So I’ve rolled out a new version of Luncheon of the Dead Here.

There is still a fair amount of placeholder art in there, and I realized that I have completely neglected sound, but it’s incredibly close to being complete. I suppose that the silence is a side effect of me always playing flash games with the sound muted by default. I’m debating on whether it is truly necessary at this point, so I won’t be too crushed if the game remains silent into the final release, we’ll see.

Even though the idea was to spend the next few weeks polishing, putting a version out there now has some stronger pros than cons at this point. The biggest ‘Pro’ being that it has helped motivate the dash to the finish line. If there’s a chance that anyone could stumble across it without the benefit of my ‘it’s still a work in progress’ disclaimer text, that sort of gets my butt in gear to get on with the polishing already.

That’s about all at this point. This and recent posts have been uninformative and self indulgent, I’ll be the first to admit. However, after all my free time being consumed with the actual work, it’s difficult to regurgitate the minutia of that experience without getting burned out. Future posts will be more interesting, and hopefully will allow for dialogs about interesting topics, I promise.

-Joe

So I just finished creating the unit animation engine. Essentially, that’s the doodad that will handle picking an appropriate frame buffer for a unit’s current actions (walking, moving, taking damage, etc.) and stepping through said frame buffer on each iteration of the game loop to simulate motion. Hooray for aesthetics!

That is pretty much the final major component that I had to implement before the game is functionally complete. By that I mean that the game play mechanics and underlying engine is in place, the UI responds more or less as it will in the finished product, but the look just isn’t quite finished. Placeholder art needs to be swapped with real art, the instruction page needs to fleshed out and prettied up, and the website pretty much needs a complete rework until it is minimally acceptable, but it’s getting close.

It’s at this point in any project that I just want to stay up all night coding and photoshopping and furiously sprinting to the finish, but I’m going to pace it out and most likely draw these final pieces out for 2-3 more weeks.

That sums up the progress thus far. It’s not terribly informative I know, but mostly this post has been an exercise in bleeding off energy before I collapse for the night. It was either that or dive back into the project and be up until 4am.

-Joe

Well, I wanted to sort of introduce you fine folks to what I think makes a game fun, and give you an idea of what flavor of entertainment you can expect from me.

And away we go…

The core of my ‘design philosophy’ (which is an ostentatious term I know, but what the hell, let’s roll with it) orbits around the idea that we have been playing rehashes of the same handful of generic games for quite a while now. Surely the graphics have been updated, and maybe a new novelty is tossed in the mix, but essentially it’s been the same first person shooter, the same RTS, the same MMORPG, etc. etc. We’ve all been playing Pac-Man, only now he has individually rendered hairs. I think that graphics are largely overrated, and the rude game play equation needs to be the pillar supporting any truly great game. Don’t get me wrong, graphics are pretty…that’s what they do, but the foundation needs to be strong before prettiness should even be considered, lest ye waste your time spit polishing a turd. So what I’m hoping to do is put together some engaging and truly fun distractions, and if I’m lucky, maybe even create something great.

When I think of ’something great’ in the context of a game, it should conform to a few simple parameters:

- Only be as graphically complicated as is minimally necessary.

- The ‘entertainment value’ should lie in a well executed and engaging game mechanic, and should lean secondarily on the specific content. (and by ‘content’ I mean story lines, game maps, dialog, cut scenes and all that sort of thing)

- Strong replay value is a must, so the noble goal is to have either:

A) Engaging, dynamically generated content

B) Simple yet addicting gameplay, upon which ‘content’ is thinly draped (not to beat the pac-man thing to death, but it’s a good example)

- A game should aspire to enhance the experience of playing in some new and interesting way, or at least approach an old favorite from a idiosyncratic new angle.

So that’s the grand plan, which I hope to be able to actually implement, but I acknowledge that (especially in the beginning) I may not be able to fully realize. It’s unavoidable that producing anything complex (in this case, software) is a constant series of trade-offs, but each compromise is made one goal in mind: barter for as much quality as you can get.

Given that this whole endeavor is essentially a lark and a hobby at this point, I have the luxury of trying new ideas with wild abandon, so I’m damn well going to do it. I fully expect that some, if not most, will be total failures. I guess that’s just the nature of the game if you’re trying to pull off something truly worthwhile. If I have to climb a mountain of failures to build something great at the summit, then it’s time well spent. (how’s that for a dramatic metaphor!)

So stay tuned, and have enjoy the ride, I know I will.

-Joe out.