Two Week Game revisited

Recently I set myself a challenge to make a game in two weeks. While I did not finish the entirety of the game for various reasons, I was able to finish a very rough demo of what was completed. I had initially intended to release it as it was, but have now decided against it.

The reason for this? I've still been working on the game. I've given it a slight graphical redesign, which I think looks nicer and cleaner on the screen. I've redesigned several of the levels I had completed. I've tidied up a lot of the code and made the game as a whole much easier to build. All in all, I'm quite attached to this game, and have reached the point where I would rather see it finished and released as a whole game than as an awful demo.

To give you an idea of what I mean by "graphical redesign", here's a comparison. A screenshot from the demo:

And a screenshot as it looks now:

Now, clearly, I'm well outside the two week challenge at this point. It doesn't really seem logical to continue calling it the Two Week Game. Instead I will start calling it by the actual project name: The Golden Ankh. Not particularly original, but since it can easily be changed right up until it's released, I'm going with it.

Two Week Game: Done! ... kinda

Okay, so the entire game itself is not done. All the logic and actual game events I need are functioning and ready to use, but I haven't developed the levels yet. There's no music. The art is as basic as basic can get. It's a pathetic excuse for a "finished" product. And there are reasons for that: illness, day job, family life, and the physical need for sleep all played a role in me not having a fully complete game. But, I have an early stages demo completed. And that, in my opinion, counts as a success.

The best thing I feel about this project is how I was able to accomplish something in so little time. Yes, I had a design already mostly ready to create, which gave me a head start. But actual game development, over those two weeks and few odd days I allowed myself, added up to, I think, maybe twenty hours. At least half of that was spent burying myself shoulder-deep in scripts that should have worked properly the first time... had I entered it correctly. (It is absolutely horrifying how many problems one missing equal sign can cause.) Another quarter of that was spent looking for bugs that were often of my own creation. The other quarter was spent on making basic programmer art and actually building the levels once the logic and scripting was done. Overall, on a time budget, I think I did well.

Now, I'm happy to put that demo up somewhere so that people can download it and try it. (And point. And laugh. And mock. This thing is functional, but truly ugly, I promise you.) However, I don't have the faintest idea where to put it. Where do people upload small game files these days? Any suggestions? I'd prefer something that isn't going to spit ads, pop ups, and possibly computer diseases every time you click. If you know of somewhere I can upload the file, and you're interested in having a go at my little five-minute long game, let me know in the comments!

Two Week Game: Day 13? Already??

So, as you may have noticed, I've not updated on my Two Week Game. The reason for that? I've been ill. Ill enough that I couldn't bear to look at the computer, so it wasn't even turned on for several days. Today is the first day I've felt well enough to actually sit at the computer and see what I've missed over the last week.

Now, saying that, I'm still intending to finish this game before the end of the month. Well... a version of it, at least. It will probably be an alpha version, but hey, that's good enough for me! I'll keep working on it right up through Monday. Naturally, due to the sheer lack of time I have left, it will be considerably smaller than I anticipated. There will only be a few levels to begin with. There will be nothing but basic programmer art so that the player isn't running through walls. The big final level? Not going to be in there. I don't want to release a bunch of levels that have been thrown together just to be there. So, I will release the levels I design that I think work for the game, and hopefully release more later.

Some of the features I had hoped to include in the game have already been cut, though thankfully not only due to time. One or two things have proven to be impossible to accomplish at my skill level, and will require far more time and knowledge than I currently have. One or two other things could be done, but feel like they won't add anything but complications to the game, without really making the gameplay any better. So, those few things have been scrapped. However, everything else is just about ready to go. All that remains is designing the various levels that will be ready by the end of the weekend.

Wish me luck? I'm probably going to need it...

Two Week Game: Day 6

More progress has been made! Not as much as I'd like, but more than I expected to with everything that went on today and how I was a bit ill in the afternoon.

Again, I'm getting more work on the basic game logic done. I've finally managed to get two particular objects doing exactly what they're supposed to do. One of those things is the level timer. Yes, levels will be timed. They're small levels. They can handle it. As of this morning, I was having a horrible time trying to ensure that the timer restarted every time the level did. For at least an hour, it refused to do so. It was a huge relief when I finally discovered that for it to work properly, I only needed to make one small correction. Which I made. And then rejoiced. Mostly the rejoicing was that I got it working. (Some of the rejoicing was that I now don't have to touch those objects again except for altering the amount of starting time for each level.)

The major progress I made today was on the on-screen display. I had originally set up the screen display of how many lives the player has left (amongst other things) so that it sat at the top of the level. No problem, right? I can see it, it's easy to read, all good. And then the brain kicked in, and asked me how visible it would be when the player is on a larger level, and the screen scrolls down or to the side.

Um... oh. Right.

So, I spent some time getting reacquainted with scripting in RGSS (descended from Ruby and used specifically for this game engine, so I'm told), something I've not done in a few years. I discovered that the basic concepts were easy to understand, since they don't differ too much from other scripting languages. I also discovered that I remembered more of the scripting than I thought. It didn't take me long to get my lovely on-screen display up and running. I mean, it's not pretty. And it's not completely functional, yet. I have a few other bits and pieces I need to make sure I can get working before I finish putting all the extra stuff in. But, it's definitely coming along, and it stays on the screen even if the top of the level does not, so I'm happy!

Unfortunately, there's always a downside somewhere. I had intended to include various power-ups in this game. Most of them I will have no problem implementing - however, one gave me a serious problem. I spent a couple hours on this one power-up alone, tweaking, re-writing, double checking all my scripting, but to no avail. I quite simply cannot make it work without getting a handful of error messages thrown in my face. So one of the power-ups, which would have added to the amount of time left to finish the level, has had to be discarded. Unless I get a brainwave (or somebody who is more skilled at RGSS than me can tell me what I'm doing wrong), it won't be in the game. I'm better off spending my time on things I know I can done, and things that are required for the game to run at all.

No new screens today, as they would look pretty much the same as yesterday's. Hopefully I'll soon have some more interesting things to show.

Side note: It's occurring to me that I haven't the faintest idea who would be interested in reading this. I have no idea if any of you are remotely interested in game design, or game development. I hope you do, since otherwise I would be wondering why you read this far.

Two Week Game: Days 2-5

Combining the last few days all into one post, because I've not gotten much more done. I've had my day job to contend with, and by the time I get home from that I don't have the energy to do much more than eat, check my email, and fall asleep until it's time to get up and do it all over again. I have the next few days off though, so I should be able to make some progress!

As I mentioned before, a big part of what I'm doing now is relearning things I've forgotten, mostly little things that make a big difference. Just trying to get a timer that worked correctly took me half an hour, because I missed one crucial step, and somehow kept missing it every time I went through it. I got it working in the end.

However, I soon discovered as I looked through the logic steps for all my game objects... a mess. I could barely read through it, with so many switches and "if" conditions and other stuff that probably was not strictly necessary. So I took a drastic step, and turned to my trusty pencil and paper. I wrote down all the objects I would need for my game, and under each wrote down all the things I needed that object to do. It's not so detailed as to take over the pages, but has just enough for me to remember what bits and pieces I'm going to need to make them work. With that done, it's now a matter of putting it all together (again) in the game itself.

So, while I work on that, how about a few screenshots of rubbish programmer art?

Yep. This is my intro screen. As you can see, the main character doesn't have a name yet. Or a decent character graphic. That pathetic little dude up there? Yep, that's supposed to be the main character. He's, quite frankly, pathetic pixel art. But, it's a start.

As far as plot goes, this one doesn't scream with originality. In fact, one of the reasons I'm using this as my Two Week Game is because having less to think about for story means I have more time to make sure the game actually works. Definitely an upside, in my opinion. Besides, I'm hoping that if I have enough time, I'll be able to do some decent artwork to have a solid Egyptian theme running through the whole game. Because ancient Egypt is awesome.

And this is a quick shot of a level. Again, very poor art, but enough to get going with the level building. This is the first level, so it's nice and small. Theoretically, by the time I get to the ending levels, they'll be about twice this size. I wonder how many times I can use the word "level" in a single paragraph.

That's it for now. Hopefully tomorrow I will have made more progress on the game, and will have more to say and show!

Two Week Game: Day 1

If you haven't yet, please go read this post so you know what the Two Week Game is.

Off to a good start! I've got some of game logic done, mostly the basic stuff that I'll need throughout the entire game, such as player lives and the level timer. I've got some extremely poor, programmer-style graphics in place to help me build levels. One level is already mapped out, with two more designed and waiting to be mapped. I'm intending there to be about sixteen levels. The early levels will be smaller and very simple, introducing the concepts and the rules of the game. They should get more complex as time goes on, which means it's going to be a challenge to find the balance between big-enough-to-be-a-level and damn-it-isn't-it-done-yet.

Only one day in, I'm beginning to remember the headache some of the little tidbits of game development can be. It's remembering when to set off this timer, when to change that variable, and why that event isn't taking place when it's supposed to be. The little things are currently kicking my ass in making things take a bit longer than I think they should. I honestly thought I would have a lot more of the logic done by now, at the very least. Ah well, live and learn, right? Besides, I still believe designing and testing all the levels is going to take the most amount of time, especially as the levels and the things to test get more complex.

Having spent several hours staring at the computer screen today on this project, I'm going to put it away for today. Come back tomorrow, where I'll likely be talking about how horrible games look and feel in their early stages, and showing off some truly tragic screenshots to prove my point. (And probably hoping with everything I've got that the finished game looks better than it does right now.)

Can I make a game in two weeks?

A year or two ago, I took a very short course in game design from the Open University. It's not had an overwhelming impact on my life, but all the same, I'm glad I did the course. It taught me a lot about games, development, and design, and pointed me toward a lot of resources I would not have found otherwise. More importantly, it pushed me to design games. Not massive, sprawling RPGs like I aspire to, but smaller, simpler games that can be made in a short amount of time, but still prove challenging.

In rifling through old documents on my computer, I came across the folder with the work from this course. Included in that work was a design document for a simple maze game. I remember being really pleased with the design, and excited to get started on it. I also remember the serious development problems I had making it. You see, this course focuses on the students using GameMaker. GameMaker is a decent tool for development, don't get me wrong - but it really only works well for certain types of games. For the style of game I wanted, it simply was not working, and proving to be far more trouble than its worth. (It should probably also be said that because this course focused on design, not programming, there was little to no emphasis on learning to code or script games. I still lack skills in that area.)

Fast forward to today, when I read through the document and once again felt that excitement I had when I first wrote it. I still want to make this simple little game. I still am dead set against doing so in GameMaker, and I'd rather not code and script the entire thing by hand when there are so many other tools available to make the process easier. I still have every intention of learning those things - but not on this game.

I do have another option, another game development tool which I have experience with, and I believe will be much more suited for this kind of game. I want to make this game, both to build up my development skills and experience, but also to prove to myself that I can make a whole, finished game. It may be simple, it may have nothing but pitiful programmer art, and it may be so pathetic that nobody would ever want to play it. But I'm going to do it anyway.

Now, I honestly believe it's a small enough game that I could finish it within a couple weeks. That makes it a contender for April's Project of the Month, if I manage to finish it in that time. I'll update both here and on Twitter as development progresses, and include screenshots where I can. If there is any interest in the game, once it's done, I'll offer it as a free download for anyone who wants to try it. Today's task: sort through the design document and fill in any holes I've left, and start planning the development process!