I'm going to 25. I'm glad that I have watched this video. It reminds me what effort I had taken. Am I just a dreamer? The doubt hurts me many many times. Maybe, somebody will think that I am so childish and didn't think clearly. But now, I will say I clearly know what I want, SO I CAN DREAM. Never regret, I know, it has already carved in my soul. I exactly know why my parents raised me so hard. Not just want me to be a money machine, but chasing the goal and be the one who I want to be. I won't fail them if I live with happiness. I want to work with shining eyes, with hot blood. Sincerely,my past 24 years, and I love my family.
Something New, Something Old and Something I Never Give UP
Do you remember the secret project? I have some advances can share with you. Last time I mentioned the framework of this project, and the coincidence which I notice is that I had a project designed in college using the nearly same framework. “Cellar” is a social media for sharing the wine which you tasted or collected just like its name. We spent a lot of time to figure it out what these people need and the benefits we can bring to them. It an absolutely a good app. By this chance, I would like to restart this project to fix our regret. You can visit my page to see our design.
One of very important function in our app is “Login” and “Sign up”. It quite easy to done that with Firebase. Firebase offers the complete feature for users. There many tutorials on the internet. But, here comes the problem, I found that Firebase only supports the transfer of the data which less than 10Mb. The limit block the file like images, however, the camera is essential in our app so I try to find some solutions. The result I figuring out in the internet is that the three-party service called “Filepicker”, It seems that it can provide users the storage to transfer the large-scale file. I might search more information about this service and how to use it.
I started designing app and game when I was in college. I am good to propose some interesting ideas, but to achieve the idea is not always easy. In most of the time you design and set aside. These ideas are precious assets because a good idea can be challenged by the time. You never know when will you do the idea. Maybe just like the Steven Jobs’ word “You can only connect them looking backwards.” Every time I see my notebook which I used to draw my ideas, There are so many ideas in my notebook, I will recall my college life where I began all this, and I worked so hard and never gave up. After a half year, I will bring this attitude to face my new job, no, not only on my job but also my whole life challenges.
I won’t tell the story this time. It’s a game about the war between corps. They fight for surviving in this doomed world. Every war season, all players in this game will choose their own corp to fight. Each corp has more than five fighters. Every fighter has their own unique skills You have to select five fighters among corps to compose a team and fight for “spirits”. The sprite is the energy of existence. The interesting thing is that corps can possibly doom if gamers have the worst usage in every war season. Enough spirit can generate a new fighter in corps otherwise the world will destroy one of them. This word “destroy” right here means the character will be removed from this game. Until fighters are less than five. The corps doom.
The team will be put on the battlefield which full of horrible dangers. Every member of the team keep the formation and follow the leader who is controlled by players. Yes, the only leader can be controlled. By the way, the leader is switch-able, each of member might be the leader if you need the fighter’s “leader buff” which can increase different kinds of general abilities to face enemies or traps, like speed, DPS or health. Another cool gameplay is the implantation of formations. Although only the leader is accessed, using different formations is another way to confront the enemy. Formation cards offer you many kinds of arrangement, moreover costing sprites can generate new formation card to face different kinds of situations. You can put you fighter in front of the team when you launch a mass campaign so that the fighter will carry harms.
It’s an awesome game. The gameplay is good enough to be an Esport let people watch on TV. Maybe sometime I can make this game.
Here is the thing that I have to apology. Because I have started a new project with my friends, the next “A Week A Game” will cost more time to finish. Of course I have gotten an idea but I might not finish the blog immediately. As a compensation, I will share my learning on this new project.
This time is not a game but an interesting App. I did not have enough experience to develop this App rapidly. We have a simple plan, it not my idea that I cannot leak out too much. I consider what technique will this project use. We plan to publish it on iPhone so I have to learn some Swift, Release of the Swift help me a lot because I am not a pure programmer. Though the “Cocoa Touch Framework” still ugly for me, the join of Swift let the code more readable. Now I use it to get some JSON value in OpenWeatherMap. It’s quite simple.
The member system is also necessary. It will need a server with perfect feature. But sadly, Parse was shutdown by Facebook. There has a lot of information and tutorial on the Internet. After searching of the alternatives, I found “Firebase” which M&A by Google in 2014. It looks like Parse. Maybe there is something different and I still work on. The map is the third part. If one mentions the Map API, everyone will say “Google” of course. I have used Google Map API with Xcode when I was in college. My professor ask me testing some function, now I can use it. I hope it would not revision too much.
AWAG:A Puzzle Reveals the Dispute Between Tech and Humanity
“ Allen Ven Taylor, the Tech Giant of 22 Century is Gone 2083~2139. The headline on the newspaper is illuminated by a weak old lamp. Staying in front of the desk in silence, Terry glumly gazed the coverage which was written by himself yesterday. He knows for sure, that would be his last report, his passion and career life is gone altogether with this best friend. He drives away. This city is no longer pleasing to him...
After a few years...
On outskirts in the morning, there is a lovely wood house, the request from the postal portal is ringing. Terry feels odd because only very few people can contact him from this channel. The mail is confidential and locked with the highest permission. “Who the hell send this mail?” Terry confused. When the sender’s name emerges in his sight, he is so shocked. “From Taylor?”...Terry opens it quickly.
“Dear Terry:
If you receive this message, I must have been dead. My dear friend, This is an invitation for you to visit my Secret Lab. I think it’s time to reveal my achievement. Import this navigating chip in your car, it will bring you here.
Sincerely invite
Allen V. Taylor”
“Secret Lab? What the hell are you talking about? Damn! You are such a weirdo.” Terry has a lot of curse words in his mind. He still cannot understand Taylor’s unexpectedly leaving, even after a couple of years and give him just an absurd letter. But as a media veteran, maybe his passion is still deep inside. He put on his coat, take out his old briefcase and the chip. On the way to “the Secret Lab”...to be continued...”
Do you like the story? It’s just the first version. Whatever you think! I love this topic. Technology and humanity are always controversial, there must have many stories can be told. Players will complete these stories through finding out experimental logs or other sorts of data in Taylor’s “Secret Lab”; therefore, it will be an adventure game with lots of interesting puzzles.
Let’s talk about the gameplay. The puzzle adventure game exists a common way to experience. most of these games always have a beautiful scene, and you have to click-and-point to find what you can get or use, like Machinarium or Touch Detective. But my idea is to break limits of the motionless scene. Each room in the Taylor’s Lab is 3D space. players have to rotate the room to find clues in each room from different angles.
What platform should be this game on? Most of the popular console games have high-quality graphics. It’s too old-fashioned for computers to play the stand-alone game. I tend to play this game on mobile, but that would have some challenges. Mobile is a special platform. People play mobile games in any spare time. I have to design a good UI so as to let people can play it in every situation. Here is my single-hand control interface and I have composited some materials to simulate the game screen.
Taylor’s “Secret Lab” is a abandoned underground base consist of many cubic rooms. Every week, hundreds of rooms will change its position like the Rubik’s Cube, in order to make sure employees didn’t know too much about their project, it’s a good way to keep business secrets. It means that players will get a new map to explore, and it will increase the replayability. Through this players maybe can find some different connection between props or clues to solve side quests. Each of story will be certainly worth to ponder whether is big or small.
The Real Virtual World!! the VR Device HTC Vive Pre
Sitting in front of the computer with a helmet is so ridiculous, I must say, VR is not a good idea in my first glimpse because this device will isolate our sense away from the real-world. It’s so weird. However, Those thoughts were wiped off when I met HTC Vive Pre. That really was an impressive game experience. I never used others VR devices but Vive will not let you down. With a headset, two wireless controllers and two motion captures, Vive looks more complicated than others but easier to control and track accurately. You will seek the whole person into a different world.
After I put the Vive on, everything from the real world disappeared and been replaced by a white clean space with grids, just like I’m in the movie “Matrix”. The weight of Vive is ok not too heavy(I think I can wear it for not too short time). When I surprised by the scene I saw, two controllers show in front of me, which were handed by the staff. Without confusing, I extended my hands to hold them tight and get ready with it!
The scene emerges gradually. It seems that I was under the sea standing on a wreckage of the ship. A school of fish swam around me. I walked around and turned back. There was a “thing” getting close to me…holy crap! It’s a giant whale. I first staring at its eye, then enjoy the whale’s elegant and leisure swim till it lopsided, till disappear. My sight went back to the white room.
I was ready to be surprised in next part. I suddenly was put into a lovely office, which has some cute office supplies. A mission board slide to me, It looks like that I have to make myself a cup of joe and have some donuts. After I did, it totally arousing my curiosity. Everything on the desk is available, you can throw those cups to the ground, or type anything you want with keyboard (but it only has 1 and 0, lol), or other things you want to do, to become a real office man who pretending to look busy at work. Oh! The phone is ringing. I’d better answer it.
Here comes the final part. We are in “Portal”, as you know “Portal” is a popular game. Our mission is to repair a broken android in the fixing room which all walkable. Pay attention to the audio guide, it will tell you everything you have to do step-by-step: “The device at corner can charge your instruments and open the gate let the robot come in.” In order to fix it, I pull out its mechanical eye, Suddenly, the beautiful structure appear. The detail of every part was very clear as I can touch all accessories. I may able to repair it with tutorials.
After this, HTC Vive Pre provide me diverse perspectives to accept this new technology–VR. It changes how we interact with the virtual world. Not certainly for gaming, the arts, educations, medicines, technical training, videos and so on can use this technology. Otherwise, the most important thing is that HTC unveiled the price recently. Many people thought that would be very expensive. But the truth is, it cost just almost the same with an iPhone. Isn’t it very touching? Maybe HTC’s phone is not so outstanding in the market. Nevertheless, HTC Vive Pre is positively the best VR device.
In order to record how I work and learn, I finally make up my mind to do this blog. Game design is an interesting work and absolutely attractive topic let people talk. I focus on it about 5 years,yes, It’s not a very long time, but the important thing is I still have enthusiasm on it. What make game design so difficult is that you never ever trying be a Mr. know-it-all, it is so complicate and infinite. During this 5 years, I learn lot of staff like drawing, design, coding, 3D art and proposal. I have made some works when I was a student. You can take a look from here if you are interested in my page.
In my position, if you want to develop a cool game. Not only the favorable art is indispensable but the gameplay is also an emphasis. Think about that, when you walk into the video game store or surf the app store, what the reason make you pay for the product? The “WORTH” of course, but it seems a little bit abstract. In general, the “worth” means how much time will you spend on this game and what content in this product can be presented: the story is extremely awesome or I can’t stop to play this game. People want the game like that. So, I have started a plan called “A Week A Game”. As a young game designer with passion, all we have is amount of creative maybe tens even hundreds, but can all these ideas become products and leave game store by consumer’s pay? After all, We make game for people, not ourselves. In this weekly plan, I will prepare proposals and prototypes which main purpose is convincing customers to buy it. For next few weeks, you can see my sharing right here. Get ready with me to have some brain explosion!
