Yikes! too much on my plate

After countless hours of working on the music game, my team missed the development turn in for the indie game challenge. Unfortunately we all had a lot on our plates and balancing school, work, and a an amazing game took its toll on the whole team. It was a dire situation, however we're not giving up we're still working on the game, and we even have a sequel planned.

Currently my main course is my Final Project, every game development student at Full Sail goes through "Final Project." Its a 5 month game project which focuses on every aspect of the game development process from the initial concept to shipping. I'm excited, especially since I'm the lead designer for my group. My group consists of a bunch of amazing individuals and so far it's been a blast working with them. We still have a lot of communication issues that we need to kneed out, this is due to the fact that we all have amazingly strong and unique personalities.

I would say that I am the feature creep guy. I'm passionate about making this game and I my goal is to make this the best game that has come out of Full Sail. Unfortunately we only have five months, and its been hard because I can come up with an amazing gameplay concept or innovative core but it would be unfeasible for the scope of this project. After a few days of brainstorming my group came up with two ideas. The first one was a third person hack and slash with a satisfying combo system and platforming elements. The second idea was a real time strategy game in where you control a fraternity and you have to recruit different students throughout a college campus, the only problem is that your opponent is trying to do the same thing. You have to use your wits and recruit enough students to take down the opposing fraternity. Did I mention that it's multi-player? The second idea was picked and although the core may seem simple , it is solid. In addition, we're pumping a lot of personality in our game. So far I've created a paper prototype, and a fully working prototype in Warcraft3. After this prototype was created we were able to make the appropriate changes, and pitch new ideas.

I'm still working on my robber board game. I've started a flash game on the side to simulate my definition of love. This is really an experiment in portraying an idea through gameplay. Usually, games have a story which ties into the gameplay, however I want to simply portray an idea through gameplay, I'm still in the prototyping phase but this is partially due to the fact that Im also learning flash while I'm prototyping.

I'm also very enthralled about the release of Unity3D and Unreal for FREE!!!! Its great, and I have to refrain from starting a game, and hopefully I have enough willpower.

Music

I've started development on a music based game. I'm really happy that everything is going well so far. A few days ago, I heard of the Indie Game Challenge and I was very excited, however, I realized that I couldn't enter on my own. So, I assembled a team. I am the team leader/representative/lead designer/producer/programmer, and I'm currently managing a team of 6 people, four other programmers and 2 artists. For our project, we're taking an iterative design approach, this is only because we're short on time. The contest ends in 26 days! and we started production yesterday. I'm not too worried however, because we're all Full Sailers, and one thing that Full Sailers know is crunch time. As a Full Sailer, I believe that I can do absolutely anything in a month.

I've seen how far organization and teamwork can go in a short period of time, especially when everything is organized. Which is what Im trying to do, even though everything is being rushed, organization and a clear vision of our goals will be what will pull us through this project. I'm very excited and I cant wait to show off the finished project. Yesterday we set milestones and cut some ideas, today I wrote 80 percent of the design doc (which I really really really enjoy doing), and we currently have a prototype in the works which I have to work.

The currently there are a few pressing issues, for a music game we need music, I have to do some research and meet up with some people and see if I can use their music. Otherwise I'm excited for the resulting product!

Contests

I'm going to enter a contest. More details soon!!!

My own web design

Today Im still working on the site. I must admit that I'm only 80% satisfied with my layout. I feel like it only captures the professional part of my personality, and I must admit that Im a very complex person. So I've decided to tell design to take a back seat and focus on content, mostly on the websites that I've created. From that point I'll make the video game page and upload all the games that I made with summaries and screenshots.

I love that wordpress is one of the easiest cms systems that I've ever used. Its very intuitive and their support is in readable english, as opposed to Drupal where their support is horrendous.

New Site and Updates

From this point forward this blog, will be my development blog. Currently, I have a new site in the works. Kvermeille.com, it took me all day to set it up but I'm very proud of the outcome.

Asteroids Like game pt 2

So I added a bunch of new power ups, I modded the AI so that it can be challenging, and I have the opponent ship seeking powerups.

I love that I kept this game very modular, because as I was playing it I realized that this game can be mutated to become anything. As it stands right now it is an asteroid game. However, it can be a game about killing zombies, it can be a game about exterminating bugs, it can be a game about killing runaway fugitives, the themes can go on and on. What Im starting to realize is that the core mechanics of a game can be its own entity. Although themes, art, and the players perception play a huge role in the game, the core gameplay is the game itself. Which is probably why most first person shooters seem very similar. They all have different themes and there are differences here and there but the core gameplay is the same. Its interesting how Half-Life2 broke the mold by adding one gun. The gravity gun. Once the gravity gun was added to the game, the core morphed. Now the player has an enormous amount of freedom and possibilities. It also allows more opportunities for variable play.

For the Asteroids game, Im exploring new possibilities, and I've realized that this second player/partner is the "gravity gun" for this game. I realize by having an AI counterpart the type of play can be changed. With this character you can interact with it cooperatively or competitively. There can be levels where your ability to shoot has been taken away and you have to rely on this partner. Compete with this player to get the most points. Or it can be a vs game set with obstacles in the way. I have a couple of more ideas but I'm not going to spill those yet. I'll be working on the third iteration and we'll see if I can find the most fulfilling core concept of this game.

Prototype 1 complete

So after about 3 hours of hard work, I've come out with a working playable prototype.
Check it out

So we have two players, I was playing as the green guy, and the red guy was the AI that I wrote. While I was playing with it I noticed that I have to tweak the difficulty. Moreover I'm somewhat satisfied with my success however the game still feels empty, it lacks objective, and it just needs more. It does however have a mesmerizing affect on the player. In addition, I think that I should maybe remove the lives constraint and add a timer. Also I will give the player the ability to affect the performance of the other ship and vice versa. I need the player to take more risks and I need my AI to be more aggressive. I can probably solve this by adding in powerups which can have negative or positive impacts on the ships. I currently have all the Asteroids moving at the same speed and that might need to change, the movement is too predictable.

So task list for tomorrow:
Tweak the AI
Add in powerups
Remove lives and add in a timer
Add variable speeds to the Asteroid
Imbue feelings of competition in the player

I want to make a game, Right now!

So tonight I will be making a game. I have a relatively simple idea and thanks to 2DBoy's rapid prototyping tool Im going to make it right now!

The game engine already comes with an Asteroids clone and Im going to modify it to fit my needs. Im going to approach this game with rapid prototyping in mind. I'll start with an initial idea and iterate on the gameplay until I have a solid game. I will also be accepting any suggestions to my design idea.

Super Spaceteroids

Asteroids is usually a solitary game, however I wondered how it would be like if it turned competitive. What if there was another player who was also competing for points. Maybe the competition can go deeper, maybe there is a story behind it. Maybe they arent even really shooting asteroids, it may just be an abstraction of a larger picture. Nonetheless, the base gameplay is to have two ships, a computer play and a human player competing for the number one spot.

Tasks:
Computer AI
Two ships on screen
Score for both players
Win/Lose Condition

Game Design Prototype

Situation
All the letters in the world have been stolen by an infamous wizard called Contemno Verbumrus. An important letter is delivered to the main character which he cannot read because all the letters are missing. He realizes that all the words in the world are missing.

Character
Johnny a mute kid that can communicate through sign language and letters

Objective
Needs to collect all the letters in the alphabet to complete the letter.

Opponent
Contemno Verbumrus

Disaster
The world is left in chaos after all the letters disappear

Setting
Takes place in a cartoony world where plants and animals can talk, there are lush forests, thick cities, small towns, and of course your wilderness.

Type
3rd person platformer with a fixed camera

Game Play
Collecting Letters
Solving puzzles with the collected letters
Fighting Minions with tools created by letters
Solving game-wide issues with letters

Premise
The player must progress through the game by solving little puzzles that yield letters which the player can then use to solve more puzzles. Initially you would start off with the letters A, B, T. There will be special stations where you spell words with the letters and this will either trigger an event or give you an item. Right of the bat, the player can spell the word "Bat" which would be the player's initial weapon and tool. Once you attain the bat Verbumrus' minions show up and you're prompted to use the melee commands. After you defeat them, you would explore the area and find that the current town that you are in, has a lot of problems. In addition, you cannot leave the town because the bridge is out. So you speak to the town people and you notice that they can only gesture because all of their words have been stolen away. As you collect more letters, their words become clearer to you and you can attain hints from the dialogue. Throughout the town you need to collect the letters R, I, D, G, E. You find the letter G by being directed to a guitar and playing a the guitar mini game. You would find "I "hiding in the meat compartment as a block of Ice, in which you would help the butcher by helping him cut meat. There would be a lot of fun and creative ways to explore, collect, and fight.

X-Factor
The letters are actual characters with different personalities.
The NPCs (non player characters) play a charades mini game with the player which would lead them to clues.
The player creates their own destiny by creating their own items and solving problems their way.

Unity is awesome

So I've been working with Unity today, and I must say its been the game dev engine that I've been looking for, it has everything I want, its not programming based, although you can use high level programming languages like C#, and its just great.

I made two projects today the first one is a basic first person shooter with a little bit of physics applied to it. And the second one is a third person platformer tutorial. I have to say however that the assets are not mine, I just set everything up.

Boxes
3rd person platformer

Download both of them and enjoy!

This week in Artificial Intelligence

This week has been so long...
But very rewarding

Currently Im taking artificial intelligence and to be Frank, it was kicking my butt. It was only until Wednesday that everything started to click, and when it did I was so excited because here I am learning all of these complex algorithms that are pretty much essential in most games.

Reversi
Earlier this week I came up with the AI for the popular board game Reversi. I used the Minimax algorithm which predicts the best move for the human player and reacts based on that information. The result was a pretty difficult reversi bot.


After that I learned path planning. Path planning helps a computer figure out what path to take. This is common in most games where enemies need to know where the player is, or finding the optimal path between two points. There are a couple of ways to do this, to demonstrate the different algorithms I wrote the logic for a visual path planning program.



Breadth First Search
This technique searches the whole map until it finds the goal





Greedy Search
Searches towards the goal. It takes the distance between the current position and the goal into account and it moves foward based on that information





Uniform Search
In the path planning program the darker grey tiles signify a higher cost to cross the path. In a video game situation the dark grey would either signify a hill or some type of hazard. The uniform search is similar to breadth first however it finds the cheapest path according to the cost.





A star
A star is uniform search + greedy search, which makes it the best, although the search takes longer than greedy search it always returns the best path, greedy search doesn't.



It was really cool seeing these things come together visually. Also programming them, although slightly painful, gave me a solid understanding of path planning. In addition I had an amazing realization because in a previous game that I made, NOSI: the spirit unleashed, I came up with an algorithm similar to A star for the enemies.

I know what you're thinking, wow thats a lot for one week, well there is more.

Steering
Steering is a complex behavior for a bot (which is an object that is controlled by the AI class) or bots which help in determining intelligent movement in a world space. This movement may be determined by other bots or by its proximity to other objects in the world. In this demonstration I made a few algorithms that demonstrate 3 different flocking techniques.



And thats whats going on for now....

Also I'm working with 2 new programs. 1 is called Blender which can be used to make 3D objects, and the other is this amazing program called unity 3D. Expect a 3D game in the near future. I cant wait!!! I start training tomorrow.

Evolutor is evolving

Evolutor is going from a 2D platformer to a 3D game. Meaning its back to the drawing board. Details coming soon!!!

MIA

I know, I know, I've been missing in action, but I'll be updating every Friday. Im currently taking artificial intelligence, its kicking my butt!!! But Im ready to fight back.
-Ken Vermeille

Backstory

I took a break from programming Evolver, partially because I spent hours trying to figure out some programming concepts on the GBA, and I decided to write the complete back story for the game. The day before I had a couple of gripes with how this game was going to come out. I got some feed back from my friends and they asked me if it was going to be a Mario-esque game, I said no. However after writing the back story and getting to know the overall story arc of the game made me realize that I still have a lot to add to the prototype. The gameplay will change from run and jump to "I see an enemy, I have to attack it."

One cool thing I learned today, epic music gets my creative juices flowing. Well it may just be music without any words, I say this because listening to words distract me from the task at hand, I'd much rather listen to the beat of the music and focus on the voice(singular) in my head.

Now im off to bed I got class in the morning, Im learning about the machine architecture and programming for the GBA/DS.

Evolutor Tech Demo

Today was prototyping day!!! However, its back to the drawing board. I used GameMaker to make the initial tech demo, and it was good stuff. So far I have a basic platformer going. I have collisions, animations (even though I didnt need any) and some basic game concepts such as acceleration, the ability to push objects, and I even have enemies. As I was playing the game I noticed that it wasnt fun, yes there was a lack of anything, but I realized that my game was going to be the everyday platformer. I dont want my game to be the everyday platformer, I want this game to make people search their souls for the meaning of life. Ok well that may be a little too much, but I believe that different is good. They say that the first 10 games you make suck, but I dont think so, this will be amazing.
Here is the link to download the first TechDemo

::Other news::
A friend and I are going to be working on a musical side project for a somewhat big name superstar. Initially we wanted to go with XNA game studio for the ease of use but then we realized that we wanted to make the game portable and making a game for the zune doesnt seem like it will sell. Maybe it would, who knows but I have my eye on iPhone development. I cant wait to say wanna play a cool game? You can play my app for that.

Corney, but I dont care, I love me

So, Im starting a new game

After months of being at Full Sail, I've decided that I'm going to work on a game by myself. I was rigorously fighting creators block and I came up with a bunch of little ideas. However as a semi perfectionist, I would always find a flaw in a game. For instance, I would think up of a design for a game and wonder if the main game action would be good enough to actually be fun and fulfilling. Seeing that the notion of fun is quite illusive and rare in games today, I'm very careful when I'm thinking up of ideas. The flaw in this way of thinking is that you never know how fun a game will be unless you play it. This is where prototyping comes in. So for the next week, I'll be prototyping my game, and figuring out if its fun. I have a killer story behind it but I'm not releasing any details. So everyone prepare to prototype and playtest "The EVOLUTOR!!"

NOSI FINAL!!!

Click Here to download

Kirby 300

I made this game its funny and if you know me, you'll know why I made it. I made it for laughs haha. Tho the presentation and gameplay dont match up, you'll enjoy the quick and easy laughs it brings.

PS. Please read the directions because if you dont, you wont get it.
And just in case you dont get it even after reading the directions here are some hints.

::HINTS::
Do not hold down the up button. Kirby basically moves like a car you can press up and down to modify the speed and left and right to steer.
Kirby only shoots bullets out of his mouth so you have to make sure that his mouth is facing your target
There are three different enemies and three different bullets - READ THE DIRECTIONS!!!
Play the game and leave me some feedback
here is the download link
http://www.mediafire.com/?fidkmwzljq9

NOSI

Ok here is the new game im workin on, these are the base gameplay mechanics so its not gonna look pretty but tell me what you think, I would give you instructions but I'd rather you feel thought the game and figure it out
Thanks I'd love and appreciate the feedback, the link is below
http://www.mediafire.com/?xyghdw4pmjd

Happy V-Day Angie!!!

Ok click here and download!

MY FIRST GAME!!!!....Demo

Ok here we go I know all of you have been waiting for this, after a couple sleepless nights I present to you the Maple Gear Ken's Story Demo

Its a big download but its worth it, Im just going to let you know that there are a few glitches that i'm currently working on, and its not completely polished either so just enjoy my creation/homework

~~~~~~EDIT~~~~~~~~

Ok here is the NEW WOKRING DOWNLOAD