The Hero and The Hound

So yesterday a game I made was released as part of #meditationgames, which means that today, it is no longer playable!

I am planning on making the game available to patrons later in the year sometime, but the point of the meditations is short new games appearing for just one day, and something else the next day, so I’m not gonna re-release it too soon. Make sure you check the meditations launcher every day this year though, there has been some great stuff so far and each game takes 5 minutes to play tops 🙂

If you want to watch my game played, a couple of people recorded their experience and put it on youtube here and here.

UPDATE: I added some of the source for the game to my itch.io collection of unity systems, so if you want to make a game like this then you can, it’s called “Story Slideshow”

<3 THE REST OF THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! <3

Anyway I’m gonna talk a little bit about the game and its development partly in case anyone is interested, and partly because I love talking about this because honestly this is one of my favourite games I’ve ever made 🙂

So part of the “rules” for meditations is there is a very limited amount of time you’re supposed to spend working on the game, it’s essentially a private game jam where you decide the theme yourself.

Once I had decided what I wanted to express (the feeling I got playing FF7 when first leaving Midgar and I was all “OMFG THERE IS MORE?! I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT TO FINISH BUT THERE IS MORRRRRRE! <3<3<3”) I quickly realised my big problem was gonna be: there needs to be a lot of stuff in a game, and then you need to surprise someone with a lot more stuff to give that feeling. So a lot of the design is built around getting a lot done in a tiny space of time.

I ruled out high-resolution art because I know I’d spend longer on it trying to get it to look good enough. I committed to a slightly scruffy style too so I could start drawing and not lose momentum. I planned everything out in a text file and swapped out as many scenes/shots as I could for reusable ones or ones that were only marginally different (so there are a lot of hero/hound shots that are reused or reused with slightly different expressions, or flipped, or fighting a different enemy). I had to cut a whoooooole lot of stuff I had planned for after the king died (I think in the first draft, the king died like 1/4 into the game instead of halfway, and the wizard had sub-bosses to fight and that kind of thing).

Honestly, most of the planning was cutting things so that I could make it all in the time I had. The actual time working on the game itself was about 8 hours total I think, a few hours programming, getting the interface done, and drawing the reusable art (which is the least scruffy art, partly by design since it gets seen the most, and partly because I did it way before the deadline started looming :P)

Anyway, like I said; I’m really happy with how the game came out, and especially happy that it was received well by the people that played it. I’d really like to make more games like this tbh!

Monthly Build 2018/12 – There Shall Be Lancing

OK, so first off, sorry this build is so late, and I’m sorry that January’s build is also going to be late… Mostly this is because events have conspired against me, but also I probably could have gotten this to you sooner if I wasn’t so focused on my dice roller… but… I wanna work on that so I’m not sorry for that bit 😛

ANYWAY this is There Shall Be Lancing, a local-multiplayer (though you can also play vs AI, or watch AI vs AI) game about duelling in the sky with lances and jetpacks and stuff.

This is probably the game I’ve been actively working on (well, “actively“) for the longest time. I think it’s gradually getting to where I want it to be but… this version is probably also the most broken, so I’m including the build I detail in the (way too long) video above, but ALSO an older build of the game.

All of which can be found if you go to this link right here and link your patreon account.

More Dice!

Hey, big dice update, I finally got custom dice saving/loading working today which was the main thing I wanted done before I made another build for you. BUT before I did that I also added a bunch of new dice and dice shapes and features and stuff, it’s all in the video above 🙂

As before, Win/Mac/Linux builds are available to all patrons here.

The android .apk file there is the old one for now though, looks like I can’t make a build of it tonight that doesn’t crash. I’ll update once I have it working but it’s not gonna be tonight (sorry!)

More Dice!

Hey, big dice update, I finally got custom dice saving/loading working today which was the main thing I wanted done before I made another build for you. BUT before I did that I also added a bunch of new dice and dice shapes and features and stuff, it’s all in the video above 🙂

As before, Win/Mac/Linux builds are available to all patrons here.

The android .apk file there is the old one for now though, looks like I can’t make a build of it tonight that doesn’t crash. I’ll update once I have it working but it’s not gonna be tonight (sorry!)

Stairs 2: Stair Harder

So I’ve been doing more work on stairs and dungeon floors and whatnot! now I can plan out dungeon floors and specify how many stairs leading up/down a floor has, and where they lead to. This was a little tricky to get right especially for dungeons with “looping” paths eg:

Being able to step onto a floor you’ve been to before, but via path you haven’t traveled was quite a challenge for generation (since floors are generated when you step onto them). But I got it working!

It’s probably not apparent in the gif, but that’s what is happening – I’m stepping to a floor I’ve been to before (which is why it spawns the dimmed map tiles, to show I have knowledge of seeing them before) and to get there I am travelling through a floor that is new to me.

wow that’s probably way more detail than anyone wants to hear about the development maybe? It seems pretty complex and it’s definitely been a hassle to get working, but to play through this stuff it’s super simple and just makes sense. Which is neat but at the same time… I like when people can notice that my code must have been tough to write 😛

anyway I just checked and it seems you have all helped me get this patreon thingy to $250 a month and I wanna say thanks so

there, you can have a badly drawn Eachy cheering “Thank You!” <3

Seriously tho thank you so much, your patronage really helps me greatly. *sends infinite e-hugs*

edit: Oh I totally forgot to mention I tweaked all the generation so it runs from seeds! Even tho each dungeon floor is generated when you step on it, its seeds are set at the start. So generation doesn’t have to be random, you could try to beat the same dungeon several times if you want, or share a dungeon you like with buddies 😀