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.

More Music Research

Like in my last post, I will be sharing several music creation or download websites that I have found that I may be able to use for my game. The first for this week is http://famitracker.com. This application allows you to create music on the hardware used for Nintendo's first console, the NES/Famicom. It even allows you to export the music to actual NES/Famicom. This is handy for people who want to make Homebrew games, or fanmade games on actual cartridges. The next music maker is called http://www.beepbox.co. This application is similar to the format of Pulse Boy from the last post, but unfortunately I am not sure if I can export the music to my game because it seems to be made to be used for fun and it only talks about sharing by using the URL. I will try to decide which of these programs I should use.

Here's a music note enemy!

Music Research

Recently, I have looked into multiple possible websites that I could either get music from or make my own on. The first I looked into is indiegamemusic.com. It was created by Roald Strauss, who has worked on video games and music for them since the 80's. He created the website to allow game developers with low budgets to get music for their games from himself or other musicians who can upload their songs to the website. Another website I looked into was premiumbeat.com. This is not really a video game music website, but it has tons of stock tracks and sound effects to choose from. This next website is called http://www.pulseboy.com. This application allows one to create 8-bit tracks from scratch and it is honestly very cool. The only problem is it looks very complex and it might take some time to learn how to operate it. I will look into more websites and share what I learn about them soon.

Here's a bouncing music note!

Level Designs

In an effort to make a good and enjoyable level, I have done a lot of research on level design. In this post I will talk about the different elements of making a good level that I wish to include in my own game. A good level should function almost like a course in school. Certain parts of a level are designed to teach the player about new mechanics in a controlled environment. For example, one element I wish to include in my level are conveyer belts, which will move the player while on top of them. First, I would want to introduce the concept with little to no consequences for failing, so I might make it so you have to jump on a couple of conveyer belts to get to a certain room. If you fall off the conveyer belt there will be solid ground and all you have to do is jump back up to where you were to continue. Next, I will put some conveyer belts in a more dangerous place, where you might fall into a pit and die. Then I might introduce a different mechanic like a mini-boss that the player will have to fight. This will teach the player what the enemy is capable of and how to deal with them. Afterwards, I would want to throw in a "quiz" on the two "lessons," the conveyer belt and the mini-boss. In the quiz, I would want to combine the two elements. You might have to fight the mini-boss while jumping from conveyer belt to conveyer belt. This might prove to be a bit of a challenge, but because I have introduced both concepts individually and in controlled environments, the player should know exactly what to do and should not get too frustrated.

Conveyor Belt moving to the right

Conveyor Belt moving to the left

Mini-Boss Idle

Mini-Boss Firing Gumballs