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Archive for June 2012

Productivity bomb…

June 9, 2012 Videogames Comments Off on Productivity bomb…

Yeah.  So there was this E3 thing.  I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, but there has been quite a bit of progress.  Because I am working with what is essentially a modular game, I am working on getting everything working properly in the first level, from there is should be mostly assemblage.

I have a good rough mockup in Unity3d at this point, I’m attaching the screenshot below.  I am attempting to use uScript for the lions’ share of my programming, but there are just some things that only good ‘ol C# seems to be able to do the way I want it done.

My current bit of hair-pulling is the timer, which records how quickly you finish the level.  It’s counting up in milliseconds (which is why the big, fat number on the right) I need to get it to display a bit better.

All mu GUI elements are being created using masked 3d planes, rather than the GUI interface.  Since I am going to multiple platforms with this, scaleability is an issue, and I don’t have the math-fu to build out a GUI in code that will adapt to the changes in interface.  By working with game objects rather than GUI rects, the different elements scale perfectly and remain in the same relationship no matter what the screen size or format.

A screenshot can be found at the link here:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106703584505799913797/albums/5752103618530904945/5752103622061980898

 

Paper beats Rock

June 5, 2012 Uncategorized Comments Off on Paper beats Rock

I do love paper prototyping.  I can work faster on the computer, building things out as I go using something like Unity or GS.Creator, but I can’t always take the computer with me.

Well, scratch that, I *can* but that doesn’t always mean I can work on it.  Working on paper is much less conspicuous, and engenders a lot fewer looky-loos and questions (crack a computer open while you’re waiting for a Little League practice to finish up, and invariably the other parents suck up your time with small talk and requests to see what you’re up to…  And don’t even get me started on trying to use a laptop while waiting on a swimming lesson, chlorine does horrible things…  horrible horrible things…)

So whatever I can do on paper, I work out on paper.  Anything to push the process forward during any free time I have.  Sketchups for title screens, level layouts, character designs, outlines and gameplay mechanics.  Not all of it gets used, but when it *does* get used, making the move from paper to computer is pretty quick and painless and is less prone to creeping-feature-itis than freewheeling it in Digital.

So over the weekend I made some decisions to go with Unity as my tool and to work on a puzzle game.  Building something like a “match-3” game (a-la Bejeweled) requires an array setup, which is a little outside my programming experience at this point.  One of the games in my backlog of projects is a “flow” type puzzler game, you know where you are essentially adjusting a maze to allow the flow of…whatever to pass from one end of the maze to another?  So I think I will run with that one.  I particularly like to physics aspects of working with 3d, so I’ll see if I can find a way to get that in there as well.

I’ve been noodling with the maze aspect on paper, still trying to figure out how to work the physics in.  Maybe I can use sand or something to move through the maze instead of filling in.

I’ve linked to a pic from my sketchbook here, more to come as I get the ball rolling…

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106703584505799913797/albums/posts/5750589440399914242

 

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