Making a Game – … probably

September 19, 2011

Whew, 1 week

Time flies by, faster than imaginable.

Just wanted to give a little heads up: I’ve used the time to get an idea of how Torque 3D works – both from a creative-and a coding standpoint – and have been working on game concept details.

Interestingly enough, a new, core defining, idea came from one of my nostalgic moods: you know, the ones when you’re hanging on YouTube or another video platform and just randomly watch videos from games you’ve played some time ago.

Of course, the sudden thought of “Why the hell is this idea so unpopular?” can either mean that focusing on it might be a total waste of time, or – my personal estimation – the video game market doesn’t make use of it because there’s currently no game, being it already released or not, the mechanic would make any sense in.

Anyways, off I go for now. Stay tuned for future updates and details on the game itself :)

September 13, 2011

Decisions, decisions

I’ve been digging through the internet for quite some time now to find a suitable engine for my needs – one that is flexible enough to handle advances into areas that either aren’t on my agenda yet or that I’ve not even been thinking about.

My investigations revolved around the usual suspects:

All of them are without any doubt more than capable to handle my requirements – in fact, I’d not even scratch on their surfaces with my little project here, so my judgement revolved mostly around which engine I’d actually like most to work with: a grateful situation.

Other aspects like platform independence played a role as well, while the general community support took a big piece of the cake – game engines happen to be more complex than a typical notepad application, and without a working community many secrets that reside within those packages might remain burried under the expansive functionality.

Under the given circumstances, the choice fell on Torque 3D. Some may cry that there are so much better engines in the list, but Torque seems to work best with my personal development process. Live with it! ;)

So, as a conclusion, the weapons of choice are:

This list will grow in the future – there’s for example nothing in there that’d deal properly with music. On the other hand I totally suck when it comes to composing – I’ve not invested much time in this area yet, but this isn’t a reason to relativise the statement by any means.

September 12, 2011

A matter of setting

A constant problem I encountered during development was to keep myself motivated enough to continue my work – no matter if the outcome of the efforts was a website, a small tool or a full fledged application for an enterprisey environment. Okay right, in the last case the motivation is properly handled by payment: one has to live, right? :D

Still, it is a matter of fact that development can be subdivided into several different areas from a motivational standpoint I’d like to roughly describe as the “Ewww”, the “Meh” and the “Yeaaah” in my eloquence.

They are all important from the development perspective since all these components work together as the separate cogs in the very mechanism the final application is, but this doesn’t change the fact that their actual implementation ranges from everything between “Okay, why again did you ram a knife into my left eyeball?” and “Oh my god, I just shattered the very fabric of space and time!” with many little nuances inbetween.

The “Ewww” suck: boring, repetetive tasks that’ve been done countless times before and really don’t feed the motivation accordingly. They mostly consist of the kind of work that is easily done while you drink a coffee, make several phone calls, count the number of dots on the ceiling plates and make a sandwich at the same time. Due to a certain lack of hands, the actual work is done by operating the keyboard and the mouse with the nose – with eyes closed naturally.

The “Meh” are a bit boring, but otherwise okay: they require a certain amount of attention to be properly crafted and – at least in the context of a game – lead to a recognizable mechanic (change) or a visible element on the screen that makes you think “Okay, I accomplished something”. If the thought “Man, that’s not bad.” follows, the intermediate step to a “Yeaaah” moment is done.

“Yeaaah” moments are funny little creatures: they often hide in the depths of a dark hollow only to attack when you expect them the least. And by “attack” I mean “cuddle”. And by “cuddle” I mean – depending on how much of a nerd you are – the feeling might end up … arousing. And by “arousing” I mean, that “Yeaaah”s bring beer, meat loaf and pretzels along.

But be careful! The supply of this mouth-watering gifts isn’t endless, since there are times during development the “Yeaaah”s hide properly and keep themselves out of sight. Plan accordingly, since at some point they will show up again.

Even though I’m not exactly a good story teller, I feel that a full grown “Yeaaah” is around when it comes to telling a background story.

“Huh?”, you might ask. “Okay buddy, you clearly had enough pretzels, and meat loaf and beer! A background story for a sidescrolling multiplayer shooter?”, you might say.

And yes, I agree that this might seem unnecessary, since the outcome of this whole project will really not have the overall complexity of a professional multiplayer game a few dozen people have worked on for several years: how could it?

But there’s a small catch, since this game helps me to bring substance into certain parts of a story frame I’ve been working on for quite some time now and I unfortunately had to abandon due to other responsibilities. A multiplayer shooter is a good environment to think about how factions work in a way that they don’t seem overly constructed.

Everyone versus everyone – the game’s concept just doesn’t work with the already prepared frame that distinguishes pretty clearly between aggressors and defenders, and I do think it is much more promising to induce such thoughts while the background story is still young and formable, instead of forcefully pressing alterations into basic faction (and race) history after it is already completely shaped.

Of course, in the end this particular game will not offer a cool story single player zombie nazi pirate ninja killing mode. But one can dream from time to time, no? D:

September 12, 2011

Introduction

Wow, only about half a year (or more) after I’ve set up this WordPress installation, here’s a very first entry -again-!

As you might have already guessed, this time I’ll try to put this blog to good use by using it as a chronicle for my newest attempt to create a video game. It should be safe to say that this is a dream quite a few people have both at night and day, and without any doubt I’m one amongst them.

Games, despite what some representatives of the convervative party say, are an art form. In all cases, they express the creativity of their creators, while in some they are able to awake that little glimmer that is slumbering in most of us as well. This little glimmer grows to the full fledged spark, that can be seen when a person is telling about his or her favorite hobby in such an enthusiastic way that fellow listeners are inevitably being pulled into the world they currently hear about.

Games are fun if they are well crafted – and examples like Minecraft, Terraria, Super Meat Boy, Aquaria or Cave Story (amongst many others) show that not even a big budget is necessary to build something that is being adored by a countless number of players.

A problem with dreams is, that their realisation needs to be well dosed, or else they might turn into nightmares – and in the very worst case this will lead to a burn out. Been there, had that.

So, where to begin? My ultimate goal is, to create an action adventure in the style of Metroid and Castlevania – but it is a long road to achieve a goal like this. A road that is peppered with bumps, while gaping chasms to both of its sides wait for their next, stumbling victim.

Many qualities are required to finish a project like this and I figured it wouldn’t really be the best thing to begin with as a first gaming project: problems might show up during the development that could have been easily avoided if the game core was properly designed, considering the game designer would have seen them coming in the first place.

So step by step, shall we?

How about a little sidescroller multiplayer shooter for a start? You know, the kind where several players annihilate each other with random weapons appearing on the platform based battle field?

Not the most creative idea in gaming ever I have to admit. but bundled with – as far as I’ve seen – some pretty unique game mechanics and a fresh setting, the finished game should be entertaining enough to spend a few hours with occassionally.