Kung Fu Chop ‘Post Month-em’: A Great Way to Spend 30 Days
Forward
Its 7am on Monday morning February 14th. I know that for 36 hours I will rarely leave this chair. I am finishing the prototype of a game called Kung Fu Chop that I started January 10th 2011. I have spent around 30 working days on the game and have averaged around 40 hours a week. I am entering this game into the Kongregate/Unity3d, which ends tomorrow. Through the course of development I have come up with a slew of great ideas for this game, most of which will not be included in this preview version. Its been a wild and fantastic ride over the last month, one in which I have made several realizations that will inform my future as an indie developer. However, right now I need to keep a pot of coffee at the ready and put my nose to the grindstone. In the span of a few line breaks I hope to finish this prototype and be left with a fun, cohesive gameplay experience.
And just like that the game is finished! My ‘crunch’ period turned out to be relatively stress free. I did locate a couple of bugs. I failed to complete the final level of the game. But that is the beauty of future updates. Kung Fu Chop is playable over at Kongregate.com right now! I will continue working on this game, and am very happy with the direction it is taking. I would love to hear all of your comments or suggestions for the future development too. Here is the story of how I made this game and a bit of a post-mortem (although I don’t consider the game finished so I am calling it a post month-em.)
2 weeks in, less than 3 to go
The new game is progressing very nicely. I can officially release the title…. Kung Fu Chop. I have been working so diligently that there has barely been enough time to eat and sleep, say nothing of blogging. I have come across a couple of fantastic tools for use with Unity that I would like to bring to everyone’s attention.
The first is iTween by Bob Berkibile. This great tweening system can be used in countless ways. I am sure I will still be discovering interesting things to do with it for many projects to come. If you are a Unity developer and have ever needed to make an object move, rotate, fade, or pretty much anything else, all within one line of code you need this tool. http://itween.pixelplacement.com/examples.php
The next great thing which I just discovered this evening is the Messenger Class offered by Flashbang Studios. Anyone who has used Unity knows that it can be a pain to get various objects or scripts within a game to speak to one another. You can use SendMessage() but its slow and only allows one arguement, not to mention a reference to the object you are communicating with. Or you could use global variables, but that is all sorts of wrong under most circumstances. Enter the Message Class. This nifty little guy will allow you to painlessly broadcast data throughout your game with zero dependency, the more I use it the more I love it! Grab it here courtesy of Flashbang via Blurst Technology Blog http://technology.blurst.com/unityscript-messaging-system/
I will leave you with another screenshot. Please be aware that everything is still very much temporary. I am currently tuning the main mechanic. My hope is to spend next week building on the upgrade system and the following week polishing the graphics and sound. If I pull this one off in time I might actually pat myself on the back.
2 Days in…
I’ve started my prototype that I plan to enter in the Kongregate – Unity contest and I need to say “I missed you Unity!” It took a couple of hours to shake the rust off as its been almost a year since I have used Unity but after I got into the groove it was amazing. My goal for this game is to have a very simple and accessible mechanic combined with a rich upgrade system. I would love to throw in some new mechanics as you progress through the game but being that time is so short I am not sure if that is going to happen. I am also very committed to releasing this game on web and the i-devices so I need to keep input in mind. I also purchased a new computer today as my current rig is 5 years old next month. I finally get to run on Windows 7, I officially waited out Vista and then some. Here is a screen shot of what I have currently. I don’t want to release too many details about the game until its further along but I will say this… I got a copy of Kung Fu Panda in the mail today for reference material.
Back in the Saddle!
The holidays are over and my month jaunt back to the world of odd jobs and construction work is through, yeah!! I had to recoup a bit of money after my flash game Dwarf War sold for a bit less than I had hoped. While building a kitchen addition a ladder I was on collapsed sending me 10-12 feet on to the concrete below. I took this to be life telling me I needed to get back to my comfy computer chair.
I have been messing around with Adam Atomic’s awesome flash game engine Flixel for the first time and I love it. I already have two prototypes going in about 10 hours of total commitment. I will definitely be making some flash projects with it. While I was away however a very interesting opportunity has arisen. Kongregate announced Unity support and has a contest running which ends on February 15th. If Dwarf War taught me anything it is that I need to speed up my development process greatly if I am going to make a living at this. Even with possible backend sitelock sales and ad revenue Dwarf War will make me less than $5.00 an hour for the time I put into it. This is squarely my fault for being slow in development. So I have decided to do my best putting together a Unity project and entering the contest by the 15th. This brings me to my second point…
When I go into development I have always taken the hermit approach. I lock the doors and only return when they game is done. I don’t think this is a good practice so I am going to try developing this title openly and publicly the way the wolfire guys have been doing it. I honestly give myself a 50-50 chance to get this game done in time but its worth a shot. Either way I will get a game out of it. And with the beauty that is Unity I have the opportunity to release on the i-devices or another platform when I am finished as well as Kongregate.
Here’s to a productive 6 weeks!
Flash Games and the Value of Immersion
- ImmorTall has an amazing story and over a half million plays on ArmorGames.com
As a flash developer it is extremely important to me to choose my next game project carefully. The average profit margins on free to play flash development are pretty thin and a single misstep can really tighten the noose around a developer’s neck. Popular opinion states that the most desirable trait for a web game is addictive gameplay. This is what I am always aiming for. Addictive gaming generally translates to more ‘plays’ and that generates more money. This often leads to a lack of immersive play and story in these games and I think that is a detriment to web games in general.
Dwarf War Up for Sponsorship!
I have finally completed Dwarf War and it is up for sponsorship on Flash Game License! This game took far too long for me to make but after a 3 year absence from making games it was great to shake off the rust and complete something. I am proud of how the game has turned out and think that it offers a HUGE amount of value for a free toplay flash title. Check out the trailer and the game play video below.
Making a site in 2010 sucks!
Web pages officially left me behind. I used to be good at this shit 10 years ago. I suppose a decade of not paying attention to what was going on with website design really does screw things up. This server is unbelievably slow because of the server side scripts involved in blogging and web 2.0 jazz, I apologize. Unfortunately I am a game designer not a website designer so its going to have to be pretty lame around here until I can afford a better server or spare the time to actually learn how to do a custom wordpress theme. I hope anyone who finds this page interesting can bear with me, thanks!
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