For those following along at home, I’ve added a GitHub repository tracking the development of Scavenger Wars over the weekend. Due to licensing issue with some 3rd party assets I’m using for prototyping, this repository is only going to contain scripts and data that I develop for Scavenger Wars, so it won’t work out-of-the-box just yet.
Hybrid race / collecting / combat game set inside derelict spacecraft. 2D overhead space ships in zero gravity; small arenas with environmental hazards. Single player against AI, possible multiplayer. (more…)
This weekend is the first I’ve had entirely free for a while, so to stave off the inevitable encroachment of boredom I’m going to be making a game with the new Unity 3, and because this is the internet: blogging about it in an almost-live way.
My goals for this weekend are to complete a functional prototype (no fancy graphics, entirely placeholder art and sound effects), to implement as many of the gameplay mechanisms from the design document as possible, and to have a lot of fun.
To get started, I’ve been rummaging through my ever-expanding collection of half-done game design documents, and decided on a concept I named “Scavenger Wars” as something that is both achievable and offers enough complexity to present a decent challenge.
Alice did it, and from there I’ve found some more interesting people doing it. So to throw myself aboard a bandwagon (and break a long dry spell without posting), here are 5 things I’m thinking about right now:
A week ago, in a bout of foolish zeal for getting back into shape, I purchased Wii Fit.
I thought at the time that I had a pretty good idea of what I was letting myself in for. It’s a games console, I told myself. How hard can it be?
As it turns out, the answer is very hard indeed.
Wii Fit features a very wide range of games and exercises, far more so than I exepcted. There are Yoga Exercises for posture, strength and balance, Muscle Exercises for strength, Aerobic Games for burning off the calories and building endurance, and Balance Games for balance and swearing loudly at the TV. With a dozen or more varying activities in each category, and several levels of difficulty for each, there’s an awful lot to keep both mind and body occupied.
I spent the first couple of days gently easing my way into the new regime with an hour or so on the aerobic and balance games, and after a shaky start started racking up decent scores on the easiest levels. The yoga and muscle exercises looked just a little too boring (and frankly, intimidating) for me to get into them until yesterday.
I assumed that the yoga and muscle exercises would not involve the Balance Board (the handy peripheral that makes Wii Fit possible in the first place). Again, I was proven wrong when I loaded up the first Deep Breathing exercise. Asked to stand as still as possible whilst maintaining an even breathing rhythm, I found myself swaying slightly with each breath, a little indicator of my centre of gravity weaving from side to side as I over-compensated trying to keep it within the target area.
I’d write more, but right now a skinny virtual woman is needs to kick my ass with some impossible yoga poses.
After 10 months of absence (and whilst I can’t log into LOTRO for the millionth time) I decided to reinstall WoW today and make use of Blizzard’s 10 day free trial for The Burning Crusade.
Of course, since I’m working on an entirely new system, that meant digging out the old CDs and reinstalling from scratch.
Basic premise:
Players in a persistent virtual world inhabit two states — two parallel lives.
When not active in the world, players take on the role of NPCs, their bodies under the control of basic AI routines that go about daily life in any of the towns and villages that scatter the world. The fulfil the roles of members of a community — undertaking production, vending, civic duties that players would for the most part find unsatisfying.
When a player becomes active in the world their character undergoes a transformation from their mundane life into an agent for change in the world. It’s the player’s choice what form this agency takes — they could choose to fulfil their role in a society actively undertaking tasks that the game’s AI would otherwise perform — or they can act out an alternative role beyond the boundaries of normal life and follow the course of hero’s journey that the game allows for.
