Forum Exposure #gamedev #community

Here is the Captains house. It is pretty crazy in here with all his memorabilia spread across the whole house like that. One might even call it cluttered.

Community. This is one of those buzzwords such as Social Media (dang that is two words... oh well). It is also something I believe to be important as I want VBHh to succeed, it could be helped by having a community that believed and enjoyed the product. So of course I will have to use Social Media to try and find and Engage with people to join this games community.

I have been thinking about this the last several days. I believe the First people in VBHhs community will be the testers for the game. Currently that consists of me and Leilani, but we will get more. Having testers is really where all this thought process started as I need a way for testers to interact with us online. To report bugs and ask for features and make any other suggestions etc. Somehow that information needs to get to me. Email is a bit cumbersome in my opinion. So why not use a Forum?

With a Forum for the game started now it could generate interest in the game alongside show people real progression on bug fixes and also how we listen to ideas for the game. Also the thought of 'why NOT start now?' jumps to mind.

I started trying to add my own forum to the www.verybunnyhaha.com web site. Alas I got confused by the set up and I figured there must be a better way. There is in the form of Free Forums... Yes it's true. So after quite a lot of research I am going to create one soon and it will reside on the www.Zetaboards.com site.

I will talk about it when it goes live some time in the near future. I will also discuss why I chose Zetaboards at that time,

Laters
Da Voodoochief

Bugs List and More #gamedev

So a few things in this Blog post.

#1 is that I have been busy making a bug list today as I tested out ALL the quests in the game. Now I wish I had tracked the amount of time it took me to complete all the quests.. perhaps next time. Anyway I made the list of mostly spelling errors and a few misnamed objects etc. Not too bad at all. It will be good to fix them, as a clean game can be tested any time.

Which brings me to:

#2 Testing any time. After a discussion with Leilani I realize we need several things in the game. As we want to kickstart this game at some point in the near future we discussed rewards for backers. It is my opinion that you cannot ever consider this kind of thing too early in a games creation. So we came up with several things, such as pets (simple enough to code and draw really, but great value). Then we came up with monthly holiday quest lines (brilliant), and perhaps we could skew a few of these for backers purposes. Oh oh, back to the point of #2... So I have been testing the game because we have also been talking about getting the game played by random people. I would call the game Pre-pre Alpha as there is so much  missing, though mostly sound and a few more quests....

and so:

#3 To that end I reckon we will have to put a forum on the www.verybunnyhaha.com web site, and perhaps even the downloadable executable.

Exciting times to even be able to discuss this kind of thing. As it means it is getting closer and closer.

G'night
Da Voodoochief

Pop Up Nameplates #gamedev

This is my newest feature added to the game. This pops up when you are touching something. Obviously the name that pops up is also relevant to the object I am currently touching. I also have a setup where you could touch 5 things at once... though so far I am only really able to touch two things at any one time.

So Why the pop up placard, name plate?

When I first implemented touching objects in the game I had them alpha cycle in and out. then I changed that later to darkening their color instead. But there were always problems with this approach.
1. Some of the objects looked bad cycling in this way.
2. When I introduced multi-sprite objects, only the first spriterenderer would alter it's colors. The children do not inherit this change.
3. I then created my first animating sprite and they were even less cooperative, as the base spriterenderer would not cycle as the color was being controlled from the animation.

I always knew that I needed to do something. So a few days ago I came up with the idea of just for now putting the list of objects you are touching at the top of the screen somewhere. Then in discussion with a friend of mine, he suggested I place it near the player. This ended up being the approach I have taken. What's cool is that the placard actually moves as you brush past objects. This is because I place the placard half way between the players origin and the objects origin. It gives it a really professional look.

I also put that faded back plate under the text, and I can color that if I want to show specific traits of the objects you are touching, and it scales based on long the string is.

I did have other ideas for how to handle showing what you are touching. They are a lot more complicated than this one, such as:- Having a render buffer and render the object you are touching (it's whole hierarchy) and then write an outline shader, or possibly a fill shader. finally take that buffer and render it over the objects you are touching. There are many possibilities with this technique, but I do feel it would be a bit of a resource hog on some platforms.

I really think this is a major addition to a problem I have had since I started working on this game.

G'night
Da Voodoochief

Color Scheme Demographic #gamedev

That image above shows my Main page, or title page. As you can see it has a few fluffy touches and the wallpaper makes it feel very homely. However I am going to talk about the Color scheme of the font, menu and buttons.

Color has power. It can influence your mood, how you feel and also how you attach to things.
http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours

This Title page has color in it. I think it is quite lovely, but I have concerns about the color scheme as far as it might affect my potential player base. Now Very Bunny Haha is a children's game essentially, though I sincerely hope children of all ages play the game as it is pleasant rewarding and fun. With that being said Girls tend to gravitate towards the pinker color scheme and Boys towards Blue... or that is the traditional sense anyway.

I also wonder is this real? I do think that Teenage boys will tend to veer away from games that are predominantly Pink, but my game isn't pink. Just this title page and the Menus within. The game has a much larger color Spectrum. I really want to reach as many demographics as possible, so this is important.

Should I make an alternative color Scheme that highlights Blues? I do feel I could do that, but the VBHh logo will stay the color it is now.

Interestingly I have an idea that I could use both the Pink and Blue Menu color schemes and base it on whether or not you choose to play Jack or Jill (the choice comes up after you choose new game). I am not sure if I will pursue this, but it is pretty easy to implement, and could give the game a very different feel. It is a pity the game cannot SEE the player and know if it is a boy or girl.

Another idea could be for me to ask the player before this menu appears what their favorite color is, and possibly have several color schemes for the Menus. Hmm, I like this, but it is certainly more work, as well as asking an initial question before they have even seen the game played.

Such a Dilemma.

G'night
Da Voodoochief

VeryBunnyHaha Homepage #indiedev

This is the New Very Bunny Haha homepage as seen from the Web Serif editor I use to create it with. This page also shows off some of the new artwork for VBHh as well.

It is a fairly simple, but I think tidy page. In the coming months we will add several features to the Site and articles about the development, including concept artwork and more videos.

G'night
Da Voodoochief

Quest Trees Visually #gamedev

I was chatting with my Daughter several days ago about adding more quests into the game. Not just adding new quests, but also linking on a few quests that we have already designed and placing them into the Quest tree,

It is ok Having 100 Quests, but they also have to be unlocked in a good way. A good way can mean several different things.

 Such as logical progression... A quest to fetch something moves onto a new quest to deliver that item. Then to round it off it could finish up with you taking the delivery money back to the initial quest giver. A nice little island of a quest sequence.

There is also Association quests... these can be just about anything. For example you get a quest that has a Hammer in it and you have to get some nails, but also you get a quest that has you dancing to some Hammer time music. They are not naturally related, but by Worldly association (general knowledge) they can be partners.

Another aspect to Quest trees is actually HAVING a tree. So here we are with a Sharp Axe, but I knew I wanted to have a Blunt Axe and then get it sharpened and onwards to do several more Axe quests. I couldn't quite figure out where to put this in the tree to make it seem like the world is opening up, as that IS an issue with a quest line. It comes to an end eventually.

Along that way you want to expand the number of quests available to a player so they feel like the world is opening up to them, a wonderful feeling in my humble opinion.

This image above shows my Quest tree in it's new and current form. It was not always so spread. In fact it was downright bad. While I was busy trying to add new quests and not knowing where to add them to the tree. I figured I would put them into an excel file so I could get a more visual overview of them. WOW, did it shock me. I was so linear with them. Only a few quests ever opened up more and then they simply ran till they ended or went daily. After having this it was much, much easier to place a few new quests more meaningfully into the tree, including the Axe quests.

Creating the visual tree was essential in my mind to allowing me to get a true overview of what the player can experience at any point in the game. It tells me what will be available when etc.

There are probably other ways to do this, but excel was very easily available to me.

Good luck in creating meaningful quest trees.
Da Voodoochief

Announcing Very Bunny Haha #gamedev

I have just received my wonderful Very Bunny Haha Logo artwork. This means it is Finally time to announce the game on my Sorcerygames Home page.

http://www.sorcerygames.com/

The main Logo picture artwork is now on that site to show off how cool it is. I will be posting a lot more of the artwork in the coming week, though I have to go out of town fro a few days this week and I believe that will slow down my posting till later in the week. I shall do my best to keep posting though.

I have the title page artwork, and also an Icon and a few other pieces that will allow me to brand the game in a good way. I am looking forward to adding this artwork to my videos and screenshots in the future.

Hope ya like it as much as I do.

G'night,
Da Voodoochief