My Game - Concept Art pieces

This is just to make it easier to show on other forums via a direct url link:

Meemo First Concept art for Idle stand, in same retro style as the game...

Meemo Concept animated in the game, in correct style (i think).

A screen capture of when game room starts, with crafting chest working

The game: My Game Part 5 - (dev. log) : 1st Game Demo

I finally got the game to a very basic point where you can play test some of the first features,
well at least it beats a video and is still smaller in size, ha ha!

Here is a Dropbox link to the first ever game demo, of this game I'm making in 2013.

MyGame Demo1

Any positive or constructive criticism is welcome and I will try to answer all your questions,
but please be respectful and refrain from overly negative criticism since this is still very early in development and pre-pre-alpha. Yes that means this is a work in progress (WIP). Hmm maybe time to create a WIP topic on the game maker community forums at GMC.

I fixed too many little bugs and things to mention, so here is just a copy and past of what is on my todo list:

Game Name: ???????
Genre: Robot Survival with Crafting as main mechanic!

STUFF to remove at game publish:
Cheats, etc
+ oControl STEP event, test
+ all TEST scripts, first set TEST constant = 0 to switch off.
+ any dead commented code clutter
+ use more scripts
+ optimise code, remove nested loops and make individual tests

CONTROLS:
MOUSE - control whole game with mouse!!!
Maybe shortcut selection keys for Inventory, just to move around.
Like <C> opens and closes Crafting.
F12 - restart whole game
Esc - exit whole game

+ NEXT STEP:
+ COMBAT:
- Add Player ATTACK animation (swipe, something basic for now, can add more layers later)
- Add Player ACTION animation  (small swipe when looting, crafting, etc.)
- Add sndEnemyHurt
- Add sndEnemyDie
- Add check to spawn enemies, when few left, check in oControlCycles
+ HUD display:
- Add indication when dmg/health or increase/decrease affects Player gPwr/gOil/gHP
+ Add enemies:
- Add oEnemy "Hungry Hoover" and "Radioactive Snail"
+ Add world map
+ Add character equipment items, and slot system
+ Add oEnemy Boss like, or mini-Boss.

+ BUGS:
- MEDIUM: Crafting: If inventory full, then oProduct lost (drop it to ground!)
- LOW : at game start gSelected = -1; so dragging craftbox dissapears, until first item looted.

+ IMPROVEMENTS:
- Consider making more sprites for sHeart and sOil and sBattery on HUD to show more smaller changes in Player stats

+ MECHANICS:
A few things, which is still a must for basic engine mechanics:
1. Place-able objects made from crafting. So you can place a new crafting box, or chest or machine on the game floor, etc.
5. Finish Crafting Recipe and Chest for materials sections, which currently is not crucial, that is why the empty grey placeholders are there.

++Crafting:
- Player begins with craft box in his inventory (which allows C-button to craft anywhere) {to close C again, or right-click}
- if Player drops box, then he can only craft near it in that zone


++ Create Recipe engine (BASIC) but streamlined.
- Player upgrade slots (limited slots) for batteries and solar panels, tools, addons etc.
- Scrapping of items for basic mats
- Add clouds in same block pixel style and alpha transparent
- Add day/night cycle easily with alarms which changes GAME_STATES, animations! Light effects via more surfaces

+ FEATUREs:
- Tooltip bubble could also auto adjust in size maybe in y-direction, if required, but not yet.
-  Recipes only work on specific spot or mats placement on craft table!! Lower priority than content now.
- Crafting: Allow to keep stack on Mouse (visible) and add multiple items to Craft table or other places (maybe with right click?) instead of 1 by 1.
- RECODE: Crafting: Recipes: Available Recipe Symbols (Case sensitive) (etc. BUT RATHER RECODE TO TAKE STRINGS of ANY length)

++ ADD Mats & Craft Items:
+++ Mats:
- Wood / Cans / Screws /
++++ Speudo Mats:

+++ TOOLS:
- Metal: Screwdriver (rod + pipe)

+++ POWER:
- Solar Panel


HOW TO PLAY:
Use <mouse left-click> to travel and select items
<mouse left-click HOLD> to drag items, and release to drop


GENRE:
Survival, crafting game

PLOT:
Wall-e

Mechanics:
SURVIVE!
fun?
different enemy puzzles?

Constraints:
- 2D art Pixelated
- Fixed world map size (doesnt grow like minecraft)
- Flat World
- Single Player
- No seasons, only Day and Night like Minecraft
- Alpha = 1x character player
- Beta = 3x character players

The game: My Game Part 4 - (dev. log)

Hi Friends,

I finally got around to do my first video of this game: my robot survival indie game which you can see below...

The game is not nearly where I hoped it would be already, but that said it is really rewarding to see this video myself and that I have some progress to show you today! There is currently only 1 enemy, more to come...

Please view it and leave some comments and thought you have on the game and where you think it should go to make it fun, and maybe different from existing games, after you watch this video. My apologies for poor video sound quality, this is my first ever video I make online also!

With no further ado...

My next steps planned, include:

+ All metals restore physical health += Hearts

- New Recipe: 1xZink + 1xCopper = 1xAlloy

- Copper +5% / Zink +10% / Alloy + 20%

- Add Zink / Copper as drops to oEnemy = oRazorMole

- Add oEnemy OilSquid and AcidSquid!!!

+ Add enemies:

- OilSquid - drops Oil for restoring Oil

- AcidSquid - drops Acid, for making and charging batteries to full.

In the actual game, there wont be so many full batteries and acid, etc drops lying about most will have to be scavenged from other robot enemies and crafted... 

Please leave your impressions now in the comments of this indie game, made with GameMaker Studio, by me aka Boysano.

Thanks for watching!

Edit: Hmm I see there are many other video with games called RoboCraft...so if you can help me think of a better name that is unused for my game please let me know in the comments as well? This is also why I edited all my articles and removed the RoboCraft name, until I find a unique name which is also fitting.

The game: My Game Part 3 - (dev. log)

I didn't get much time to do a proper video demo, which I promise will come some time soon; when I feel the timing works, but I will at least give you some screenshots so you can better understand my progress...

Figure 1: Basic game view, with Meemo in middle of screen.

From fig.1 you can see the basic retro 2D graphics, which is very pixelated, but at least I can produce some of my own art to keep the project going at a decent pace. Since I have not yet found an affordable artist, and also since I realised the industry is such that you need to prove your game first before people want to help. Funny enough, then people may even do it free if their interested. I am lucky though that the robot art (Meemo) was done for free since the artist decided to rather start his own game now also. Which was cool of him! So 90% of the rest of the graphics I did myself, and as I go along I'm redoing all the stuff or using public domain assets in order to keep it legal and call this my own game.

Then I took the extra week to trash out many bugs, so many, and now I can say crafting and the whole current game is bug-less, yay for Doom! That includes collision checking with player movement I finally added successfully as well. Meemo will move to the goal the mouse sets with left-click, avoiding solid objects. Also looting of world objects, to gather or farm resources for crafting materials is proximity based and looks and feel better. I've added a basic DAY/NIGHT timer - still not sure if I will fully implement this though.

Figure 2: Preview of crafting Table pane (working).

I've also added the Hearts (physical damage indicator) and integrated the oil drops with movement and robot speed, as well as now the robot battery power auto depletes depending on efficiency...so later it is easy to upgrade if needed. 

So what is next?

A few things, which is still a must for basic engine mechanics:

1. Place-able objects made from crafting. So you can place a new crafting box, or chest or machine on the game floor, etc.
2. Add materials in game to scavenge to replenish battery power and oil, basic survival needs. 
3. Add the first enemy robot.
4. Re-Theme complete game content to fit fallout/world in waste setting, with almost no living or growing fauna or flora...
5. Finish Crafting Recipe and Chest for materials sections, which currently is not crucial, thats why the empty grey placeholders are there.

Thanks to my friend, Nico, whom visited and gave me some good ideas and input: I will probably consider making the big tree or something a home base, which will be attacked in waves by enemies. Then you need to defend it, as you progress with crafting. Crafting from mats from mobs and exploring and scavenging. Nico had a cool concept for enemies, or boss enemies, which requires the player to figure out how to defeat them in a specific way. Almost like a puzzle to win battles or fights. I like it, will obviously require much more work if each one is very different from other mobs...but lets see where we get in this year.

Overall I'm really happy with my progress, I also wrote out a whole game spec for the graphics requirements, or art images and sizes. So if any of you pixel artists are interested in helping ( for free) I can share it with you via email. Just send me the request. At the moment the first version (alpha) will be non-commercial. If I'm so lucky to get a following I will ask for support in form of art, and donations. Then if still people want more and I have time left, I can release a paid version with expansion content or something. Don't hold me to this, just ideas floating around.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment if you have any input or ideas now that you have seen some screenshots. In time and when I manage to get Camtasia studio to make/record video's I will do so of the game...

The game: My Game Part 2 - (dev. log)

Last time I said I will discuss my plan for crafting and permanent death of the character considerations; like the game Don't Starve has, but I should start with my current development progress...

Game development progress:

I'm really excited about the fact that I managed to code a working Inventory system with drag and drop. You can drop items to the world, it manages stack size limits and if your Inventory is full it will leave the items on the ground. On top of this (after re-coding 3 times in GameMaker Studio) I figured out how to make it all work and interactive using the draw_gui() event instead of the normal draw() event, which is just awesome. Now my GUI (graphical user interface) or HUD (human user display) of the Inventory and player robot power source and oil source moves with the view window as the player moves, without any "jitters"!! Something it seems a lot of people on the GMC forums also struggle with. Then, also the robot player (Meemo) has floating text comments he makes for actions, as well as I added a tool-tip bubble for giving the player information on items in the Inventory if he hovers over that with the mouse. The mouse is used as a global movement and actions control, even though I do have arrow keys for testing this game will only use the custom mouse for its main control actions. Since it will be a relatively slow game (adventure) pace it should not be an issue or too overwhelming using just a mouse for all the controls. I believe the casual Gamer should enjoy it.

I also managed to squash a few bugs, or all that I know if...trying to keep it polished and clean as I go before I make the mistake of adding to many features too fast on weak or sloppy code base.

In other news:

My new artist just completed the first movement sprites on Meemo and then quit! since he over lanced his free. So I'm on the lookout yet again for a low pixel count pixel artists, for 32px by 32px spritesheets. If you are interested in this game idea, please email me at mornebooysen@gmail.com with subject: "Robocraft - pixel artist".

Whats next:

Crafting - oh yes I think all crafting should be done in one display or popup and not over multiple screens. As well as the crafting itself will be like an achievement system by allowing you to memorize recipes as soon as you first craft them to unlock it. Then in future you do not have to remember it, but just select the recipe to see an image low alpha overlay on your crafting table of what to place on it to craft it again. It will work without having to select crafting recipes also obviously. A little automation which I think will make the game more fun and easier to play, than say Minecraft's method where you always have to remember it.

Thoughts:

Why I think perma-death is punishing players. I think it is a mechanism that should be part of a game's difficulty setting and not permanent main game mechanic since it is very punishing and alienates so many players from experiencing full game content. There are so many way's to reward correct game play and to make cost of not "surviving" high but not kill all game progress like in Don't Starve game. Perma-death can still be there for bragging rights! So in my game I will probably let you only lose stats or upgrades, if you lose specific power levels in your robot. See higher tier machines or and upgrades will require more power and thus also better power sources.

Next time I will give you a screenshot of the pre-pre-alpha game, remember then I don't have a graphics artist. Hmm maybe a video will work better to display the mechanics I have complete. It is a bit early still to show a tech demo...lets see how it goes.

If you read this, I thank you and please do leave a comment or +1 google like so I can have a bit of encouragement.

Regards,
Boysano

The game: My Game Part 1 - (dev. log)

So last time I said that I will be sharing my thoughts on the game(s) I want to make this year, with this new found time at hand. Also I said I will give some views on games genre's I like and do not enjoy and why. This however will not make for a concise article so I will stick to the more fun idea of telling you what game I started to make this week, and what games inspired this concept since I'm influenced by what I can associate myself with like any other person who seems sort of sane. (Note: I do not like overly violent and offending games, and I would like games to add more value to real life concerns and non-gamers in general...)

This is a game which I don't only want to make, but also want to play! Inspired by the new survival game "Don't Starve" and also thé all too popular sandbox game "Minecraft". Yes yes, know you all moan what a cliche...but I really like these genre and hope to add to it... Also, since when I mentioned I want to make another crafting survival game a year ago, my friends said "but that's already done!" and then the "Don't Starve" game came out and I was like 'hmmm'...if you want to do something then just go for it! Believe in yourself, set high goals and you will figure it out as you go...just start!

So, it will basically be a survival game, with crafting and fixing (maybe) as the main mechanic and with similar perspective as Don't Starve, but with more Minecraft crafting style. This won't be a sandbox like Minecraft, thus it wont be about building and destructible terrain. It will be more unique; akin to the movie Wall-e! Yes, so I want to combine a movie and a few games I really enjoy; to make the casual game I want to play. Then also share the process or game with others. If in future I'm successful and you like it then, hey, maybe you will even help me make the game itself successful in whatever way. 

So since I decided not to try and become rich out of this, I now feel much more confident to talk about my game ideas here and please help me with more ideas from you so this game can really rock and knock my own socks off! I can do with all the creative help possible, for character ideas, crafting recipes, and so forth since I'm way towards the analytically inclined side of my brain. So for now I will dabble in saving the human race from itself and flex the creative muscles as much I can in this project. I'm really excited about it, and I do think it will appeal to others! Also; versus my other idea of making a retro turn based 2d TCG (Trading Card Game) with a Greek mythology theme...it should lean more itself to a game with some weight.

The way I went about my design is to first dream about it, to the point where I want to tell my friends about it, and they get excited..and then there comes a point where I start to forget all the great ideas I started with. This is when I know to start my journal, or good old pen and paper game design step. Also here and there I will prototype some ideas with GameMaker, but I've learnt I'm way more efficient the days where I program a feature or concept, only after I journal about it in my idea book. Helps the brainstorming you see, and I can separate days where I'm frustrated if I struggle with programming from creative spurts on the paper. It's like mathematics in school - don't try to work out the answer in your mind and write it down...you will discover it faster if you write more steps out on paper towards the answer -  even in this digital age.

So you probably want to know more about my game, hey! Since my skill set is programming it will either have Minecraft basic graphics on 2.5D and non-isometric (fake 3D which is just 2D with [depth = -y;]) graphics. So far I actually have a demo main character in nice pixel art, made by a new artist I found on GMC (GameMaker Community forums). The main character's name will be Meemo (my Wife helped to select his name) and look very similar to Wall-e the robot in the Pixar film. 

The plot will be very similar to the movie, and almost continue from where the movie left off the intro while he was about scavenging and recycling to waste on Earth. Note I never actually played the Wall-e games. Then you must scavenge and explore the random world for items to help you craft amazing machines with a wonderful purpose in mind, all the time worrying about your battery power and oil consumption... See you must help the human race from finally destroying our beautiful planet Earth by our greed for fossil fuels and cheap energy. Humanity was careless, and was it not for your creator who changed your AI to goals of reducing carbon footprint and rescuing the environment by cleaner fuels for power and earth rehabilitation - all will be lost for mankind! You along with little Meemo, will be our redemption.

I've got some interesting changes to the crafting mechanics of the games which inspired me, and currently I'm busy with coding the Inventory system and still a bit stuck with drag n drop between inventory slots. I've got Meemo rolling around the random generated world animations and all in GML (Game Maker Language) with very basic biomes working on a really flat earth. Path-finding works, with mouse controls, but for some reasons the [depth = -y;] setting breaks the solid object detection? At least I got a cute piece of code to help Meemo collect or farm items in the world. What is really promising is the use of Surfaces in GM made the game really fast at over 200FPS so far, with also deactivating instances which are out of game view! (GM users will now that we use views in the larger game rooms, and only show the view in a port on the screen) 

So far I don't yet have very specific crafting recipes planned, or game world environments designed, hoping to find a very creative pixel artist to help me with this design concept...But as soon as the mechanics are polished well, I think this is just content which can be added easily with the graphics and text develops. At least I have a good grip on energy technologies and the impact of fossil fuels from my working experience as a chemical engineer. I hope to make a positive impact on people, with a fun game!

Thanks for reading this until the next part2, when I will update you (probably over weekends) with this as a {dev}elopment (b)log. In the next part I will share my progress and what I plan for making crafting more fun and less work and how perma-death can be less brutally implemented so that you don't punish your player with it...

I'm back and so much changed...

So I want to start by apologizing for the lack of blogs, see blogging is not just new to me, but life has taken a rather busy but exciting turn for me...

I've gone through an emotional time lately since as per my original posts I promised to share with you how it is to make small games for profit with Game Maker Studio (which is easy to do doable and for this you can follow the crazy dude TrueValhalla's posts at http://www.truevalhalla.com/blog/); while still having a full-time professional career. Unfortunately I realized I wanted more out of life than just that, and that my skill-set in making games (which is one of my life dreams still) need to level up a bit first. (I've played with GM8 and GMS for 2years now only) Also on this note, don't try to tackle HTML5 games if you are not ready to persevere through some bugs and having to deal with large optimization requirements in your code as well as limited use of functions you may use in GM, and don't bother making TDS or huge movement based CPU hungry games - until you master a game with a decent player base on Windows.

I did a lot of introspection and decided its time to take it to the next level and find the passion inside myself, find my inner child and nurture it again a bit. 8-5 grind at work can be dangerous for your health...so yes I resigned! I had a very successful career as a Senior Chemical (or Process) engineering position at a large factory, which I'm very grateful for - but I want to make games! And also not just for profit, and maybe in the same time make games more relevant for the "real life" or non-gamer world out there... I will probably elaborate more on these ideals in a much later post.

So here come the difficult news to my readers whom only read this because of financial drives. From now on I'm leveling my game making experience with game ideas I want to make and want to play. I do care if its successful, since time is precious and that gift comes expensive. I'd like to say I don't care, but that would be a lie. I can be a bit idealistic...so don't take too much offence or hold me to it...I'm sharing and if your inspired by it...that will make me happy. And if I sound down I will appreciate some cheerful or positive criticism from you for sure. If you still want to make money, and know how I could retire or take a year off at age 30 and support my wife also, well then just say so and I can easily give you that life secret in a 1 comment reply. (That's if you have a working salary, for the most part). Sjoe (Afrikaans slang for "darn" or "golly" ), I digress and get distracted fast...

So this life change explains my hiatus from the blog and mini game release world the past 4 months, as we packed up and left a small town Secunda, Mpumalanga (South Africa) to move to the beautiful entrepreneurial and creative (also tourist) capital of South Africa. The most south city in Africa, the continent. My close friends you can read those more personal and somewhat private adventures on the other blog my wife runs...

The good news, I've already set up and settled in a nice new 4bedroom 2bathroom home (renting) in Somerset West, Cape Town...only 5minutes away from large malls and creative produce markets and most importantly the Ocean in a town called Strand. I share this because South Africa is truly a land of milk and honey, and should be the next indie game dev equivalent to silicon valley. Yes here I work from home, and was fortunate enough to make use of Yoyogames offer to upgrade to the Master collection. Still however struggling a bit to get the new YYC compiler to actually show up in the product. 

Also I must say, deciding to make game for fun and value instead of financial gain, has really liberated me. "So don't try this at home kids, ha ha." - I'm just joking.

Right, so please don't expect income reports yet, but rather game design ideas, etc. Oh, yes I came last in my first ever game JAM on GMC (wanted to neglect saying this, but in the spirit of honesty), man that really is embarrassing since I'm not use to failure! I really recommend it to you all. It made me feel like I leveled up once, and got me some much needed community reputation. It also taught me some hard lessons in the game development world, and that you must still think of the customer and not yourself. Thankfully in this blog I may rant as I please, well until I offend the wrong person.

Luckily I found some good friends in the South African game dev community here at http://www.makegamessa.com/ ! Please check it out if your a local. I hope to see this grow significantly for our country.

So on with my adventure to try and find willing and affordable game artists to make my dreams a reality, at least the pre-alpha technical demo I hope.

Thank you for reading my rant. 

In my next post I will start by sharing my thought on the game(s) I want to make this year, with this new found time and adventure at hand, games genre's I like and do not enjoy and why, etc.