Doko Roko

EricSmack

Level 0

@DokoRokoGame

Doko Roko

« on: October 14, 2015, 02:30:28 PM »

I've been putting off this dev-log for too long! Maybe i was nervous that i didn't think I was good enough, or that my process would be mocked or something. I don't know! regardless I'd like to start being more open about my process and what I've been doing because I truly want to improve and I feel a good way to do that would be to start sharing my stuff with other people and start to get feedback on what needs work and where I could be more efficient. So without further ado let's get right into it!

To give a little background about me, my name is Eric Mack, I dropped out of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013 to pursue my own art education with the goal of becoming a digital concept artist. I watched countless youtube videos on digital art techniques, but the series I found most helpful was a 12 week art program called Art Camp run by Magic the Gathering artist, Noah Bradley. The video series promised that you would see a marked increase in your art ability if you were willing to put the effort in. I put everything I had into all the lessons and I feel as though I am a much better artist now because of it (I still have a long way to go!).

   After studying for a couple years I was beginning to come to the conclusion that I did not actually want to be a concept artist at all. I did not want to be a small part of a massive project, i wanted to have a hand in all the aspects that went into the creation of one. So I started learning programming in Java. I chose Java because I had seen that Notch had coded Minecraft in Java so that must obviously be one of the best languages for making video games. I wish I had done a little more research at the time because I definitely would rather be working in Unity right now. This was a huge challenge and I struggled massively for the first year learning the syntax and what seemed to be a completely cryptic language. It was a mess! However I slowly began to grasp the concepts and before I knew it I was trying to make small little games!

   I'm gonna start by showing a little bit what the game looks like now in it's current state, 1 year into development. And then I'm gonna go allllll the way back to the beginning so you can really see just how raw it looked in its initial stages. Then i'll work my way forward to the present day. That sounds like a good way to do it. in medias res and all that jazz!

   Doko Roko is a 2D rogue-like, vertical action game with an emphasis on lightning-fast combat and rich atmosphere. In essence, it is an experiment of how dense and nuanced I can make a game whose mechanics are relatively simple. I find that most often, ambitious games made by small studios who try to cram as many features as they can into a game frequently fail to take the necessary time to flesh out those features and actually make them fun to explore and interact with.

Doko Roko is primarily about ascending a massive tower that extends into the stratosphere. There are many strange denizens who dwell in the tower and the reasons for their being there are varied and complex. The game is intended to be parts procedurally generated and part-hand crafted, with different layers of the tower assuming distinctly different styles of architecture. Combat is fast and decisive between the enemies you'll encounter. My goal is to engage that part of your brain tuned to split-second decisions and improvised tactics. My second goal is to make it feel as though the player has a presence in the game, as though your smallest interactions are having some sort of effect on the world you are inhabiting. This is inspired partially by the movement in Super Mario 64. Shigeru Miyamoto and his development team placed extreme emphasis on the movements of Mario until sliding and backflipping alone in a white room was enjoyable on its own. If I'm going to make 4 arrow keys available for the game to receive input, I would like the actions these arrow keys perform to be sophisticated and nuanced as possible. If you are going to press these keys thousands of times over the course of playing, the actions performed should be as enjoyable as you can possibly make them. I'll talk more about this when I make a post about movement.

This is a short overview of what the game is about! My next post will attempt to piece together some of the early days developing Doko Roko and how much I struggled to even get a few squares to move on screen. The drama is entirely real and it deserves to be told!


« Last Edit: September 12, 2022, 07:40:30 AM by EricSmack »	Logged

https://twitter.com/DokoRokogame DOKO ROKO
https://twitter.com/EricSmack HMU

DevWithoutACrew

Level 2