On my last monthly update I talked about developing a minesweeper game in JavaScript, then I remembered that I had another small project on mind, today I got another one, I’m going to describe them here.

What they are and what I want with them

They are three small projects that I have in mind, Minesweeper, a Text Game and a Tic Tac Toe game (it will get exciting I swear).

The thing is that each one of these projects are more of a learning experience of something that is new to me, what I want to do is to develop them and then write a post here on how to do it.

For more specific examples read the next section.

Projects

Minesweeper: This one is to test my abilities on web development, my biggest challenge here is to do the HTML/CSS visuals with the JavaScript logic, also I would like to develop a simple AI that can play it. What I would talk about: How to link the HTML/CSS with the javascript for this specific game and how the AI was implemented (probably it will be just a probability calculator).

Text Game: This idea came to me when I remembered that I love C++ and that I’ve been playing only with JavaScript and C#, so I came up with this project for developing a text game. What I would talk about: How to implement a Text Game! Probably things about Graphs, State Machines and Design Patterns

Tic Tac Toe: This one is for university and the one I’m going to develop first, I have to understand how Monte Carlo Tree Search works, so I decided to try a simple implementation and I guess tic tac toe is the most simple game ever. What I would talk about: Monte Carlo Tree Search. I want to explain it and go through all the implementation steps. It will also help me to learn it better. PS: The Internet says that this algorithm is really used in Games and the best Go and Chess players use this algorithm, so it might also be useful to know this as a gamedev, who knows.

a Tale of how I failed really bad in focus, motivation and not procrastinating, lol.

What Happened

I could blame anything but the truth is that I procrastinated my gavedev studies/practice the whole month, there, I said that.

To explain it better, I had some things to do. I focused my afternoons on studying web development (I finished the course I was taking!) and on university related stuff (where I will also need web dev, that’s why I focused so hard on it), and I haven’t really had a significant progress in any aspect of game dev. I just continued a freelance project with a friend (I’m almost finishing it!)

Some days ago I went back to pixel art and I plan to practice like I did a month ago and get back to my music composition course.

Also, this month I really caught myself enjoying playing games and trying to analyze them, it’s been a long time since I haven’t had this much fun with games (I played Bloodborne all again in 3 days lol) so I decided just to enjoy it, it’s important to play when you want to be a game dev (but it should not interefere with work, sure). But the biggest problem for me is discipline, I’m just not really good with it. That being said, when I procrastine I think a lot, and with lots of thinking and lots of playing, I had a lot of new ideas.

New Ideas

Minesweeper: In JavaScript and Html/CSS, it would be nice to test my web development skills and I really like Minesweeper 🙂 Also, I could also develop an AI that plays Minesweeper if I develop my own version. I’m really into AI lately

Tibia: Tibia is a really old game that every player miss the good old days, when talking to some friends one suggested me to recreate the old Tibia (version 7.1 or 7.4). He was joking but I really thought about it, I already programmed things that are more complex than this game, I love C++/OpenGL programming, that would be a thing, I think that this would be a big project though, so probably that’s why I won’t mess with it, but I decided to write it here anyway.

Card Game: I always wanted to develop a card game, I’ve been seeing some “unwanted aspects” on the most famous card games at the moment (e.g. Hearthstone and Magic) and I thought something like: “What if I created a card game without these unwanted things?” – It’s also a big project, but who knows? I shall start to think on a prototype.

Other Game: Two friends of mine want to start developing a game and invited me, I really liked the idea and we are going to start talking so we can move on with this project!

Videos: It’s been a while since I’ve been thinking of making videos for youtube, I like the idea but I don’t know what I exactly I would like to talk about. Game Design? Game Development? Tutorials? Hearthstone games? I will think more about it this month.

What I Want to do for next month

1. Get back with pixel art studies and practice and have at least one character animation to show here
2. Get back with music game composition and practice and have at least one song to show here
3. Start the development of Zelda Souls prototype, it will be only the battle system probably, I want to have something to show here also

Mechanics

As I said on the last post, I was still thinking on the mechanics and I decided that I want the whole package, melee combat system, equipable weapons (you can change sword and shield, and maybe your armor/clothes) and level up system. I don’t know how this will affect the story or the contrary, but if needed I can change some mechanics.

Minimum Viable Product

Now I can start talking about the MVP! I will prototype the battle system to see if a 2D melee combat system can be fun and to feel how it works, the prototype probably won’t have level up system or equipments system, it is just the bare minimum.

After prototyping the combat system, I will try adding cities and the world map, to see if I will stick with this idea. After doing this I will have the essentials of my game and I can evaluate it to see if it really is fun to play, to see if it works, and to decide if I really am going to work hard on this project!

ps: The MVP will be with placeholder art and won’t have any sound at all, the purpose of it is to get a first feel of the game. I will also start/continue to write/think on the story.

These days I was looking at the games available on Playstation Plus for January and Titan Souls got my attention, mainly because of its art direction that is really similar to what I want to do in some of my games (Zelda Souls for example). So I thought that it would be a good inspiration for me to play this game!

I downloaded it and it came as a surprise, it is almost exactly the game I would like to do as an indie game dev! So I decided to kind of write an analysis in it, I think it would be better done with a video but I don’t know how to record screen and voice on PSVita.

PS: This “analysis” are my first impressions on the game (about the first 10 minutes).

Titan Souls: The First 10 Minutes

Main Menu

It is really simple, just the options Start Game and Options, in the options menu you can change sound volume (music and sfx), change game language and a timer, I don’t know what is this timer, maybe I should look for it later. After that, let’s play the game!

In the Start Game option I have 4 slots and the option to erase any save file. Let’s Play!

New Game

The game starts with an animation and it immediately gives you control of your character, no introductions, no tutorials, no short stories.

Messing with Buttons: The first thing I did was to press all the buttons, I can move my character on the directionals and on the left analog, the right analog moves the camera, one thing that is interesting about that camera is that you have kind of a “circular” vision, it’s like your camera goes a certain distance from your character, this forms a circle.

You have two actions on the game, dodging and attacking. For the dodge you can use Left Button, X and Circle. For the Attack you can use Right Button, square and triangle. What is really interesting here is that I can access dodge and attack by the two upper buttons on the PSVita, this is really convenient because my fingers will be on them all them time, that’s just how someone holds the console.

Art: As I said I really liked the art direction, I liked the colors and the pixel art, what I liked the most was the dodge animation, I was really worried about having to do a dodge animation for Zelda Souls and I was thinking on alternatives to the dodge, but after seeing this I believe that is possible to do a dodge animation in pixel art!

User Interface: There is no User Interface, but I don’t think this game needs one, does it?

Gameplay: (after I wrote everything, I just realized, the game is called Titan SOULS, so it probably isn’t a coincidence that I felt a similar experience comparing to the Souls games, so I just came back here and wrote it as a note)

It seems like you only have “one life”, you can only get hit once. You have just one arrow to shoot (it’s your only weapon, at least for this beggining) and when pressing the fire button again the arrow goes back to you, but you are unable to move while getting it back.

The first enemies were really big and difficult, they were more like puzzles that you have to solve through a Combat System, this feeling of being afraid of the enemy, thinking the best way to kill it and the good feeling you get after killing them really made me relate the game to the Souls’ games experience (and hey, that’s exactly the feeling I want to achieve in Zelda Souls)

Getting killed is relatively easy but loadings are fast and at least I had a checkpoint near the enemies, so I was ok with it. You have to learn your enemy movements and act carefully

Save Game: The save game register your time played, how many enemies you killed and how many times you died, it’s a simple game after all.

So, that’s it for my first impressions, I really think that recording it and making a video is better, but as I said, I don’t know how to do those things on a psvita, next time I do one of these “analysis” I will try to record it. My final opinion on this game is that it is really simple and really good, I will definitely play it more. Also, it is almost exactly the game I would do as an indie game dev, really surprising, really cool, I shall play it more to see where I can do different (maybe even better?). I recommend everyone to try Titans Souls.

Hey! In this first post I’m going to talk about projects and what I want to work on.

The Bigger Project

The Bigger Project is: I want to develop a game all by myself, programming, art and sound composition. To do it I’m following some courses on Udemy about pixel art and game music composition and practicing!

I have a game project that for the moment I’m calling Zelda Souls (it’s my previous post in this blog) and I’m still thinking and writing its story and design decisions, I want to start prototyping and doing the art as soon as possible so I can have something to show for you guys.

Smallers Projects

Sometimes I will do some minor game projects, like Flappy Bird clones, Infinite Runners, this kind of stuff… I will do this to practice my art/composition and get more practice in developing a game from beggining to end and deploying it.

Well, that’s it for my intro post, my biggest goal at the moment is to learn Pixel Art and Game Music Composition and keep going with the development with “Zelda Souls”.

 

This is the first project that I’m posting here and I will try to explain a little bit of it!

What is this game?

This game came from a really old idea of mine where I wanted to develop a game all by myself (Programming, Art and Sound) and blog/vlog about it, I’m blogging it right now, maybe I will do some vlogs?! who knows.

I have some experience with gamedev so I thought that it was about time to try a real project.

What is this game for?

You probably read “Zelda Souls” and thought something like “wtf this guy is mad” but the thing is that I will try to recreate the feeling of these old games like Legend of Zelda and the Final Fantasy from NES had. Also I will try to blend it with some more modern concepts from the Souls games (i.e. Bloodborne (which I love))

Game Story:

I think I will hide it forever, spoilers not allowed!

Gameplay:

I’m still studying exactly what I will go for gameplay, but I’m thinking of having World Map and specific area maps. About the combat system, this is where things can get tricky, I will try to do some 2D souls style combat game, this includes a button ONLY for healing your character, isn’t it funny?! I’m still thinking on the possibility of having a level up system and an “equipments system”, but there will be usable items for sure.

But you don’t know nothing! You might say. No, I don’t. I’m still planning the gamplay features and how I can develop a story with them, I’m still searching for the exact story I want and it can affect on the gameplay and the gameplay can affect the story and you know how it is…

Technologies:

Game Engine: I will use Unity as the engine for the game and C# for scripting language. I was thinking on doing it from scratch in C++ but this is already a big project and I don’t want to spend any more time with OpenGL or Allegro.

Art: It will be pixel art. Oh no! Another shitty indie using pixel art! yes, get over it. And I will use Photoshop CC and a Wacom One medium sized. I still have a long way to go with pixel art, I have to train A LOT, so don’t curse me! As for the aesthetics, this is where Zelda kicks in! It will be heavily inspired by Zelda aesthetic, and also I like colors with saturation in range of 50-70% so expect a lot of these.

Sound: I’m experimenting with FL Studio (demo version) and really liking it, but I think that buying it is out of sight and I don’t like the idea of using the demo for my final product, so I’ll probably be using Garage Band.

Next Steps:

As maybe you could see, nothing is really decided, so the next steps are basically going to be researching, reading and thinking. The main objective is to decide all the gameplay components and write the story, just after that I will really start to develop a prototype. Probably I will write more posts on Game Design insights these next days.

I think this can give an initial feeling of how this game is supposed to be! PS: Zelda Souls is not really the name, I still have to give it a name.

Hey!

Some Context

At the moment I’m writing this draft I’m 22 and I am a computer science undergraduate and I like designing things, computer science, computer programming and art.

So what I can do that envolves everyone of this things? Design Games!

Designing Games is not new for me but I only have small pieces of things done and very few complete games, but now I decided to study art (Pixel Art to be more specific) and a bit of Sound Production (I don’t know the exact word to use here) so I can execute my own game ideas all by my self.

People might say: Oh, but you can do games with simple graphics, you don’t actually need to do the art!! Yes, you are totally right! Short Answer: But I don’t want to. Long Answer:  A thing that took me while to discover about myself is that developing games is not what I like the most, I like to think through all the design aspects of something, therefore, Game Design. I like to program, therefore Game Programming. I like art and I always wanted to be able to do some kind of it, therefore, Game Artist. I don’t want to specifically make a game, I want to do its design, its art and its programming, the game is just the final product. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?

What will have in this blog?

I will make posts that can be divided in some categories, such as Pixel Art, Game Programming, Game Design, Sound Design and related to some specific game that I might be working on.

Actually I will talk about what I’m learning, what I’m doing and what I’m practicing that involves game development in general.

Everything will be under the categories already said and also tagged under a certain game project that I’m doing, or under practice or random moments.