Programming woes

I have just started seriously putting time into the programming side of things.


It's going to be tough.  I have to resize, and remove the backgrounds from all the sprites.  There's almost 30 of those. 

The backgrounds aren't quite fitting the screen the way I like, and I need to figure out the function to scroll the backgrounds properly so I can zoom the camera in-out the way I want.

After all the image sizing is done and all the basic commands are done, I can start inputting text.

I'm hoping the image sizing takes me two weeks, which means I would have about two weeks to work on the text portion.

if I can keep ythat schedule, I should have a MVP by...January?

That's not incredibly realistic, but still is a good goal for me.

Slowly putting everything into a Ren'Py Engine

Egads I have a lot of image files.

This will probably be tonight's project.

Redirecting Game Direction

So after much thought, I have decided on a (potential) new direction.

I'm going to code the game in Ren'Py, and release it to Android.  Once that's done, I'm going to have someone recode the game into iOS.  I still have a lot of what the original programmer gave me and that could be used as a basis to recode the game into iOS.

This comes after a lot of hard thinking and I am not happy to make this decision, but it's the best financial and strategic decision I can make at this point.

Here is why I'm going this route (at least for now):

• Ren'Py was based for text/graphic adventures.  It's made to make my life easier.
• I looked over some of the code, and it inherently makes sense to how I want to code the game.  All of the text shortcuts that exist in Ren'Py right now are all the kinds of things I wish were available in my iOS build.  They're not.  (Or rather, they are, but they're in a crashy, unstable format)
• Ren'Py games are relatively stable.  I can't think of one release of a Ren'Py game that's crashed.
• I looked over my game script, which is organized almost to a tee in structure to how the coding is structured.  I have no idea how I did that, but I'm not sad about it.  With a little tinkering, I may very well copy past the entire document. (Which would be.  AMAZING.)
• Ren'Py can be ported to Android 'relatively' easily.  Whether it will work well, might require a 'real' programmer at that point.  
• I'm kind of annoyed that I decided I wanted to go the mobile route, after looking over Ren'Py more carefully than the first time I thought about it.  I could have saved myself a lot of time, money, and energy.

This is also because of these challenges I see I have with the code as is:

• No matter who I get to program for iOS using Cocos2d, I need someone with a design eye for these details.  The best person to do that right now is me.  (Or someone else with equivalent knowledge of games and design)  The problem with hiring a programmer is that they can't read your mind.  Sometimes the best way to show them would be with a finished product that I've made.  Probably much easier than doing comparisons to games I enjoy already on iOS.
• The text boxes are a mess in the demo, there are many nagging details that I'm having issues with, and frankly the whole thing is just a mess.  It looks ok, it plays ok, but that's the problem.  It's just ok.  And just ok doesn't justify money and time spent, nor does it give me what I wanted, which is a really fun game that speaks to the kind of audience that likes these kind of games.  Namely, me.  I wanted it to at least be fun for me to play, and not be thinking about little details while I play it.
• I can potentially make bigger, better pieces of art because of the extra screen size (at least on PC/Mac)
• The current code is still bug written and apt to crash.  Not to mention, a lot of small design details are nagging.  I would need to be much more involved in the coding process from the design side for things to work out the way they should.

And that's that.

I'm now going to go look at a couple other Ren'Py games (Yay, fun research) but basically I'm going to start the coding, if not tonight (I'm exhausted) then tomorrow night,

Rethink

After spending some time with the source material today, decided to have a rethink.

I may pivot on the direction of this project.

When I started, I wanted to create a dating sim.  (I still want to create a dating sim, but that's for later.)

What this game morphed into was a choose-your-own-adventure style game with a battle system, achievements, and and a bunch of other stuff.  Up until today, I was contemplating adding a world map system, maybe some walking around, some mini-games, etc. 

In essence, I was going to create an A-level game. 

But reviewing everything, it doesn't look like an A-level game.  And for the longest time, I couldn't figure out why.

The answer is simple.  It's not fun to read the text. 

And any text-based adventure, where the activity of reading, the font, the size, everything....if that's not good enough, I'm failing at what I'm doing, which is trying to provide an interactive, immersive story.  What I have is a collection of game elements that could work together, but don't speak to that immersive quality I'm searching for, that addictive feeling that would make a player, no, a reader, come back for more, while on the train, while at home, etc.


What I have decided, after reviewing the game material, the art and sound assets, is that this is nice for me, it's very mainstream, but it neglects that fact that this is slowly becoming a game I don't like, and this wasn't the game I set out to make.  This isn't the kind of game my core audience would like.  Namely, me.  And people like me.

I wanted to create a story-based game.  Ie.  the story 'is' the game.  Interactive fiction, but with just a few small bells and whistles to make it more appealing to rpg fans.  Basically, I want to turn an rpg on its head, and put the story back in the middle again, with the player, where it should be.  Battles are nice, puzzles are fine, but a game should be a game, and nothing else.  Not a 'concept' not a 'piece of art,' but something made for the player's benefit.  (And, maybe, if we're lucky, also for the creator's benefit as well.)

I'm going to continue this rethink throughout this week, and report back.

New Character

It's been forever since I posted here, mainly because at work I've been working 12 hour days again, and I moved, and I have a couple minor emergenecies that forced me to deal with them before I worked on this game.  Not to mention the programmer has gone MIA.  Again.

Needless to say, 'life' has gotten in the way.  But just for a short period of time.  Now I can get back to working at work, and then coming home, and then working like a crazy person on this project.  I'm getting pumped again for it, which is a good thing.

I guess I'll have to scout out a new programmer. I think if I get someone really good, it's going to be a benefit, not a loss.  I have a lot of ideas that I'd like to implement with the right person.  Either way, I need a programmer by November 1st if I want programming to resume so that this project doesn't take 2 years.

I'm hoping, now that I've spent serious time establishing contacts, bank accounts, hiring, doing all the business stuff that I'll be able to focus on the game.  75% of my time somedays when doing game stuff is taken up by the marketing, research and task management aspects.  Who knew? Though that's really all stuff I love, so I'm grateful for it, in a way.

Doing final story edits for the demo

We're almost there.

The demo needs about two weeks worth of edits and we'll be ready to program.  The background artist and the character artist have already started on the second half of the game.  Now I have to hurry up with the edits, and send them to an independent third party.


So much to do, so little time.  But we're nearing our September deadline for the demo, and things seem to be on track.

Script Updating

We're nearing demo mode.

Most of the art has been finished.  I've been tweaking the background art with the background artist.  He's doing mock-up animations which we might use for the final version.

The character art is, for demo purposes, finished.  I could use one or two more pieces, but I'll wait until everything needs to be compiled to decide whether I want to invest another two weeks of art time.

Then again, maybe I should review the art again.  Hm.

The script is being reviewed.  There's a lot of logical errors left to correct.  I have thought recently (or at least for the next version) investing in a script writing software.  I do a lot of mock-ups and a basic word editor doesn't really cut it anymore.  It works for now, but when you start getting a 50-100 page script, it starts getting a little creaky and sometimes buggy...and the last thing I need are corrupted files.  (I would jump off a very tall building if the file corrupted.  Back-up files are my friend.)

The hardest thing about being a producer of a game project is that you are there to motivate everyone else, but when it comes near to the final product (and when I mean near, I mean annoying final hump near) the last thing you do is feel motivated.  It's the long weekend in Canada and all I want to do is turn off Netflix and let the game coalesce on its own without me.

Which will never happen.

...

Unless I clone myself.   But that probably wouldn't turn out that well.

A slight delay

When art has to be reformatted it's never good.

We've been dealing with some great pieces of character art, that, at the last I should have edited for size a long time ago.  Take, for instance, Gavin, the werewolf demigod character:

If you'll notice, he's a giant amount of pixels wide.  Almost 600 pixels wide.  The whole iPhone screen is about 640 pixels wide.

Clearly there's an issue.

So, I currently have our artist reformatting, and slightly redesigning the character.   The new base Gavin sketch looks like this:

There's certain things I like about this a lot more, there's a lot more action in this pose, but also it takes away from some of the moodiness of the character.  However, it's the proper pixel ratio, which is something you have to deal with on a hand-sized touch screen.

My #IGDATO post: Tales from the Script

Arriving late, I managed to run into one of the organizers of #ToJam while going to the event this evening, and it was nice to catch up with a few old acquaintances.

The event itself featured some truly amazing speakers:

• Navid Khavri from Ubisoft Toronto
• Matt MacLennan, a tv script writer who is the screenwriter for Splinter Cell at Ubisoft
• Kan Gao, who made To The Moon, a smash indie hit.
• And Dan Vader, from Capybara Games, who made the also smash hit, Sword and Sworcery.

The panel was funny, the room was packed, and it was sweltering in there.

Three main takeaways:

• There were a lot of people wondering how to get jobs in the game industry as a writer.  (This seemed odd to ask, since if you really love writing, you'll write your own game and find a programmer)
• There is often a gap in taste level versus what you're capable of writing
• Be prepared to meet some of the nicest people and some of the people with the worst egos.  Generally, though, video game land has some really nice, friendly people.

In between this, there was a lot of humour (these people are writers, after all) and a lot of insight.  Good event by IGDA Toronto...very enjoyable.

Sprite Sheets

Now that most of the art is complete, I have begun taking art from the artist and compiling into sprite sheets.  Since I have no idea what I'm doing (no really) I decided I would give SpriteSheetPacker a whirl on a couple of tests images. 

I was hoping I wouldn't have to format the images to similar sizes (the examples on the site seem to suggest they can be a couple of different sizes, but I only got images of the same size to work in a sheet.)

I'm going to investigate this tool a little more.  I feel that if I can get it to work for me, I can save myself hours of time in the future.

The thing that sucks is that it seems to be a windows specific tool, which means I'm switching back from windows to mac all over the place.  I'm trying to cut down on that and use the mac as much as possible for the game assets.  It gets tiring switching platforms all the time.

Good conversation with the programmer yesterday

We've decided on a schedule, and we're officially going into 'alpha' phase and beginning to roll out a demo.

We're revamping the battle system, but I'll save that for another post.


The good news is that most of the art is done for the demo (maybe a few items here and there) and that most of the prelim coding is done, as well.  The programmer is going to send me something tomorrow in regards to the conversation system, and we'll go from there.

Making Stories in Video Games

Many video games have had ground-breaking, successful stories that captivated their audiences.  I can think of several that come to mind on console: Xenogears, FF7, and Street Fighter, of all things. (All three of these have had multiple movies and spin-offs made from them.)

I'm making a game that's a mash-up of mythology, anime concepts and graphic novel, so it's important for me to consider a lot of elements that don't always have to go into video games to make them fun.  I'm limiting myself even further by making it for a mobile console.  (Anyone that thinks making for mobile isn't limiting is stupid or lying.)

I just finished watching Fate/Stay Night's prequel, Fate Zero today.  It didn't live up to the original series in my mind, but there's a couple things it did right that always, always capture a large audience.

1. They used mythical heroic characters that are interesting and vivid.
2.  Each hero has a persona.  They are not a Hero, but a 'hero class.'  It makes for an interesting shift in dialogue and scenario. There's a meta-level to the hero story.
3. Instead of being about survival, like the first show was, Fate Zero is more about the deep personalities each Servant have and fleshing out the content involved.  By comparison, the Master characters are much, much less interesting.  That was clearly a design choice in this series.  (probably due to the popularity of characters like Sabre, etc.).  Anime watchers, and fantasy lovers in general, usually love deep fantasy. This series and (Fate/Stay Night) is a pretty good example of that.
4. Each of the characters steal the show in their own right.  The Caster class duo are both the comic relief and the source of tension for the entire series.  The Rider Class and Lancer class are both bold and herioc.  The was very much a series about being heroic, which is a huge contrast to the original series, which was about kicking the crap out of different heroes and villains. 


This show was a gamble from the normal story structure of a hero anime, which is good, since I think anime is changing the way it does its storylines.  (Not such a bad idea, since the formula hasn't changed in decades.  I'm looking at you, Bleach.  You used to be a good show.  Then you had a second season.)   I feel it paid off well, and I have decided to incorporate several story elements into the game that I didn't plan to that have more anime inspiration to them.  Hopefully it will balance out the story structure and simplify it a little bit.

Programmer missed our weekly meeting

Can't believe I got up before noon on a Saturday for that.

On the bright side, did some work for an hour in the morning.  Now have hours and hours of work ahead of me for the evening.

Worrying about game design

Spent 4 hours today reading game design documents, watching videos from studios like Wolfire Games and looking at their impressive community numbers.

Mostly concerned about how I'm going to reconcile the art I have and the game elements.

Programmer and I are thinking about the future of our battle system, which right now is not quite working the way I wanted it to.  It's good, it's even a bit fun, but it's not as strategic as I'd hoped it would be.  Granted, it's based on an RPS mechanic, so I'm not sure what I expected.  =/

Going to be setting up a a game document for the programmer so we can do some slightly more advanced menu systems for the game. 

Had a great conversation with the programmer

Game is officially in alpha, we are working on the code, and we have lots left to accomplish.

Next steps involved completing a complicated story sequence and tweaking the battle system.

Did a first look at the demo of the game

It's looking good.  Battle system and music work.  Art needs to be updated.  Some crashes, but overall relatively stable for a .001 version.  Needs to do some major refinishing on menus, dialogue, etc.


Overall, pretty darn exciting.  Playtested it for about hour and half.  Only got sick of it after that.  So, that's pretty good, all things considered.

Starting to work on the code

And I am so not  a coder.  Hope I don't slam my head against the desk too many times.

Sigh

I have like 1.5 GB of downloads of updates.  Guess I forgot to do that sort of thing recently.


....


Guess I won't be working on the game tonight.  Argh face!

Blast!

Was downloading Xcode and my system needs a software update.  Frack!  I'm in the middle of moving large files with Dropbox.  Arghness!


Deep breaths.

So Interra Games went to join twitter

And I made a new logo for the company instead.  Giant improvement over previous logo, I think.  Kind of didn't mean to do it until 1:45 a.m., though.


Follow us on Twitter at @interragames.

Hallelujah!

 

Programmer finally returned my emails and sent me the latest version of the code.  I can put away the brown paper bag I was using to calm myself.

So far we have:

-A working battle system of 3 vs. 3 (but not 1 vs. 1)

-some battle icons I need to edit for touch areas

-A story system that kinda works

-some major bugs we need to squash.

Artist has also done some really great art, can't wait to share it.

Early Icon Art

 


Artist is currently working on finishing up the icon, among other things.

Programmer has officially gone MIA

And I don't have the code.

This could start to suck, real quick.

Still waiting for an e-mail from the programmer

Starting to wonder if he's dead.

I know we haven't talked in a few weeks/a month, but I have been waiting this entire for a code update that was supposed to be coming.  What the heck is going on?

Still working on copy

Need to email the programmer, and also look at some new art.  Might post some sketches when I have them.

Reviewing the story documents the copywriter sent me

Still having issues with file sharing, but making it work. 

I need to start working on these things before midnight.  I have to get up early, geez.

Bakcground artist called me

He finally sent me some new art, which is good, since I've been waiting for a while.  Now just need him to complete three more backgrounds.

Lost time

Had a long talk with the copywriter on using folder sharing services.  The technical issues have been mostly cleared up and I think we'll be fine.  Blogger is acting up, so I'm going to keep this post short.  Suffices to say, the copywriter is rewriting a bunch of stuff...should get updates Tuesday and the artist is working on a bunch of stuff I'm having her tweak.  Hopefully we won't have too many more delays.

Found out my copywriter didn't know how to use file sharing

 Because I found out through some tech spelunking that he de-shared himself from the shared folders.
 
Which is why I wasn't receiving the updates from him.


Makes me feel better about myself in some ways, less in other ways.

I have three GIANT. PIECES. OF COPY TO READ.

Starting to feel like this.



*gasps and dies*