Category Archives: Game Development

03/02/2020 – Pretty Randomness

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Above are some images I’ve collected while working on my new game, currently titled “Space Cart“; and I quite like the look of them. And yes, this post is mostly an excuse to dump them on my site.

But getting to the point, random generation isn’t for everyone. But also, this isn’t technically random, as there are some bits in the code that define shape and positioning. Regardless, there are a lot of negative opinions about random generation of worlds.

Most of these views are along the lines of; unfocused design, laziness, “soullessness”, and so on. Then there actual complaints about bad RNG and bugs with collision or scripting.

While I’ve been working on this game, I’ve been learning things about this type of creation method and coming face to face with a lot of its drawbacks. With the example of planet generation, some of the sprites used to create those planets can look Godawful at times and point out how much of a video game this is. Take a look at this.

Bad generation example.

Look at the planet there, and you see a sharp square edge where the sprite isn’t properly alined or sized correctly. It looks awful. Thankfully, I know how to fix this issue, so it won’t be a problem in the future.

That said, there are other issues with positioning. Currently the planets are so rare to spawn that they don’t collide or intersect with each other. However, on the few times it does happen it looks very bizarre. I don’t have an example image to show unfortunately.

When I originally started making this, I thought about making all the planets from scratch. Then I realised that would be bad idea as I could potentially spend a lot of time doing sprite art instead of making the damn game. Doing what I’m doing now was probably the best choice in the grand scheme of things.

But aside from random generation there are other issues with my game, mostly the noisy art style that makes it difficult to differentiate objects on the screen.

If you want to know more about the nitty gritty of development, you can see the newest development log post here.

So What Else Has Been Going On?

In short: Not much.

I’ve been unable to find a job that I’m qualified for, and not just because my degree grade isn’t great; but rather because a lot of the lower positions at companies are starting to get out-sourced out of the UK, meaning what’s left are senior roles that I couldn’t hope to get.

I’ll keep looking, but I don’t have much hope. I’ll work on improving my portfolio in the meantime.

Video game wise; I played some Dreams, but I found the creation tools to be kind of overbearing. There’s a lot to learn, but using a normal DualShock isn’t really all that intuitive when using their editor. I feel off it pretty quick.

I finished playing Prey. I enjoyed it but it has a lot of caveats, mostly relating to the combat. If you’re into the System Shock or Deus Ex games, you might enjoy it.

Finally, I’ve been playing some Tokyo Xanadu. It’s a bit Persona-esque in that there are social aspects to game. It does things differently though by letting you explore the world openly during your free time, and only limiting your interactions with others using a consumable, something that you can gain more off by taking on some optional dungeons. On the subject of dungeons, you can revisit them as many times as you want without penalty. No cat telling you that “you’re tired” and that you should “go to bed”. Hell, there’s no talking animals in general. Plus mini-games that you can actually play.

Persona has the advantage in terms of personality though. A lot of this game from the writing to the dungeon aesthetics to the menu design seem really flat and uninteresting. Thankfully the action game combat and enemy variety stop it from being too boring, just don’t expect a high budget.

That’s all really. Demo Day 32 is happening in under two months, so I’m gonna try and focus towards that. Knowing how frequently I post, I might not write again until that demo is ready.

Finally, as a reminder, you can follow Space Cart’s development on my Twitch channel every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Feel free to follow too.

-Adam

11/9/2019 – Art Influencing Gameplay

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Before anyone lynches me for the somewhat pretentious and “My game is clearly important to society as a whole” title decision, allow me to just say that I wasn’t quite sure how to explain my thought process in regards to what’s happening here.

So I mentioned in my last couple of posts that I started a new project (Which I have been streaming on Twitch) and I seem to be spending more time making art assets than programming gameplay. That’s the stark opposite of what was happening when I was working on Bullet Hell Lane Shooter.

I’m making sprites for stuff, figure out how I want it to animate or move, and then just making the game based around that. It’s an interesting approach, because of which BHLS, I used generic shapes and then built the gameplay before doing anything art related. I’m not sure if the reasoning for this is due to the switch from 3D to 2D, or maybe my disdain for how shit BHLS looked. Everytime I showed off the game in Demo Days, it looked like programmer art; and the lack of artistic cohesiveness mixed with a low effort presentation just made it look like crap. Even though the gameplay was decent enough, the absence of “juice” just made everything feel unresponsive or uninteresting.

In this new game, because I’m done some of the art before hand, I can feel a closer attachment to the playable ship. It feels reactive, more natural, grounded even. It’s hard to describe.

But getting back to the title. When I started this project, I had the idea of a “Kart Racer in Space”. Therefore I went about making a basic ship sprite and had it move around Unity a bit. Then I made the ship rotate. After that I made it shoot stuff. Following that I decided to animate some exhausts for the ship to have it feel right, because otherwise the player ship just felt floaty and loose. At that point, I realised that trying to make a tightly controlled and responsive kart racer in space using the controls and movement that I had made; was a terrible idea.

Once I realised that, I decided to start goofing around and ended up deciding that having an open area was the best strategy going forward.

Subsequently, I’m still in a brainstorming phase where I’m trying to figure out if I want to make a top-down/side-on shooter similar to stuff like Galaga or Thunder Force, or make a Space Trucking Sim sticking to the over world entirely. To be frank, I’m leaning towards to latter as it might require less art.

So that’s where I’m at. Guess we’ll see where I end up. Stay tuned to my Twitch channel for now I guess.

-Adam

P.S. I will publish an Itch.io page for this game with a demo once I’ve added a few more things. The page is there, but there’s nothing on it right now and isn’t accessible publicly.

P.P.S. Should I get a Twitter account?

05/08/2019 – I Had An Eye Test Today

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Nothing particularly interesting happened, but my prescription is gonna get a tiny bit stronger. Hopefully that means I’ll be able to read stuff a bit easier.

Also, another update on the new project.

I added some sprite animation for the thrusters. It looks better than I thought it would, although the ship still doesn’t look great. I also got it to shoot, with some help from someone in my Twitch chat.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what to do next because I don’t have a plan for the thing. So I’ll probably start brainstorming some ideas soon.

-Adam

P.S. WordPress’ new block system for making posts is both interesting and annoying, but it does let me do dumb shit like that, which looks cool.

P.P.S. I also watched Spaced. It’s alright, a bit dated in parts though.

30/07/2019 – New Project And Rebuilt Streaming Setup

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I have begun a new project!

But this time I’ve decided to stream every time I work on it to help motivate me to finish it, as well as get immediate feedback.

So as you may know by the widget on the side of every page, I have a Twitch Channel. I haven’t streamed on it for a number of years, but now I’m back and streaming as often as I can. Most of the time it’s going to be games, but several times a week it will be this new project or something game dev related. Either way, you should follow me and maybe spread the link out so that more people can watch it, meaning I get more feedback.

I would appreciate it.

Watch Making A Space Game I Think, Kinda Just Goofing Around In Unity & Aseprite. from SGTADMAN on www.twitch.tv Watch Making A Space Game I Think, Kinda Just Goofing Around In Unity & Aseprite. from SGTADMAN on www.twitch.tv

Additionally, I haven’t made an itch.io page for this project yet, but I will update the blog when I do.

I will have a new Den post at some point in the future as well. Later.

-Adam