Weak and shit

"I like the idea, the four armed character was cool idea, how do you balance quadruple the fire power?"

Balanced against the Fish characters standard Machine Gun, you make the fire rate of each pistol extremely slow.
Considering that their are 4 of them you never really notice that an individual pistol may take as long as 2 seconds before firing another shot.
That 2 seconds space of time is filled with 3 other guns also firing shots. so the dead time is hard to notice.

At the end of it, the rate of fire of the 4 pistols combined, pretty much matches the rate of fire for the standard machine gun.

The second approach I'm toying with.... Making the firepower on him weak as shit.

Unspoken Standard of Animation

Last E3, my business partner and I, noticed a pretty consistent thing about all the top tier games. NO it wasnt how cinematic they were, nor the quality of graphics. It was the shear depth and quality of animation.

Till recently many games just made the player character turn to the desired direction and let it go, which resulted in something that looked like the main character was doing one of those spinning ice skater moves. Its always been pretty bad, but people just sort of accepted it. Apparently not anymore.

Moving forward it will probably set a new standard for animation requirements for anyone doing a game from a 3rd person perspective, and  not just the ones the publishers with infinite resources can produce.

Noted: It was then I planned to look at what I could do to keep our future projects on par.
The obvious answer is to do it like the big boys,  MoCap sessions and a middleware solutions like Euphoria. But we're Indy, and Indy practically equates to poor (at least starting out), and there really isn't a good and cheap solution for getting that level of animation without doing it by yourself, and if you do out all yourself and do it "by hand." I have to wonder if anyone would respect it.

Regardless, I'm creating a new foundation that can support more animation heavy games to come. It'll probably be featured in a few of Killjoy's prime projects. So for the last day and a half, I've been animating and scripting out one of the most basic character movements. Turning. I have to say its been pretty interesting. It's easy enough to animate the actions, but building code that allows game characters to know their left from their right has proven pretty tricky.

No Running Allowed!

The inability to run will probably be one of the first things someone playing the Wayaward Tech Demo may notice.
Its always been a personal gripe of mine that in many games the player character is allowed to run/jog/sprint any and everywhere without consequence.

For me this tends to break the experience. especially when the distance traveled is great.
It comes off like an abuse of the characters abilities, that no one likes to speak of. Partly because designers feel that its an action that if restricted could frustrate players, and player frustration is a something you should avoid.

Its a valid point....

However I think if a game is designed well and enough, and has any real value outside of player verbage, It should be fairly simple to convince players that running isn't the fucking transportation method of choice!

Slow yo dumb ass down!

Ahem....  

anyway, lets try reserving running for making high pressure scenarios more intense, and play up the urgency of the situation by allowing the player to run, (or even ONLY allowing him to run) in effect communicating the need to think and act quickly.

The same scene player in a game where running is the norm, loses much of its impact.

This is something I intend to explore in the demo.
So to any future frustrated players...

Get over it. You have been trained to think and play games a certain way, and if you cant unlearn that. then this project wont interest you.
But that's a whole other subject...

Wayward Behavior

Spent the last week or so, figuring out what its is exactly id like to see in terms of NPC behavior. I think I got it just about solved.
It took some studying up on theory or two on human behavior. but in the end I think its worth it. We've always heard of "The AI companion that can take care of itself." usually indirectly acknowledging the general problems with AI companions. they tend to be more of a liability than an aid.

I think I'll be echoing that statement. as the behavior I'm putting together appears like it will be able to take care of its self in a literal sense. as for the liability issue. We'll it doesn't really need you...and it knows it. if anyone is a liability, its going to be the player. At least I hope so...

A Wayward Side Project...

I'm looking at starting an exploratory side project that examines just how to put together a game without the typical game conventions like Life bars, Death/Respawn, the Horde, Missions/Quests.

Recently those are the kinds of things that have generally kept me uninterested in most of the mainstream titles availible.

At this point I cant call the project a game, because I really don't know if it will be in the end. In fact, with the exception of a handful of design concepts I'd like to take on, ranging from controls to player agency. Theirs so little I know about the project right now. like what genre it would fit in, who the lead character is,  verbage, etc...

this is a side project after all, with no deadline or other constraints. so I've got lost of time to work it out.

I'll try keep posted, on the projects process.

Agents Assemble

Been working on Galactic Agents, which at this point has grown from just one game to a planned series of games using the same IP and storyline spread across several genres of gameplay.
theirs at least 3 Agents games on the horizon. Each of them specific to the needs of the feature character(s).

Its kind of a strange approach, and I'm really interested to see how it will turn out.
usually when a game series changes genres, it does it very gradually and over a long period of time, almost weening the player into the change.

but agents, on the other hand will do it abruptly, and intentionally. The sequels that follow wont be sequels in the sense that we as gamers are used to.
I wonder what the reception will be. Its unfortunate the we'll have to wait till the 2nd game has shipped to start to even begin taking notes.

Freedom

Being locked into a game project for an indecisive and picky client on a tight deadline is not fun.

Its out, its shipped, its live, and it was even featured in a TV Commercial, all in the last few days, but I swear it nearly fried my creative spark.

Needless to say, It wasn't the best of experiences, but  I'm glad to have had it.
The end result was pretty cool, even if the game itself wasn't.



Finally I've got the freedom to get back to the projects that matter.
more relevant updates are on the way...maybe.

Bout Damn Time!

It took a whole Lotta money, a few days of trying not to choke out Apple employees to get our license in order, but Ladies and Gents, We got a running and working game, ported to the iOS platform.

Now the fun begins.

Powerless

In most games the hero/player gradually gains powers/abilities as the game progresses...

I think I'd like to try a game where the hero/player gradually losses them.

casual dullness

For the last month and a half I've been doing a work for hire project for a 3rd party.
Generally not my style, but its all going into buying Killjoy's software equipment. which in turn gets you a better Killjoy game. so it is what it is.

Early on one of the hardest things to deal with on the project was getting around that is was a generally non-violent game, and offered no real conflict of interest between the few characters it has, and being a game of the VERY casual variety, It also has no real story to fall back on.

So did I successfully pull through and get together a good game anyway?

Honestly I really don't know.

I try to make every game, a game that I personally would like to play, and though I've tried really hard with this one, it is admittedly something I just wouldn't be interested in at all. That's not to say that its a bad game, but to say, that I really don't understand it.

Yeah, even though I made it... I don't get it. its not just this game so much as it is the whole genre of these new breed of casual games.

Tetris, I get.
Farm-Wars, I don't

The best I felt I could do with this game was to appeal to completionists.
The reality of the game, and many like it, is that once you've played them for at least a minute or two, their really isn't much more to it beyond that. I'm hoping that adding a few unlockables will encourage people to stick around a bit longer.... but still I wouldn't.

I started the day on that project, and just reached a point where I had to take a break from it.
So instead I decided to throw a few quick scripts at what I think will be one of Kjint's leading and definitely more entertaining games. Its a sort of an experimental RPG where the first thing we do, is take everything we know about RPGs and throw it all away.

Neglected this blog and a lot of other projects in order to build up Killjoy's finances and credibility. The first bit of which I saw last weekend. felt great at the time, knowing that you've built something that works. I have people congratulating me left and right, and I really appreciate it.

But  I feel like I've let some people down in the process.