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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsPlayer (Another game about gaming?)
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baconman
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« on: July 10, 2010, 09:01:03 AM »

My second project is a somewhat simplified approach, but another experiment in Game Design. This unofficially named project attempts to make itself "a game about gaming," and attempts to recreate basic framework of popular games using a limited library of graphics and sounds. Admittedly, it appears to be a little better organized interally than iMAGE Zero, but that may simply be due to incompleteness.

In this game, you're simply a gaming person looking to flex some skill and have some fun. While some randomization may be featured, this project sticks more to core roots of popular titles, albeit sharing similar physics. And I hope to capture different things in the subgames that make them all appealing to different players - both for fun-lovers and challenge-lovers alike.

Some titles I'm attempting remakes/demakes of in this include:

-MegaMan-spoof "Rock'n Guy"
-Metroid-inspired "Vetroid" (or debatably "Wetroid")
-Contra-inspired "Montra"
-"Castle Gaiden"
-"MINE!" (a Spelunky demake)
-GunSaber (a Strider/Run Saber kind of game)
-Silent Death (a more original, stealth-action platformer)

-Helga (a Zelda demake, if such a thing is possible!)
-Labyrinth (a Gauntlet demake, but 4-directional)
-Akari Soldiers
-TimeTrigger
-FirstFantasy
-PokeGon
-SteelGear
-ZaRogue (debating between live-action RL, turn-based RL, or doing one of each)

-Xalaxy (a Galaga demake, with a PvP 2-player mode)
-Braidius (a top-down alternative remake of Gradius)
-SpaceChase (an outer space racing game)
-RoeHoe (a blend between Radrigy and Touhou, with full-contact ships and the deflective idle shield; a fair tradeoff?)

-PicMan
-Winball (various pinball-table-style games, similar to Rock'N Ball for NES)
-TowerScour (demake of Treasure Tower; look that up now if you haven't!)
-Mr. Digger (Mr. Driller alternative)
-Behexed (a lazy Bejeweled demake using various powerup icons from within the game)
-Hogan's Valley (a point-and-click shooting game)

...and maybe a couple more!

Using different, minimal sprites (like basic GM defaults, for the most part) and "limited animations," I am hoping this can provide a fun, simplified alternative project to i.M.A.G.E. Zero with this that can capture much of the fun and excitement I fully intended to include there, but found myself limited from executing a certain way within it.

Both of these projects are forebears to a bigger, more cohesive project down the line that I'm working and building towards. We're talking 3-5 years or so from now, and that's if it all goes right. But for now, these are simply design experiments meant to test my ability to execute on such an idea; to get a basic framework put together for creating the outcome I'm aspiring to, and to test and develop some interest and playability in such a thing.


FYI: Yes, iMAGE Zero is still in development. I don't give up that easily!
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baconman
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« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2010, 05:37:15 PM »

I'm probably "jumping the shark here," as it's been put; but after seeing and playtesting everything I have already; I think it's really time to put it all out there.

The eventual outcome I'm going for here, is a browser-based "MMO Gamer Simulator/RPG," a virtual, online "Gaming World" so to say. And at first I expected a give-or-take of about 5 years for everything to be right with that. By that, I mean:

The gaming community. The internet. The hardware, and the capabilities of software along the lines of Flash/Java/HTML#/whatever the future may hold there (including console potential like XNA), things like that; as well as the fine-tuning of elements in the project, fine-design-crossed-with-procedural-generation balance (a topic most of this community seems highly interested in as a whole, it seems to me), the appropriate player-tracking variables to create virtual AI to access and copypaste them between different "friends" and so forth (or something more server-based and interactive - InfiniteBlank for instance, is *already* a terrific example of what I'm talking about!). Not to mention my own capability of being able to produce enough content contribution to it as well; not just delegating everything.

"Player Won!" and "Player, Too!" are planned to be the logical expansions of these core concepts, where I'm hoping to branch first (P1) into more popular gaming genres and into being a commercially viable project (as opposed to open-source/creative commons freeware, like the current projects/experiments), and then (P2) more degrees of graphical sophistication (IE: super-lo-fi/minimalist, high-dollar 3D, 8/16/32-bit, etc.). And TBH, I'd rather that outcome potentially become more like a "TIGSource Community" title, rather than simply "mine," especially considering all of the fun and exciting games's I see and playtest all over the place here, and in this tight-knit, talented hive-mind community. I'm serious, this place is a godsend! (And we all know it.)
__________

But just today, it struck me. I actually believe the members of this hive-mind community, in fact, are ALREADY CREATING THIS ANYWAYS!! Maybe I'm building the wrong side of this all along... it might be all in little disorganized pieces right now, but all of the basic framework to it is already in existence:

Assemblee resources and it's "leech tool." TigDB, and GameJolt hosting. Loads of ProGen world-builders and gaming concepts that work with it. An ever-expanding musician and soundtrack database. Aquaria's OST-streamer. Various kinds of plug-and-Slug gaming engines. OmniLudiCon's simple-but-intuitive flash widgets. The browser-basis of GameJolt and it's game-streaming capabilities (all it's lacking is a "friends and foes system" and multiplayer titles). Even the friends-oriented approach to Facebook/MySpace games and apps, and the way social-oriented games like Mafia Wars work.

All of these things are available right here today!! The only thing missing is a way to tie these respective elements together into something "whole," and of mutual gain to everybody; just like this place itself already is. Even that's not completely true - it kind of IS tied together loosely, in fact. It just has yet to be really optimized.


EDIT: Unfixed a typo. Also, though it was originally about something I was hacking together, and who knows, I still might... do you think it's worth consideration to move this thread to TIGSource projects, given the change of perspective in this post? If there really is truth to it, I mean?
« Last Edit: July 14, 2010, 05:54:32 PM by baconman » Logged

baconman
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« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2010, 11:27:08 PM »

So, wow.
This past couple of months have been crazyland. Work basically shifted to FT, and counting my walk to and from it, has been taking up nearly 12 hrs. each day. I think I got all of 3 days off last month, and I'm already losing my first one for this month (got called in). Plus I've been packing to move (unexpectedly) and my netbook decided it's battery won't work for more than 15 min's off the charger. And the ISP here decided not to be too cooperative except in tiny spurts.

 WTF Minor setbacks. All of 'em.

I haven't dropped either project in fact. This change in plans has made me simply work more on the paper/design side of them, and some details of it are working out pretty splendidly. I've come up with 64 keyframes that would take care of just about any movement these would take. I've thrown around character/personality designs, so that each character would correspond with both a weapon/ability (similar to MM robot masters) and a sub-game/playstyle; while providing a neat array of conflictive personalities. And I'm really homing in on some neat, versatile PG mapping systems, too.

Not having a reliable internet connection (or time to access one) lately has made it impossible to update these DevLogs properly, but there's so much I'd like to share and get into! Perhaps it's just best however, to keep plugging along and get a working demo going; and then let that do the talking for me. I hope to have one done by the end of the year; but that also depends in part on how well the move goes, how busy my job stays, and me replacing the battery on this thing. That last part should happen pretty soon, at least.

Good to see everybody's projects are still kickin'!
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