Monthly Archives: December 2012

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Tools can be a Good Thing

December 26, 2012 3:59 pm / Leave a Comment /

Oh man, did that text document way of creating levels get tiring.  I always marveled when seeing actual developers and the crazy awesome tools they had at their disposal.  I didn’t think I’d need that, especially not for this game.  But as I started adding switches, and scripting, it became clear pretty quick that my 1s and 0s wouldn’t handle it anymore.  So, I built a level editor:

Here's the beginning of level 1

Here’s the beginning of level 1

It’s a relatively simple form.  It just loads the serialized level, drops the images where they should go on the grid, and from there I can select individual or multiple blocks to make changes.  This has proven to be especially useful when filling in areas with blocks.  All I have to do is a quick shift-click and select “Block” from the dropdown.  DONE.  I just today finished converting my old txt documents to this new editor and will use this going forward.

All this made me realize that these big studios don’t build these tools just for the hell of it, it actually makes their job significantly easier.  I spent about a day and half making this thing, and it will definitely save me way more than that by the end of the project.  And hell, if I can get it full featured enough, I may just throw it into the game to let people create their own levels.  Or not, I should finish the game before adding more stuff to the pile.

But the lesson here is clear.  If you’re making a game, and you have the means, build yourself some editing tools.  You’ll be glad that you did.

Posted in: Otis, programming / Tagged: , ,

I’m Really Good at Playing my own Game

December 3, 2012 4:00 pm / Leave a Comment /

This is a lesson I learned rather quickly as I had my first beta demo for friends.  I have the first world about 75% designed along with the first boss.  I also now have switches in the game for moving platforms and other level geometry on the fly.  But that’s not as important as what I learned watching other people pick up that controller and run pixel Mark around.  My game is kind of hard, but I’m really good at it.  Sitting there for months alone, constantly tweaking and rebuilding and running through the first few levels in the perfect route, I couldn’t see the forest through the trees.

I was constantly upping the game on myself.  This jump could be harder.  This enemy could be stronger.  This switch could do worse things.  I thought I had a solid demo that would be somewhat challenging, but people would blow through.  I was really just looking to see if people thought the platforming felt off in any way.  Then the first of my friends had a rough time on the first level. Then so did the second, and third.  Next thing I know, I’m am getting those looks of disbelief as they see the next level that lay before them.  I was in no position to tell them I found the first couple levels easy, because they didn’t.

This jump to open the second level was not a welcome idea

So now I’m taking a second look at my level design.  I obviously need to pull back a bit and think more about the challenge to the end user and not the challenge to me.  It was something I really needed to see and has re-centered how I approach level design from here on.  I will say that just about everyone was able to finish the 5 level demo, they just lost a lot of lives getting there.

It’s also nice because I was worried I was running through all my tricks really fast.  But now being able to stretch things out a bit more, I can make each level it’s own challenge in a slow ramp up to the real stuff instead of front loading everything.

On the art side, I’ve decided to throw away the pixel art.  Well, sort of.  I’m not going to create pixel art in the traditional sense, but I’ll be hand drawing the art in a pixelized style.  I think this will help the game look better (as I know how to draw better than I know how to pixel) and give it a more cohesive look to tie into the comic.

And obviously the end of the year release date is officially out the window.  The engine is pretty much done save for some scripting I need to clean up.  It was fun building my own engine from scratch, but I’m not sure I’ll be doing that for my next project.  Anyway, I feel like an official game studio now as I’m announcing a delay into the first half of 2013 for Otis.  We will announce a more solid release date when we have it.

Posted in: Otis, programming / Tagged: , , ,