2015 has rolled around and it has been pretty slow lately for me. I have been battling a wretched cold that is lasting forever. However, I did manage to get some things done. I got a start on a throne and added a golem boss to my dungeon game. I also have started blocking out the second level for said dungeon game:

I go into more detail on the video about what the plan is here but basically it is another quest type thing. Gather some keys, fix a bridge a bit later on. Currently I am considering the story and how exactly I want to present it to the player.

After each dungeon the player does go back to town and receives some gossip and another mission objective. I could use the built in text messages, but they are kind of small... Perhaps I will use a sprite to convey the story that is destroyed on a click. Decisions decisions... anyways see you next week!

Ah the holidays, a time of chaos, confusion, friends and distant relations all gathering in one place. Due to these various distractions it is difficult to get much work done hah. Anyways this week I mainly fiddled around with creating a way to spawn a boss mob. In this instance I decided to have the player gather three tablets and spawn a boss.

It was a lot simpler than I thought it would be. It was just a matter of setting up some global variables and then having them be set to true when a tablet is collected. An and statement then checks to see if all the variables are true in a step event and then spawns a boss if they are. The boss then destroys the invisible object that spawned it to prevent more bosses from spawning.

However, the boss location is yet to be determined. I could have it spawn in the dungeon and seek out the player or have the player see out its room. Or I could have the player move to a room dedicated to the boss upon collecting the tablets. Even that option has me asking if I should place an object for the player to touch to go to that room or just have them warp there after collecting the tablets.

I suppose I am getting ahead of myself though, first I need to make a boss that is somewhat interesting to fight. Some sort of golem that tosses rocks around, perhaps it bounces the player back upon contact as well.

So I completed the little scenario game idea I was making and dubbed it: Trial by knight. It is a mission to collect 10 treasure piles while avoiding or dealing with the armies of enemy knights and traps in the dungeon. Minor bugs remain at this time, but I found the game breaking one that was crashing the game (massive memory leak due to my sloppy programming lol). Still I learned a lot about what certain code does in GML. Also I do appreciate the internet, because someone out there somewhere knows how to make the engine do what I need it to do. Wonder if anyone will ever invent a sort of language to code translator, that would be nice hah. In the meantime I guess we all have to learn a little coding ourselves on independent projects.

And here is the video overview of progress from last week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmIhDjdr45I&feature=youtu.be

lots of progress over the last week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MjPA03F3E8&feature=youtu.be

The video pretty much speaks for itself where I am headed with this project. I figured I would make a quick mini-game out of what I have atm, then continue creating what I really set out to do (make a sort of dungeon crawler rpg). There aren't a lot of games that focus on their dungeons, in fact most dungeons, while they do provide interesting boss fights etc, seem a very small part of games. Most of the grand quests talk about the world and maybe send players into a dungeon to get some item but rarely is a game built around dungeons. The best example is probably the Diablo or Torchlight style. That is what I love, those games where you go in a dungeon and see how far you can go. What mysteries wait in the depths of some cave or ruin? What monsters lurk in those shadows? Why do they exist, whats the history of the place? And of course, what sort of treasure can be found?

 However, I dislike the level of power characters can get in a game like Torchlight. I mean, yeah there is the more difficult extra dungeon, but I like each mob to be somewhat challenging. To the point where taking more than four is usually suicidal unless one can find an interesting strategy. The hordes of zerglings melting under siege tank fire never really appealed, which is how some dungeons work in games.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. See you next week with more progress!

While working on that project for Infinite Death I mentioned I also wanted to spend some time looking at coding and making a quick game of my own. 4 hours later I have something like this:

Which basically sets up the character so that it moves via WASD (which is how I usually prefer to move in games). It is using an animation from an old unfinished game for now, and when it stops an idle animation faces whichever direction it stopped at.

I suppose I am getting ahead of myself though. The game concept is basically dungeon crawler, and I am just looking to demo some levels to see how it would play. Eventually I would love to see it develop into some sort of MMO, but one step at a time.

I have found quite a few game maker tutorials to be quite helpful, and coding is a lot more flexible than drag and drop; though I am sure my code will be messy and inefficient for a first try haha!

Been quite awhile.

I admit I have gotten distracted and side tracked but currently back into creating and honing my skills. Working with https://www.facebook.com/infinitedeathdevelopment and modeling stuff for a game they are creating.

In the meantime I learned a bit of zbrush!

Just got back from SoE live, had a blast. I think I will rest a couple days then start looking into the item forge stuff, seems like a good way to get my name out a bit and get experience at the same time! It was highly recommended by the devs I met at the fan faire. I also did my first EQ tournament while I was there, we had a good shot at third place but unfortunately did not kill quite fast enough (the tie breakers were determined by kill speed). Not a bad showing for a first try, and a pick up group at that! I would also like to give a shout out to Josh Augustine, one of the newer employees running the EQ tournament. He helped our group get rolling and made sure everyone had a fair shot when it came to the tournament event we attended. So great job setting that up Josh, and I will be writing a letter of thanks first thing in the morning to you and SoE for the great time I had.

My friend came into town and we discussed some game ideas a bit. Something involving a werewolf hero etc. Perhaps we might work on a game in our spare time sometime soon, but he gets so wrapped up in life sometimes. Still I will wait and hope for the day we get the chance to create a game together, I am sure we would have a blast. I will keep trying to update this as I can, but material is sparse right now. I guess I am kind of taking a break and practicing up for the SOE live tournament.

Well programmer problems yet again *sigh. My partners seem to never fully commit to their projects. I think I will finish up those characters at some point though. A blast from the past for you: I am playing Everquest again, looking to enter some of those SoE Live events and practicing up. I think I want to take a serious look at competitive gaming, though I will still keep my art skills polished up just in case! As always I will try to post something here when I can. It is kind of turning into more of a traditional blog than a game development journal, but that is life for ya.

Finished the scout animations. Taking things slow still, have the basic sketches done for the other heroes but have yet to get around to coloring them. Will set a goal to at least get that done this week.

Alright, I am getting back in the groove of things now sorry about the delays. I have recently started animating a character for the new game (Heroes village or some such) I am working on seen here: http://www.esnips.com/displayimage.php?pid=34209793 We got an attack and walk animation for an archer type character. It should look familiar because it was created back when I did Legion of Devagog stuff. However, it was never really used so I am using it here. I will have to start from scratch for some of the other animations but this is a good jumping off point. See ya next week! And if anyone knows of some freelance art work let me know, I am currently looking for some extra practice/cash.

Man, sometimes life just comes up and bites you lol. Got a new job a week ago and it has been taking up a lot of my attention. I am working a CNC machine on the night shifts at CAPCO. Not a bad job, a little repetitive, but that is actually okay because I am also learning a ton. Just haven't felt motivated to do art while transitioning to this new lifestyle/schedule. I also am loving guild wars 2, great game so far, but again distracting from my art endeavors. I am beginning to think game art might just be a hobby for me; I just like playing games too much and creating them can be daunting. Still I am not ready to give up quite yet, I plan on hammering out some art this coming week.

Currently working on another side scroll-er similar to the other two games I have posted about. Defense games/fantasy stuff seems in right now when it comes to designing games with Westwood Alumni. I actually worked ahead with a lot of art because I want to binge on guild wars 2, only 3 more days to the head start! At any rate here is some concept art for the new game I am working on:

New game idea in the works hurray, looks like I can use a lot of the art I already have for a decent start too. Working with a fellow Westwood alumni that I worked with in the past named Doug Speights. Looking forward to getting something rolling again, c ya soon!

Been awhile, sorry about that. The IGDA meeting went quite well, passed out a few business cards, and the people were great! Still, a 7 hour drive both ways kind of has me beat. Hope to get back to designing or art very soon though.

Well it looks like we will only have one polished level to present to the contest for Legion of Devagog. However, I do hope the full story will be presented someday. I have been working on tile-sets for the other levels, here is the second level:

I have some blending issues for the tiles... but for the most part it is looking pretty good. The other levels have far less tiles, the second level is probably the most complex due to the rivers. I am actually planning on going to the next colorado IGDA, wish me luck with networking! In the meantime I need to find someone to continue work on supernatural defense... or some other project to work on.

So I was just informed yesterday that the deadline to enter the Westwood College Game Design contest is August 1st (we had heard that there were doubts a contest would even take place, now we get a 2 week notice basically)... My partner has requested some tile work to be done but was thinking it would be more an October finish with her current progress.

I look forward to submitting whatever we have, but I really hope we can get at least a few levels done for a demo and not just the single one we currently have. My next course of action is to ask my partner in this project to focus on extra levels for now... use the AI and such we have so far. It would be better to present as full a game as we can in my opinion.

As for other misc things, Guild Wars 2 beta is looking beautiful for this last event. RvR seems much more balanced and the new races and their areas are looking awesome too. Can't wait for the release next month. Also, I polished up that sketch I did, the lines mostly became guidelines and I painted under them then removed the sketchy stuff. Still could use a little polish, maybe a background as well:

Sorry no updates for this week, and maybe the next. I can tell you the programmer currently is working on the AI and paths for troops on Legion of Devagog though. Other than that it is a slow time at the moment, in between projects and hitting the job searching more. I look forward to another guild wars 2 beta on the 20th though (and the release of the game on august 28th)!

Well, nothing much to report this week. I got some menu buttons done for Legion of Devagog and worked on a sketch:

It is a necromancer concept I was thinking about. Coloring this and cleaning up the line work should be fun.

Final king finished, and all are assigned to their lands:

On the programming side of things we have save/load finished. Things seem to be moving slowly but it is still progress. The programmer for Supernatural Defense seems to have gone AWOL on me, so that project is dead in the water. In the meantime I might work on one of those special units for Legion of Devagog and other random projects.

So next update may be a bit late, but you never know.