State of the Blog - June 2014

I'm back in class!  This, of course, is a double-edged sword, because while it's good news for my career, it's bad news for the projects at this site.  Mostly what it means is focusing on the projects that are most important to me and/or beneficial for my portfolio, and jettisoning the extraneous.

Untitled Gaming Library
This is the project I'm currently most excited about.  It started as the game engine for Mom I'm Home and then Wizard's Scroll, and then I starting rewriting the engine into small functions that could be used for any project, and what I'm ending up with is a pretty useful library of game-making tools.  This is a long-term project, but eventually I'd like to tweak it into something really classy I can release on GitHub.

Wizard's Scroll
My biggest short-term goal right now is Wizard's Scroll.  Although my eventual goal a 100-level game with fully functional level editor is still a ways off, the 50-level demo version is very close to finished.  I just need to tweak a little code and get it running on JVM.  Probably two weeks worth of work, if I had two consecutive weeks to work on any one thing right now.

Clueball
My second most immediate priority is Clueball.  The nice thing about this one is the game is already fully functional; I'm just adding a few coats of paint and some additional features.  My original goal with Clueball, back when I started it last year, was to implement full Facebook functionality; that's moved to the backburner for now.  I'd be more interested in seeing if I could PhoneGap it into running on Android...

Untitled Meditation App
I haven't mentioned it here, but I've been fiddling with an idea for a meditation app on the side.  This is another long-term project; the goal is to have something simple running by the time I move at the end of the year.  I know a few martial artists in the area that I'm moving to, and my hope is to get some "professional" feedback and suggestions, resulting in a nice little Android app.

Mom I'm Home
The concept of Mom I'm Home was to make a Legend of Zelda-style game with SNES-style graphics loosely based on my childhood neighborhood (a suburb with several nearby forested areas), with the urban parts serving as the overworld and the forest areas serving as the dungeons.  I still think this is an interesting idea, but the truth is, this is a project that would take a whole team of programmers to complete, not just one guy.  That's why this game (along with Lore and other projects I've mentioned here and there) are going on indefinite hiatus.  That's the downside of focusing on the important projects; it means some other, interesting stuff falling through the cracks. But fear not! Things will be resurrected as I find the time slash resources.

Update on Current Projects

Untitled Sokobon
My sokobon (formerly called "Star Wand") is still progressing very nicely!  It's getting the bulk of my attention at the moment.  The plan is to release it as a free download with 100 rooms and a level editor.  We'll see how feasible that turns out to be.

Mom I'm Home
I'm still working on this game when I have free time, but I'm well aware that it's a big project that will take a long time to finish, so for right now I'm focusing on smaller projects that I can have up and running in the near future, and saving this game for when I can give it the time and attention it deserves.  I will say, however, that my wife and I will be spending this summer in my hometown, so it wouldn't surprise me if I get hit with a rush of inspiration.

Lore
Haven't mentioned it here yet, but this is a roguelike I started fourth quarter 2013, probably around October.  About once a month I dust it off and work on it a little.  It's a long way from where I'd like to ideally take it, but I was surprised, looking at it recently, to see that it's a lot closer to being in a playable, presentable form then I had remembered.  Maybe I can put a little polish on it and get it online one of these days.


Lore

Clueball
Clueball is a game in the match-3 genre, except instead of matching three, you're counting to ten.  I'm very proud of it, and would like to apply a couple coats of paint and Facebook functionality at some point.  This is probably my first priority (besides possibly Lore) once I get Untitled Sokobon completed.

Monkeys in the Playground
MITP is an educational site I launched summer of last year, and while I'm pleased with the work I put into it, I'm taking it down soon.  Of the three games it has, one is a silly art program, one is a half-finished platformer I did entirely in a game-creation program (not too proud of that), and one is Clueball.  While I'm still very interested in developing educational games as a career, I've decided not to pigeonhole myself as I work on my portfolio.  Plus, I finally got around to showing it to some actual children, and they all thought the name was silly (insert smiley face icon to denote humor here).

Sincerest flattery

So, I wake up this morning, sit down at my computer, open up my blog feed, and am immediately confronted by this: "Oscar: a game about childhood, for adults" that "tells the story of the character through the game's mechanics and environment".  I nearly had a heart attack! Then I watched the video and saw that the game has nothing in common with Mom I'm Home. Phew! Crisis adverted.

As always, these are placeholder graphics only

Picture of an untitled sokoban (block pushing game, a la Lolo) I've been working on for the last couple of weeks.  I was inspired by all the PuzzleScript games I've seen popping up lately, and wanted to do something with the Mom I'm Home engine that would be finished and playable a little sooner then Mom I'm Home will be.  Plus, all the tweaking I do goes right back into Mom I'm Home, so it's like working on two games at once!  Sorta.

#screenshotsaturday

 

Mom, I'm Home

(Note: this screenshot contains placeholder graphics.  Most notably, the sprite for the boy is actually Mike from NES game Zoda's Revenge.  Obviously this is not permanent.)

As I mentioned in the last post, Mom I'm Home is a very personal project for me.  As a kid, I spent a lot of time playing video games, but I also spent a lot of time exploring the world around me.  It always fascinated me how small everything seemed in video games.  Doorways are just big enough for one person to squeeze through, beds are exactly the same size as the person who sleeps in them.  As a child, the world looked huge to me - a car was easily as big (and as dangerous) as any boss monster.  There were lots of houses and sidewalks in my neighborhood, but also lots of streams and forested areas.  I'm really enjoying taking the way I saw the world as a kid - both the real parts and the imagined parts - and turning it into something for people to enjoy.

Resolutions

It's a new year, 2013, and time for New Year's Resolutions! This year I resolve to post on my blog every...

...wait, it's already February, isn't it?

Nuts.

Anyways, time for some quick updates:

Compact Tank
Those who followed my (failed?) game jam experiment last year know that I was working on a game called Compact Tank.  It would have basically been a clone/homage to underrated Gameboy classic Trax.  In it, you drove a compact tank, which is like a compact car, except it's a tank.  Anyways, I picked it as a simple idea I thought I could get done in 48 hours, and now that the game jam is over I have no real motivation to finish it, although I have cannibalized the code I had working into my next project:

Mom, I'm Home
Mom I'm Home is an extremely personal project about seeing the world from a child's point of view.  Much like Miyamoto and The Legend of Zelda, it's based on memories of exploring my neighborhood as a kid.

Clueball
Clueball is finished in that it works and it's playable, but it still needs a lot of finishing touches and some TLC.  Hoping to finally get this up and running on FaceBook pretty soon.

Monkeys in the Playground
Monkeys in the Playground as always remains a priority.  I'm hoping to relaunch it soon as less of an educational website and more of a brain training website.

More updates as they happen!