I haven’t got much to say, but this month has been focussed on the menus and the images that will be used for the introduction.
Menus
The Credits Screen (Fig 1)
The Main Menu Screen (Fig 2)
This is the Option Menu (Fig 3)
The Intro Stills
Still 1 (Fig 4)
Still 1 – This still will introduce the player to the corrupt world where the game will take place, Ajax (formerly known as Dolph) and his honey empire.
Still 2 – This is the evil tyrant who wants Ajax’s business, to enslave all of the honey bees within it and then force them to work in this factory. In the last paragraph he will order his Fly squad to kill Ajax and his family.
Still 3 – Ajax’s house is raided. The soldier executes Ajax and his family.
Still 4 – Ajax wakes up to find that he’s now 75% cyborg and that a professor has saved his life. The professor explains that the tyrant has captured the whole factory, enslaved their species and now Ajax is the only one who can save them.
Original Concept Sketches
Original Sketch 1 (Fig 9)
Original Sketch 2 (Fig 10)
Original Sketch 3 (Fig 11)
Original Sketch 4 (Fig 12)
Random Sketch (Fig 13)
For the last two months I haven’t had time to start the ‘A Super Heroes Race’ project because of work commitments. During this time I thought of a different idea which I will work on instead.
The Story
Humanity has been wiped out, the world is a baron wasteland and the new rulers of this earth are insects... (Hear me out). Dolph the Honey Bee was a happy bee, his honey empire was incredibly successful and the product is the most important resource on the planet. Everything depends on honey, so basically honey is the new oil... sweet tasty oil.
The Main Character (Fig 1)
Even though Dolph is incredibly rich and runs such a prestigious industry, he’s a very caring bee who distributes his honey fairly. So not willing to be controlled by the corrupt senate, he cuts all ties with them. Everything went smoothly for two months, people were happy, but the senate started to lose money and power. A week passes by, Dolph and his family are enjoying a quiet night in. BOOM, the door is kicked open. Dolph’s kids scream as five hooded flies burst through the door. They execute Dolph’s family and leave him for dead.
Game's Concept 1 (Fig 2)
A month later Dolph awakes on an operating table, a scientist named Hubris saved his life and fitted him with biotic parts to keep him alive. These parts enhance his strength and stamina. Dolph cannot forget what has happened to his family, so he is seeking revenge.
Game's Concept 2 (Fig 3)
This game will be a side-scrolling ‘shoot-em up’, which will consist of five levels. The player will keep moving to the right and will start with three lives. There will be checkpoints throughout the level.
Game's Concept 3 (Fig 4)
The Characters:
Grasshoppers
These enemies will jump up from the ground and attack the player with their blades, which are attached to their arms.
Flies
There are two types of flies, the kamikaze fly and the gunner fly. These are the most basic form of enemy.
Kamikaze Fly (Fig 7)
Ants
There will be ants that run along the ground, shooting mortars and guarding honey pots.
Butterflies
The butterflies are sub-bosses; they are equipped with a gun and a large health bar.
The Butterfly (Fig 11)
A Spider
The final boss will be a large cyborg spider. The player must destroy 6/8 legs to defeat it. The spider will fall to its death. This spider has many guns.
Controls
LMB (Left Mouse Button) – The LMB will fire Dolph’s handgun. The character will aim wherever the mouse curser is on the screen.
W – Up
A – Left
S – Down
D – Right
SPACEBAR – Shoot a missile from Dolph’s sting.
Here are some of my original ideas for the game:
The Bobby Bee (Fig 13)
The Bobby Bee 2 (Fig 14)
Tiny Bee (Fig 15)
Wow, I've been blogging for a year and boy was it a fast one? I've decided to start a new project called 'A Superhero's Race', it is rough, but I'll fine tune it as time goes on. Here is the basic outline:
The Story
The four greatest superheroes of current times have gathered on the planet Nutro, to compete in a race to distinguish who is the greatest superhero in the galaxy. These heroes are Zip, Dr Dash, Javelin and Iron Child.
They must race against each other, through the most dangerous race course in the world. A super villain by the name of Tyranus has a plan to sabotage the race and trap the heroes. Whoever finishes the race in the highest position, rescues the most civilians and captures the most enemies, wins.
With this victory comes a great reward. The winning hero becomes the leader of the Galaxy Crime Fighting Alliance.
The Character Back Story
Characters (fig1)
Zip – He is the representative of the planet Edor, a small fire planet that has produced some of the greatest superheroes of the past. Zip is new to the crime game, but he is a fearless, diligent hero. He also is a baby face, and sometimes his lack of experience lets him down.
Dr Dash – Dr Dash represents his home planet of Cucumbore, a green planet. His race is incredibly intelligent and even though Dr Dash was not born speedy or powerful, he uses his own inventions to gain these powers. Machines can be unpredictable and sometimes his gadgets can malfunction.
Javelin – She is the Princess of Beutopia, a pink planet containing a population of very attractive people. She was born with unbelievable speed and perfect agility. She may be pretty, but criminals, quiver when her name is mentioned. Her only problem, is that she can be a little vain, so be aware when running past reflective areas, she may be tempted to stop and look.
Iron Child – Iron Child is from Bolt – on, a blue mechanical planet where the population is made up of robots. There seems to be a friendly rivalry between Dr Dash and Iron Child, because each claims to be more intelligent than the other. So during this race, they will be friends, yet rivals. Stay away from any water because this race can short circuit or rust.
Gameplay Synopsis
Obstacles and Enemies (fig 2)
This is a four player side scrolling game, where the players must race against each other, saving civilians, avoiding oncoming enemies and projectiles. The player continuously runs to the right, but whenever a user gets hit or falls down a hole, the user gets delayed for approximately 2 seconds, the user’s competitors will advance ahead until they get hit or fall down a hole. At the end of each race a score will be calculated by what position you finish, how many enemies/ missiles are destroyed, how many civilians are saved and how fast the player completes the race. Games of this genre and style are usually one player, so having it four players makes it unique.
The game’s controls are very easy to learn, so it’ll be easy for anyone to pick up and play. This is important, especially for a Flash game, when someone wants a quick game ‘to pass time’ during a break, they want to play something simple. With the game being accessible and suitable for all ages, the controls scheme must be suitable for everyone, be it an eight year old boy/girl or a 45 year old mother/ father.
A Super Hero’s Race will contain approximately 4 -5 levels and will be set in a mountainous area, a rundown factory, a city and on the moon (these may change in time). The colours will be bright and suitable for all. Apart from the game’s art style being suitable for everyone, there must be minimal to no violence, because of the target audience we are aiming for.
This game must be fun, action packed and not too serious. All features within this game should be exaggerated like that of a children’s cartoon.
UI Layout (Fig 3)
A. The Score - This will be calculated and shown throughout the entire race.
B. Player’s Position - This displays what position the player is currently in.
C. Opponent's Status - These heads show where each player is during the race.
D. Track’s Map - This bar is a simplified visual representation of the race course, displaying the player’s progress and where others are in the race.
Random Sketches
Here are some other sketches of mine:
Spider Sketch (Fig 4)
MMA/ Education Sketch (Fig 5)
The Orb Collector (Friend Feedback)
After posting the game to some friends, I received some interesting feedback. The game had to change drastically. Here are some of the points that were brought up:
Colour Blindness
A friend brought up the fact that he could not play this game due to colour blindness, which is something that I didn’t think about. So after looking into the condition I found out that there were many classes that affect various colours. This was a problem, because I didn’t want to exclude anyone.
I thought of a solution to this problem. Seeing that there are different types of colour blindness, why not add shapes inside the orbs to make them more distinctive? For the Yellow Orbs I added a thick black line running through the middle; the Cyan Orbs were left alone and a dark circle was added inside the Magenta Orb. I was worried that the orbs were too small for any detail to be seen, but my friend approved of the idea. There were still issues with the three colours, because he can't tell the difference between Cyan and Magenta. He later sent me three colours that are more distinctive and aesthetically pleasing.
So in the next few weeks I will adjust the game and make it suitable for this condition.
Adjustments for Colour Blindness (Fig 2)
Cyan Bullet, Cyan Orb
This is a problem that I did not intend on fixing, but I do agree that it’s a nuisance. This will be fixed though, as the Colour Blind version will have three different coloured orbs.
Password?
A random number after each level can be confusing and could possibly be mistaken for the score. I added the text above/ below each password, so no one makes this mistake.
Too Tough?
People brought up the fact that it’s a hard game, so I have made it easier, especially in the green area that contains toxic gas. Some of those levels required pin point accuracy because the timing was too tight.
Skipping screens with the keyboard
This is something I really agree with, especially considering that some levels start with a mutant charging towards you. I haven’t added this feature, but I have delayed the charging mutants.
What’s Next?
Originally, I wanted to start a project using XNA. but instead I'm going to adjust an old Flash project, and then create a new Flash game. The reason for this is that I want to create a few completed Flash games before I jump into another language (C#). XNA is completely different from Actionscript 2.0 and it would be tricky alternating between the two. I have recently found out that XNA 2.0 is now redundant and that I will need to learn XNA 4.0. So this will make things harder.
When I do make the jump into XNA, I will most likely re-make one of my Flash games, because the blue print is already drawn out.
New Flash Project
The gameplay is still uncertain, but the next project will be based on an old character I created, back when I was 14 years old. His name is Rox9. The game will still be based in ‘The Orb Collector’ universe, but many years in the future. Humanity is worse than ever and multiple gangs have taken over the land.
Below is an old, rough animation that I made many years ago (2004):
In my next post The Orb Collector should be updated; a newer version of an old project should be completed and I should have some concept art for the Rox9 game.
Introduction
The game has been live since my last post and it has received mixed reviews. Some people loved the aesthetics, the difficulty curve and the concept, yet others disagreed. The overall rating on Newgrounds.com is 3.11/5, which isn’t bad, yet it isn’t great. During this post I’m going to analyse The Orb Collector and explain how I could improve it.
How I could have improved this game
Everyday hundreds of games get uploaded to these websites, many of which will get poor scores and fade away. Getting your game noticed is an impressive feat in itself. Because there are so many games, first impressions mean everything. Gamers on these websites only spend a few minutes to test the water and if there is something they don’t like, they’ll most likely skip to the next one. This is where I went wrong.
My game was easy for the first two levels, but the difficulty level shot up. Most people commented on the platforms being too far apart in level three, but what they didn’t realise is that the character needs a run up and not jump from the idle position. There were many sections in that level where this rule applied. Again, because there are so many games to play, people tried this a few times, jumped to the conclusion that it’s broken and then skipped to the next game. I should have eased the player in and made them realise this mechanic, instead of expecting them to pick it up instantly. After reading these reviews and noticing it was a big problem, I re-edited the level and added more platforms. Unfortunately, by the time I made these changes, the popularity had already died. It was too late.
Another mechanic that could frustrate the player, is taking away their ability to backtrack and pick up orbs earlier on in the level. This is something I managed to eliminated from the earlier levels, but remains in the later, harder levels. Hopefully by this point the player will start using the 'Area Report', which displays how many orbs are in the level. This is why I chose the genre description as Puzzle/ Platformer, because the user has to collect orbs strategically.
Two people commented on games with one hit kills and the lack of power-ups. If I were to re-make this project I will NOT add lives, energy bars or power-ups, it does not need them. This game is not suited to these features as the levels are incredibly short and fast. This style resembles Super Meat Boy’s, where the user needs patience. I am a huge fan of this type of game and I find the challenge appealing.
If you look back at the Flash greats; Alien Hominoid, Super Meat Boy, Flash Portal and many others, you’ll see a pattern. Yes, the gameplay is fantastic, but most of the games have chunky, funny, cute characters and a comical tone. Other popular series are spoofs of existing franchises, like Sonic, Mario, Halo and Streefighter. A big mistake of mine was making a game that has a serious tone. People want to dip into a Flash game and feel good, yet my setting was dark, serious and the music was a little depressing. So in my next project I will take this information and make a less serious game.
Alien Homonid (Fig 1)
Super Meat Boy (Fig 2)
The Orb Collector was missing a scoring system – A high score table made up of peoples’ completion times would have been ideal. This gives the player an incentive to continue playing the game. People could compete with friends and people all over the world. regrettably I didn’t include this feature, because I thought adding it would cause too many problems. I'm still kicking myself.
The Orb Collectors' controls are not perfect. There is a big problem with the jumping frame. The frame itself is wider than the rest of the character's animations (please see fig 4), and this can cause problems when jumping onto smaller platforms. Because it is wider, the foot can sometimes give the illusion that the character has made the jump, but only to pass through it (please see fig 3). This makes the player want to track me down and punch me in the face. Next time I’ll have the main character tuck his/her/its legs in as he/ she/ it jumps, so all of the frames are of equal size/ width.
Zimmer passing through a platform (Fig 3)
Zimmer's frames of animation (Fig 4)
Due to my lack of practice in Flash, I had problems with the programming early on. One of these problems was the fact that every time the player jumped onto a platform, they’d sink a little into the ground (please see fig 5). This will happen three times and on the fourth, the character will land on the correct area and then process repeats. This is only a minor issue, but it is still annoying at times.
Sinking depth (Fig 5)
After creating the full game, I looked at the project and thought, “wow, it's running smoothly”. Then I uploaded it to a Flash site. It was not smooth, it stuttered, badly. This game needed trimming. I deleted the intro stills, all of the unused items and I also cut down excess code. It’s better now, but it’s still not perfect. Again, I’ll learn from this mistake.
I am very pleased with the audio in the game, but ideally I would have let my friend design all of the audio. his work is well thought out and it always fits the project. This game had a great track, but it only had one throughout. If I had more time and space within the project, I would have had a track for each of the five areas. but because of the memory limitations I had to cut back.
Conclusion
So the overall changes I’d make are:
The game is very close to completion. All 25 levels have been created, the gameplay mechanics are complete and all of the sprites are satisfactory. I'm still missing the audio, but this is something I want to plan, when the other elements of the game are 100% complete. A work colleague has offered me his services and after listening to his audio portfolio, I am more than happy for him to design the music and sound effects.
The only remaining tasks are:
My desk during the creation of the art.
As promised I’m going to upload the images that were going to be used for the game’s introduction. These images will be used for the introduction, to explain the gameplay, but if they drastically increase the size, they'll have to be scrapped from the project. I want to keep this game's size below 10 Megabytes, so the project can be uploaded to most of the Flash websites. I have found out that Newgrounds.com allows Flash projects under 10Meg and Kongregate.com allows projects under 20Meg. So far The Orb Collector is around 4Meg, so hopefully the audio doesn't increase the size too much.
Here are the images:
The Orb Collector (Image 1)
