Prototyping a Game

I love prototyping a new game. However the prototype is not where the development of the game really started. Heck I don't start coding till I already have a good idea of how all the gameplay and fun will be attained. So the prototyping in reality is the realization of the fun gameplay ideal I have in my head, or on paper. It is more the proof of concept than the idea itself, it is also not a full game.

So once I have the idea of the game in my head I tend to put it down onto paper. This is not always a set regimen either, it varies how much I write on the type of the game and most importantly my familiarity with the genre. Shooters for example I tend to write less, but platform games I will write more.

Once on paper I start deciding how I will code the game if I go ahead. This always leads me to start actually coding the game and therefore the prototype. The prototype can be simple as well, as I only really need to prove to myself that the game is viable. Sometimes the control will simply not come along nicely and I will then abandon the prototype. If as is usual the control scheme feels good, then I get all excited and need to move along as fast as possible.

This is when it is exciting as I code in the details of the game to expand the prototype and start in on making it a complete game.

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Da Voodoochief

Berzerkatron Gameplay Video #2

This is my current work in progress for my next Xblig game. I will explain after the video a lot more details about what is actually going on in the video, that might give you some idea of how far along i am in the creation process.



Well that was fairly hectic eh!

1. The walls change color depending on what has hit them, you=red, enemy bullets=yellow and your bullets=blue. This is just to get some nice wall reaction code in and working. What i end up doing with it, only time will tell. currently i think i will just have to make the splash of color cross fade happen much faster. I like the effect, just needs to be more frenetic.
2. The red splats on the floor and the drops of stuf that fly off you and enemies. This is about perfect for my vision. Of course when you are fighting robots that color will be yellowish most likely, along with say green blood for the aliens. the over the top splat on the screen might have to be toned down a bit. I am not sure at the moment.
3. The odd green boxes around stuff is my test detection areas. I should have turned them off for this video, but i quite liked seeing them on, you can see what i am testing for wall collisions then (rect-rect). Bullets and enemies hitting my bullets and me are all radius checks though.
4. The dancing dude is my son who kindly donated 3 photos to be in the game. He is a civilain and it is your job to save as many as you can on a level. In fact the teleporter to get you off a level won't appear until you collect all the civilians that are alive on a level. I look forward to doing some excellent audio cues for the civilians (think comical and ott)
5. The spinning stars are currently my money. they should be coins, but i had this animation and no coin one. You collect money to be able to afford powerups and enhancements at the end of each level. There is the possibility that i will make the shop available at all times, just pause to spend.
6. Currently the game only has some very basic enemies, and as you can see they use existing sprites from  A Shooter, not the best looking this for this game of Robots and Ninjas and Aliens etc.
7. There will be firepower powerups and more, but i have not coded them yet. Although i do have them designed.
8. I have all my fading into and out of the levels fully working. Though i could do with attaching it to the green boxes, lol

Next up is adding the teleporter control and features. Then some Real gameplay (bullet, movement enemy and enemy bullet speeds balanced). Then it will be to design 30 levels or so... hehe


I hope you enjoyed this little show and tell, if ya have any comments or suggestions, please feel free.
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Simulation = gameplay?

I would disagree with that statement above. Most programmers want to really simulate parts of their games like they are real world things. Mostly i find this to be a great starting point, but not usualy an end point. There are various reasons for that of course and i am sure i won't cover them all here, at least not in this post. Let me start by talking about one of the most obvious forms of simulation tried in a game, and then i will talk about it's effect on a player etc.

Jumping. Yup something as simple as jumping used to be the number one simulated physics type item. A programmer would start out with the usual gravity ad then input a vertical velocity for making them jump. The issues with this tended to be that in 60fps land that your initial jump would be quite a lot of pixels if you wanted to to jump anything useful. Now lets talk about useful. In games the layout of a level is a very important aspect, and making a real world jump severely restricts what kind of layouts you will see. Just imagine if you will how a platform game level would look if you had to get to the top of the screen, but could only jump about 3 feet at a time. There would have to be a very large number of platforms to jump upon to get to the top of the screen. It could could also be called boring as well as you have to make so many jumps. Oh dang, i forget what point i was working on making as my mind is filling up will all the other issues that this simulation represents. argh!

Also using gravity as a fall mechanic tends to make the falling speed rdiculous and then there are real bad collision isues. So we cap max velocity and know that will fix the issues of collision. It does not then lok like a simulation, as max faling velocity is usually way way less than real world terminal velocity. 60fps was a real handicap, snapshotting movement is always going to be an issue for fast moving objects. Now of course we can say that 30fps is much worse. In a way it is, but in another it is not. Fast moving objects do not realy need a cap of max velocity. The reason is that was can multi-sample the movement and therefore know that collision will still work. This is simply done by making the logical frame happen more often than the physical drawing frame. So by doing a double logical frame then you will get a movement distance of half what it was. The down side to this technique is that it
uses more processing power. One technique added to this in the past was to see how far you had travelled and then know how many movement control/detection logicals to chop it into to make it work accuratley. This again is great, epsecially when you have enough processor power to handle it.
But back to my original isue which is gameplay and desgn. If you restrict the designer to only have a mediocre jump at al times, then you are restricting what the designer can give you as far as challenges. For example if you can only jump a distance of say 5 feet across. Then to make that jump easy should be about a 4 foot gap. To make it hard it should be the maximum. But wth only 5 feet to work with it is hard to make a nice variety. Usually though the design issues become more apparent from the curve/arc of the jump than from the actual distances. The curve of a real jumper is very straight forward and really does not vary much (unless maybe you are an international class athlete). So it is again harder to get variety in gameplay.
Ok, i am done for now saying it is bad to simulate. In fact it is an excellent way to start, but know when you start what kind of layout you realy want. Don't let the simulation control your game. Control the simulation y your gameplay parameters. If you already have a level you want to make a character jump around, then go for it. Then once you have something you are happy with as fare as control and feel. Then go ahead and tweak the level to match what should be a great platform control.
Parting shot.. I do not think i have ever used real gravity for my platform games player control. I have sed it for lots of effects and enemy creatures however. The shaprness of the movement suits them much better.

I hope you fond this interesting, and as usual i invite comments to dicuss this.

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Please check out my Kickstrarter project.Those rewards are coolio.

A Shooter Gamplay Trailer - Level 11

The Advanced Levels. This is where i start throwing more at the player. Make them move around more than before. Further down this article I will describe my design phylosophies to achieve this goal. Firstly though, there is the Video to show you the level. This will help anyone understand my waffle.

There ya go, I Hope you enjoyed Level 11.

Now onto some details. Let's start by getting around some basic facts...
1. I took a hit at the start. Yup, i should have been paying more attention, my excuse is that i was distratced by Fraps :D (always gotta have an excuse ready!)
2. I died on the end Boss. Yup i did. You didn't think i was spoil the Boss for ya now did ya ? I will some time int he future do a real EOLB video compilation. so people can get hints if they want to. Not today though. Or maybe he is just too good for me ?

Ok, let's get on with discussing my design goals here...
1. One goal i have is to make the Advanced levels distinctive. The previous 10 levels could get a bit forgetfull, and that was ok. They were really training, for what is to come.
2. Second goal was to make you move around more, any fool can sit still and shoot something. Though i did today toy with a boss you had to stay completely still to destroy him.
3. Was to make my test graphics as colorful as a set of Smarties :) (or M&Ms)

For the levels to be more Distinctive i am going to choose paterns, patterns of Aliens you will recognize and say 'Woah it's the Big Red Blocker level', or words to that effect. Though if you really say it out loud, people might start looking at you funny. This level is in fact the Big Red Blocker Alien level. They are there to make it harder to shoot the aliens that are your real enemy, the ones that are actively trying to shoot you down. as these blockers move around. It forces you to move around too, especially with all those bullets flying your way.

Making you move around is really part of the last paragraph. The blockers block you from annihilating the weak enemy ships, and therefore allow more bullets to come on screen. The best part is that the longer the small enemies are on screen the more angles they will be firing at you from. Therefore making you move around even more. This same effect can be achieved by putting aliens on the screen from the sides or back (as I have done in a previous level).

Pretty test graphics... Well, i had to be able to tell them apart. And why not make test graphics pretty. The color of the enemies or even their looks does not play in any part of the gameplay. The gameplay will be the same, and just as solid as it is now, when the graphics look beautiful. This is also the same for the boring backdrop. It is only boring for screenshots, cos anyone playing the game won't see anything but the aliens and their bullets, well only that .. if they want to survive.

I hope you can see these easy to use ideas for gameplay mechanics, as they are easy to implement and also can work for platformers and FPsers.

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A Shooter Boss #10 Gameplay Video

So i figured it was time to bring out the fraps. I just wanted to show one of the bosses i am currently wokring on. It is a tough boss that exists at level 10. This is not the final version of the boss for a few reasons. The main one being that he has not been balanced for his position relative to the previous levels.

Balancing bosses nad levels will take more time, but also means each one must be balacned with the ones either side of it. so this Boss is set up to easily alter his difficulty by changing just a single value.

So i am going to try and link in the video, and i hope it's possible on Blogger, as this is my first attempt.

As a bonus, i also recorded the 3 Smart Bombs that created. I hope you all like what ya se.

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