next »

[xoorath]

Hello friends,

I'd like to start talking about a game I'm making called Dreams of Sand, known as Maze Ball until recently. If any of you have a Leap Motion already you can partake in trying out the game as I make new builds. The game should run without a leap but the gameplay will be leap specific until I figure out a good way to interact with it via keyboard and mouse.

I'm going to keep blogging about it at http://blog.xoorath.com but I want this to be a good place for discussion and design updates. I'll see if my artist friend wants to jump in here too from time to time. Until then it's going to sound like a lot of tech and look like shit.

Stay tuned and drop me some feedback if you want, it'll be appreciated. Find me online by checking the links in my sig.

Holler:
         

Version(date):	Leap SDK:	Windows Build:	Mac Build:	Source Code:	What's new:
0.0.1.x (28-03-2013)	0.7.3	download(win)	download(mac)	github	Maze exploration
0.0.0.3 (18-02-2013)	0.7.3	download(win)	download(mac)	github	Maze generation
0.0.0.2 (06-02-2013)	0.7.3	download(win)	download(mac)	github	Mac build and UI
0.0.0.1 (30-01-2013)	0.7.2	download(win)		github	Initial build!

[xoorath]

Update : Version 0.0.0.3
You might be wondering what I'm making exactly (you curious kitty you). So here's the down low on what it is now and what I'm hoping for it.

Mechanically the game is pretty simple, you're a glass ball in a maze trying to collect sand. There will be an opponent for most of the game that's trying to take sand from you by collecting anti-sand (for a lack of a better name). Every time you collect sand you get closer to victory and every time they collect sand you get further from victory.

Under the surface the game is about a very personal life experience of mine where I got very sick. Each level of the game represents one night of me being in a coma, there are 6 levels in total. As you play through the levels you're playing the role of my body fighting through the night to hold on. If you complete the level you get a little bit of story where you hear the discussion happening between my family and the stresses it put on them. If you fail the level I don't plan on having any repercussion you simply restart the level. The game (as planned currently) will be very short and easy. Players will want to play to see what happens next, not because of any feeling of fast paced intensity or being rewarded with feeling clever.

During my stay in the hospital my mother would talk to me. She wasn't sure if I could hear her or not and after the fact I let her know that I couldn't hear anything - I didn't even know I was there for more than the night. This game plays on the notion of "what if I could hear what was going on and that gave me my reason to fight?", when in reality the situation wasn't so dramatic. I couldn't hear anything and although I was in intensive care the doctors induced the coma and they had control over the situation, not me.

That's what Dreams of Sand is all about.

[xoorath]

Update : Version 0.0.1.x
Hello again friends,

I've reached another chapter in the Dreams of Sand development. It's been a Month since I last talked about what I was up to, I wasn't planning a one month milestone but things happened to line up nicely with what I've accomplished.

The latest build is available in the first post and a new video is up there as well showing what the game looks like. I'm sure some of you are familiar with how frustrating video recording a game is when lag gets in the way of your input. Never the less I promise the game runs much smoother on modern machines, I'll be testing it against my MacBook air tonight to make sure it performs well.

Some of the cool new things I've been up to include making a build server for both windows and mac. Now when ever I want I can trigger a build remotely and within a minute or so a zipped up build will appear in my dropbox. The game is also much closer to being playable (the next milestone). I've designed the high concept of the levels that are going to be in the game but I haven't sat down and thought through how fun or engaging they are, just the emotion I want to convey.

I'm frequently battling my ego and concerns of selfishness in the game design. I think I have my head on straight but it's hard to know until I get other people playing through it which will hopefully happen by this time next month. Making such an emotionally personal game that's based off of real and tragic experiences that I wasn't awake to experience has my stomach doing back flips. Are people going to care about my personal experiences? Do I care if people care about my personal experiences? I had no idea when I was starting that this was going to be the most challenging part of making the game happen. We'll see where it goes soon enough.