Been working on getting player movement...working. The intent is to allow the player to swipe in the direction of a node and then move to that node. As this game will be played on mobile, I want player movement to be through gestures rather than UI. I feel like UI on mobile can be pretty clunky; Especially for people with smaller screens.

Although, that being said, it currently isn’t working. Apparently, all that time back in high school learning about angles was useful! Who-would’ve-thunk that high school math was important? I guess I’ve reached that point in my life where I regret not paying enough attention in school. Hopefully by the end of this week, I’ll have it up and running and the swiping can commence!

[jordan-dines]

Kung Funk Speed

It’s been only two days and I’ve found time to expand on my personal project a little more. I’ve had to make a few compromises already like making the camera work as orthographic rather than 2D. I ended up having waaaay less trouble getting touch screen controls to work with orthographic rather than 2D sprites. I hope it doesn’t kick me in the arse later down the line, but for now, I can see it working completely fine.

(+5 Rhyming)

Pressing each node moves the player to that location. Use your imagination: You’re using kung fu to the beat of Hip-Hop to defeat the evil..ness...that oppresses.......you. I dunno, something cool that I’ll think of later on. The combat gameplay that I’m going for is something similar to the way that the Batman Arkham games handle combat. Really fluid motion that is super easy and satisfying to just mash the attack button and zip across a room. It’s nowhere near realistic but its awesomely fun and I really want to try to capture that.

[jordan-dines]

Working Title: Kung Funk

I recently decided to create my very own solo project! My idea for the game is to create a side-scrolling beat-’em-up game set to hip hop music for mobile. Let’s hope it gets to the point where I can start making phat beatsies for it. So, after having gathered the inspiration from GCAP ‘17, I decided to start prototyping. I immediately got halted with touch controls. It took a little over a week but I finally got touch controls working!

It’s nothing but functional. It leaves me satisfied knowing that I finally got it to work, so I’m happy.

[jordan-dines]

How Aboat it?!

Our project begins Beta and we get to start putting in all of the pretty things! This is a preview of our character selection screen. The water was just added today and so far its one of my favourite things in the game

[jordan-dines]

Finish Line ho!

Rummy Robots has hit alpha and has just started Beta! Sighs with relief The team really seem keen to get stuck into beta and actually make the game fun to play. Right now its a broken mess with issues but it works end to end!

This is what most of beta will be like. Expect bugs galore. 

[jordan-dines]

Chips Ahoy, boy Listening to Cowboy, ay!

Got the main menu working! Here’s a quick preview of our menu and character selection screen.

It’s still buggy and needs tweaking but it works! Huzzah! Onto Alpha!

[jordan-dines]

It’s coming along, buoys!

The core movement is feeling pretty nice and now there’s a player controller, we can start bumping our friends into the abyss:

The assets are still in early stages, but they’re coming along nicely and will be updated for the final Alpha build.

[jordan-dines]

Warning: Spotlights increase temperature infinitely

As part of our assessment, we needed to present and pitch our games! It’s scary talking in front of a crowd as it is, but to make matters more intimidating, we were speaking in front of an industry panel!

Not only was the pressure on to sell our game as best as we could, but I also got pretty damn sick in the meantime! So sick, I lost my voice. At least I was able to stay home and work a lot without many distractions like going out or talking to people; from my mouth, there was nothing but silence, which for people who know me, it’s a rarity.  The presentation ended up going really well though, our team got great feedback and it ended up giving our team a much needed morale boost.  Alpha is well on its way with some gifs coming in soon!

[jordan-dines]

Wanted for Mutiny!

Presentations were coming up soon, and part of the presentation is being able to sell it with a bit of material to take home: a Sell Sheet!

We had the idea of making a wanted poster made on parchment paper with the sides burnt off to give it a really personal and authentic feeling.

We had to firstly make the layout on a white canvas:

and then just print it onto the parchment paper:

I later got told there was a spelling mistake unfortunately but that just goes to show how easy it is to make a mistake after looking at the same screen for so long.

[jordan-dines]

It’s Alive!

A discussion was held for us all to choose a character. Our theme of Rummy Robots was created to make it easier on animations. The solution we came up with was to situate the robots on balls in the same vein as Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons. We first had the initial concept thumbnails from our artists: 

And then the final one was chosen:

Thanks to Chris and Myles for working on these models. Many requests have been put in to implement many more hooks than are currently modelled. It has been assured there will be more. 

[jordan-dines]

Rummy Robots!

The Thunder Pigeons finally decided on a game name. It was definitely a difficult decision, but we settled on the best thing that was mentioned. We had enlisted help from all disciplines to think of a game name, and luckily my teacher had the name “Rummy Robots” up his sleeve. And so, the Rummy Robots were born!

One of the artists on my team made this awesome logo for the game. Seeing something tangible makes me really excited to see where this is going.

[jordan-dines]

Pirates Pending

So after finishing off the testing unit, our year level has engaged in the final project for the year. We all got given our teams and have been told to make a game by December...easy...

After our first team meeting, our team decided on our team name which is pretty awesome if you ask me; the Thunder Pigeons!

The game we’re making is a four player free-for-all king of the hill robot pirate brawler....we’re working on a name for it, it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. Right now, it’s written down as ‘Pirates Pending’ but should be changed to something tangible soon.

[jordan-dines]

Jordan Dines: Vice President*

Started working on my business cards to get ready for Melbourne Games Week. I think I’m pretty happy with the first concept. Currently working on the main iconography. I’ve been wanting a lighter colour for the background so people can write things on the card whilst the other side will be darker. *Not actually VP.

I plan on redesigning the glasses a little but this is the sort of style I’m going for. The whole ‘16-bit’ art style.

[jordan-dines]

The Sellening

Just a quick one today: I finished working on my Sell Sheet for the game that I was testing for an external source. If you want to test the game, you can visit www.desertchildgame.com. I ended up pretty close to my first inception of the sell sheet. I only added details and rotated the cacti.