OneGameAMonth: Update #2

Posted on January 30, 2013 by MFindlater

It’s coming to the end of January and I figure I should create an update at the end of each month so I can gauge progress.

This past weekend I went to Global Game Jam. Our team finished a game in the allotted time. By finished, I mean there is a beginning, middle and end, not that it is polished by any means. This is my third on site game jam. Every time I do one of these I learn a bit more. Here are a few things that come to mind:

1. Game Jams are a great place to trade tips and tricks. ( A lot of people in the area use Unity)
2. You might not have time to create a tutorial so try to make the game as easy to understand as possible.
3. Even though jam games seem much more malleable, make sure everyone understands what kind of game your making.

I feel I have a lot more to learn, luckily there are 11 more games to go.

Game Link

Next month I’m looking to submit a game to Mozilla Game On.

OneGameAMonth: Update #1

Posted on January 17, 2013 by MFindlater

So I joined the OneGameAMonth club.

This January I have been working on an Indie Speed Run entry that…did not go as well as planned. 20000 Grand Under The Sea started as a Unity3D game but became an HTML5 game using melonjs later on. I enjoy working with HTML5. You can see changes instantly without compilation and collaboration is easy when you are just dealing with HTML, Javascript and some CSS. As easy as it is to work with we were not able to complete the game so we just submitted what we had. I’m using this first month to spruce up our game entry, and get as close to the original vision as possible.

The game is about exploring the deep sea finding treasure underwater in a submarine.

Also…later this month I will attend my first Global Game Jam!

Philly Game Jam 2012 [Part 3 - Postmortem]

Posted on July 15, 2012 by MFindlater

Part 1
Part 2

So it’s been about 30 days since PGJ, I think that’s enough time to figure out how to turn my thoughts into text. Our experience from last year helped us improve a lot but we had several setbacks that were very frustrating. Our theme was the same as the 7-Day Indie Challenge so we could submit the game for that competition as well. (We did not submit) It was this picture here:

We made a game called “What Comes Around…” A 3D arcade game where you are controlling a ball on a spinning platform dodging obstacles, falling off of the platform and collecting power ups. You can play the game here. [Use Up/Down or W/S to move.]

What Went Right

1. Great Start
We had the right hardware. I brought my extra monitor, my Akai MPK mini for our audio,and an Ethernet switch. All proved essential for our workflow. DropBox helped a lot for our non-programmers. We brainstormed, had a mock up created and had placeholder models to test with very quickly. We knew what we were making shortly after getting the theme. Also the idea was doable in the amount of time that we had.

3. Content Creation
We were able to get all or most of the content we worked on into the game by the end. It actually looks quite nice!

3. The Competition
The jam was way better organized than last year. We had internet the entire time, all the teams were in close proximity and it was actually pretty inspiring looking behind my shoulder and see the amazing games people were creating around us. Also, we used each other as resources for help, even though we were technically “competing”.

What Went Wrong

1. 3D
The trouble here wasn’t so much that we chose to create a 3D game. 3/4 of the team has university experience creating 3D art. Our game idea was easier in 3D. The problem was that we were not prepared for creating 3D art. A lot of time was wasted downloading tools that we needed to complete the game and getting more familiar with them since we thought we were going to make a 2D game origionally.

2. Controls
We spent a lot of times trying to fix the controls but we should of focuses on how to fix them more. They were the first and last
thing that we worked on. It was very frustrating watching fellow jammers and epecially the PGJ judges struggle with the controls. I think we should of made sure these worked before doing anything further as controls can make or break your game.

3. Unity + Version Control
Using Git was a good call but we still ended up having a few unforeseen merge conflicts involving certain Unity file types. In the free version of Unity Scene assets are binary, meaning that me and JP could not work on the same scene at the same time.

4. The Waiting Game
Du-Marc (Audio) completed his work faster than we could give him work to do and give him new builds to playtest. Stefan (Art) was stuck waiting for programs to load for a long period of time. There was times when JP and myself (Programming) had to work together to fix a merge error in Git before we could do anything.

Conclusion

I think that whenever you do something better than you did it last time that is a success in and of itself . We definitely did better than we did previously. But as Du-Marc said to me after the competition ended “Damn It, I want to win!” and I couldn’t agree more. I actually want to create a good game that could win a competition. The only way to do that is to keep improving which means keep making games to improve our skills. The controls were fixed a bit (To make it actually playable) after the competition.

Team EGG (EGG Gaming Group)
John P. Benge (JP) – Programming/Art
Matthew Findlater (Me) – Programming
Stefan Lopuszanski – Art
Du-Marc Mills – Audio

Team EGG

Philly Game Jam 2012 [Part 2 - Anticipation]

Posted on June 13, 2012 by MFindlater

I’ve continued to prepare for Philly Game Jam which is now only two days away. Time flies.

Since my last blog post Github has released Github for Windows which is a beautiful graphical UI (Using Microsoft’s Metro design guidelines) for Git whether you use Github for your repository or not. I am still deciding how best to set up our repository on Friday. I recently got two raspberry pi’s and using one of them as our git server is sounding like an attractive idea at the moment.

I have been reading and rereading the Game Jam Survival Guide. After experiencing a game jam for the first time last year some things in the book are a no brainer but if I had this book last year our teams lives could of been a bit easier. Making a core mechanic as fun as can be and then leaving time to add levels, polish is one of the most valuable things I’ve learned fro the book. It’s a good book and a very fast read. I didn’t just get the book for PGJ, I would like to do Global Game Jam, Ludum Dare, 7DRL, etc If I can help it.

Something in the book I didn’t expect to find is about getting friends, fans, strangers involved online. Posting screenshots on Twitter, posting playable builds through DropBox, screen sharing via Google+ Hangouts can all be done during competition and can help others help you complete the game through motivation. If the internet is stable enough I will definitely try as many of those things as possible. One thing I want to do for sure is make a time lapse video from first line of code to completion.

It’s getting close enough that I’m starting to feel a bit anxious to start coding!

Philly Game Jam 2012 [Part 1 - Preparation]

Posted on May 19, 2012 by MFindlater

I want to avoid pitfalls our team ran into last year. One of those pitfalls was source control with Unity. Unity 3.5.x has enabled people like me with only the free version of Unity and no Asset Server to use External Versioning tools, in this case, Git. I like Git, it’s really simple to learn and it has a cool community via Github. Setting up takes a few steps.

In Unity, after opening an existing project or creating a new project go to Edit > Project Settings > Editor

In the Inspector for Editor Settings change Version Control Mode to Meta Files.

After doing this close the project and delete the Library folder under the Unity Project folder. Then reload the project. I created a .gitignore file to ignore the files I don’t want to add as part of the .git repository to the Unity Project folder. It’s based on this one by Macy Kuang.
Now I can add the project to Git using Git Bash:

user@USER-PC /C/Users/user
$ cd MYUNITYPROJECT

user@USER-PC /C/Users/user /MYUNITYPROJECT
$ git init

user@USER-PC /C/Users/user /MYUNITYPROJECT (master)
$ git add –all

user@USER-PC /C/Users/user /MYUNITYPROJECT (master)
git commit ‘initial commit’

And that’s all there is to it!

A collaborator needs to just clone this repository, wherever it’s located and open the project with Unity and it will build all the missing temporary folders.

References
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/ExternalVersionControlSystemSupport
http://macykuang.com/?p=182

IGDA Philly Game Showcase 2012 Recap

Posted on April 27, 2012 by MFindlater

I attended Philly Game Showcase, which is a part of Philly Tech Week again this year. Things were a bit different. I wasn’t helping any exhibitors so I was free to roam as I pleased. I got to play a few games and talk to a few game developers.
I played Chiaroscuro by Greg “Banov” Lobanov of Dumb and Fat Games. It’s a really neat puzzle game made with Unity. The objective is to find a way to bloom all the flowers in a level with balls of light. It get’s pretty challenging quite fast. He also had some other games on display, such as the game to the right in this screenshot, Phantasmaburbia.

Before this showcase the only Cipher Prime game I spent a significant amount of time on was Auditorium on Flash and iOS. At the showcase I got to play Fractal, Pulse and Splice. I can honestly say I want all of them. It’s just a shame Pulse is iPad exclusive. It’s probably their most simplistic game (all the others are puzzle games whereas Pulse is strictly a rhythm game), but it’s a lot of fun. They were giving away free copies if you signed up on their mailing list. I hope my copy of Fractal comes soon!

Shawn Pierre demoed his game Tone Def a rhythm tower defense game that you can play on Kongregate. I was familiar with the game, because Shawn had posted on the IGDA mailing list soliciting feedback. I played it but I, and I’m guessing others did as well, failed to provide any feedback (doh!). I really wanted to try this new version, as the first version was a bit rough. This new demo version has a lot more polish, and some new features. I think it’s fascinating to see a project evolve over time since prototypes can be so different from a finished product. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m that good at the game just yet.

I also played Battle Lines by Reflective Layer. It puts a military spin on the Flight Control formula. Red Light, Green Light by Little Wins is a strangely addictive free game for iOS. I also checked out Velociraptor! Cannibalism! and signed up for a free PDF. Looks like a fun board game I can’t wait to try out. I hope I’m not forgetting anything. I didn’t even get to play all the games and I was there from start to finish.

Seeing all these games on display makes me think I should probably hurry up and release something. Sigh.

PAX East 2012 Recap

Posted on April 13, 2012 by MFindlater

This past weekend I went to Boston for PAX East. Attending it is turning into an annual thing. I got to play Super Crate Box (iOS), Super Time Force, Lollipop Chainsaw, Sonic 4: Episode II, Runner 2, They Bleed Pixels, Charlie Murder and Sina Mora, to name a few.

At the Lollipop Chainsaw booth I even got to meet my favorite game designer Goichi Suda also known as Suda 51!

Of course, not all of my time at PAX was spent playing games. I also attended a few panels.

Indie Game Development: A Day in the Life Part I, II, and II

This panel was spread throughout the 3 days of the convention. Each day a panel of 3-4 independent developers moderated by Erik Johnson (Arcen Games) answered questions about their work. Some of the same questions were asked each day but the answers were just diverse enough to keep it interesting every day. James Silva (Ska Studios) shared that he had actually lost his best friend due to his friend suing him over assets. An important lesson to be learned from this is that James’s always has a written contract made up before hand, just to be safe. James Green (Carbon Games) talked about handling player feedback in response to including Jesus as a pilot in the game AirMech. Ichiro Lambe (Dejobaan Games) input was very entertaining, and he has some interesting views on monetization, and life as an indie. Matt Gilgenbach (24 Caret Games) talked about his work on Retro / Grade, he challenged developers to try and clone his game when asked his opinion on cloning.

Kickstarter and the Future of Independent Games

I was really looking forward to this panel, and I was not disappointed! In the past six months I’ve backed Venus Patrol and Double Fine Adventure on Kickstarter. Local developer Cipher Prime just successfully backed Auditorium 2. Lot’s of my friends are interested in, or use Kickstarter. Cindy Au, Kickstarter’s community director kicked off the panel by talking metrics. Because of the success of Double Fine Adventure, the backers of that project go on to back other projects as well. Huge percentage growths on various graphs were shown. The creators behind Cards Against Humanity, Organ Trail, and more talked about how Kickstarter not just met but exceeded their expectations. They also gave tips and tricks on starting a Kickstarter project. They talked about which price points were best for rewards and what times to start and end a Kickstarter campaign are best.

The Indie Rant: Indie Developers Gone Wild

This panel lived up to it’s name. A multitude of developers (including a few from the “A Day in the Life” panels) got 5 minutes each to rant about whatever they wanted. It was great, they implored consumers not to get upset over monetization. They talked about how more people should make games, and not just derivatives of puzzle platformers. It went all over the board. When each of them were done their rant they took question shouted by people in the audience. My favorite moment was when one of the panelist asked everyone who has ever made a game to raise their hand. When more people than he expected had raised their hand someone shouted “Ha! Not so special now, are ya?”. It was a fun panel.

Reimaging X-COM with XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I went to this panel with a friend. I haven’t played X-COM myself but I’ve read and watched a lot about it and it seems like my kind of game. This panel did make me want to pick up the reimagining of the original when it comes out. It’s designed with modern game design sense, so it does not look as complicated or “hardcore” as it origionally did. They opted to take the spirit of the original and streamline the experience for old and new players alike.

Despite a few hitches and not being able to do nearly as much as I wanted to I had a great time!

Notes from XenoCube Postmortem

Posted on February 8, 2012 by MFindlater

Unfortunately I missed out on the Global Game Jam this year. I plan to do Philly Game Jam again this year time permitting.

A few weeks ago I attended a presentation by Miguel Nieves of Dragon’s Den Unlimited. He talked about the contract work he did on XenoCube for iOS. Here’s some of the notes I wrote down:

Reactions to finished work is important.
Strong focus on iterative design.
Contractors are paid per milestone.
Cheevos are popular. (achievements, badges, etc.)
Free weekend with no alternative method of monetizing hurt sales more than helped. If you do a free weekend you can’t give away EVERYTHING for free.
No Time Keeping: while contracting barring the milestones you are working on your own schedule. This has advantages and disadvantages. You can end up working on something for a long time that shouldn’t be such a high priority.
Focus Groups: Having buddies focus group is not the optimal solution but it still can help.
Write progress notes every day detailing what was done in the game. Review your progress notes an pay attention to what updates are trending. You may be focusing your time in a particular area. Keep track of discussions had about the game with other developers.
Plan for updates before release.
Users like sharing, and it’s important to include sharing features in your game.

Overall, I’ve heard a lot about contracting but I learned a lot more about the process in Miguel’s talk. Staying on task was a big theme. He had some interesting anecdotes to share.

Unreleased Game #1: Retrofit

Posted on August 9, 2011 by MFindlater

My projects section is a bit sparse isn’t it? Looking at it you could assume I never made anything! But I honestly I haven’t felt like I had any projects worth releasing.(well until recently…) I’m going to talk about some of those projects starting with Retrofit.

Retrofit is a 2D top-down shooter where you control a customizable and upgradable spaceship and take on missions. It even had a story! I was making it with Game Maker 5.3A

It also has a survival mode where you fight bots as long as you can. There’s a tutorial section called the ‘Academy’ too but it wasn’t included in this build pictured. It also had a kind of maze level that I scrapped because it didn’t really fit the method of control.

You could tie weapons and skills to buttons on the keyboard. (ex: ‘X-Defense’ corresponds to the ‘X’ button. Here I’ve got standard rapid fire laser, Reflective Shield, Mines, drones that orbits around my ship and fires constantly and the ‘Berzerk’ skill. I was going to have a leveling system. The skill ‘Berzerk’ causes your ship to go so fast that it creates after images, increases speed and fire rate as long as you don’t slow down or run out of energy. Other weapons include: Homing Shot, Absorb Shield, Sword Drone, and Missiles.
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Retrofit has a map and markers to show when enemies are off screen. It might be hard to tell what’s going on in the screenshot here. What your seeing above is me fighting the first boss in the game. I’m using the Reflect Shield and the boss has just fired a homing electricity shot at me. There’s only one finished level but there’s actually 3 ‘finished’ bosses in the game. I really enjoy making bosses.

So why didn’t I finish it? First of all while I did almost all the art myself, I used a lot of scripts from now unknown authors. I think all the songs in the game are from OverClocked Remix or something. I worked on it a lot, and then I took a long hiatus from it. When I came back to it I decided I wanted to make a new demo that my friends could try out as fast as possible. This is the version of the game pictured. It was actually playable and didn’t have game ending bugs. But after I made the demo I lost interest not just from the game but Game Maker itself. At the time I just felt it was to limiting for what I wanted to accomplish. Looking back on it now, I just don’t think I was skilled enough to finish it to the level I wanted and that probably frustrated me out of working on it anymore. There’s some ideas in the game that I’d like to come back to though.

Khan Academy

Posted on June 21, 2011 by MFindlater

Khan Academy

I’ve been using Khan Academy for two semesters so far and its helped a lot. But I was not using it to its full potential. Up until now I just used it as a place to watch videos and get an alternate teaching of lessons I’ve learned in class. Today I logged in with my Facebook profile and discovered that the exercises were connected to game systems! You earn points and collect badges for completing exercises. Gamification is an interesting new topic and its kind of controversial as of late. Personally its been a great way to get motivated and track my progress.

I have a feeling its going to help me a lot from now on, especially with calculus and physics.