I finished the prototype! Last week was soo soo busy adding the final features and cleaning up the entire experience into something a brand new player could play through for the first time. I did get feedback and 1 playtester and that was very helpful to identify what I needed to focus on UX-wise. The new gameplay systems demonstrated here today are the Research, Prizes, Collection, and Story text. It took a lot of iteration to get each one working, especially as I wanted the new player experience to be as clear as possible. There were also so many tweaks to the tuning, I chose to lean into fast upgrades and fast progress. My target of 30 minutes is to make sure anyone can play it in one sitting, and that it would be hard to feel stuck making no progress. What finally clicked in the game for me was seeing heroes complete quests more quickly, and also seeing all the pips on the screen fly towards my resource wallet. It was so satisfying to see a stream of placeholder coins flying and the number going up. And when heroes get high level enough, their quests start clearing within seconds! It gets really crazy and that's core to the fun. I share in this video the final version of the playtest experience. Next up is laying the groundwork engineering foundation for the full game experience. I do have some additional things I want to talk about my prototyping experience, so I'd like to create do a postmortem on the prototype and maybe a video on how to start, develop, and improve a short 30 minute playable game. I know I showed the entire game in the video so there wont be any surprises, but if you're interested in getting your hands on the prototype or want to be a part of future playtests, join the discord and we can chat and get you on the list.
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Showing posts with label gamedev. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gamedev. Show all posts
gamedevlog #008 - Playable Prototype
I finished the prototype! Last week was soo soo busy adding the final features and cleaning up the entire experience into something a brand new player could play through for the first time. I did get feedback and 1 playtester and that was very helpful to identify what I needed to focus on UX-wise. The new gameplay systems demonstrated here today are the Research, Prizes, Collection, and Story text. It took a lot of iteration to get each one working, especially as I wanted the new player experience to be as clear as possible. There were also so many tweaks to the tuning, I chose to lean into fast upgrades and fast progress. My target of 30 minutes is to make sure anyone can play it in one sitting, and that it would be hard to feel stuck making no progress. What finally clicked in the game for me was seeing heroes complete quests more quickly, and also seeing all the pips on the screen fly towards my resource wallet. It was so satisfying to see a stream of placeholder coins flying and the number going up. And when heroes get high level enough, their quests start clearing within seconds! It gets really crazy and that's core to the fun. I share in this video the final version of the playtest experience. Next up is laying the groundwork engineering foundation for the full game experience. I do have some additional things I want to talk about my prototyping experience, so I'd like to create do a postmortem on the prototype and maybe a video on how to start, develop, and improve a short 30 minute playable game. I know I showed the entire game in the video so there wont be any surprises, but if you're interested in getting your hands on the prototype or want to be a part of future playtests, join the discord and we can chat and get you on the list.
gamedevlog #007 - Stories, Regions, More Heroes
Short snippets of story were added to the game so it talks to the player as they make progress through it. There's an intro blurb and some semblance of a mission objective hinted at to set them on their next task. I play through about 20 minutes of the prototype and voice my thoughts on how development is progressing.
Regions are set up with 5 heroes each, unique resources per region, and their own set of upgrades! Now I'm working towards the final stretch of finishing the prototype.
I do show the spaghetti code, it's quite a mess but I'll be cleaning up after I move onto the next step! Onwards!
little j in little room - Global Game Jam 2021
This year's game jam was online, hosted on Discord and all! I mostly handled this one solo in Unity, and made a game about cats.
Cold Chamber - Rough Core Statement
I sat down to elaborate on the core statement of Cold Chamber.
A Tactical Terrain Based Shooter in the vein of Valkyria Chronicles with Magi-Temp weapons that consume local heat and generate frostbite.
Steel Samurai on Fire - Global Game Jam 2020
Jammed it out in Sacramento this year! We kept it simple with a small team of 2 + 1 sound designer. Based on the theme of 'repair', we made a Nintendo DS inspired minigame-game (Warioware, Cooking Mama), where you repair a Mecha as it fights the Kaiju.
I got to sneak in some time towards the end to write a battle theme song for the game. This marks my first official song! Listen here:
https://soundcloud.com/kisaragis/steel-samurai-on-fire-battle-gamejam-ver
Check out the game here on the GGJ site:
https://globalgamejam.org/2020/games/steel-samurai-6
I got to sneak in some time towards the end to write a battle theme song for the game. This marks my first official song! Listen here:
https://soundcloud.com/kisaragis/steel-samurai-on-fire-battle-gamejam-ver
Check out the game here on the GGJ site:
https://globalgamejam.org/2020/games/steel-samurai-6
Ludum Dare 44 - The Price is Blood
This year's Ludum Dare Team Jam! Got to pixel make some ghastly vampires and wolves. Though my wolf is more on the cute side.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/the-price-is-blood
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/the-price-is-blood
Ghost House - Global Game Jam 2019
Hi all!
The game I worked on this year is Ghost House. Check it out here!
https://globalgamejam.org/2019/games/ghost-house
For this year's global game jam I traveled back home to San Jose to the Cogswell location. The event this year was more chill and I got to work with a team of hardworking developers.
Cogswell's location was a bit of a surprise. It was a few blocks from where I used to work, in North San Jose. If I'd known I would definitely have tried out a few classes there to learn some music or 3d skills. During the jam I toured around their facilities. Most interesting place was the historical archives, showing the founding of the school a hundred years ago. It really puts things into perspective seeing the old technical measurement tools in contrast with the modern game development studios.
The game I worked on this year is Ghost House. Check it out here!
https://globalgamejam.org/2019/games/ghost-house
Cogswell's location was a bit of a surprise. It was a few blocks from where I used to work, in North San Jose. If I'd known I would definitely have tried out a few classes there to learn some music or 3d skills. During the jam I toured around their facilities. Most interesting place was the historical archives, showing the founding of the school a hundred years ago. It really puts things into perspective seeing the old technical measurement tools in contrast with the modern game development studios.
Presently Presenting Presentable Presents - Extra Credits Holiday Game Jam 2018
I've been on winter break now and enjoying restful times at home. This year the holiday spirit was celebrated with gamejamming! I had some good fun drawing elves, and elven ears may become a favourite. Check out the finished project here on itch.io: https://flee135.itch.io/presently-presenting-presentable-presents
This also marks 10 years since starting to blog! 2019 is going to be even more amazing, looking forward to it!
This also marks 10 years since starting to blog! 2019 is going to be even more amazing, looking forward to it!
Professor LaBait
Created in collaboration with Alex Wilson and Felix Lee for the Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam 2018! Prof. LaBait is a metroidvania without attacking.
Download here: https://flee135.itch.io/professor-labait
Download here: https://flee135.itch.io/professor-labait
Lanterns Ghosts (Oculus Launchpad week 11)
Lantern Ghosts
Met up with Kevin (who's helping out on programming), in Seattle! We were both traveling to attend PAX, and it was really great that we could cross paths and discuss VR development! I've been working on the GMG booth with Kristani on the show floor during the day, and then taking evenings to think about final designs to make in the last week of development for Lanterns.
At PAX, Kristani and I ran into a fellow OLP fellow! Tyrus was also showing off his cool game Cloudbase Prime at the Indie Minibooth.
Drew some concept art for the masked ghosts that will be appearing in the game. They will be floating around, looking for lanterns to follow. The player's goal is to find enough lanterns to accommodate all the different ghosts spirits!
Before travelling, I worked on expanding the cave area to feel more welcoming to the player. The boat now has a dock, and doesn't abruptly stop in the middle of the river. The dock also has some text info to clue the player in on what their purpose is.
The ending section of the demo - a small temple, has also been blocked out, and I did a couple of timed test runs to find the proper length for the demo. Scale in VR feels so different than when you're looking at it in the level editor, so I was surprised to find that the boat was travelling too slowly, and the distances between my landmarks too far!
Unfortunately there isn't much time left to spend on modeling objects and spaces, as much as I'd like to work on making a pretty stage. The most important interactions I'd like to show will be lighting the torch and lanterns, stopping for a short gaze-activated puzzle, having ghosts follow your lanterns, and then reaching their destination and sending the lanterns off. I'm hoping to get them all in!
Lanterns Playtesting Party (Oculus Launchpad Week 10)
Invited friends over to demo the game today! They got to try out the start screen and the beginning section in the cave. I'd designed for a seated experience, so when they went to light the lanterns which were close to the ground, some of them tried to reach down without crouching, missing entirely! We definitely noticed little things that can be improved!
This week has been super productive, and it's exciting! The start screen has been sorted out with gaze-triggered events to start and exit the game. I decided to focus more on designing and capturing the mood and lighting of the scenes, over detailed modeling and texturing environments.
Here's the starting zone with a distant gate and some old shrine rocks. The light-emitting rock was really effective in drawing in the player to looking at it! It'll definitely be used in more places in the game.
My programmer teammates have been working on getting the boat pathing to move smoothly, and on creating a system to let the lanterns follow the boat in a beautiful way. The boat's movement can now be activated and deactivated by the player!
We had a lot of fun working together this week, and tossed around the idea of meeting up in the future to do an in-person jam.
Looking forward to the last couple weeks of development (and a short break for PAX)! We have the plan for the story arc for the demo locked down, with very clear interactions that will be demonstrated. Onwards, to continue building!
Andrew
This week has been super productive, and it's exciting! The start screen has been sorted out with gaze-triggered events to start and exit the game. I decided to focus more on designing and capturing the mood and lighting of the scenes, over detailed modeling and texturing environments.
Here's the starting zone with a distant gate and some old shrine rocks. The light-emitting rock was really effective in drawing in the player to looking at it! It'll definitely be used in more places in the game.
My programmer teammates have been working on getting the boat pathing to move smoothly, and on creating a system to let the lanterns follow the boat in a beautiful way. The boat's movement can now be activated and deactivated by the player!
We had a lot of fun working together this week, and tossed around the idea of meeting up in the future to do an in-person jam.
Looking forward to the last couple weeks of development (and a short break for PAX)! We have the plan for the story arc for the demo locked down, with very clear interactions that will be demonstrated. Onwards, to continue building!
Andrew
Lanterns Building (Oculus Launchpad Week 9)
Started building a lot of stuff this week! Went into blender and built out a boat and a torch for the player to use, and then put it into Unity! I had a lot of fun seeing things come together in the game engine. The OVRCameraRig was easy to get started with. And then testing my scenes out with the oculus rift was awesome! Getting one has sped up development a lot, because the game can be tested immediately!
Most exciting part of this week was getting the water to animate !
The Oculus feedback for the demos have been super helpful. Reviewing the notes for last Friday's conference call, too! I've been keeping the advice in mind while working.
Here's a screenshot of the start screen area:
And of the first section in chapter 1:
Most exciting part of this week was getting the water to animate !
The Oculus feedback for the demos have been super helpful. Reviewing the notes for last Friday's conference call, too! I've been keeping the advice in mind while working.
Here's a screenshot of the start screen area:
And of the first section in chapter 1:
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