More Muzak

Download the theme from 'Avalancher'

Here's another tune for download, the theme from Avalancher. This one's a little more ethereal, imagine a synth preset with a name like 'Ice Cave' or 'Crystal Bells' or something equally Enya-esque. It's also got some subtle glitch-beat action going on if you listen closely. Enjoy!

Funky Bugs

Dang it Google Images, I asked for a picture of a bug in a pimp hat and you let me down :(

One complaint a lot of people had about the original Dropple is that the controls felt "buggy" at times - sometimes Dropple would shoot off at weird angles when hitting the corners of the blocks. This is something I was aware of, but couldn't figure out how to fix easily.

I think I've got this issue licked for the new Dropple - my solution is extremely hacky and convoluted, but early tests are looking promising.

Part of the reason the bug is so tricky to fix is that Dropple uses the APE physics engine (http://www.cove.org/ape/ - in my opinion the easiest actionscript physics engine to use, if a bit limited in functionality), and approaching the problem head on would involve diving into the guts of the engine. My work-around involves selectively ignoring changes to Dropple's horizontal velocity for certain types of collisions.

In retrospect, given the limited amount of physics simultation going on in the game (basically just Dropple bouncing off of things), using a third party physics engine could probably be considered overkill. Oh well, live and learn...

Progress

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there hasn't been a whole lot of progress on the new Dropple game the past week or so. I've got a nasty cold, and am also in the process of transferring sinistersea.com from shared hosting to a dedicated VPS, which has been very, very fun (note: not really). It's a pain right now, but it will be worth it because once it is set up I can do cool stuff like multiplayer games.

Best Picture Ever

While slogging through the contents of my 'My Documents' folder the other day, I came across this picture I had saved a few years ago. I think I saw it posted on a forum somewhere. It looks like the kind of sticker you see in vending machines at grocery stores.

Kick ass!

Dropple Worlds Progress - Part 1

So I'm a week deep into Dropple Worlds. I've been thinking of this project as 3 main pieces - the level editor, the main game engine, and content creation (building the levels, making the art and music, etc.). I'd estimate that I'm about 25-40% done with the level editor at this point. It's almost like building an entire second game within the main game, but the benefit is that it makes adding new levels much easier, which makes for a longer, more enjoyable playing experience. I'm planning on allowing players to create their own levels (similar to AutoTanks), so I think it's worth spending the time to make the editor full-featured and easy to use.

How I start a game

I've been making flash games for a couple years now, and in that time the way I attack the process of creating a game has evolved quite a bit. Here's the basic process I follow now:

1. Idea - The inspiration for a game can come from anywhere. Sometimes I get inspired by another game, or a movie or book. Inspiration can also come from real life - I got the original idea for Avalancher while trying to navigate my hilly back yard after a winter storm left the ground covered in ice. I've found that it's best to let the ideas come to me on their own, rather than trying to sit down and conceive the perfect game. While I try to only work on one game at a time, I've usually got 5-10 other ideas floating around in my head.



2. Mechanics - Once I've settled on an idea for a game, I try to pin down the details of the core game mechanics (i.e., what is the player going to spend most of their time doing?). There are exceptions, but usually having just one core game mechanic produces a better result than multiple mechanics. Sketching out some screens on paper at this stage is a great way to clarify my core vision for the game.



3. Prototype - At this point I'll usually develop a quick prototype (something I can put together in a day or so) to figure out if the idea is worth pursuing or not. The main things that kill off ideas are: not fun, too big of a project, too complicated for players to learn, beyond my abilities as a programmer, or would require art that is beyond my ability as an artist. About 75% of my ideas get killed off at this point.

4. Architecture - This step wasn't really necessary with my earlier games when level data could be stored in a simple array of integers, but my newer games are more complicated, and usually require a level editor of some kind to build out the game. I like to start working on the level editor at this point of the process, rather than the game itself, because it forces me to think about how I'm going to store the level information and translate it into actual gameplay. It also helps me get the boring stuff out of the way at the beginning of the project while my enthusiasm is still high, so that I can focus on fun stuff like adding new features later on. For games that don't have a traditional level structure I'll work on refactoring the code for the prototype into a more organized format.

So that's how I get started on a game. I'll probably talk about the rest of the process of making a game at some point in the future, but I think this is enough for right now :)

Coming Up

I've been getting requests for a "Dropple 2" pretty regularly since the first one was released. I always had it in mind to do a second Dropple, but other projects kept taking precedence. So now, after a lot of hemming and hawing and a few false starts, I'm finally getting down to work on it.

I've got a LOT of new features in mind, many of which probably won't make it into the game. Still, it will probably end up being much bigger than the first one. I'll post progress updates here from time to time. Working title: "Dropple Worlds" :)