May's Game: Guilty Pleasures Chapter One

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, my plan for this month was to take the first chapter from the book Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton and rework it into a text based game. My hope was to enable the player to play as though they are Anita Blake, yet keep the energy the original author put into it. I think I managed to do this.

Guilty Pleasures Chapter 1 Text based game

The basics of the game are pretty self explanatory. You simply read the text and click on a link at the bottom. Some pages have more than one option. Some will give you some background information to the story and world, others will allow you to skip past the detail. Those of you who have read the actual book will notice that I've added a few things to the story. Hopefully these don't detract from it.

If enough people like this chapter, I might do another from a different book next month. I'm hesitant to do any further chapters from Guilty Pleasures as I don't want to run afoul of Fair Use laws nor do I want to detract from Ms Hamilton's hard work. So if you like what I've done, I strongly recommend that you purchase the book and support this wonderful author.

To play the game, simply click on this link, download the html file and double click on it. It should open in your web browser.

My Next Game Project

As most of you who read this blog will know, I am attempting the One Game a Month Challenge. My first four games were all different games done with different engines and/or different programming languages.

Starting this month (May), each month's project will be part of a larger project. The next eight "games" will be based on chapters from the book "Guilty Pleasures" by Laurell K. Hamilton. Obviously, this is a fan project and all of the respective copyrights (characters, storyline etc) belong to Ms. Hamilton and as such, it will not be sold. Ever.

Why do a project that I will never be able to sell? There are a few reasons. First, I'm neither a game designer nor an author and as such could never make anything like this on my own. Second, I'm a huge fan of Laurell K. Hamilton and her Anita Blake series and thought it would neat to try to make a visual/interactive game based on one of the books.

Saying all this, I'm still not certain how to approach this project. Do I turn it into a storyline based RPG type similar to Elder Scrolls (but in 2D) where the player chooses conversation lines? Or do I give it more of a "bookish" feel where the player basically watches the story unfold and is only given control to do things like click various items for back story/more detail and battles?

Each approach has its pros and cons. An RPG would give the player more freedom, but they wouldn't get the detail and back story depth that an interactive "book" game would give.

Also, I'm not certain how I should make the game itself. Do I make it in C++ or should I use a game engine like Construct2? I have no idea how to use graphics in C++, but I would be able to type the code itself fairly easily. While with Construct2, using graphics is as easy as double clicking on the screen, but I find the code itself a bit difficult to use - especially with complex ideas. Ah, if only there was a game engine that handles graphics as easily as Construct2 does and uses C++ as well! The closest I know of is Unity, but that uses C# and is for 3D games/graphics.

April's Game: Spring to Space

Spring to Space

This month's game for the One Game a Month Challenge is called "Spring to Space" and comprises three levels. The game starts deep underground and your goal is to jump up to the moon, hence the title. Each level has enemies to avoid, hit one and you restart the level. There is no way to kill the enemies, avoiding them is your only option. Once you reach the highest point of the level and go through the portal, the next level will start.

You may have noticed that the graphics are very simple placeholders in this game instead of the more polished sprites in most of my previous games. The reason for this is simply because I've spent the last three weeks trying to learn the basics of the Construct 2 game engine. For some reason, I've found it to be quite difficult to get my head around. Since I didn't want this month to go without a game however, I took what I had learned and tried to make something simple and working.

You can find the game in my public Dropbox folder. Simply download the zip file, extract the contents and double click on the springtospace.exe file. This release is for Windows only. If you have Linux or OSX, let me know and I will release versions for them as well. Be warned that I've only tested the Windows version though.

This next month I'll be learning more about the Construct 2 game engine so hopefully next month's game will be better.

1GAM Month Three

March's game is being done in C++ and is proving to be very educational. The more I work on it, the more I learn and the more comfortable I'm becoming with the code and syntax. Saying that, my bf is helping me and has basically walked me through everything, giving hints and suggestions to try to encourage me to think up the code with minimal "cheating".

Today we finally got the game pretty much up and running. I say "pretty much" because some things aren't coded in completely yet and there are of course a few bugs to work out. It works enough to have enabled me to get a screen shot of the game though.

The game is called "Chest Work", which is a pun/word play on the phrase "Guess work" and is a very basic old-school roguelike which uses ASCII characters to represent people and items. In this instance, 'R' is the rogue character, 'C' is a locked chest, 'c' is an opened chest, 'T' represents an armed trap, and 't' is an unarmed trap.

As the game starts you find yourself in a room which contains 6 chests and 3 traps all randomly placed around the room. Some chests are trapped, some are just merely locked. All contain treasure. You have 3 lives. Traps which you fail to disarm take away one life. Fail to disarm the trapped chest however and it's an automatic game over.

As of today, all that's left to do is the coding for the traps and bug zapping. With a bit of luck and some hard work, it'll be done by the weekend!

1GAM Month 1 Feature #5

This is the final feature for the month of January. In two short days February will be upon us and all of us who are taking part in the one game a month challenge will start building new games. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Thinking About February

February's idea for the One Game A Month challenge is another simple game. This one differs from the last game in that it is completely my idea, based off of a dream I had awhile ago.

The game design is as follows:

You own a petting zoo full of cute creatures, but your zoo has run out of water. You must drive to a watering hole, fill up your van with water and drive back.

There are a few problems though. First, your van uses up fuel rather quickly. The other problem is made apparent when you drain the watering hole. It seems the local wildlife don't appreciate you taking their water, so they jump into your van and do their best to drink as much of the water as they can before you get back to your zoo!

As we know, problems always have solutions and these are no different. Lack of fuel is easily solved as the "fuel" your van runs on is junk food and there is quite a bit of it littering the road. Simply run over it and your van automatically converts it into fuel. As for the animals...well, there's only one thing you can do - throw them out! This is done by hitting potholes and rocks in the road. Hit enough of them and an animal will fall out of the back of the van. The less animals there are in the van, the less they can drink!

This game is going to be done in GameMaker again as I still don't know enough C++ or Python to do much in the way of programming (I'm still learning the basics). I'm also not certain how I can turn this idea into an actual game; that is, keeping count of the animals, determining how to get GameMaker to randomly choose an animal to bounce out of the van and so on, but I do have a few ideas. If anyone can give me a hint or two, I will definitely listen!

January's Game: Circus Calamity!!

With just over a week to go before the month is behind us, I am happy to announce that I have finished my first game for the OneGameAMonth challenge.

It is, to put it simply, a game. It is called "Circus Calamity" and is a very simple point and click game. The object of the game is to click everything that moves (except for the bombs - you don't want to click them, trust me) until they go away. Click enough and you'll get a nifty surprise bonus item! What do you do with this nifty bonus item? You click it, of course! (What, you were expecting something else?)

Since I am not (yet) fluent in any programming languages, this game was done using GameMaker and the graphics and music were found free-to-use on various websites.

To play the game, you have two choices. If you own GameMaker on Steam, you can find the game here or you can download the exe here. The exe only works on Windows; if you don't have Windows, I do apologize.

My next few games will probably be made in GameMaker again. Hopefully before the year is out, I'll be far enough in my C++ course to be able to make a simple game outside of GameMaker. We'll see, I guess.

Roll on February!

1GAM Month 1 Feature #4

Zombie Forever by BillySpelchan

The 4th feature for OneGameAMonth is strategy game Zombie Forever by BillySpelchan.

Zombie Forever is a turn-based game wherein you play a zombie. Your goal is to turn other people into zombies to create a massive zombie army. Obviously, the humans don't want to be part of your army, so they fight back. The game ends when either everyone is a zombie or when all the zombies are dead.

You control your zombies using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Attacking is done by walking into people. Movement is limited to one space for every hit point you have, so 3 hp equals 3 spaces per turn.

This is a pretty good game which requires quite a bit of strategy to play. The only thing that didn't "work" for me was that you have to be careful when moving as you can damage your own zombies if you bump into them. Once you get used to the movement mechanics though, avoiding running into other zombies isn't too difficult.

With just over a week left in the month, January's challenge is nearly at its end. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's games!

1GAM Month 1 Feature #3

Undead Stones by PistillPhil

The 3rd feature for the One Game A Month Challenge is Undead Stones by PistillPhil.

Undead Stones is a simple one player game where the player controls a wizard's apprentice who wakes up to find that the place has been over run by skeletons. The only problem is she only knows one spell and all it does (after several tries) is freeze the fiends in their tracks!

The controls are easy: W, A, S, D to move the character and the arrow keys to fire the spell in a given direction. The challenge is to freeze the skeletons before they run into you. Get hit too many times, and the game is over.

While the game itself is enjoyable to play, there are a few things that can be done to improve upon it. On my monitor, the game is too big, rendering the score impossible to see. Also, the ending could be more concrete. Currently "game over" is signified by the room being over run with the undead, yet you can still move around and fire your spells. Even with these minor problems though, the game is quite re-playable.

Keep up the good work everyone! 

1GAM Month 1 Feature #1

Fire Power by Chris Willoughby

The first One Game A Month feature is Fire Power by Chris Willoughby.  This game, according to Chris, was done as a "warm up" exercise for the challenge.

Fire Power is a simple click-and-drag game in which you're a god. In the upper left corner of the screen you have a power bar and three icons which signify different powers: fire, water, and earth. The goal is to keep your power bar full and reach ever higher scores by wreaking havoc on the earth below you. Simply click on a power and set fire to the forests, flood them, or bury the area in dirt.

If Chris's actual submissions are anything like this game, we're in for some nice treats over the next 12 months!

Next week I will start featuring proper 1GAM submissions. If you would like a review of your game here, simply at mention me (https://twitter.com/MuirDH) with a link before Tuesday the 8th! First person to do so gets the feature!

One Game A Month

2013 marks the start of a new adventure in my life. I have enrolled in Train2Game, a distance learning course, in order to learn how to code video games (i.e. Game Development).

 In the spirit of learning, I have joined up to the One Game a Month Challenge in the hopes that doing so will  give me more knowledge, contacts, and confidence in my work.

You're probably wondering what this challenge is all about. In a nutshell, you make one game a month, every month, for a year. Which means by the end of December 2013, I will (theoretically) have 12 completed, playable games.

The first few games that I make will be done in Game Maker. This is primarily because I have yet to learn any programming languages. Hopefully in the months to come I will be able to start making games using Python and C++, but that's then and this is now. For now, baby steps.

Already I have a list of game ideas for each month. This list will not be posted here however - not because I don't want to share, but because the list will probably change as the year goes on. However, I will say that the first several planned games are based on the Game Maker game tutorials that Train2Game students make at the beginning of the course. My plan is to take these games and polish them up a bit, changing the mechanics slightly, adding bosses, levels and various bonuses. Think of them as a stepping stone of sorts - building on what I already know so that I can reach a higher level for the next game(s).

Also, in the spirit of goodwill (the 1GAM motto is "Be good to each other"), I will feature one game per week on this blog. The first person to @ mention me on Twitter (@MuirDH) each week with a link to a playable game (WIPs are allowed as long as they're playable) will get their game reviewed and featured on this blog. For clarity, since the 1GAM challenge officially starts on the 1 January 2013 (Tuesday), each week will start on a Tuesday. I will post reminder tweets each Monday so no one forgets.

Happy gaming!