I've gotten literally no issues resolved at the GMC forums. Once you get the very basics of the GM down, the help file easily becomes your best friend. Just with like most languages, there'll be code that you didn't know existed until you find it in documentation!

when I click on the ak dude, itt errors, saying that in the draw event code it is trying to draw a non existing sprite.


How to fix?

You have to assign the object a sprite otherwise you will get an error. I don't really understand what you're trying to do, so I can't help, but if you give me some more information, I can probably help you fix this.

Here are all of the concept things I've got so far.

[Day 3: Atmosphere]

@Ashkin: It's definitely ambitious, but if necessary, I'll rethink the gameplay/movement system and rework it into something that is worth the effort!
@saibot216: Thanks! Follow my blog!

Day 3: Atmosphere

Witness a beautiful sunset...

Alright, so, today my post might be a little bit short because I spent the majority of my morning getting my tooth drilled (for the first time!) and working on my other project (Dolphin Squadron). I didn't really have time to do much conceptual work with Voyage other than making a mock-up or two of how I'd like the skies to look during transitional periods between day and night.

Literally 3 minutes ago, I was talking with Jacques about musical stuff and how we're going to--...I'll just let Jacques explain it.

Jacques Yeates: "ADAPTIVE MUSIC VIA VERTICAL RE-ORCHESTRATION, BABY"

So, we'll be using vertical re-orchestration as our primary method of adaptive music. The process is very simple. Pretty much you just create music as layers, then start all of the layers at the same time--but with some layers turned off--and then when you encounter a situation that calls for some crazy percussion or an awesome violin, you fade that layer in. BAM! Adaptive music. It's as simple as that. Who knew? Not me, for sure.

It allows for music to react almost naturally to the environmental conditions and to the situation that the player finds him/herself in. It's a great system and I love it. Add in my awesome musical flairs system and you've got a musical love-making process in the works. That's definitely a good way to create some "feels" and establish an atmosphere. Now, I just hope that the artistic part of the coding isn't horrendously difficult. I can deal with having to make all the art, but coding it in might be a little difficult!

Some Thoughts

The perspective on this sunrise is pretty nice I like to think.

I'm really happy with how this concept art stuff is coming along; and if I don't end up using this art-style for the game (even though I probably will), I could definitely make a point and click adventure tale in the style over a few weeks or for a game jam. As far as developing gameplay goes, I'm not really focusing on it too much at the moment. I have tons of ideas in my head and such, but they all kind of focus on some sort of story/world dynamic. The gameplay systems themselves are very simple.

In that regard, I'm kind of developing the "feels" first before I do anything else. I'm hoping to make literally everything in the game adhere to these rules of "atmosphere". I want the player to feel some of the things that you feel when you see a beautiful night sky for the first time, or when you're a child and you discover something you didn't know before and find interesting. That feeling of awe from seeing something you can't believe, the ping of discovery--these are things I want. Over the next few weeks I hope I'll figure out some basic conceptual approaches to achieving this immersion, but for now, I have concept art!

Sadly, that's all I have to say here today.

More at my blog! In my sig.

Haha. No worries! I've made a few games, so I know the feeling of a 2 week or 1 month project becoming a several year thing. I also have a fairly large support group behind me for games (college for game design!) xD I'm excited to see where your project ends up though. You seem like you are nearing "completion". ;P

I read the first 3 or 4 pages and then the last 2 or 3 pages in their entirety.

This project is really inspiring! It's such a crazy cool concept and it really shows what goes into the production side of a game when you produce and design at the same time. Just reading this has probably made me a better game designer and I can only hope that eventually I'm as good at figuring out issues and coding as you are. Haha. With my project I want to do something like you are doing (as far as documentation), but with design (I don't plan on producing anything for a little while).

Regardless, I'm excited to play this game whenever it comes out!

Cool stuff! I'm liking the animations a lot; you have a pretty talented animator on your team! Never underestimate just how difficult it is to find a decent animator, I just managed to find one by chance at a game jam for my college!

Regardless, I agree with C.D Buckmaster. You should look into pausing the animation slightly at the knees. An easy way (I find) to do this without code (which could potentially be even easier) is to just add a few still frames of her kneeling there. Or maybe even add more frames for a, like, head bounce (where her hair moves a little) as she hits her knees on the floor.

Additionally, I like the sprites A LOT more at full-res. They get a little too blurry when you reduce them!

This is the stuff I made for today's blog/Tigsource-dev-log post.



Cool stuff I like to think. It's just illustrating how I think motion might work.

[Day 2: Conceptual Development]

@C.D Buckmaster: I'm looking forward to seeing where I take it as well.
@Geoffrey: You can follow this and my other game stuff at my blog (in signature) if you'd like!
@wccrawford: Like I said, I'm not really an artist by trade, and I've never really used colors before, so I'm kind of winging it. Haha.

Day 2: Conceptual Development

Testing a different camera distance

It's Day 2 and I've been working somewhat diligently on Voyage since yesterday. I'm glad to come here and see that I've got even 3 nice comments about the conceptual stuff I've got going! I wasn't really expecting people to like it very much, to be honest. Haha. Anyway, at my blog (signature link), I discussed how I've been improving the quality of the image in my head. Now that I kind of know what the game will probably, maybe look like and how it'll flow, I can let it settle for a little while and consider some other aspects of the game.

It should probably be noted that over the next three weeks, I'm on break and I don't really plan on doing anything past conceptual stuff. I'm hoping to focus on concepts and discussion. But, maybe if Polycode comes out this holiday season, I'll try and make a prototype of the movement engine and love the shit out of it. ;P

Anyway, I've decided to limit the recapping of information from my blog in favor of a greater focus on other things here (I don't want to write the same things twice, but I also don't want to, like, just copy and paste). At the Siifour Studios blog, I talked about the motion system a little bit as well as linked to a WIP song from Jacques Yeates.

Motion

Motion studies/example/concept

So, while I think that my image sums up my conceptual motion system pretty easily, I'll describe it briefly. I want to limit motion while you're on land, but open up movement pretty significantly while you're on the water (and have acquired a real boat). The arrows represent the potential paths of motion and the text is explaining how I'm thinking about using 2.5D and some other graphical tricks (which may or may not exist) to maybe allow for progression into the background. Assuming that this is possible with 2D or 2.5D, I'll definitely make it work. If it's not, maybe I can come up with another system or just use 3D with 2D style models?

This leads me into a discussion of art and music.

Art and Music

We have a strong, vibrant desire to incorporate a real-time (game-time) day/night system. I want to design a system where wispy, or clumpy thunder clouds fade/scroll in and out of existence and where the color of the sky dynamically changes. A system where the gradient layers "move" around and fade among other things. The sun and moon need to travel in beautifully arced paths and sometimes, like in real-life, they need to be visible at the same time! The stars, if the weather permits it, should be visible as the sun sets, and as it rises. Sunlight needs to reflect off of surfaces like water based on where it is in the sky! I'm imagining a beautiful pixel-style landscape where the atmosphere itself feels dynamic.

And there will be particle effects. A bunch of them! These can be anything from rain effects, to particle fogs and floating sparkly debris.

To this degree, I'm envisioning using a 3D engine, or something that supports a 3D camera and particle effects.

Musically, just take a listen to Jacques' concept music and you'll understand some of the "feels" I'm hoping to achieve. As far as music and art go from a coding standpoint though, I'm currently at a loss. I'm about 70% sure that once I design more of the game, specifically the nitty-gritty aspects of the dynamic-2D-weather-and-time-of-day system, I'll have a much better idea of how I'll go about coding it all! I'm hoping to also figure out dynamic music for this project, but I'm already familiar with a useful system I like to call "musical-flairs".

Musical Flairs

My non-patented, completely awesome "musical-flairs" system is very complicated. You make like five whole different song snippets for a general location or aesthetic and you play them at varying intervals with break periods in between them. Usually, these songs have something thematically similar about them. Like a motif. But the point of the system is to allow for atmospheric sounds to actually be heard and for sound effects to be important for a short period of time as well.

Secondarily, this allows for me to pick and choose which song is played based on atmospheric conditions, or where the player is currently/what he or she is doing. For a slow-paced game like Voyage probably will be, having :30-1:30 minute songs, followed by 30 seconds of awesome silence/atmospheric sound effects would be grand. With the right music, some nice timing, and some great atmosphere, I think I will be able to achieve some serious "feels".

But...that's assuming I don't suck and can figure out how to code all of this stuff.

That's all for today!

@saibot216 I'll be making a few more for today's post on my blog (and I have a devlog here I just started). I didn't post this one in here though. I'll probably do some other kinds of mock-ups sometime.

Dude. I'm so in on this, you don't even know. Haha.

Are you aiming to release a version anytime soon? I'm designing a game (Voyage) that I think I might want to make in this engine. Haha.

Also, if I were to script/code in this engine it would be in Lua/C++? I'm looking for an engine where I have to learn to code in a "real" language that's not like, GML. Haha

AND

Looks really cool, man. What are you making this in?

I like the art-style a lot. I especially like the sound of rain that interacts with the environment!

[Voyage]

Voyage

Concept

Voyage is an artistic game where you play as a 40-something year-old man/woman who gives up life in society to explore the seven seas as a sailor.

The core of the game would take place primarily on the surface of the ocean and be seen from either a side or angled frame of view. Throughout the course of the game, the player will explore the world, discovering a variety of different methods of “play”. These methods of play--things such as fishing, exploring, finding treasure and shipmates, discovering new things about the world and sea battling--will all be core to the gameplay and progress the metagame. The game will begin at a deliberately slow, relaxing pace and ultimately speed up as time goes on.

Ultimately, your goal is simply to discover everything the world has to offer to you. I don't want to pressure the player and I don't want to have them feel a constant tinge of terror. I want them to relax and enjoy nature. Through it all, the player character (PC) will become more and more like a seafarer who gains control over the seven seas. Whether or not you’re a good or a bad person is both up to you, and determined by the rules that you set for the seas and for yourself.

What Makes This Special?

I'm just looking to make a charming adventure game where you can relax, enjoy nature, solve some mysteries and explore a little. Nothing horrendously complex. Just something mildly entertaining with a relaxing atmosphere. So, special? Only if you want it to be!

I'll also be keeping somewhat of a daily log keeping you guys up-to-date on what kind of things I'm designing and arting (and what Jacques Yeates (musician) is making). The overall goal of this project is to create a game through a transparent design process. You can read in more detail about each day at my blog if you're interested.

Day 1 : Conceptual Phase

Just me and my raft, yo...and my fishing rod

So, to summarize what's posted at my blog, I came across the idea for Voyage while I was working on a game for my Game History and Development class at Champlain College. Dolphin Squadron, as it was called, is a game about dolphins. It's blue and there is the ocean and it felt nice. So nice in fact, that I though that I needed the ocean to be a big part of one of my games. I mean, the blues! I'm not an artist by trade, I'm a designer, but I just knew I had to make some concept art, so I made this stuff and I was happy.

Somewhere during the first day of development, I figured that I didn't want to be super secretive with this project. I wanted to make the development as transparent as possible. I want people to see my mistakes (and maybe my victories that I have sometimes, maybe)! To see how the game progresses! I just hope that I'm an interesting enough guy that my posts are enjoyable to read and maybe inspire newer developers (I'm somewhat new myself) ;P.

Anyway, today was the day that I conceptualized the game and fleshed it out a little more. It should be noted that this isn't my primary project (Dolphin Squadron is currently), but I wanted to log the development of this project somewhere where other developers reside. Maybe I'll learn something and get better at this whole game design thing in the process. I noticed that after my failure of a first project (City Across the Sky) I got pretty secretive with my games. NO LONGER!

Anyway, today was conceptual development day. I pretty much made some mock-ups of how I maybe, kind of, sometimes, in my head want the game to look. For motion I was thinking of limiting movement to a strictly linear, 2D path while on land (ala platformers), but open up the ocean a little, allowing the player to move towards, and away from, the camera while on water/at sea. It would be a like, metaphor for the open seas! In my head, I was messing with the possibility of a zooming mechanic where as you progress through the game and get more advanced things, the camera zooms out a little. The close camera makes the game intimate, but I think that intimacy goes away a little as you get more stuff, so the camera should maybe accommodate that.

But at the same time, maybe I'll just let the player control the camera to some extent. Give them a little freedom. Who knows? It's early development! Day 1 even! The whole point of this phase is to dream up as many ideas as possible! So that's what I'm doing.

That's all for today!

Ninjuit: Looks interesting, I'm assuming it's a side scrolling game? I'd love to see a fist person exploration/puzzle game with this art style. Like Myst but with art like this instead of pre-rendered 3d images.

Not quite sure how I'm going to approach the game, but it'll probably be a regular side-scroller while on land and more akin to Castle Crashers (for motion) while on water. These are just pixel concept arts/mock-ups of the game's style/atmosphere. :D It's one of like 9 games I've got going. Haha.