The Difficulties of Making a Game

After working on my game for the past school year I now have a newfound appreciation for the time and effort that goes into developing video games.What gave me the most trouble with this project would most definitely have to be coding. I've heard people who have said that coding is really easy and maybe it is if you have formal training, but for me, it felt nearly impossible.I had all these good ideas for my game that worked well on paper, but when I went to actually add it in, I had no idea how to implement it. Learning to code almost seems like learning a new language to me, as there are so many terms and phrases that you need to get acquainted with in order to do it effectively. Another problem that hampered my project were periods of creativity blocks in which I could not come up with any good ideas. Now that the final presentation draws near, I see that despite my failures throughout the project, I definitely worked hard and I have a lot to show for it. I just hope that the presentation itself goes well.

The bane of my existence.

Recap of the Project

The 20 Percent Project is coming to a close as next month we will be doing our end of the year presentations. I thought that I would take this post to review all the work I have done on my project not only to share it with you but also to help jog my memory and get me thinking about what I can talk about in my presentation. I began my project by brainstorming ideas of what my game should be about. I thought about doing one with an intergalactic explorer stranded on a hostile planet and one that took place in colonial times before I finally settled on a super hero theme. I then tried to come up with a suitable hero and an interesting cast of villains. I spent much of the beginning part of the project working in Piskel to create these characters and environments using individual pixels. I then moved into working on Unity, where I compiled all the elements I had created in Piskel and began working on a level. I started by making a music-themed stage, but I later changed it into a candy themed stage featuring The Jawbreaker as it's boss villain. I have faced and am facing many difficulties with this project which I will talk more about next week. Below, I have included a picture of every Piskel project I have worked on to date.

Feedback, Part II

This week, I had my mother play my level thus far because I can not really bring the game any where else as it is tied to my computer and I have been so busy that I can not invite anyone over. So even though she does not know much about video games, she did have several things to say. First I showed her the controls and she played it several times. She said that it reminded her of older video games, like the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System, which is a success because that is what I was going for. She liked the many background elements like the clouds in the window, the hot chocolate river and the crazy fuse box thing-a-majig (I don't really have a name for it). She thought it was pretty neat that I was able to do this without any actual training. I am going to continue to improve it any way I can in the coming weeks. So yeah.

Feedback, Part I

Recently, I had my brother, Andrew, try out what I have made so far in my game. I definitely did not have a ton for him to do, but I think he did definitely enjoy what was there. He had a lot of good feedback. He talked about how I needed to have more animations for the Chameleon moved around. He was somewhat impressed at what I had done so far because he said that coding is very difficult. One complaint he had was that the level was too short as of now and he wanted more things to do in it. He liked the way the controls were mapped out because he said that they were easy and intuitive to use. One suggestion he had was to have alternate paths so that there was more than one way to beat the level. In addition, he wanted me to finish programming a boss so that there would be a good ending to the level. Finally, he said that I should have some prompt at the beginning to show what the controls are. I will try to get someone else to play my game for next week.

Full Cast of Villains

In the past, I have mentioned several of the planned villains for my game. These include Invisi-Bill, a stealthy crook with the power to avoid detection by the naked eye , The Jawbreaker, a candy themed baddie with gumball blasters, The Treble-Maker, a music lover turned bad with sound wave cannons, and Night Knight, the armored fiend who is somewhat of a night owl. I have done at least some work on all of these villains, but I wanted to take the time to introduce the other four villains who are still in the idea phase. There is FrostBite, a man with the power to control snow or ice. He often uses this ability to create a large snow golem he controls from the inside. Then, there is Polter-Guy, a man with all the powers of a ghost. Vam-Pyre is a horror fanatic with the ability to control and shoot fire. Finally, Hive Mind is a bee-themed villain with the ability to control the minds of others. It is very likely that the majority of these villains will not work their way into my demo, but I thought it would be fun to share them with you all.

Invisi-Bill talking.

An updated version of Invisi-Bill teleporting.

Invisi-Bill's attacking animations.

Invisi-Bill's Jumping and aerial attacking animations.

Level Map

So the images below are my plan for my level. As this is a candy factory, I wanted to include a lot of industrial motifs, like conveyor belts, storage crates, and huge crushers (I nicknamed them Candy Crushers). I tried to incorporate elements of good level design like I explained in one of my other posts. I definitely applied the concept of teaching the player mechanics in a controlled environment before testing them in a dangerous one, which can be seen with the placement of the conveyor belts, crushers, and mini bosses. I also tried to keep the level varied by consistently adding what I thought were new or interesting elements or by presenting a player with a decent challenge using previously introduced elements in a different way. I apologize if it is a little hard to follow, as I made it more to keep myself on track than to show others, but I really just wanted to share it.

Part one of the map. Starts in lower left corner.

Part two of the map. Starts in upper left corner.

No More Music

I decided to leave out music from the final demo of my game because the deadline is fast approaching and I feel that I would rather focus on other aspects of the game. In addition I still cannot figure out how to incorporate music or sound effects properly. I feel that music and sound effects are just the icing on top of the cake. You cannot put icing on an incomplete cake, it needs to be baked first. I have researched music and have the information that I have written on previous blogs, so if I get everything else done, I can add some sound effects or music. I would prefer to focus on the game itself for the time being. Next week, I hope to show off my whole plan for my level. I have been planning out a schematic so that I know everything that I want to incorporate.

Here is an explosion.