Game Maker has been my go-to development tool for as long as I've been making games. It's what taught me to love programming so much that I've gone back to school to study computer science. It allows stupid fast prototyping of games. It's easy to use. But I'm leaving. After I wrap up all the projects that I'm currently building with Game Maker, I've decided it's time to move on.
When I first bought Game Maker for $20 it was one dude's (Mark Overmars) labor of love & came with the promise of free updates for life. Then it was bought out & the free updates stopped. It was just recently bought out again, by some gambling company. I don't like the taste of it. It's still a great tool & I almost gave in & bought the most recent version anyway. It's only $50, but you want to develop for MacOS in addition to Windows? Extra $100. Linux? Another $100. HTML5? That's $200 more. Then there are the myriad known optimization & audio engine problems. None of these things on their own are enough of a reason for me to leave. But all together- the buyouts, the cost, all its quirky little issues, the fact that I've long outgrown the drag & drop interface that first got me hooked- it all adds up to time to say goodbye.
So I'm doing some research & finding lots of interesting sounding alternatives. OpenFL has my attention at the moment; free, open-source, & multi-platform. Some great games have already been developed with OpenFL (Papers, Please being one of my personal faves). There's also the free, open source ENIGMA,which is Game maker compatible, making it another tempting option. The point is, there are great, free alternatives. I'm not Big Mr. Open Source or anything, but given the choice I'll take GiMP over Photoshop any day.
I've got a lot of unfinished Game Maker business to wrap up so I'm not making any big decisions here, really, except that I'm committing myself to learning a new development tool once I flush all my current projects out of the pipeline.
It's been fun, Game Maker, & you'll always be my first. I hope we can still be friends.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
Potato Clock Games: Officially In The Red!
Throughout the legendary history of Potato Clock Games, we have managed to remain not unprofitable by following a simple business plan: no money in, no money out. It was fun while it lasted, but it's time to get real. As of a few days ago, we are officially hemorrhaging exactly $12/year for the rights to our brand new, take-no-prisoners, URL: potatoclockgames.com! As the Buddha teaches, "you gotta spend money to make money."
If you're like me you're going to miss having to type www.msu.edu/~will1907/potatoclockgames/main.html like nine times before getting it right every time you want to visit this shitty website. No worries, I've got you covered. potatoclockgames.com just forwards to the existing website so you can still use the old address.
Of greater concern at the moment, I don't know where the fuck I'm going to get the $1/month that I'll need to stay in business. But these are tough times. We're all making sacrifices.
If you're like me you're going to miss having to type www.msu.edu/~will1907/potatoclockgames/main.html like nine times before getting it right every time you want to visit this shitty website. No worries, I've got you covered. potatoclockgames.com just forwards to the existing website so you can still use the old address.
Of greater concern at the moment, I don't know where the fuck I'm going to get the $1/month that I'll need to stay in business. But these are tough times. We're all making sacrifices.
POTATO CLOCK GAMES
BY THE PEOPLE. FOR THE PEOPLE.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
CockBlockaz Level Select System Complete
I was pretty lazy about it, but the level select/unlock system is finally working & in place. I still have some UI work to do but the code's all there & I finished the save/load system as well since they kind of go hand-in-hand. Here's what it looks like; white squares are unlocked puzzles, blue ones are completed. Completing a puzzle unlocks the adjacent puzzles:
So, anyway, that's a wrap for all the major systems in the game.
I still have like 25 puzzles to make, all of the music to write, & a heavy buttload of tedious bullshit details to take care of. There's almost no way this is going to be done by my arbitrary & masochistic tentative release date of April 15th. I haven't decided if I'll just keep pushing through this one at the expense of all my future planned release dates, or just move on & come back to this one at the end of the summer. Probably the latter. The final stretch of game development is seriously such a drag.
So, anyway, that's a wrap for all the major systems in the game.
I still have like 25 puzzles to make, all of the music to write, & a heavy buttload of tedious bullshit details to take care of. There's almost no way this is going to be done by my arbitrary & masochistic tentative release date of April 15th. I haven't decided if I'll just keep pushing through this one at the expense of all my future planned release dates, or just move on & come back to this one at the end of the summer. Probably the latter. The final stretch of game development is seriously such a drag.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Spooky Forest Screenshot
Just a quick screenshot of the spooky Zygotes forest.
Note the new character sprite & placeholder forest tileset (with climbable vines!). Most of the recent work is hard to show in a screenshot but the health/damage/lives systems are in place, though not quite finished. There's a lot of work left to do on the combat system & movement in general, just getting the feel right. Oh yeah, & then I guess we have to make it a game. Hmm. All in good time?
Note the new character sprite & placeholder forest tileset (with climbable vines!). Most of the recent work is hard to show in a screenshot but the health/damage/lives systems are in place, though not quite finished. There's a lot of work left to do on the combat system & movement in general, just getting the feel right. Oh yeah, & then I guess we have to make it a game. Hmm. All in good time?
Friday, March 20, 2015
Jack Ham Zero Debriefing
Considering the fact that this is a game built on the foundation of failed levels from the second game that I ever made, I'd say Jack Ham Zero turned out pretty well.
HOT POTATOES:
Some good, challenging puzzles, a badass soundtrack, & that trademark sense of humor upon which the Potato Clock Games empire is built all conspire to make this game just barely worth playing. I think it's better than Jack Ham's Maze of Tribulations, so I guess it's doing what a sequel is supposed to do. ATTABOY!
COLD POTATOES:
I mean, yeah, it's not actually good, but I can hardly hold that against the poor guy. If I'm forcing myself to be critical, though, I think the difficulty ramps up a little too fast, probably because the game started out as Maze of Tribulations "Brutal Mode." The early levels could stand to be a bit less. Brutal, I mean. I don't actually like the action sequences much (space shooter, sword-em-up, minecarts), they mostly just distract from the puzzling. So do things like lives, score, passwords (as opposed to auto-saved progress), limited restarts (because of limited lives), enemies all over the place that kill you if they barely touch you. I think this would have been a better game without all of those things.
CONCLUSION:
Look, people, there's going to be a third game in this series, like or not. I've got a pretty good idea now of what it's going to look like. Most of the problems identified above are easy fixes & that just leaves me to concentrate on the fun stuff: puzzles, jams & Jack Ham lore.
HOT POTATOES:
Some good, challenging puzzles, a badass soundtrack, & that trademark sense of humor upon which the Potato Clock Games empire is built all conspire to make this game just barely worth playing. I think it's better than Jack Ham's Maze of Tribulations, so I guess it's doing what a sequel is supposed to do. ATTABOY!
COLD POTATOES:
I mean, yeah, it's not actually good, but I can hardly hold that against the poor guy. If I'm forcing myself to be critical, though, I think the difficulty ramps up a little too fast, probably because the game started out as Maze of Tribulations "Brutal Mode." The early levels could stand to be a bit less. Brutal, I mean. I don't actually like the action sequences much (space shooter, sword-em-up, minecarts), they mostly just distract from the puzzling. So do things like lives, score, passwords (as opposed to auto-saved progress), limited restarts (because of limited lives), enemies all over the place that kill you if they barely touch you. I think this would have been a better game without all of those things.
CONCLUSION:
Look, people, there's going to be a third game in this series, like or not. I've got a pretty good idea now of what it's going to look like. Most of the problems identified above are easy fixes & that just leaves me to concentrate on the fun stuff: puzzles, jams & Jack Ham lore.
Monday, March 16, 2015
CockBlockaz Puzzle Select / Unlock System Design
Sort of nestled in between doodles & notes on binary search trees. The idea is that you have this grid with the tutorial sequence in the middle; each of the other gridspaces represent individual puzzles. Completing a puzzle unlocks any adjacent still-locked puzzles, with the more difficult puzzles being at the outside edge.
I like it, aesthetically, & it imposes a nice constraint on how many puzzles I need to make. In order for this system to work, with the tutorial sequence in the middle, there obviously needs to be a middle square. So if I want the grid itself to be a perfect square, that means that the length of its side needs to be an odd number. A 5x5 grid would only hold 25 puzzles, that seems a bit skimpy. 9x9, forget about it, I don't want to be making CockBlockaz puzzles for the rest of my life. 7x7 seems like a good size & it gives me an exact number of puzzles to shoot for; 48 plus the tutorial sequence. I'm probably like halfway there at the moment.
Aesthetics aside, I think it's important for a puzzle game like this to give players a chance to quit a puzzle that they're stuck on & try another one. The obvious option is to just make all of the puzzles available from the start, which I think is a good design decision for a puzzle game, but I also think that unlocking levels like this provides a nice sense of progression while leaving the player with lots of available puzzles at any given time.
I haven't decided exactly how I want to implement this system at code-level, but the overall project is small enough that I feel Ok about just cracking a beer, banging out some code, & seeing what happens. Here we go!
Thursday, March 12, 2015
CockBlockaz Tutorial Sequence
In the CockbBlockaz demo, the tutorial levels include text at the top of the window which basically amounts to "HEY DUMBASS, THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO TEACH YOU." Which is fine, but I like the idea of a tutorial that teaches the rules of the game without any text or arrows or whatever. Just assume that the player will try hitting the arrow keys & let the learning experience build from there. I found these notes which I'm basically sticking to:
I guess you can ignore the search tree stuff & the dino-rooster man & the poem about Steven Segal. I ended up combining points 1 & 2 in the sequence & am working on #5 at the moment. I'm coming up with new puzzles as I go & am pretty happy with how things are coming together.
I guess you can ignore the search tree stuff & the dino-rooster man & the poem about Steven Segal. I ended up combining points 1 & 2 in the sequence & am working on #5 at the moment. I'm coming up with new puzzles as I go & am pretty happy with how things are coming together.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Zygotes Update: Platforming Engine
Just a few quick screenshots to show that the platforming engine for the new Zygotes minigame is more or less complete. Well, not more, definitely less. Pretty much done, I guess, is what I meant.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Introducing Justin Bieber's Mega CockBlockaz 2
So next up is the blandly titled Justin Bieber's Mega CockBlockaz 2. It's a sort of sokoban-ish puzzle game. It is inspired by / totally rips off a little demo game called Combiblock by this guy called Hrothgar which you can check out here, as of this writing. I've already got a demo version of CockBlockaz up on the Potato Clock Games website if you want to check it out.
The game works like this: you move a block around; when you touch other blocks they stick to you; & the goal is to exit the board after collecting all of the blocks. Pretty simple. There are a few other gameplay mechanics thrown in to complicate things but I think it's overall a respectably elegant puzzle game. The basic game engine is complete & I've got a few puzzles made already. So here's what's left to do:
1. Rework the tutorial sequence to teach the game mechanics without any text.
2. Design & implement a puzzle select / puzzle unlock system.
3. Design & implement a game save / load system.
4. Make some more puzzles.
5. Write a soundtrack.
6. Make a title screen, options menu, etc. All that little stuff.
My goal is to have this finished in a month & a half, which may be overoptimistic. Points 5 & 6 in the list above might push that date back, but we'll see.
The game works like this: you move a block around; when you touch other blocks they stick to you; & the goal is to exit the board after collecting all of the blocks. Pretty simple. There are a few other gameplay mechanics thrown in to complicate things but I think it's overall a respectably elegant puzzle game. The basic game engine is complete & I've got a few puzzles made already. So here's what's left to do:
1. Rework the tutorial sequence to teach the game mechanics without any text.
2. Design & implement a puzzle select / puzzle unlock system.
3. Design & implement a game save / load system.
4. Make some more puzzles.
5. Write a soundtrack.
6. Make a title screen, options menu, etc. All that little stuff.
My goal is to have this finished in a month & a half, which may be overoptimistic. Points 5 & 6 in the list above might push that date back, but we'll see.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Jack Ham Zero Official Release
Jack Ham Zero: Caverns of the Heart is complete & available for download from the Potato Clock Games website. Jack Ham Zero: Soundtrack of the Heart is available as well.
I'll leave you with the game's intro text:
"Mayday, mayday, George Washington here with an urgent message from the past. Electro-gravitational time-space history waves are undulating across the cosmos. There is only one possible source: JACK HAM. Only you can stop him. Benjamin Franklin estimates the wave will crest on December 21, 2012. Franklin is kind of a douche but he just might be right. You must stop Jack Ham before it is too late! George Washington over and out."
I'll leave you with the game's intro text:
"Mayday, mayday, George Washington here with an urgent message from the past. Electro-gravitational time-space history waves are undulating across the cosmos. There is only one possible source: JACK HAM. Only you can stop him. Benjamin Franklin estimates the wave will crest on December 21, 2012. Franklin is kind of a douche but he just might be right. You must stop Jack Ham before it is too late! George Washington over and out."
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