MUCKERISMS

A game development blog

[mucksponge]

The inevitable jelly explosion.

[mucksponge]

Automatically generated settings screen from pure code :)

Massively cuts down on design and coding time for settings screens. Design your screen layout once and simply wrap your variables in a setting. Any variable type is supported, as you can map complex objects to strings, or use sliders and fields for numbers, toggles for booleans, etc.

[mucksponge]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYxjxx_53oE)

A game my jam team made for #Tasjam Election Special.

I Am Atlas is a meta-physical first person game in which the player must manipulate the environment to complete puzzles.

In this game you will literally have the world at your disposal. It is up to you to use, misuse, and take advantage of our planet to traverse through a range of puzzles. Whatever you do to planet Earth will have consequences. Freeze it, smash it up, drown it; your interactions will affect your own environment, so use it wisely.

Check it out on itch.io!

[mucksponge]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pA2gl2d9a8)

I've decided to take Wreck Arena in a bit of a different direction and have been working on a "refresh" with new ideas and mechanics. As of right now the game is called "Robotstacles" (probably a placeholder name), and you'll understand why by reading further.

As of right now, the game will no longer be a fighting game and this focus will be redirected to the puzzle aspect of the game. Players will be given a vast set of obstacle courses they can attempt, and their times will be shown on a leaderboard for other players to see. I'll be working on a level editor in the coming weeks so players can construct their own obstacle courses and share them online. The editor will be the same one I use to build the game so you won't miss out on any features :)

Back to the video; I've implemented a basic power mechanic in the game. A robot must have a power source (battery) and any motors or mechanical blocks (steering, etc.) must be connected (directly or indirectly) to a battery for it to function. You can see this happening when I use a decoupler - once I decouple the battery from the other components the robot becomes dead and uncontrollable. Later I'll add power drain mechanics so you won't have an unlimited power source.

I've also implemented a custom wheel collider with proper slip calculations, etc. which will offer much, much better control and more accurate physics for wheeled robots.

The robot building system has been revamped and is much less restrictive. You no longer need to attach blocks to other blocks to build your robot, you can simply place them on the grid. Blocks don't have attachment points anymore either, they use what I call a "glue" system, in which certain areas/sides of the blocks have "glue" applied to them and where two glued surfaces touch, the blocks will stick together. This is all transparent to the player.

[mucksponge]

Beginnings of the new menu system for Wreck Arena. This is the tip of the iceberg, much more to come ;)

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Some more archive Wreck Arena footage. This is a bit older, before the name change (used to be called Mech Arena). Stay tuned for some exclusive footage of my more recent Wreck Arena experiments!

[mucksponge]

Some old footage of Wreck Arena, a sandbox building/fighting game I’ve been working on for about a year in my spare time. The aim of the game is to build robots and pit them against your opponents. You can build pretty much anything you want using any combination of blocks that snap together. The game is currently in pre-alpha stage and I’m still doing a lot of experimentation with the gameplay and building mechanics (some of which you’ll see later).

The end goal of this project is to implement an arena-style fighting tournament (check out Robot Arena 2) and also a puzzle element for players who just like to build and explore what’s possible (kinda like Besiege).

[mucksponge]

The hot dogs have a taste for burgers only you can satisfy.

Not quite sure what my aim was when developing this, but it’s interesting :)

[mucksponge]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg2BmROuyQ0)

A friend and I created this game for a 32-ish hour game jam. Goal was to make a game that could provide positive health outcomes. We took the theme literally and created this asymmetrical multiplayer game. One player drives an ambulance to the hospital Crazy Taxi style, while the other player must care for a heart attack patient in the back of the ambulance. Physics are synchronized between players, so the player in the back will feel every bump and crash. The city is procedurally generated.

I recorded the game on two computers at the same time and overlaid the second player's screen on the top right. The guy in the ambulance doesn't really do anything because I was focusing on driving. That player would usually have a checklist of tasks to complete to prolong the patient's life.

This was our first ever attempt at a multiplayer game and networked physics so it was a complete success considering all assets except the vehicles were created in 32 hours.

We won most fun game. You can play it here.

[mucksponge]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQpBB_Uq7Ow)

A game I worked on with a friend for a 64x64px game jam. You play as a girl trying to get home from school. The game starts off very innocently but there’s a twist in the second level. We’re hoping to raise some awareness for kids in war torn countries. In this game you can walk for a few minutes in their shoes.

Play the game here.

[mucksponge]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cne6Wh56fJI)

[mucksponge]

A new visual aesthetic!

I’m going for a Mirror’s Edge kind of look. Lightmapped in Unity, using a custom procedural skybox shader. Image effects used:

FXAA (Unity’s alpha implementation)

Mirror’s Edge style LUT

Tone mapping using ACES algorithm

Bloom (Unity’s beta implementation)

Global fog for the “fading into whiteness” look

Custom sharpen filter (negates blurring from FXAA and gives it a stark filmic look)

De-saturation filter (when you pull too many Gs)

[mucksponge]

Hello, world :)

Welcome to my game development blog!

I’m a game developer based in Tasmania, Australia. I’m interested in sandbox games, physics games, first person shooters, and generally just simple, thoughtful concepts. I’m not great at making visual assets (I’m a programmer and UI designer), so most of the stuff on this blog is going to resemble what I like to call “contemporary programmer art”.

I’ve got many, many projects going right now because ideas are fun and finishing things is not. I’ll do my best to document the more interesting ones here... stay tuned :)