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Archive for June 2012

HA! Decisions have been made!

June 3, 2012 Uncategorized Comments Off on HA! Decisions have been made!

So between Day01 and Day03, I spent some time making decisions.   Actually, I spent more time making lists and then iterating those down into decisions I can work with.  The end result is going to be a complete game product (ideally) so some things have to be set in stone fairly early, even if the artist in my soul gets all pouty.

I am not a programmer.  I can understand a basic level of code.  I have no fear of ripping apart an already existing script to figure out what makes it tick.  I can cut and paste snippets together, call functions, spawn objects, etc.  But I am not someone who can take a blank page and turn it into a functioning program (and no, “Hello World” does not count as a program in my book.)  So I need to work with an engine, something that allows me to work with a node-based scripting system.  The code that comes out of graphical scripting is klunky, I know, but if I don’t I’ll end up with the vast majority of this month being devoted to hunting semicolons and fancy parentheses.

This makes my first decision fairly simple.  What game engine do I work with?  I am fairly expert in Unity, and getting expert with GameSalad Creator.  With a limit of 30 days, including polish, I want to go with a puzzle game of some stripe.  This will give me the added advantage of being able to re-use the game logic as a mini-game inside another project at a later date.

The last thing I want to take into consideration is analytics.  I *know* this is about game design per se, but I really want to dig into analytics a bit more.  I know (kinda) how to get Flurry’s analytics plugins to work with Unity, but combining them with GameSalad means I’ll have to crack the hood, again, something that can become a black-hole of time and energy that, with my limited timeframe, is a risk I can’t take on this project.

So.  Complete product, menu to credits. Puzzle game.  Unity3d with a side of uScript.  Next up, game mechanics!

Close your eyes before you jump….

June 1, 2012 Uncategorized Comments Off on Close your eyes before you jump….

http://nagademo.com

Sometimes we all just need a swift kick in the ass.  There are a thousand reasons to put something off, to relegate it to the bottom of the wish list, and until you find a way to assign importance, artificial or not, it’s just going to stay there.

I have a laundry list of game concepts in my arsenal.  Some of them are just a paragraph based around a game mechanic I came up in the spaces between the stuff I have to do, some of them are complete design documents.  It’s time I shoved a couple of these suckers to the top of the “must do” list, or I am running the risk of becoming one of those game industry professionals that did some really cool stuff once, but then vanished into the background.

So I went and did something foolish.  Well, not foolish like jumping off a bridge, or parasailing over a lava flow.  That was stuff for when I was still building my resume of batshit crazy experiences.  Foolish because I already have a fairly full existence.  As a parent of 3, as a business woman, both professional and volunteer, there’s a bunch of shit I *have* to do.  I have to do it so my kids education doesn’t suck, I have to do it because I have contractors waiting to be paid, I have to do it because if I don’t the engine in my car will finally seize up from years of neglect.  Have to have to have to.  We *all* have “Have tos” in our lives.  I’ve signed up for this because it’s a “want to”.  Some busy women get their nails done.  Get a massage.  Go shopping.  Go hiking.  Go out drinking with the girls.  Read a book.

This here, the game design and execution, this is my “want to”.  I’m doubly lucky in that my vocation and my avocation are tucked in aside one another.  This is the kind of thing I do for fun, when I have a few minutes in between board meetings, contract work and Little League.  This is where my mind goes when it has a few free brain cells to spare.

So instead of getting a $100 mani/pedi, or reading Shades of Grey I’m doing something for me.  I’m building a game,  in 1 month.  Starting today. I’ll be blogging about the process regularly, so keep an eye here.  I’ll try to be sure to include screenshots and design snippets as I go so you can see how this all works.  I have a textbook out there, so where I can, I’ll tie this process into that, so I can use this blog later as a “real” example of game design, soup to nuts.

Ready.

Steady.

Jump.

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