Project-K Devlog 1

Project-K is a Party game I’m making in my free time. I use Gamemaker and wear the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself into completing and releasing it! The following post is an update on it’s development.

Hey there! I’ve decided to try and revive this blog once more for various reasons, one of them is that the blog helps pace the development and make it feel more serious. It’s good for motivation!

Project-K has been my pet project for a couple of weeks now. It’s still in no shape ready to show but I’d like to share the next couple of steps I shall be taking into shaping this into a final product.

The game is currently in a playable state, we’ve played it a couple of time (2 players) on iphones to tests it’s fun and tech. It is fun. 🙂 My next goal is to have an evening where we play several 4 players’ games.

I have identified the following as the needs for this goal to be a success:

1.The game is currently hard to understand if you are not… me. There are too many placeholders and unexplained mechanics. It is important that the new testers understand what they are doing and what is going on. For this the UX/UI must be clear and smooth. To prove this, the style is unneeded, grey wireframe are enough and thus it’s on this that I will focus.

2.You only get one real chance per player to test the First Time User Experience (FTUE). I think it is important to have the game training/tutorials ready for this milestone.

3.When we tested with 2 players, we discovered an issue with the networking where some packets lost would render the game unsynced and unplayable. This must be fixed.

4. Based on what we’ve learned from the early tests, the core mechanic which is a mix of chance and skill must be reviewed. It’s lacking one extra layer to make it extra fun, engaging and make you feel like you are somewhat in control even though it is mostly luck based.

I’m not setting any specific time frame for this, except that I want to be done asap! Hopefully I’ll be able to post images starting next week or the next!

Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:

• Twitter
• tumblr

Have fun!

-Dave

October 15, 2017 by Dave Richard Categories: GamedevTags: gamedev, Indiedev Leave a comment

SOULSOUP DEVLOG 7

Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks (not gonna happen!) using Gamemaker. The following post is an update on it’s development.

Hey all! This week was quite slow on development, there was so many thing going on that had to take priority, like a broken car for example… but I got to start arting up the interior of the first area of the game, one that is actually playable. Slow progress is progress nonetheless! Here’s the level in question:

Obviously, doing the first pass of an area is long. Doing the other 100 levels that will use the same tileset is going to be much faster. While I’m doing the tiles I find conflicts with the look and gameplay. For example with sizes of interactive components and such. It’s not a big deal, I just have to take some decision and fix them.

There are also a few moving parts in this level such as the fountain and switches. Animating it will be a lot of fun.

I’m hoping that next week is going to be less busy and that I’ll be able to complete this scene. Fingers crossed!

Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:

• Twitter
• tumblr

Have fun!

-Dave

March 13, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: Gamedev, SoulsoupTags: gamedev, Indiedev, pixelart Leave a comment

SOULSOUP DEVLOG 6

Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks using Gamemaker. The following post is an update on it’s development.

Hey all! As promised I took a couple of weeks off this project, realizing that it was a bit foolish to think I could end it in 12 weeks haha. To be honest, challenging myself with a deadline like this makes no sense as I work an average of an hour a day on it…like TOP. Finishing a game in 12 weeks would work if I could pour more hours a week.

Anyhow, for the time being I work with the clock off which is more fun anyways = better creativity. I’m still thinking of having deadlines to push myself to accomplish something. We’ll see about a plan later. 🙂

CAULDRON TEMPLE

I started sketching up one of the first area visited in the game. This is far from finished but it gives an idea on the type of mood I’m looking for. WIP WIP WIP WIP!!

Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:

• Twitter
• tumblr

Have fun!

-Dave

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: Gamedev, SoulsoupTags: gamedev, Indiedev, pixelart, Soulsoup 2 Comments

Soulsoup Devlog 5.5

Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks using Gamemaker. The following post is an update on it’s development.

Hey all! Here’s the update on Soulsoup. It’s going to be a short one! I’ve decided to take 1-2 weeks off from Soulsoup to replenish some energy. Basically, once I’m out of energy because of … reasons, my focus and creativity are the first things that get penalized. I believe it’s better to take some time to rest, focus on the day job at the studio and come back rested on Soulsoup later.

Don’t forget, if there’s no fun, there’s something wrong. If you’re not taking pleasure in your projects (gamedev or other), take some time off and think of why you’re not enjoying yourself. In my case at this moment, it’s simply that my personal project is the one too many thing to do in the day. Once my schedule becomes a bit less stressful I’ll be able to jump back in!

Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:

• Twitter
• tumblr

Have fun!

-Dave

February 14, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: Gamedev, SoulsoupTags: gamedev, Indiedev, Soulsoup 1 Comment

Soulsoup Devlog Week 5

Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer’s, coder’s and artist’s hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks using Gamemaker. The following post is an update on it’s development.

Hi Everyone! Not much and a lot happened on Soulsoup this week. Here’s a quick update on the 5th week of development…approaching half way!

Problems, Prototypes & Doubts

I haven’t posted a lot of art or finished screens or even proper gameplay yet and there’s a reason. I’m still figuring out all the parts and components of the game and there is absolutely no reason why I should art up things I’ll end up not using.

While building some mechanics, I found that they didn’t fit perfectly with the rest and had to either redesign, cut or make concession about the integrity of these problematic features. It’s a tough thing to do, when you really like 2 ideas but they are contradictory. Like choosing which one of your twin will die. Ok…maybe not that rough.

This is especially troublesome when you’re on a time limit. Struggling for too long on something that will get cut can be perceived as loss of time and affect morale. But really, it’s part of the process. Even when working on big titles, we end up removing features that are complete or almost complete near the end of the production because they can be hurtful to the final product.

With redesign though comes uncertainty and doubt that always seems to show up at the worst moment. This week I ended up cutting, reshuffling and prototyping a lot of different control schemes. I made very little noticeable progress even though a lot of work have been put in. The good news is that I’m close to having all the main components fit in a presentable way. Enough for a round 2 of play tests which should begin tonight!

Still rough around the edges but the core is there.

Dead by Daylight

I also want to mention that we finally announced Dead by Daylight the game I’m currently working on in my professional life :). It’s an asymmetric multiplayer game in which one crazed killer attempts to catch 4 survivors before they escape his nightmarish world.

The game is a blast and I can’t wait to be able to show more. You can see more information at these location:

Dead by Daylight Official Page

Dead by Daylight Steam Store Page

Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:

• Twitter
• tumblr

Have fun!

-Dave

February 7, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: GamedevTags: devlog, gamedev, Indiedev, Soulsoup, WIP Leave a comment

Soulsoup devlog week 4

Soulsoup is an Adventure Puzzle game project I’m making in my free time, wearing the designer, coder and artist hats. I’ve challenged myself in completing it in 12 weeks. The following post is an update on it’s development.

Hi Everyone! Fourth week of Soulsoup development is already behind us, here’s a quick update on what has been done this week.

Level Selection

When reviving the project on week 1, I found a functional and super useful level selection screen. It’s a classic mobile type menu showing at a glance your ranking (how many stars you got) for each level. It does the job but it’s not exactly what I want…it’s dry.

I did a quick pass at integrating a level selection system from another project. What is shown below is far from the final result obviously but it’s closer to what I want in the end product. Travelling through various nodes that have distinctive visuals and specific names will, hopefully, give the sense of voyaging around the world.

Gameflow

I had some sort of epiphany. I had trouble making the two different modes coherent in the same world. They were also difficult to work with as everything in the engine was specific to either one mode or the other. Well the answer is quite simple. Both modes are to be integrated in the same gameflow, feeding each other to create a whole experience. The brilliant thing is that by merging them together, I end up with a simpler game to create, as in: 1+1 = 0.8. Yep, weird mathemagics.

Integrating this flow is my first task next week. I want to have the full loop in and ready for the next playtests.

Getting Some Visibility

I’m also spending some time setting up a proper website, an entry in indie DB and things like that. Better communication with the community can only be good. I am mainly using twitter for communication but I feel like I’ll need to make more effort in order to reach more people. More on that later.

Setting up a website is more complicated than I thought. I’ve never been the best with too many choices. I prefer limitations ;).

Other Updates

• A tally screen at the end of a puzzle has been added. It shows how well the player did, his progress and some options (continue, retry).
• More work has been done on sketching the ingredients and finding the right recipes.

Thank you for reading and taking interest in my project! Don’t hesitate to reach me at any of the following for a chat:

• Twitter
• tumblr

Have fun!

-Dave

January 31, 2016February 7, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: Gamedev, SoulsoupTags: gamedev, Indiedev, Soulsoup Leave a comment

Soulsoup Devlog Week 3

Hi everyone! Here’s what I’ve been up too in this 3rd week of development on Souloup.

First Playtest

The first portion of the week was all about polishing, bug fixing and refining some rules and mechanics to make sure it was solid enough for a first playtest. Small things such as highlighting the token the player is currently selecting, fixing collisions and such.

Working in a pub. Changing places helps the creative juices.

The playtest was short but worked well. I feel more confident that the mechanics are easy to understand and that people (well at least that friend) was interested by the discovery element of the game. The next playtests are going to be chunkier with actual progression.

Recipes

Some thoughts were put into the combinations that lead to recipes. I almost completelly redesigned this portion of the game as I thought it was lacking. The new system has less ingredients and combination posibilities but most components offer MULTIPLE gameplay choices. I find this to be a very important rule in puzzle design. Components used to make the puzzle should be at least 2-sided by which I mean the same object can be used in different situations. For example, an explosive red barrel in an action game can be used to blow up enemies, blow up a hole in a wall for navigation or be used as a platform on which to jump to reach higher places.

The following image was taken BEFORE the re-design, but it is still interesting as it shows a bit of the process.

Process on finding basic recipes for Soulsoup

Mock Up

Finding the perfect resolution is always a bitch. I’m still unsure where Soulsoup will live but I know it would do well on mobile devices as well as on PC or even console.  With that in mind, I have about 46 millions different resolutions to work with. That’s just the way it is now. Resolution is critical for game components, layout and size of the assets. For my projects I have 2 sizes I like to work with, like in the images below you can imagine how the very different sizes of the characters affects how everything else is built.

Miranda from another WIP project. Smaller Character.

Big Boss from MGSV. Bigger Character.

Because of the tilebased controls of Soulsoup, I think the smaller version is more interesting, it has this old-school charm that screams puzzle game and that is why I selected that size.

By the way, if you are interested in seeing how this big boss sprite was made, you can look at the timelapse on my (…very empty) youtube channel 😉 Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQKWqumwycg

After many attempts and redraws, I managed to settle the visual style and sizes for sprites and tiles I’ll be using for Soulsoup. Now that this is decided, it should be much faster to create the various assets I’ll need. I am super excited about starting to make sprites and animate them!

The next images show the progress from an early draft to a potential level. The last image does not show the final product, I’m still working on it, but it shows the kind of details I want to have in the game world such as moving water and clouds. It is still rather empty since the game sprites are not present.

AI

As a final task this week, I got to start the basic AI system of Soulsoup. It is very basic as the critters of the forest have very strict movements and no decision making. It is a puzzle game and reactions to the player’s moves must be predictable! For example, the “deer” runs in the oposite direction of the hero when the hero stands next to it.

I have about 20 personalities like this to code which will then be mixed and matched to create all the various characters of the game.

That’s it! Until the next devlog, have fun!

January 23, 2016January 23, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: Gamedev, SoulsoupTags: gamedev, Indiedev, pixelart, Soulsoup Leave a comment

Soulsoup Devlog Week 2

Hi everyone! Already 2 weeks out of 12 down! This week have seen great advancement in the project as my work got propelled by the voice of the legendary David Bowie.

Current state of the Game. Still not pretty but more functional!

Prototypes & Tests

The goal of the week was to refine the games’ rules to find a pleasant balance between randomly mixing ingredient and attempting to create the perfect combination to maximise points. My goal was to get an easy progression in the recipes. I want players to have fun matching practically any ingredients together and get a final recipe out of it instead of forcing strict combinations. The game is primarily about discovery.

I tested a lot of different movement schemes and decided to go with my original plan of dragging tokens around with the mouse or touch screen. I spent a couple of hours polishing this mechanic so it is solid and fluid. It’s almost there. There is also an indicator now that shows when a combination of tokens creates something. This makes for a more fluid and easygoing game experience.

Blackboard items are almost all crossed out now.

I’ve also prototyped and tested the end conditions and pressure mechanics of the game. I’ve tried turn based, time based and error based. The best option for me at this moment for the score mode is time based. Nevertheless, I don’t want the player to feel too much rush, I want them to be relaxed and have enough time to experiment.

The mechanic is simple, as time goes by the Glutton gets hungrier. You need to make sure that enough food is given to him to lower his hunger or else you’re the one who gets eaten! The monster’s hunger is further satisfied when you give him what he wants. When you give him enough, you move to the next level.

A new Glutton

Talking about the Glutton, I’ve started sketching him on Friday. He was originally supposed to be just a head icon moving around the board. I’ve just recently decided to have a sprite of its full body at its “real” scale instead. Its hulking appearance will be very cool on the board compared to other tokens. Now I just need to figure out how to make it move around properly.

Sketching the Glutton (blue monster) standing and sitting.

NEXT WEEK

Next week is a big milestone as I will playtest the game with friends and colleagues to see where it needs refinements. If you are making a game yourself, know that planning and committing to do playtests is not only crucial to get feedback but is also a great way to motivate yourself. Working under a deadline do marvels!

For this playtest, I need to make sure there is enough recipes available in score mode for it to last more than 5 minutes. I also should make sure that 1 to 3 puzzle levels are available. I want to test both game modes. Talking about level design, I leave you with some sort of a spoiler 😉 The following are old level design I found this week. I’ll probably rebuild those levels in the game just for the kicks.

The following images show a bit of how I work. I always design on paper before doing anything in the engine. I find doing these analog designs a much easier task. Working with a pen, eraser and paper helps me think and focus.

See you next week. Until then, have fun!

 

January 17, 2016January 17, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: Gamedev, SoulsoupTags: devlog, gamedev, Indiedev, Level Design, pixelart, Soulsoup Leave a comment

Soulsoup Week 1

Hey all! For my first game project of the year I chose to revive an old game idea started 5 years ago. It’s called Soulsoup. A game about souls…and soups! It’s a puzzle matching adventure that I feel is a simple enough project to finish in the 12 weeks deadline.

The title screen? Loading splash? Not sure but I’ll have to redo it.

What is Soulsoup?

In soulsoup you play as a treasure hunter, more like a thief, that steals an artefact from a mysterious temple in the woods. The artefact is a magic cauldron that comes to life when you attempt to take it away.

You are effectively made prisoner of the woods, stuck there to serve as the cook to an insatiable creature with a peculiar diet called the glutton.

The cauldron’s magic allows you to summon and bind souls into different delicacies that you feed to the glutton.

The game mechanics are quite simple, you have to mix ingredients together to create the dish the glutton requires. The twist is that the glutton and the hero are in the level as well. The glutton eats anything in proximity. The hero must not be eaten while he moves around to do various actions such as harvesting, digging, collecting and moving objects the cauldron can’t. It’s a game about discovery, memory and planning.

Early days!

 

I want to build 2 modes: the adventure mode which takes you to pre-populated levels where you have to find how to create the correct dish in the least move as possible and an infinite scoring mode where you have to be quick to make dishes and points before the Glutton decides to eat you.

1 week in

This week I spent most of my time going through the old code and cleaning it up… It’s really awful code haha. Seriously I don’t know how it worked. Thank god for those comments though! If there is one thing that I’m glad about is that I always comment my code even if I’m the only one working with it. In this case it saved me a lot of hassle in understanding how that old code worked.

It’s amazing the things I learned in the last 5 years. For example, I remember that one system that took me nearly 2 weeks to understand and develop took me 45 minutes to reimplement in a much better way. I don’t qualify as a programmer and I don’t have a lot of opportunity at work to develop that skill, but this shows that with practice and dedication it is possible to learn almost anything.

Drawing a path to move ingredients around.

The first thing that I made work is the level design tool. It’s a handy in-game tool that allows me to create levels, play them, save them, export them to a script that can be used to rebuild them in the real game. It allows me to design and test puzzles much faster than actually scripting each level and compiling the game each time.

Soulsoup level editor

I am focusing on the score mode at the moment which doesn’t require any level design but relies on all the core features. That way I am making sure everything works properly before attempting to design puzzles.

This week’s clean up payed up and I played a game in score mode for the first time in 5 years. I need to get some rules sorted out to make it more fun but the foundation is there.

It’s a mess of placeholder icons but it works!

Next week is about integrating these design changes to the core rules and mechanics. Maybe I’ll fit in some pixel art too. I’m getting annoyed by these placeholder souls!

Until next time, have fun!

January 10, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: SoulsoupTags: gamedev, Indiedev, Soulsoup Leave a comment

5 Gamedev Objectives for 2016

Happy New Year! …better late than never right?

I am resuscitating this blog after more than a year of innactivity! A blog about the awesome art of GAME MAKING. Yes, if you dig in this blog you’ll maybe find one or two posts about game development hidden in a load of cocktail recipes. This is actually the reason why I stopped using this site.

Frankly, I’ve put this site on the side because I was too chicken to post anything concrete about my game projects.  I intend to change this. It’s part of my 2016 Gamedev objectives. Allow me to share them with you, maybe they’ll give you ideas on how to tackle your owns.

 

1.Set clear goals. In my day job as a game designer it is part of my daily routine to set goals, organize and be organized, something that I do naturally. As a lead it’s my responsibility to set objectives and push my team towards our common aim of making the best games we can. Nevertheless, in my personal life, indie game projects and hobbies I rarely set goals or deadlines. This is catastrophic! Not having a solid plan always lead to trouble and/or procrastination. In my case I usually end up refining and polishing forever and eventually I get bored of a game project and move on to something fresh and exciting.

This is why I’ll commit to clear goals this year and do my best to respect them. I’m thinking of clearly defined monthly and weekly objectives which I can strive for. This links to my next objective:

 

2.Complete games in 12 weeks. If you do games in your free time or as a career, you probably know that finding game ideas is the easy part. Completing and shipping games is a mammoth of a task. There is something magical about a new project that makes it easy to work on it passionately. But for some reason, any reason, at some point we hit a wall. Persevering and FINISHING something is where the real hard work is.

Last year was a real eye opener for me. I completed and shipped my first indie game. This year I aim to complete 4 games in about 12 weeks each. Taking into account I work about an hour a day on these projects and that I’m rarely satisfied, I’ll probably crash and burn at first. But that’s the point! I’ll fail, learn and try again. If I end the year with one game completed I’ll still be super happy!

Soulsoup deadline is set at 12 weeks

 

3.Gain 5 pounds. I want to push my limits in weightlifting this year, pushing iron and crushing PRs. My aim is to gain at least 5 pounds … of muscle mind you.

What the hell does it have to do with game making you’re asking? Well, exercise is an important part of game development for me. Starting the day with a workout prepares my mind to be focused. It makes me ready to face anything. It’s a magic buff! To be at my best creatively, I need a clean, healthy and strong body and mind.

 

4.Take it easy. Man, this one will be difficult! Everyone with anxiety can understand. Sometimes I’m quick on the panic button for no reason and this sort of useless stress is highly disruptive to my creativity and concentration. I was taught some great techniques last fall to deal with this mind state and will put them in practice this year.

One thing that I was taught is to accept these emotional states as what they are rather than try to forget about them. Accepting that they are here to stay but in fact not dangerous at all is the key to gain control over them.

 

5.Share more. As I stated in the introduction of this post, I want to be brave and share regularly about the projects on which I work and the tools I use. Last year I used twitter and tumblr quite a lot and found it to be a great motivator. I also love seeing the shared work of other developers and artists, it’s so inspiring! Seriously, if you are making something, anything, please share with the world.

On top of the usual twitter and tumblr posts, I’d like to do a series of youtube videos and at least one twitch. Both media interests me a lot and take me way out of my comfort zone to say the least. I also want to keep this blog alive, it’s a great way to keep a not-so-personal log of my activities. Hopefully I’ll get better at writing these, or go straight to video logs and be done with writing. 😉

Here are links to the platforms I’m currently using:

Twitter @DeviusQC

deviusqc.tumblr.com

Youtube Channel DeviusQC

Ask me a question on ask.fm

 

That’s it. 5 big objectives that I’m thrilled to tackle. What are your Gamedev objectives?

January 9, 2016 by Dave Richard Categories: PersonalTags: gamedev, Resolution Leave a comment