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.

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

Creating Animations for the Game

In the past I have talked about the different characters and animations I have done in Piskel. I have not really talked about my process for creating sprites, so today, I wanted to talk you through my way of creating the sprites I need for my game. First, I brainstorm ideas on what I want to create. In this example I want to create a basic enemy for my candy-themed level, so I thought to create a piñata that will attack the player. I start with a basic outline:

Next, I start to add color and a personality to my creation:

I know that I want it to resemble a piñata, so I add lots of flamboyant colors that change between each other suddenly at different layers to give it this effect. Finally, I add a few minor details, like shading:

I know that these sprites may not look the best, but I am very proud of how most of these turn out because I am no where near being an artist and the fact that these even just resemble what I want them to be is enough for me.

Changing Concepts

I wanted to take this week's blog entry to talk about some many idea phases my project went through.  The concept of my game went through several different phases. At first I considered making a sci-fi themed game in which you play as a crash-landed astronaut on a foreign planet. The game play and visuals would have been an homage to the Nintendo game, Metroid. Another idea was for a 2-D stealth game, in which the player assumes the role of a secret agent, ninja, or something to that effect, trying to infiltrate an enemy base. Eventually, I settled on the idea of making a superhero themed game reminiscent of Megaman. Unfortunately, there are many aspects to this idea that will not be fully realized by the end of this school year. I will most likely only have one completed level to serve as a playable demo, but I will try to flesh it out as much as I can. This is actually not so bad, as game design is a rather lengthy process. Some games take over a year just to conceptualize the concept of a game.

I didn't really have a picture that related to what I talked about, so here's an animation for my medieval-themed villain that probably will not be used in the demo for the end of the year presentation. His name is Night Knight.

Coding in C#

One of the most difficult aspects of this project so far has been the coding. I had no prior knowledge on how to do it, so I have been watching tutorials and reading instructions on how to do what I want to achieve with my game. It is a very strange process and it seems almost like speaking a different language because you need to know what the terminology and phrases mean and do. So far, I have only really worked on one script, which is basically the programming for one aspect, which is the character controller. This allows the player to input buttons to make characters move and what not. Honestly, doing this by far is my least favorite aspect of the project. I have all of these ideas and goals for the game, but coding is such a long, tedious process and it is difficult to know what to type in to get the results that I want. I will continue to work hard in order to hone my coding skills.

My character script

Work on Level Design and Character Programming

Along with slowly working through the coding issues in creating my character, I have also been working on the aesthetic and game-play design of the level I hope to have complete in time for the presentations, a candy factory that houses a sweet themed villain, The Jaw-Breaker (changed from the old name, The Candy Man). I have created a small portion of the level below where you can see the work I have been doing. Nothing is animated yet, but the basic designs are there. Once I am finished, the Hot Cocoa will be churning in the vats to the left and be flowing out at the bottom, the machine in the background will have a moving meter and flashing lights, and, of course, the Chameleon will walk, jump, shoot, and slice his way through the level. Next, I plan on implementing enemies, mini-bosses, and bosses. After that, I will finish the level and add the animations, the music, and the sound effects. Hopefully I will have it ready to play soon so that I can have people try it out.

Here are some pictures of my work in Unity:

The level so far as seen in Unity

More of the level in Full Screen

Prgramming my Character

There are many different elements I want to code into my character. For starters, he needs the basic abilities to run and jump, which is by far the easiest part. This is so I can add in obstacles for the player to navigate through, similar to games like Mario or MegaMan. Next, I want him to have at least one basic attack, but I would prefer two if I can handle it. For one I need to program him to be able to shoot projectiles that fly straight, go at a set speed, and damage enemies or destructible pieces of the environment. For his second attack, I want him to have a sword slice that can hurt enemies closer to him, most likely at higher damage. The hardest part of this will be to program the animations to work in tandem with the code, so that that the Chameleon will clearly show what actions he is performing. Then, there are smaller elements that will add a lot of flair to my game. This includes sound effects that will play when he jumps, when he shoots, or when he swings his sword. I also want to have the Chameleon flash when he gits hit to show the player that they have taken damage. Something that I will tackle at a later date will be the UI, or user interface, which includes a health bar, amount of lives, or ammo. This will be a crucial part to the game because the player needs to know how much of those things they have so that they can accordingly.

Me working in Unity

A Change of Plans

Unfortunately, I have gotten behind on my project due to all the things in my life getting in the way. Because of this, I have decided to move a couple things around on my schedule to compensate for this. This, however, is not going to change my goal of finishing a playable demo by the end of the year. Here is my new schedule starting from this month until May:

January: Finish working on player code
February: Finish work on the demo level
March: Work on music and sound effects
April: Have people playtest it and fix any problems or bugs
May: Put anything else I need together and get ready for the presentation

I think that this is a much more realistic plan that I should be able to finish for the end of the year. As an update on the work I have been doing, here are some background and environment pieces I am going to use for my demo level that is going to feature the villain, The Jaw-Breaker.

Basic brick pattern in different shapes

Background element to make factory seem alive

Vat of molten hot cocoa

Music and Sound Effects

This month I plan to focus mainly on finding good and appropriate sound effects or making some of my own for my video games. So far, I am trying to find a good resource for this. So far, for stock music and sound effects, I have found Indie Game Music, a website created by Roald Strauss to help individual developers by offering free music and sounds. If I choose to make my own audio, I can either use PulseBoy, a Game Boy inspired program created by Roger Hicks and MAtt White, or Famitracker, a program that is inspired by the sounds and music from the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom. If I do end up making the music myself, I will take most of my inspiration from MegaMan, but also other great classic games, like Castlevania, Mario, and Punch-Out!! I feel that the sound effects, however, are going to be the hardest thing to make myself, as I have no idea how to even start. I will have to do research and figure out how to do it soon. Here are the links to the mentioned websites:
Indie Game Music:  www.indiegamemusic.com/
PulseBoy: http://www.pulseboy.com/
Famitracker: http://famitracker.com/

Here is an example of a good NES song I hope to emulate: