Sunday, December 25, 2016

Christmas Update

Hey all,

First off, happy Christmas! I don't really celebrate the holiday myself, but have a great day if you celebrate, nonetheless.

I find myself still working on Christmas day, interestingly enough. It's just kinda another day for me.

I've reached the point in Chang-e's development that I dread the most.

Making art.

I'm horrible at it, as I'm sure you're aware, but I wanted to share a screen prototype I scribbled.


Took about 5 minutes.

That's kinda all I wanted to say today!

Edit: I would've made something more festive, but you don't wanna see that.

Jimmy

Sunday, December 11, 2016

HOLY CRAP I'VE BEEN GONE TOO LONG

Hey all,

It's been a while since my last post, and that's because I've been hard at work on something new. This something will speed up development time significantly!

That something is...
Drum roll please.
DRUM ROLL.
PLEASE.

(Edit: Jimmy does not advocate for drum rolls during objectively lame moments.)

... It's a new map editor! Code named "Quest", this will allow me to create levels in an automated fashion without using the in-game editor that looked like this:


It's an unreadable, barely usable mess, yeah? This old editor served its purpose for a good 3 years, but as new projects came down the pipeline I decided that what I had made in an afternoon was no longer enough. Using this editor required a combination of text editing and point and clicking.

I went over JFramework feature by feature and made an editor (using Python) that will cater to said features.


It's not complete yet, but it's well on the way. I've been plugging away at this for the past few weeks, and have already applied some hand crafted levels in the Zombie game.

Also, I had a dream of something, and decided to draw it. It's terrible, but I wanted to share.

And no, I'm not saying "It's bad" as a defense mechanism, I honestly think it's bad, I just want to share to prove that I AM doing SOMETHING.

Is this from Chang-e? You'll see.

I may do a game design article at some point in the future. Let me know if you're interested!

Actually, any questions are welcome, if you wanna know how I built Quest, I'm more than willing to answer.

Jimmy

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 30 and 31

Hey all,

Happy Halloween! Posting my final drawings for the month, and closing out this practice chapter of my life.

That is all.




Jimmy

Sunday, October 30, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 29

Hey all,

Just finished a doodle for today.



Jimmy

October Concept Artfest: Day 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28

Hey all,

Before we get to drawings, just wanted to say that there are some new (fun!) developments in the Zombie game. Basically, new enemies! Look forward to seeing them next playtest!

I fell way behind and decided to do some speed drawings to catch up, some came out better than others.








Jimmy

Monday, October 24, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 19, 20, and 21

Hey all,

Sorry I'm late on these, been really busy, not much to say today, just crappy doodles.




Jimmy

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 17 and 18

Hey all,

Today, I have two mediocre drawings for you. I'm trying to remove the training wheels / reference material for general shape, and it shows.

The thing I am proud of, though, is that these characters are original and will be in Chang-e.

Before I show the doodles, I want to mention that I made progress on the RPG, which is ready to have a real artist on board. If you're interested, feel free to reach out.



Jimmy

Sunday, October 16, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 16

Hey all,

Getting this in before I have to go to a live event.


Jimmy

October Concept Artfest: Day 14 and 15

Hey all,

This time, I tried to draw another female character, and you'll see her in the RPG game!

In a way this is a bit of a reveal? Not that anyone cares.



I did these ones fairly quickly, admittedly, and they're not very good...

Today, I put character switching into the RPG game (Chang-e) as well, the prototype is almost ready for a test, and I'm excited to see it be broken apart.

Jimmy

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 10, 11, and 12

Hey all,

Doodle dump!

... As a surprise to no one.




I'm really focusing on faces, if you couldn't tell by the theming.

Also, there will be no playtest this week, Dragon Quest Builders came out and I'm too excited to pass it up!

... Yeah, I play games sometimes in between development periods...

Jimmy

Sunday, October 9, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 9: Pre Debate Edition!

Hey all,

Throwing this in before people start talking about political gooble grop.



I shaded this one a bit and I'm pretty happy.

Now back to what I was doing: Zombie game bug fixes + feature additions.

Jimmy

Saturday, October 8, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 6, 7, and 8

Hey all,

Just another doodle dump!




I found myself a bit busy the past couple of days and couldn't post. I'm not going to apologize, though. It's not like anyone looks forward to these!

... Unless it's to mock me, then sure, I suppose that's a reason. One point to you!

Overall, I can feel myself getting more comfortable with the tools and basic shapes. I feel more comfortable applying things I've seen or learned, and I'm feeling more confident in general.

Also, had another playtest on Thursday, to much success! Got some fresh eyes on the Zombie game and came back with some new notes:

Obviously, some of these are jokes.

I've turned a few of these into tasks on my sprint board as well, to fix for the upcoming playtest next week!

Some of these notes are observations by me, and others are observations by the testers themselves, it's up to you to decide what sticks and what doesn't.

Remember to ask the tester to rip into your product, because by tearing it apart, you can find ways to make your product better. Criticism is not a reflection upon yourself, but the way you take it is!

That's all I have for today, until next time!

Jimmy

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 5

Hey all,

Just a daily art dump... Again!


If I'm going to critique myself, it would be this: I can't draw women, period. I should stop.

... But I'm not going to. I'm going to keep trying until I get this art thing down. I feel myself getting a little bit better with doodling.

On another note, there has been a bit of something added to Zombie's single player mode...


You may notice that there's a bit of something new added to the game... Which I'll tell you about, it's another type of enemy! This type of enemy digs up from the ground to throw rocks at the player.

The rate and speed of this new type of enemy is determined by the AI Manager, which takes input about how long the player has been playing, how much health they have, and other criteria, and sets the AI difficulty.

I may dive deeper into it at some point, but there you go.

Jimmy

October Concept Artfest: Day 4

Hey all,

Just a daily art dump, nothing major!


My two cents? This one came out "meh", but I'm posting it to remind myself how much I need to improve.

I'll have a new build of Zombie available for playtesting tomorrow, all the changes revolve around singleplayer content. I'll do a deep dive article about how I responded to the feedback from the previous playtest when I have the time.

Jimmy

Monday, October 3, 2016

October Concept Artfest: Day 1, 2, and 3

Hey all,

While I come up with topics to discuss on this blog and have more substantial things to show from either Chang-e or Zombie, I'll post the stuff I've been drawing in an effort to get better over the course of the month.

To be totally clear: both game projects are moving along just fine! The Zombie game recently had a successful playtest, and I've adjusted the game per the feedback. Chang-e will soon have a playable build for testing. (I'm really nervous about that one.)

Of course, feel free to laugh during this month, I'm an adult, and definitely heard worse! I've worked in the games industry, I've heard some terrible feedback!

The drawings below could be either practice or something original, you'll just have to parse that stuff out.

The drawings for Oct. 1, 2, and 3:

 Oct. 2

Oct. 3


 Oct. 1


Thanks,
Jimmy

Playtesting

Hey all,

Presented without context.

This is a picture of my notes during a playtest, it's a combination of user suggestions or my own findings. I tend to keep my notes a bit scrambled like this, and create tasks from these notes in JIRA.

Why am I presenting this to you? Well, I want to talk about playtesting, of course!

Basically, playtesting is letting people test your game, to aid you in identifying what is fun, and more importantly, what isn't. Some people misconstrue playtesting as the practice of writing down and implementing EVERYTHING the user says, this simply isn't true.

So, how do you playtest? Easy, get your game out there and make people play, your family, your friends, your enemies, your dog, and that weird drawing your cousin made you keep on the fridge: EVERYONE. When the player starts playing, try to keep the explanations to an absolute minimum, your game should speak for itself. Record what you notice, about lost messages in communication, or parts that are too easy or difficult. Try to find ways to keep the player engaged in the next iteration (i.e. Do they level up fast enough? Do the platforms move fast enough? etc.). Show your game as soon as you can, try to find that hook in your gameplay.

Also, provide your own equipment, and maybe even bring snacks for your guests.

It's really hard to get your game out there, I know, but think of it this way: this is part of making your work better, it makes you better! Your game may not seem ready, but it probably is, really. Have confidence in your work, you made it, after all!

Something that helps me when playtesting is that I tell myself: "I'll never present this product in this state ever again, it can only get better." In a way, it makes me look forward to the future. It may not work for you, but take comfort in knowing that your game will get better.

Part of being a game developer (or a creator of ANYTHING, really) is that you have to learn how to take feedback. Ultimately, the vision of the project is yours, and the feedback will help you accomplish that vision. Always listen, but know what advice to keep and what isn't necessarily helpful.

You may also have to deal with hecklers or haters, just be an adult and accept their feedback, I mean, what else CAN you do? Even the most hateful people can impart a good idea or two!


That's my talk this time. If you have questions, feel free to post a comment!

On another note, I've been working on my drawing, and I plan to draw something everyday in October. Not Inktober, I'm not good enough for that, I'm awful at art. Ironically, I wrote earlier about having confidence in your work...


I may or may not love Gurren Lagann.

Still working on it.
Also provided without context, a picture of Daigo.


That's it, go home. Oh, you are home? Then leave, go somewhere else, and then go home.

Jimmy 

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Back from Hiatus!

Hey all,

Surprise! I'm back from my hiatus!

... You didn't know that I was on hiatus? ... Oh...
Surprise! I was on hiatus! ... And now I'm not on hiatus! YAY!
*Throw confetti*

Anyway, what am I up to? Good question, person reading this!
Currently, I'm refactoring Chang-e so that a certain technique in the game is easier to pull off, and is overall more fun to use.

For the Zombie game, I'm working on steady playable builds and trying to get an artist to polish the game off, so close to a presentable build!

Thought I would quickly spout that before I went back to work. It's great to be back.

Jimmy

Monday, July 25, 2016

A Very Angry Mighty No. 9 Review

 Hey all,

(Please forgive me, this is more of a collection of notes than anything, I just wanted to post my thoughts.)

So I just finished Mighty No. 9, lovingly called the "Most disappointing game of all time" by IGN.

Mighty Number 9 follows Megam- I mean, Beck, as he defeats his corrupted comrades and tries to save the world from some sort of hacker. As you can see, I'm an expert on this game's story.

Along the way, Beck collects the powers of the bosses the player defeats and is able to use them at any time.

For an early warning, this game is so bad, and I plan to make it cry like an anime fan on prom night. (GET IT?!)

But enough of that crap, let's get to me ripping it apart! :D

Coherence / Following the rules: "The game must be coherent and consistent, game objects / characters must obey the rules that the game designer sets early on in the experience, no exceptions."

This is perhaps the best part of Mighty No. 9. The game establishes that you will be jumping, shooting, and dashing for the entirety of the game.

There is an exception though, one mission in the game involves the player commanding Call as she utilizes stealth in infiltrate a prison. It's a complete juxtaposition to the rest of the game, and sticks out, in a bad way. The mission doesn't punish the player for not using stealth, and enemies cannot be defeated like they have been for the rest of the game.

Now, I'm not saying that they can't change up the game a bit, but this particular mission seems arbitrary and unnecessary, and seems to just pad out the rest of the game. I'm not kidding about the padding part, there is a part where the player must use Call's hover ability to navigate some deadly spike traps, but the player hasn't been taught how to use this ability / mechanic. It requires a tremendous amount of trial and error to pass this part of the level, which is at the very end. If the player loses all of their lives (and believe me, they will.) during this part, THEY HAVE TO PLAY THE WHOLE LEVEL OVER AGAIN. That's what I mean by padding, that part I just described is designed to steal lives from the player so that they'll have to play the level over again. Oh, I forgot to mention that the boss fight happens right after that "puzzle".

Speaking of padding, the final boss fight feels like it was designed to do that as well, taking roughly 25% of your health per hit, leaving the player with not much time to figure out how to fight it before having to start the level over. Of course, the final boss is a two part fight.

The thing is, with Megaman (Which Mighty Number 9 claims to be a successor to), was that parts that were designed to steal away your lives were fairly few and far between levels, and usually in the middle of levels, not near the end. These life stealing mechanics also came with a warning, by teaching the player the mechanics of the death traps BEFORE the trap has a real chance to kill them. Mighty No. 9 sees this and misunderstands the comcept (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!) by making almost every level have some sort of life stealing mechanic.

Oh yeah, and some bosses have one hit kill moves that either come with little warning, look like other attacks the boss has, or have a tiny window to dodge them. See the theme here about padding the game? The game thinks that difficulty comes from one hit kills and life stealing puzzles, rather than challenging your wit, reflexes, or cunning. It's sad too, since Keiji Inafune should have understood this.

Padding wouldn't be too bad if the combat was interesting, but unfortunately it just isn't. Enemies don't die in a satisfactory fashion, they just kind of disappear, unless you use the game's dash ability. To describe the dash ability, briefly, it's a move where when an enemy has low enough health (i.e. covered in blue or some other color), you can dash into them to build a combo, which only adds to your score at the end of the level.

I also can't forgive the mechanic where holding forward as Beck lands makes him do a special animation that moves a set distance. This mechanic takes control AWAY from the player and can put them into an unnecessary situation where they may lose a life.

Basically, the game has an inconsistent rule set, it's really annoying, and unforgivable.

+ Easy to understand core mechanics. Consistent in that regard.
- Call level
- Padding
- A lack of understanding of their own rules.

Score: 8/20

Do or Show, Don't Tell: "The game must show the player or make the player use mechanics of the game in order for the player to understand them. Allow the player to learn mechanics in a safe environment with minimal punishment so that the game can introduce challenges while feeling "fair"."

Looking at this category, Mighty Number 9 does nothing offensive here. The game is fairly good at showing the player the ropes of the game, albeit be with a bit too much dialogue.

The game starts with a crumbling city and the player is forced to navigate the space using Beck's abilities. The tutorial level has very few death traps and does a letting the player figure out the mechanics in a safe place.

One thing this game does wrong, however, is that it never explains the powerups mechanic, which I will explain. Some enemies give you powerups for defeating them by using the dash ability. These powerups range from being very helpful (shots got through enemies and objects) to outright useless (run faster, which messes up your jumps. You read that right, a powerup that makes things harder).

The lack of information on the above is really not forgiveable, unfortunately.

+ Easy to understand
+ Good tutorial
- Power ups

Score: 15/20

Exercise the Brain: "Learning is fun, variety is learning. Multiplayer games are great at this."

This game has no puzzles. Bosses are easily defeated by the primary buster attack, the abilities from defeated Mighties mean almost nothing in the context of a fight.

One thing I do like, though, is that abilities from defeated Mighties can be used in levels to create shortcuts or unlock extra lives, so in a way, levels have weaknesses. It's a neat idea explored in Megaman X previously, and utilized here as well.

Levels do a good job of providing the variety that the game needs, bringing in different mechanics. Some of these mechanics are not fun, however, for example, the mine level is all just death traps, and unforeseeable instant kills. See above if you want to hear my complaints about the one hit deaths.

Unfortunately, platforming is incredibly trivial thanks to the dash ability. Timed jumps? That's for suckers.

It's a real shame, too, since this game would have been more interesting with some actual platforming. I don't know why Beck can dash infinitely in the air, it just seems silly, really. Allowing the player to mash the dash button in the air doesn't really add much to the game, and takes so much away. Wouldn't you agree?

+ Level variety.
- Platforming is lame.
- Instant kills, rather than defeating the player through good design.

Score: 5/20

Content is king: "Neat particle effects does not make a great game. "Keep the great, trash the okay". A game with 10 hours of great content that the player will remember with 20 hours of padding is a 10 hour game, let's face it."

The levels in this game, full of death traps, sneaky mechanics, and other crap, are not fun. They wouldn't pass the "good" bar, at all.

To give an example:
https://youtu.be/Ri4bV3Z186Q?t=14m5s
Inafune himself says that this puzzle is TOO HARD. This puzzle is STILL IN THE GAME.

On a side note, the art style in that version of the game is better, am I right?

- Watch the video. Read this part.

Score: 2/20

Player Choice Matters: "Let decisions have weight, don't leave decisions up to the player that ultimately mean nothing, that's not fun."

This category doesn't really apply, since the game is linear and all the "puzzles" have set solutions. I will say there may be some fun in there for the speed running community, well, if they're masochists.

The player can play the levels in any order and can choose to receive assistance from exploiting boss weaknesses. The bosses in this game, like Megaman, each have a weakness to another boss in the game. Players can choose to exploit these weaknesses or not.

The game could have been made better if certain power ups in some levels would unlock extra lives or powerups, like in Megaman X. Sadly, the developers didn't think this part through, and only rewards the player for doing "difficult" jumps, which aren't difficult at all.

+ Player's can tackle the game in whatever order they wish.
- Boss weapons mean nothing.
- Puzzles are easy.
- Boss powers not fully fleshed out.

Score: 14/20

Consider this review as a collection of my thoughts as I played through the game, I didn't have fun. Very few games can make me say that I dropped the controller in surprise, and unfortunately Mighty Number 9 is the latest to claim that honor.

Final Score: 44/100

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Post EVO update

Hey all,

Sorry it's taken me so long to post an update, I was really busy getting ready for EVO and such.

Before you ask, I got third in my pool, I got to winners finals and then didn't pull through, whoops. I played Ryu, whom I don't normally play, literally hadn't played him for more than 4 hours total. Somehow, as if by luck, I got into winner's finals.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about the latest goings on!

Chang-e has been seeing incremental improvements to the UI, and more dynamic systems for character movement! I've got 135+ moves to script, I have to make it easy to script! In the coming months I'll be working on polishing the combat and finalizing details there.

Not a lot has changed from last time, but just know that I didn't break it. Lol.
As for the Zombie game, the game itself is approaching completion! There are plans to add single player content to teach players how to play the game, and then it's art polish!
Look forward to seeing it on Steam Greenlight! ...At some point.
Also, your eyes aren't lying to you, there are more than two teams! Teams can also be any size or arrangement! We are planning on adding another multiplayer mode too, so stay tuned...?
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this quick update, I'll try my best to write these more often / less crappily.
Jimmy 

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Another Short Development Update

Hey all,

Sorry for the long list of short updates, I've been busy working on two titles at the same time and kind of lost track of some things.

Speaking of which, if you aren't using JIRA or some other software to manage your tasks, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, development on Chang-e has been going smoothly, with a UI update for the battle menus rolling out this past weekend, check it!

You know EXACTLY what that means. The face / concept art is due to change.
The plan is to have the battle system ready for playtesting in the near future, so stay tuned...?
Development on the Zombie Game (now tentatively named "A Sound Plan") is going smoothly as well, tentatively slated for Gold by August. By that time, no online multiplayer will be available, but single player and local multiplayer will be available. Online multiplayer will be in development as a patch, after gauging player interest.

Different pic, same rules, yo.
 That's all for now, look forward to more news on Chang-e and A Sound Plan in the coming weeks, I'll try to keep this blog updated more.
Thanks,
Jimmy

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

I got myself bored again.

Hey all,

It's 4 am again, and I got bored, again.

Music!

I promise I'll post an update for the zombie game next week, Chang-e soon afterward?

As a side note, you learn a lot about music composition from studying someone else's work, go figure.

Also, despite me making this using my own equipment and whatever, the music composition is not mine, and I haven't added anything original to the composition itself (like a remix or something), hence why I don't attempt to generate money from it. Don't steal, kids.

Thanks,
Jimmy

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Surprise! Second game announcement!

Hey all,

I'm very excited to tell you that I've started a second game project. Development on Chang-e is still going, as you can see here:

Chang-e music playlist
(Yeah, I know the music sucks, I'm practicing, okay?)

Now, as for this other game, tentatively and lovingly named "ZombieStealth", will be about trying to get zombies to eat your friends, using only sounds generated by throwing rocks against the environment. The players can also generate sound by sprinting around the arena, look out though, that means the zombies are trying to eat you!

This project is a collaboration between UltraDudez and myself. At some point I'll link to his Twitter or something, for now, just believe he exists.

(Edit: He does exist.)

Anyway, it would be better if I showed you a video, so here goes.

Totally official and professional playtest footage

I learned something from this playtest as well: SDL causes a memory leak on Mac when the application is run through XCode. If you are having a problem like this, try running your app without XCode, see what happens.

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,
Jimmy

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

My Creative Inspirations / Makeup

Hey all,

Today, I'm just going to post a short list of things that inspire me to create, or some people say "my creative DNA"

Conker's Bad Fur Day
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Gurren Lagann
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 
Ranma 1/2
One Piece
Dragon Quest VIII
Dragonball Z
Street Fighter (Pick one that isn't the first)
Dark Souls
Earthbound
Shadow of the Colossus

These are all the ones that come to mind, at least while I'm riding the bus...

All of these had an effect on me and inspire me to create, every single day. If you'd like, you can post yours in the comments!

Jimmy

Friday, April 1, 2016

Design docs from Google Sheets to wherever you want. (Python)

Hey all,

I was sick this past week, so I had a bit of trouble writing anything... Or doing work.

Or anything, really. It was great. By "great" I mean absolutely horrible, my goodness. I'm still not over it, while writing this things get a bit blurry every once in a while, it's not a good feeling.

Anyway, I wanted to make a short post about how to get a document from Google Sheets, parse it, and output it in a format of your choosing using Python.

First off, you need a document like this one:

I don't know about you, but I do a lot of design using Google Sheets to make sure things are balanced.

Click File -> Download as -> Comma separated values (.csv)
You should now have a file that looks kinda like this one:

Don't worry, we have computers to go through this stuff.

So all we need to do is write that Python script, right?
Fortunately, Python has a bunch of handy functions to parse long files like these.

Things that we'll need:
  1. import sys. (Get file names from command line)
  2. readlines() from file object.
  3. split() which will separate our comma separated values. (Split on ',')

A first run of this file should look like so:


This skeleton will do the following:
  1. Open files as specified by the script as it was called from the command line. Example: "python script.py inputfile.csv outputfile.txt" will read in file "inputfile.csv" and spit out file "outputfile.txt"
  2. For each line, it will separate out the words (which were separated by commas) into an array.

How about a practical use of this format? I'll show you the file I used it for:


For reference, the output file looked as so:


Note that this file is designed to be consumed by my game engine: JFramework, so your output may differ. This file is literally every single attack, in Chang-e, all of them. Some 135 I think?

So with this format, as you can see, you can take in a file from Google Sheets and turn it into any file you want using Python.

If you have any questions, let me know, I'll update this entry with any comments I get.

Also: Toodaloo -> Toodles, Boogaloo -> Boogles?

Jimmy

Monday, February 1, 2016

"I want to be a Game Designer"

Hey all,

I haven't posted anything in a while so I thought to post something for people who aspire to be designers one day.

First off: YOU CAN DO IT!
Second: It'll be difficult.

"But how do I get started?", you ask, highlighted in fluorescent pink ink.

The answer? There are many, but I would start off with picking the right school. Before you pick a school, do your homework and look into what percentage of students that graduate can find a relevant job. Also, don't fall for those schools that advertise on TV offering a "degree in game design", do your homework!
I went to Digipen, and I recommend it if you are tenacious and don't mind leaping through a few hoops. It is far from the only school though, take a look and find a school that you would like.

I have a programming degree, and developed a design sense over time from playing games and disassembling them. This may not be the course you follow!

If you don't want to go to school though, because you're seriously in debt (like myself), you can still develop a design sense and make stuff. The school thing is nice if you want a job in the games industry, but not a requirement, from what I understand.

As an exercise, you can analyse and break down the games I mention below, I've left a few questions to help guide your thinking:

Super Mario Bros.
  • What are the first 10 seconds of play like? Pretend like you've NEVER played a game before.
  • Notice that first block structure? Why is it like that?
  • Why is the pipe there? Does the mushroom that appears from one of the "?" blocks have anything to do with the pipe being there?
  • Why is the block structure so low to the ground?
Super Metroid
  • Why does the game start with a vertical shaft? Notice the radar? Is there a relation?
  • The first door is at the top of some stairs, why?
  • In the next room, why is there a structure in the middle of the room that you have to jump over? Are the jump physics normal for a platformer game?
  • The first boss fight seems to have a pattern to it, is it trying to teach you anything?
  • Why 1 minute for the escape, is it a difficulty barrier?
The Witness
  • What's the first thing you see?
  • What are the puzzles like in the introduction?
  • How long did it take for you to notice the cables?
  • Did you think that the introduction puzzle with two possible solutions meant anything? How about after you enter the overworld and circle around the structure? Does it mean anything now? What does it teach you?
  • How are new puzzle elements introduced?
  • Does the art style of the game add to anything?
(Pick another one, that you like)
(Pick one that you don't like)

After you've managed to figure all of that out, perhaps you'd like to get started, yeah?
So, how do you make stuff?

First, download Unity, it's a good tool for prototyping your ideas. It's free!
Learn how to use the tool, there are a TON of good tutorials!
Just make stuff! Follow through on your ideas, see them through! What makes the idea fun or not fun? Show these ideas to a friend, try to introduce your mechanics in an intuitive way, from your notes on the games I mentioned above!

Take feedback constructively, try to constantly improve yourself!

Hopefully, you have a sense of direction now on how to get started designing games.
You can do it!

Jimmy

Monday, January 18, 2016

Quick Picture Update

Hey all,

Sorry that I haven't posted a tutorial or anything yet, I've been busy with creating a rather large level.

Here you go! A picture!
Yes, everything is temporary.


Happy Monday,
Jimmy