[Review] GW2: First Impressions

Review:

This is a semi review of GW2 and some first impressions about the game.  I have played a Human Thief so far and am level 36 in the game so this doesn't reflect the entire game but I'll discuss a bit about the release and how the game feels so far.

Release Night:
  I decided to pre-purchase the game so I was able to play with the early crowd and it was quite the experience.  There were a lot of buggy things going on however.  The servers were locked out and for nearly a week the Trading Post was down (GW2's version of an Auction House).  In fact only today did the Trading Post come back up for players.  Taken in by this new world I played for as long as getting a proper amount of sleep for my job would allow.  Initially the game feels great.  But I'll break this down into a few categories and grade the game (up to this point) in each section.  Keep in mind that ArenaNet is working very hard to fix most of the issues, but this is a review about the lauch so I'll review it accordingly.

Graphics:  A-

  The graphics look amazing.  I would end it there, but there are a few issues.  Most of them are minor things but a big thing that gets me is the camera.  Some times the camera seems to either get stuck because of lag or just move about in awkward ways in tight spaces.  Especially on larger characters, as I have heard from guild mates, the camera tends to get a bit weird in caverns and underwater.  I'm not sure what an appropriate fix for this is, but it does make things hard to see some times.  Also there are other graphical bugs, like a pair of pants having a glove icon and other things like this.  Pant-Gloves are the new thing:

Overall though, the graphics look good even on lower settings and the details are very interesting as well.  I especially like the limping animation when your character is slowed.  I'll give this section an A- because it is good, but wasn't perfect.

Sound:  B+

   The sound is good, but nothing spectacular.  I wasn't wowed by any of the sound tracks or anything, but I will admit that is difficult to achieve.  There were some big issues with sound in a few of the areas especially with volume control.  Some areas would produce extremely loud sounds even when I had my sound turned down low to talk on Team Speak with my guild.  Overall, it was pretty good, but not over the top great (to me at least), so the sound category gets a B+.

User Interface and User Interaction:  C+

  What I mean by user interface and user interaction is the GUI in all its various components and the users interaction with the game GUI and the back end systems supporting it.  This is the probably area that has caused the most grief for players in a few categories.  First of all the guild interface and accessibility has been horrendous.  It is very difficult for players to join guilds and represent them accordingly and this has been a very bug heavy area.

  Another major area that has been buggy is the overflow system.  It has been near impossible to get groups together if there are enough people on that you have to try and get in an overflow group together.  If you are able to get in the main instance of an area, you are able to group up easily and do dungeons but I spent a few hours trying to do the first instance (Ascalonian Catacombs) to no success until earlier today when fewer people were online.

  Also for the first week the Trading Post was under maintenance meaning I salvaged many items I could have otherwise sold simply for bag space.  There are also minor issues with various UI elements that could be streamlined for better and smoother enjoyment of the game. 

  These things being said, the game is otherwise very enjoyable in regards to the UI.  It is simple, clean, and beautiful and easy to use.  If you have played any MMO before, the game is somewhat intuitive, but I recommend reading up on the controls as a few things are different and there are a lot of new (and very convenient) functions added to the game.  I know many players are very happy with the collectibles and compact functions in the bag area.  Also being able to access the bank from crafting tables is very nice.  There are many awesome features added to the game, but it just happened to start out a little buggy, which is expected, but I'll give it a C+ for now, which should easily bump up to an A score once the bugs are fixed.

Combat and Game Play:  A

  The combat is fun; very fun in fact.  Putting skill in the hands of the player to dodge and time their attacks is a great system for the game.  The only problems I have are the somewhat random lag spikes that cause issues for the thief as skilled and perfectly timed dodges are what keep you alive.  This is less a game play issue however and more of a hardware / server side issue.  The game play itself, however, is great.  Especially after playing through the first dungeon a few times, I really felt like I had to be on my toes to avoid dying.  And some times, i still died anyway.  The downed state is a very interesting mechanic, despite the annoyance in PvP.  A few complaints I have about game play that are very thief specific are that stealthing does not break channeled spells and that some mobs run way too fast after you stealth making it hard to combo.  The first point is displayed most astoundingly in PvP.  Many times I have popped stealth only to have 2-3 players channel a few spells on me at the same time to have them hit me through stealth and burn through 3/4 of my life bar whilst I am still in stealth.  That kind of sucks as it means I have to pop stealth moves very early for them0 to be effective.  Overall, the game play most certainly gets an A.  I could write an entire blog post about the various elements of the game play, but we'll leave it at that.

PvP:  B+

  The biggest gripe I have with PvP (especially with battlegrounds) is that there is no progression.  Yes, everyone is completely fair and even in PvP, but there is no reason to do it other than for fun.  You don't get experience, the armor is only aesthetic and there is no way to really 'progress' per say in the battleground PvP.  Since everyone starts with all the same stuff, while fun, there isn't much reason to PvP unless you plan on doing the tournaments (which I haven't got into yet since our guild is still mostly leveling).  The WvWvW is more interesting in my opinion, as it offers ways to get better and do better as you level up outside of it.  It also offers a bunch of good crafting materials for the mid level player as well.  World vs World is a ton of fun and is a great challenge for guilds and realms to face off against each other.  Eventually I would love to see an arena system based on current gear but with the current philosophy of GW2, that would probably be very similar to the current BG system with same stat gear.  Also, I miss not being able to duel people.  That is another feature I would like to see.  And GW2 gets a B+ for PvP because... mesmers are annoying.  That is all.

Arena Net:  A-

  ArenaNet has done a great job of replying to posts and updating and fixing bugs as fast as possible.  They have had great attitudes toward the player base and that has been refreshing to see.  A few gripes I have are not having any patch notes (call me spoiled but I like to know what is going on) and other small visibility issues like my latency in game without having to use a third party program to test why I am getting lag or disconnected.  Other than that ArenaNet has been great about getting quick fixes out for those nasty bugs that no one can predict and I look forward to the updates in the future to this game.

Release Success:   A+

  Why does the game get an A+ for release success when it didn't score that high in any individual category that I mentioned you say?  Well, that is because I have been judging fairly harshly pointing out the flaws and bugs it has had so far.  The game itself is one of the best I have played so far and has actually been enjoyable from day 1!  Not many games can say that they have been up for as much as GW2 has been during their launch week.  The game has been a great success and I have had a lot of fun playing this first week.  I look forward to future updates and expansions to GW2 and recommend the game to anyone who likes the MMORPG genre.  I didn't touch on a lot of issues in this post, but I wanted to note a few things that I have seen and give a decent first impression of the game.  Take my criticisms with a grain of salt, the game is great and most of the things that 'bug' me about the game will be fixed in the near future as well.

Thanks for reading my post, and I wish the best of luck to ArenaNet and the continued success of Guild Wars 2!

~WakeskaterX~

  

[SBX] Level 8 - In Progress

Personal:
Well it looks like I will be working at Johnson Controls, as a facilities maintenance mechanic.  It'll be a good job where I can finally make some money and put some aside.  I had an interview on Tuesday and it went really well!  Exciting, exciting!  It will be nice to have a car again.  For 2 years I've ridden my bicycle everywhere I needed to go.  (Crazy! I know)  Just goes to show that you CAN get by in life without those things you think are necessary.  (Except teh interwebz, wut wud I do without teh interwebz?!?)

Anyway things have been going great so far, and I've been having fun developing SBX and SBX2.  I also plan to put together a team for a platformer game in January of 2012, but we'll see how that goes.  Right now work on SBX2 is a lot of fun and I would like to continue to work with that game and get it ready for alpha testing.  Right now it's just a tech demo engine test, but I think it's fun ;).

Book I'm Reading:
The Sword of Truth Series - Book3 - Blood of the Fold
Genre:  Fantasy
-Great book, very interesting so far.  I enjoy the adult writing style of Terry Goodkind.


SBX:
Well the final level of SBX is about halfway done.  I re did a bunch of stories and used a script to clean things up instead of giant sprites.  I broke up some level sprites as well and got rid of all my errors.  I've been trying to clean up some of the code in SBX, but it's just such a giant tangle of crap.  Honestly.  At least with SBX2 I am aiming to make the code friendlier in case I employ the help of other people on the game.  I am looking forward to finishing up level 8 and hosting the game as complete in the YoYo Games area.  I can then focus my free time on SBX2 and developing the system and the graphics better.

Hmm, I should also put some skins back in for my favorite testers.  I'll at least toss them a thanks in the credits after you beat the game.

Ah!  There is a new enemy added to the game as well, watch out in level 8!  The hammerhead type enemy will attempt a kamikaze crash to kill you instantly!  Avoid Avoid!

One other note:  Viewing of this blog has gone up by over 100% this month!! Thank you all who have checked out my blog!  I appreciate it ;)

Well it's a short entry tonight,

Thanks for reading folks,

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX2] Tech Demo Release

SBX2:
Wait... is that a... 2?  YES it is.  I have just finished the Tech Demo for SBX2 - Return of the Fuscians, the sequel to SBX.  This time around it is a space exploration game, not a scrolling shooter.

Link:  (also at the bottom)
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/187914-sbx2---return-of-the-fuscians

The Tech Demo contains a few things:

• The basic AI structure for enemies in the game.
• The movement engine for the player.
• Destructible Objects in the game! Yay you can break walls!
• A temporary GUI  (Will Be Replaced with something cool lookin)
• Sweet Temporary music  (Muse is just win)
• Awesome Space Action

There is a lot that I am doing differently this time.  I have learned a bunch about coding since I began SBX, including things from other sources, such as my Unity course.  I have learned to streamline my code and actions to make things as efficient as possible.

Also a big difference with the sequel is I am not using any Drag and Drop programming.  (For those of you unfamiliar, Game Maker lets you drag and drop commands into a visual command line, to make things easy for beginners.)  Everything in the game will be done by pure code, with the exception of a few single line things that I can drop in for quickness, like destroy self, etc.  

The AI was tons of fun to program.  It's not quite finished, but is now working after quite a few hours developing and testing it.  Enemies have 4 states:  "Normal" , "Search" , "Attack" , and "Avoid".  

I'll briefly describe each of them:

Normal:

Enemies start out in normal, which is a path based on coordinates given at implementation.  Coordinates are stored in a 2d array, with X being the 0 slot in the second array, and Y being the 1 slot.  Each enemy cycles through the coordinates in the array until they reach an entry of (0,0) in which they repeat the process.  When they reach within 10 pixels of their destination, they then choose the next one.

Attack:  

From normal or search mode, if the player comes within a certain distance, the enemy will close the distance and chase down the player, keeping within a safe firing distance.  **To Be Added:  Later on enemies will have a suicide option, in which they will try to ram the player to do massive damage at the cost of death**

In attack mode, the enemies also will fire weapons at the player.

Avoid:

Once the enemy is in battle, when it reaches a certain HP threshold, it will attempt to use evading techniques to encircle the player and avoid fire.  The enemy will continue to fire weapons at the player, but will move side to side instead of chasing the player down.

Search:

If the enemy is in Attack or Avoid mode and the player leaves the combat range of the enemy, it will engage Search Mode.  In Search Mode the enemy will do circular sweeps of an area until the player comes back into range, or until a long timer tells it to go back to it's regular path after not finding the player.

Here is a sample image of combat with the enemy:

The only weapon in the tech demo is the Gatling Gun:  A weapon that will most likely be the player's starting weapon in the actual game.

A link to the game can be found at:
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/187914-sbx2---return-of-the-fuscians

Thank you all folks for reading!

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Updates and Changes

Personal:
Well it was a nice weekend and earlier time this week, have a nice Wednesday off so I am able to get some work done on SBX.  I received 2 e-mails from some people earlier this week and was able to establish a contact with a recruiter even though I wasn't what he was looking for.  It's nice to hear feedback on people about what to do.  I posted on a group site in LinkedIN asking for advice and it was nice to hear from people in the industry what I am already doing:  Make a nice portfolio, get peoples attention.  So I figure I will start working on getting a website made to host my work, rather than a YYG profile, at least it would look a bit more professional.

SBX:
So I have made some baseline changes before continuing on to finish out the game.  The things I wanted to get done this week were:
1.  New Text Boxes
2.  Re-Work the Auto Shop
3.  New Profile Selection Menu
4.  Harder Bosses
5.  Add Checkpoints
6.  Fix some bugs with Crazy Ball

I decided to scratch number 5, as I really want to keep the game arcade style and somewhat difficult, but I want to adjust the difficulty UP on a few bosses as feedback from players said that the bosses were way easier than the level itself.
The big one for number 4 was level 3.  You could sit in the back and avoid the spikes and just relax back there.  I added some ships that now spawn at the back ends and will charge along the back line at you to make you move... or die.   This makes the boss a little more dynamic and it makes you plan out:  Ok the spikes just set back, they probably won't kill me right now... i can avoid these guys.

There will be additional adjustments for boss difficulty in the future: Namely: Level 2 boss, Level 5 boss, Level 6 boss.   I might change some things about level 7, but for now the difficulty is alright.

For the new text boxes, I had been using the default gross grey boxes before, but with a simple activation code at the start of the game I adjusted the fonts, colors, and backgrounds of the boxes.

I also re-worked the auto shop.  Before it was gimmicky and you had to click an icon to select an item.  Now you can just select any item and it will equip it.  It will also show you which items on the left side is equipped with a dark background and lighter text.  Here are 2 photos of before and after:

Before:

After:

The whole auto shop is streamlined and much easier and intuitive to use.

Also I re worked the profile menu.  I jumped into Paint.NET and designed a nice looking menu system to use.  The old looked like:

and the new looks much spiffier:

I have started using Papyrus for most of the menu fonts, as it looks nice and separates menu and message items from other fonts used to mark things in the game.

The Intro scene featuring my logo has been reworked as well.  Before I had a kind of stupid looking logo that was very rough, but I changed it to look a little more professional.

Before and After:

I used an actual picture of a wakeskate and edited it to work with the image.  The result is a crisp, beautiful logo instead of the crappy one I had drawn before.

Also I adjusted some things for the crazy ball and it works much smoother than before.

Reflecting over this game, I now see how I will have to re-work things in the future to better organize and streamline my work.  No one could really steal my game files, because so much random stuff is going on in all my objects.  This being my first full length game, I realize the limitations of the way I was doing things before and the way I will need to proceed in the future.  Unless I get some more stability issues when the game is finished, I probably won't go back through and streamline all the code as the game isn't big enough to warrant that, but I have learned a ton from reflecting over my code and use of Drag and Drop.  Future games will be created entirely in GML to increase the workflow and edit-ability of my games.

EDIT:  Also I just added a new movement system for SBX  - it looks much nicer now and the movement is way more fluid.

Thank you for reading and hope you like SBX so far!

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Level 7 Finito.

Personal:
These past couple days off have been extremely productive--well today at least, yesterday I just read a whole bunch.  But, I have completed Level 7 of SBX!  One more to go before the core game is finished.  There is still a lot of things to do with it though.  Not much else besides a nice relaxing peudo-weekend.  Well time for the real weekend: A work weekend : /.

SBX:
We'll jump right into talking about the game as this will be a shorter blog.  Today was rather frustrating.  Toward the end of finishing up Level 7, Game Maker decided to stop loading my game and began to give me a load up error each time.  However I was still able to make an .exe file and play it just fine, so to test the rest of the time, I had to create an .exe file each time to test it.  What. A. Pain.  Well I finished and posted the game up, so now it's time to go back and figure out why.  Is it a memory issue?  Is it a graphical bug, or some weird issue with Game Maker?  I'll come back to that one.

The game though, has been going well, just 1 more level and the game is finished at it's core.  There will still be an endless level, but I will add that puppy in later.  I'll finally be able to post my game as a finished game in the completed forums rather than the WIP forums.  NICE!

Level 7 isn't the shiniest of the levels so far, it has a lot of action, but nothing new.  Lots of enemies, and then a boss.  That's pretty much it.  It's hard, but no new mechanics or anything special.  I'm fine with this however as I am going to work hard and long to make Level 8, the final level, really cool and awesome.  The final level will be special, so Level 7 will just lead into that.

I'm excited to finish this game as I want to begin work on an unique platformer.  I won't go into the details, as I think it's a great idea, but it should be pretty interesting.  I'll need to learn about making a nice engine for it though.  I haven't worked too much with platformers so this should be fun.

Well I am looking forward to finishing up SBX as it has been LOTS of work, and lots of time.  But it's worth it, I really love making the game and it'll be nice once level 8 is finished to just go back and fine tune everything, redo menus, add luster to the game and make it all shiny and working perfect.

Thanks for reading folks,

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] New Graphics

Personal:
Today was a great day!  I got a lot done on SBX and I have 2 days off for tomorrow and Friday so I can get some work on the core game done for Level 7.  Also I got a call from someone who might have a job for me at a plant nearby doing maintenance type work.  It's something that pays real well and something I am familiar with (having a construction background).  This would allow me to work and save up money to someday move out to California to make my dreams happen.  That's how you do it right?

Well anyway just a few notes and then to the main topic.

Indie Game of the Week:
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=520009
This is the forum topic to a game called "Frank".  Now the name may seem silly, but the game is awesome.  It is a platformer / tetris mashup, that is excellently done.  You play a little guy named frank with your arrow keys and control the tetris blocks with WASD.  Space bar activates any special abilities as well for the little guy.  You start out by running around collecting coins and moving up higher and higher to get the coins.  It takes a lot of concentration to not get stuck, not crush Frank, not block yourself off... and on top of that, if you want to get silver or gold, you have to time some 4line Tetris clears right before you grab the red winning coin.  All in all it is a very fun, tough game that  you should check out even though it is still a WIP.

SBX:
Now to why I am writing a blog at 2am on a Wed night.  Graphic Revamp.  Yes that is right I have completed my first graphics revamp of SBX.  So we'll look at a few changes that have been made.  Just a few of the many I did.

First, the main ship now banks when you turn.  Before it just stayed the same no matter how you accelerated but now the ship's graphic changes for left and right strafing.

Ship Graphics:

Originally the ship just had the middle graphics, but left and right banking graphics have been added.  They look real good in the game with the weapons equipped.

All the weapons had revamps done as they needed to change with the ship as well.

Other graphical upgrades were:  New explosion effects with debris added, Planets added in the background, A second star layer that is faster to give a deeper effect, New Weapon sprites for the basic weapons, and the big one:  New asteroid sprites.  These ones I took some textures offline of rocks and applied them to a plain colored asteroid then modified them with some shading.  The result was a more realistic looking asteroid that fits with the graphical scheme of the game.

Here is an example of the difference between the old and the new:

The new ones really have a better feel to em and I really like how they turned out.  Overall the graphical effects upgrade brings a little more luster to the game, giving it a more polished feel.

Later I plan to add additional graphics changes, but for now, this should attract previous people who have tried the game and maybe will give it a new feel.  

Also a new loading screen was added as well, since the old one was rather ugly.

Well thanks for reading folks, 

God Bless,

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Skins

Personal:
Lately I've been getting a lot of work done with my online Unity course, but it's been tiring.  Saturday I spent 4 hours studying and watching tutorial videos, then worked for 6-7 hours, then spent another 2 hours programming on my own for the homework section.  It's a tough schedule, but it'll pay off and I really enjoy learning more about developing tools and streamlining programming work.

SBX:
This is a short blog, but I wanted to post the six skins so far in SBX.  All of them are unlockable but for now, I've given three of my supporters and fans of the game, TheUltimate, smash ball  and Enter_Name_Here codes for custom skins for them to use.

Here so far are the skins in game for the ship:

There are currently 5 subclasses of the main ship.  I would have to say my favorite is by far the Raven, I really enjoyed making that and like the way it turned out.  The X P Q is a fun one, and is unlockable in a special way differently than the others.  It takes a bit of work and investigation while playing the game.  The Arc I had in the code for a while, but didn't make available until recently, and I just drew out the BoneShip tonight, since I wanted to get some work done, but didn't feel like doing major brainstorming for the next level.  I also drew the Trinity subclass, because I didn't want to sleep and was a little bored.

(By the way the red markings on the ships are the locations where items go - just ignore those X-D  )

Well I hope you enjoyed a look at some of the skins in the game, and look out for more to come!  Thanks for your time folks.

Peace out,

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Level 6 complete - Yaya

Personal:
Today was decent, with a moderate work day, even though I felt sluggish.  Tomorrow is my day off though, and I have some stuff planned, such as tennis... and relaxing...  Well, something planned at least.  I'll probably apply for a few jobs and work on some things for SBX a little.  Things are going well, and I applied for (what I consider to be) the perfect job at Riot Games.  They have an open position for Creative Designer and it basically fits me perfectly.  Whether or not I hear back from them... well, we'll see.  But they'd be missing out.

SBX:
Well I sat down for 5 hours tonight and finished out level 6!  I developed some sprites for the new boss and some animations, and set them into motion.  Most of it went pretty well, but I had to play though the level 15 times to test the boss for various things.

Adjustments to timing and placement and pathing were necessary as the boss didn't want to do what I wanted him to do at first, but I figured it out, and he is pretty much how I want him to be.  I'll revisit him I'm sure and do  some upgrading.

So this post I thought I would show you some of my sketches and how I've planned out some of these levels.
First, here is a funny concept sketch I had for the boss of level 5, before I replaced it with the balloon looking guy:

I ended up disregarding the sketch as it wasn't menacing enough and looked pretty goofy overall.

Next is the concept sketch for the big ship that roams around behind you in Level 4:

It was a basic sketch, but I did end up using this design more or less.

And then here are 3 sketches of layouts for Level 6:  The first is a sketch of the electric room at the beginning:

 Then here is a sketch of the boss I did, and there are tons of notes on the page as well.  I also have a sketch on the bottom half of the stasis tank that the boss sits in before he comes out.

And the last sketch I have for you today is a layout of the ventilation duct.  I mapped out the locations of the ten electrical nodes and planned it all out.  This was the part that worked perfectly without any bug fixes at all.  That was pretty awesome as it saved me a lot of time.

Well that's about all I have for sketches and for today, I'll probably take some time off of any major work on SBX for a week or so to brainstorm level 7 and figure out exactly what I want to do.

Thanks for reading

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Level 6 inc.

Personal:  
Had a nice weekend off with the lady.  Finally back and able to get some coding done today though.  Things have been going well and the weather has been awesome so I've been able to get out a little and do some exercise.

Something Funny:
This made me laugh a bit earlier so I'll share it with you.  Check out:
Rage Stache!
If you're a bit nerdy like me, you'll get a good laugh out of it.

Game I'm Playing:
League of Legends has been my go to game for the past few weeks.  I like being competitive and it has given me quite a few hours of mob blasting fun!  Riot Games has done an outstanding job of putting together a F2P (Free to Play) Game that really delivers.  I have even bought a few skins and characters with their cash system to support them since the game is really fun.  If you are into DotA type games or are a competitive player, then you should really check it out.
If you've never played you should click this referral link:
http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e8ce3f3e5be9896024141
And say you were referred by the incredible wakeskater_X woo woo. ;)

SBX:
I was able to get a lot of work done on SBX today.  Level 6 is now nearly complete and the things I wanted implemented went very smoothly.

I coded the blue jumping electricity section and planned the entire floor out at once.  I mapped it out on paper, figured out what I wanted to do, and coded it in.

And then...

There were no bugs!  Everything worked perfectly the first time, EXACTLY how I wanted it to.  (Well sort of, I did some number balancing and timing adjustments, but mainly EXACTLY <-- almost).

It was nice to have things run super smooth and I was able to add graphics to most of the level and finish most of what I wanted to do with the early rooms.  Now all that is left is adjusting some things and finishing out the boss room.

I have some grand plans for the Level 6 boss, so it'll take some time to plan it all out and really make it cool.  I want the boss to be different from any other boss so far, and have much more danger to it.  I want the player to feel like they are going to die at any moment if they don't execute perfectly.  I think by level 6 it is acceptable to introduce something that makes the player check themselves, before they wreck themselves (or their beloved space ship).

Thanks for reading and for those of you who noticed something different after level 2...  well maybe you should put that somewhere... it might lead to something cool.


Peace out,
~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Level 5 - Back in the mix

Personal:
Live has been fun, but I need to find a new job.  I have a few leads but no interviews so far, so I haven't had the chance to talk myself into a position yet.  But there are a few leads and I'll keep using my free time to learn and gain more skills.  A sales position in Denver might be the option I'll have to take, but it's a good company that interacts with the media.  I have a contact there and am eager to hear back from the management.  Until then, I'll keep learning JavaScript and Unity and finishing my game.

Jenny, my girlfriend, has been considering getting her teaching licence.  She just became an assistant manager, but would like to get out of the food services industry and utilize her master's in history.  She'll make a great teacher some day, she truly does care about people and helping them grow.  Not many teachers are like that it seems today.


SBX:
It's been a while since I've had time to sit and program a lot.  Even less time to sit and write.  From work, to job searching, to the girlfriend, I have had my hands full.  BUT, I was finally able to finish the fifth level of SBX.  Designing the boss was interesting.  Starting out as a sketch on paper, I reworked the idea twice and game up with this sketch:

And then finished in game looks like this:

It's fun to go from basic sketch and implement the bosses the way I imagine them.  I have begun to sketch out the level layout for level 6 and it should be fun to put together.  I have learned a little more about masking and figured some stuff out so it should be easier than Level 3 - as it will be a similar type level.

It's been fun seeing the game progress and I look forward to the finishing touches stages.  Adding in neat features like online scoring tables and better graphics, better effects, etc.  Just 3 more main levels and then the endless level and I'll be done.  It's a fun project and I've enjoyed being able to program and figure out how to make it cool.

Well that's about it for now, work soon, and I'll try to post more often.

For those of you who view this blog and lurk in the shadows, I have just the code for you!  
Enter "Raven" as your name (in the latest download file - you'll have to go download the new one)  to unlock  the special Raven Subclass Starship!  The custom skin will scare those fuscians out of the galaxy!


Just a special little something for those who have read the blog ;)
~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Work, Work - L4 Complete

Personal:
I still don't ever have any time, but as I was able to set aside some time last week (and then after a nice break from programming some time today) and I finished levels 3 and 4 of SBX.  It has been an interesting past week.  Getting Ben, my brother--who is doing the music tracks for the game and the logo for the small company I am going to start as a entrepreneurial venture to make games--to actually make the sound tracks has been tedious.  But things have been going well.  I now have an official QA tester working with me on the game over the internet.  Putting together a team is an interesting endeavor.

SBX:
Level 3 was tough, Level 4 took only a few hours to finish.  Then a couple more for bug fixes, but comparatively short.  There is still a mysterious bug where some people will have severe lag when trying to load the game and it freezes up, but that is the only known unresolved bug at the moment.  There was another bug with objects crashing, but I believe i circumvented it in the latest upload.  I made it so that two objects that need to interact will just destroy themselves instead of crashing the game when the other object disappears before they are ready for it.  The game has some 8 bit sounds so far, but will have a nice background sound track.

As of now half the items in the game are available to unlock.  I still have to figure out the story line for the last four levels and make a nice ending event for the story.  After the story line, an endless mode will be unlocked where massive waves of enemies will spawn until you die.

Programming the game is fun, but I have been ran ragged with working 6-7 days each week.  There hasn't been much time I can set aside to program.  All my free time goes into either programming, the woman or sleeping.  Not much time to relax and enjoy life lately.  But the effort will be worth it at the end.  After all I might as well push myself while I am still young.

Sayounara Minnasan,

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] Time, Time, Never Enough

Personal:
Finding time to work on SBX, even time to sit down and unwind and write is hard these days.  Although with recent events my schedule has opened up, I am still working 6 days a week, although the hours aren't too long per day.  I am an avid gamer but with the development of SBX, my free time has diminished quite considerably and I hardly have time to even crack open Starcraft 2 or Team Fortress 2.  I have been playing a little bit of League of Legends, but partly that is due to the LvL15 summoner requirement for a job position at Riot Games. And then the girlfriend takes up time, but that is time well spent.

Testing:
Also finding playtesters is hard these days.  Most people won't play a WIP game, and the few that do don't seem to post enough feedback.  Marketing will be tough even when the game is finished, but even tougher now with limited content.  My hopes are that once Level 3 is finished people will post more often on the forum topic I have for the game.

SBX:
Level 3 has been a trip so far.  I am splitting the level into various areas.  As you "infiltrate" the fortress you go deeper and deeper having to clear rooms 1 by 1.  So far I have the starting outside area with 4 turrets and then it transitions into the inner area.  Due to object limitations, I have each piece of the walls move separately so the timing and size adjustments become tedious.  It's coming along slowly, but should take a week or so to finish.  The second room is now started and I'm thinking about more ideas to make things fun.

For the second room I plan to have small enemies that travel on a path on each side of the room that will randomly stop and fire a thick laser across the room.  There will be 2 separate ones moving independently. Also there will be enemies moving in and out of the room through the slits at the top, as well as 2 turrets with alternating shields protecting them from weapons.  Once the two turrets are destroyed the level will continue.


Job Hunt:
Nothing back so far on the job front, but I am asking around to try and interview different game developers.  Getting connections and really getting a feel for the specifics of what different developers do and suggestions should help a lot.  Keeping busy with work and programming has kept me from being impatient.  I have my project to finish first and that is my priority, although I will keep looking - the sooner a job found the better.  Working at Panera bread is tedious and has become redundant.  I like my coworkers and boss and even know most of the customers that come in by name, but it lacks any sort of intellectual stimulation.  I look forward to a job requiring even a modicum of intelligence.  As it stands, I may not get paid to develop SBX, but I love it and i WILL do this for a living. ;-D

That concludes my wind down for the night.  Back to the grind tomorrow, but I have Tuesday off and I'll be able to get a lot done for SBX.

Thanks folks!

~WakeskaterX~

[SBX] To Develop a Game

Personal:
Today I am starting a blog about my development of Space Blaster Xtreme - SBX, an indie game made with Gamemaker 8.1 standard edition.  I'll post new releases and information regarding the game as well as talk about what I have done, issues I have faced and how I've learned more about streamlining the code and all the tasks at hand.

The website for the game can be found at:
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/181417-sbx---space-blaster-xtreme

It is a work in progress for sure, but it is done in my spare time, working for free - to develop a portfolio to become a game designer for a large company.

I have applied plenty of places already but until I finish this game, I have no 'finished product' in which to market myself by.  Once finished I can use it as leverage to get companies attention.

SBX:
As of now there are two levels and various additions to weapons and the upgrades you can make.
Developing the cores and thrusters is a pain and tedious, but were fairly simple to add as much of the coding was copy/paste.  However, each weapon and most of the special weapons require a fair amount of coding to have them interact with all the objects in the game.  I have just released weapon 4 - Ricochet Laser - to the game as well as some new features not implemented in earlier versions.
Also (not part of the current download) I have added my own loading bar and icon image to the game to set it apart.


Last Notes:
If anyone is a sound designer by the way, I am looking for someone to compose original music and sound effects for the game - you will be given credit of course.

~WakeskaterX~