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[JMickle]

I'm planning on doing a bit of a blogging process on my work for the music.

[jazeker]

I love the art and the concept
I'm really exited to play the first path

[J. R. Hill]

I'm planning on doing a bit of a blogging process on my work for the music.

Please do!

Thursday Update the Third!

Done:

• Because I intend to release the back-end of this game separately as a CYOA engine, I spent most of my productive week looking at IF interpreters and their coding languages.  Their languages range from basically BASIC (ChoiceScript) to very complex English grammar parsers (Inform series).  As far as I can tell, adding image support would either break the usability of these types of scripts with their respective programs, or writing an alternative parser with hackish work-arounds (e.g. image files & instructions in the comments) would be out of the scope of this project.
  
  However, I'm far more versed on what IF programmers as opposed to Adventure Game programmers are used to, and I'm closer to finding something in the middle ground that both groups would be able to use, as well as beginners.  My plan now is to make a flash-based stand-alone game maker that takes simple input, displays a branching path that's easily editable, and can export .xml files that would be easy to parse again in a separate stand-alone flash app.
• I also started a side-project (using the same engine I'm developing) for my 2012 competition.  Using it will allow me to develop the engine, as well as use a separate size, font set, etc.  So that in the end I'll have two different projects to use.  That, and I'm using simple, pre-rendered vector graphics for the other project, which for me are quicker to produce than pixel art.

More empty promisesTo do:

• Get the xml-coding & interpreting system planned, and maybe implemented.
• Make pretty pictures
• Assets like crazy

[jakomocha]

This looks so cool!

[J. R. Hill]

Thursday Update Numero Cuatro

Ok so I was up all night and thinking about how to get the engine going the way I want.  The reason I'm taking all this time working on the engine is because I want to do something in between CYOA and IF.

So I don't want to have to mess with interpreter stuff, because I think a lot of times it can interfere with immersion, I want to go with a choice-based input system.  You know, problems like a game failing to recognize a lot of simple verbs you want, but also requiring you to use one that's not typically in your vocabulary.  I know that modern interpreters have made some big strides in usability.  Synonym support and some with spellcheck even in the game.  However I don't intend to solve the basic problem I see in it, namely that the genre encourages lateral thinking, but as a byproduct it also disallows original lateral thinking.  I.e. if I as an author am not as clever as my audience, I can disallow puzzle solutions that might be obvious to someone else, and therefore ruin their experience.

However, I also don't want to do strictly linear story lines like traditional CYOA games have, because that makes a game feel forced and also ruins immersion.  What I mean is, CYOA games (and books for that matter), though they can take you on some wild adventures, they generally seem to lack a sense of exploration.  What if I want to look around at some stuff in detail before I make my decision?  What if I want to think about my options and answer later after I gather more information?

So basically the two things I want to get out of my engine are these: CYOA-style simplified input, and IF-style scene-based gameplay.  Also, as I've said before, I've chosen to go with a flash + xml base for extensibility, portability, and usability.  So now I'm sitting down and fleshing out how this is all going to look, practically, at runtime.  It's looking like it's going to be pretty simple once I get coding, but I'm also trying to think of all the features I want to be accessible for my game, and then also for other games.  E.g. externally-defined variables (global and scene-specific), hidden/unlockable choices, variable size "pages", maybe some animation support, etc.

Also, I'm taking all this time to sit down and plan because usually when I do large projects I just gun my way through it.  I typically get something incredibly contrived and barely working, and then I either get lost in my own code trying to find bugs, or realize I've been going about it all wrong and decide to rewrite it from scratch and lose tons of time and motivation.  So basically, plan twice work once.

tl;dr: I will make game.

Also:  This is my new mockup.  Probably going to run about this size, still dooping around with it though.

[Son of Bryce]

This looks sweet! Looking forward to checking it out.

[J. R. Hill]

Thanks!  And thanks jakomocha too!

Edit: No news this week due to other projects & LD coming up very shortly.

[J. R. Hill]

Ok, I'm just going to put the whole make-my-own-game-engine thing on hold, and make the game in AGS first.  I'm making so little progress lol.

[J. R. Hill]

Drawing all sorts of stuff.  Here's one thing...  Gotta modify it to fit the same style though, needs outline etc.

[J. R. Hill]

So I'm giving myself at least this month to get the game basics down.  Once I get this first path done, I'll release a demo, after that I'll work on 18 more paths and re-release the game every 18 paths I complete.  The end product is going to have more than 100 separate stories, and I'm going to aim for a completion probability of about 1% per story assuming you just make random choices, and about 90% if you think through and pay attention to clues.

Also, I'm only going to do weekly updates (each Thursday, obviously) from now on so that it seems like I'm accomplishing a lot more than I am lol.

Ok thanks to holidays and competitions and unrealistic time management projections and whatnot I've been sparse on the updates etc.

Here is my master plan for the remainder of the month:
1. Finish coding a mock scenario THIS WEEKEND
   EVENTS EVERYWHERE; DYNAMICALLY LINKED LISTS FOR DAYS.
   (And release a mini-demo.)
2. Do art like crazy next week.   
3. Finish coding the demo path by the 28th
4. RELEASE A DEMO BEFORE JANUARY IS OVER.

Then I'll resume my initial plan.  Also, my December frustrations were only temporary, I'm still sticking with the easily port-able Flashpunk base, easily mod-able engine, etc.

tl;dr: THIS VIDCON IS GONNA HAPPEN!!

[eigenbom]

yay!

[J. R. Hill]

*note: by "This weekend" I'm also including Monday since it's a Holiday here.

[etcetera]

Is that a reference to this, or?

[mokesmoe]

I think it's the other way aroundhehe

[SolarLune]

THIS VIDCON IS GONNA HAPPEN!!

Yes, please make sure it does. It's looking quite interesting. PLEASE continue.

[etcetera]

I think it's the other way aroundhehe

Maybe I should have been more clear on what I meant was 'this' and what I meant was 'that' :/
I meant to ask if the game dog text was a reference to the whale text

[mokesmoe]

I knew what you meanthehe

[etcetera]

I think it's the other way aroundhehe

i c wat u did tharbda out
didnt see it before ._.

[J. R. Hill]

I was too lazy to pixel a whale

[BlueSweatshirt]

make it so this game will only run on Thursdays.