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[Insert Game Title Here] - Development Diary

 
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Lestrade
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Joined: 24 Mar 2005
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Location: Toronto

PostPosted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:29 pm    Post subject: [Insert Game Title Here] - Development Diary Reply with quote

Hello all! As well as on my blog, I'm going to keep a development diary of my current game-in-progress here. I have this faint hope of finishing this for an IGF submission, but a couple of weeks will tell if that's even remotely possible.

Here's my first post on the game:



This is a screenshot mockup of the new game I'm working on. It doesn't have a final name yet, and I don't want to give too much away at this point, but the basic idea is this: you play a man in a wheelchair who lives in a huge estate; the gameplay revolves around him defending something he loves from besieging outsiders.

I've been playing with pixel art for the past week and the above scene has gone through several revisions; first as a slightly more dither-heavy collection of harsher sprites in the same Game Boy hues; second as a limited-colour trial that didn't add much to the atmosphere and thus proved less viable. What you see above is version three; it's flatter, simpler and easier to read, both visually and from a gameplay standpoint.



Left: original full-colour sprite;
Right: final monochrome, low-res sprite


The game went from being 16-bit style, as you can see in the sprite above, to being a very Game Boy kind of game. It won't be faithful to that format; the screen will likely include a few more pixels to accommodate the game's UI (which isn't demonstrated here). It will also be wider, so it will look better blown up on a 16:9 screen.

I'm hoping the game will succeed in a few key areas: mood, atmosphere, and genuine gameplay. The Ascent left some people wanting more, or a bit frustrated with the controls; I'm hoping this will be a tighter experience and more of a "real" game when it's finished. I'll be doing everything myself again—well, everything except for sound and music. Oh, and this game, despite having really low-res 8-bit graphics, will feature voice acting, just as The Ascent did.
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SuperWes
Updated the banners, but not his title
Updated the banners, but not his title


Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 3725

PostPosted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This looks incredible. Unfortunately, as soon as I saw the character I thought of my friend's game idea where the main character Is in a wheelchair, has no arms and legs, and moves by farting...

-Wes
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Lestrade
Bug Fister
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Joined: 24 Mar 2005
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Location: Toronto

PostPosted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, Wes. And don't worry, this might be a little subtler.
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Lestrade
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Joined: 24 Mar 2005
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Location: Toronto

PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Design has kind of stalled for a bit. Got some good ideas to try to make this a small, tight, gameplay-centric sort of thing, but my inspiration has dropped off.

I hope to regroup soon with renewed vigor!
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 11:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm abandoning this project for now. It's getting much too complicated and my interest is waning. My strength is in visually-unique, one-shot kind of games, and this is not it. I'm back to the drawing board with some other ideas.
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SuperWes
Updated the banners, but not his title
Updated the banners, but not his title


Joined: 07 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Booooo! What happen? Did you run into a wall on the programming side of things, or literally just decide it was getting too complex?

-Wes
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Lestrade
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I didn't begin programming yet. Here's what I told someone else:

[The game is] not immediate enough. My games should be like lovely paintings; this seemed too laborious for both me and players, I think.
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