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Console dweebs frequently say things like "PC games suck because you can't be sure they'll run," and its true that sometimes there are configuration issues. Of course, we PC gamers sneer at console gamers for this kind of thing, because it's rarely a problem post-DirectX, and anyway, we know what a goddamn DOS prompt looks like and know how to use a Linux shell when we need to, and suspect that console gamers' coffee pots are all blinking "12:00". But Jesper makes me think maybe they have a point.

4:32 is inspired by John Cage's famous musical composition, "4:33". "4:33" is four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. The question Jesper poses is: What is the gaming equivalent?

The results are funny. Give it a -- well, "play" in the sense of playing a video more than in the sense of playing a game, perhaps, but amusing. I'll note however that I have not gotten to the end, because beyond a certain point I can't be bothered, and anyway it's taken me more than four minutes and thirty-two seconds to get as far as I did.

I have been designing the new battle system and I finally decided on how it is going to be, let me tell you about it. The characters are going to remain the same like in the other battle system idea but adapted to the gameplay of this new one, they are going to be procedurally generated except yours, which are going to be customized to your own desires, choosing any weapon you like,  any armor you like, and you'll be able to see them fighting with other fighters in this mini game. You won't need to teach your characters lots of different… Continue reading

I have been thinking about the battle mini game after testing it a few times and trying a couple of things. I think that the beat 'em up idea does not fit with the Princess Maker type of experience I want to make. The game I am trying to make is more about thinking and thoughtful decitions, not about quick decitions like Diablo, so I am thinking about changing the direction I was taking and going towards something more like Monster Rancher or Pokemon type of gameplay. I still want to keep the way it looks though. The ability to see… Continue reading

Ok, I got combos working in my battle prototype , but, play testing it is not really that fun. I have studied lots of games where there is fighting involved, and I tried to put all the fun parts of them in the most basic form into my game, the result is a beat 'em up/ fighting game with only one button, you can make combos by clicking very fast, you kill enemies by hitting them 3 times. So, the play goes like this, you click like crazy one enemy until you kill it, then you kill another, then another, and on… Continue reading

I just got working the collision system, most of it actually, now I can detect which weapons are hitting a target and which target are beign hit, to be able to respond accordingly to each special attack, applying the stats of each character. Here is a screenshot, please notice that the graphics are just placeholders, and I am not the authors of them, final art will be composed of various custom made parts, each part of an "entity", that is, an arm, a head, the legs, will be separate moveable sprites, to be able to create almost a infinite number of… Continue reading

Yesterday I have reached another milestone, I finished a playable prototype for the traveling mini game, where you have to travel to your desired planet in the least days by choosing the highest speed possible, while at the same time trying to keep a good amount of fuel after the trip. Click the image to enlarge. I also wanted to show you another mini game prototype, it is about exploration of the planet. Each planet is generated proceduraly, so you can have docens of planets discovered in each galaxy, it basically allows unlimited gameplay, thousands of galaxies with unique planets in… Continue reading

I can happily say that right now I can start programming the core gameplay of my new game :D I just finished a better game state system that will allow me to quickly change between menu screen to gameplay screen without effort. It's just programming stuff that will make things easier for me to work in the game, giving me much less work to do. In the previous game changing between screen was a tedious hard work where I had to store each variable one by one and create... well, suffice to say that It was very tedious. I also implemented a… Continue reading