#eatnonymous

Day 3 of Game Development Week Overview

This is all I did. I created the directory that would eventually lead to making Eatnonymous. Today was interesting. It was the kind of day where you look at the clock, feeling like you have only been up for an hour, and it's already 3 P.M. I turned on the TV, started to watch the movie Big Fish, and I had a nap. I never have naps, usually.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm trying to force a game out of me. Part of the reason I got a Tumblr was to document my experiences as a game developer. All I have to show for it is two barely interactive fictions that I made as part of high school assignments. Now I'm in university, taking computer science courses, but I don't really have games to show for it. Do I not want to make games?

Then I realize that I'm lazy. I say I want to be a writer, yet I rarely write. If you follow my main blog (pocketforstupidcomments), I said I would draw every day. I've kept at it longer than any of my other creative ventures, but I don't do it every day. I need to kick myself in the pants and get my blood pumping.

At the same time, I don't know if my previous "LEARN GAME MAKER IN JUST ONE WEEK" attitude was good. In fact, I think I'm prematurely ending Game Development Week. I still want to make games (and MaverickPixel, you will get your birthday game eventually) and I still want to make the two games I mentioned. But I want to go at a different direction.

First things first, I'm bringing back Tissues. Tissues is the perfect project for me. I still have to learn RPG Maker, but I don't think that would be as much of a problem as with other engines/game makers. It is also a nice, happy game, and I need one of those to work on. Most of all, it is me trying to keep my word and do things that I said I'd do.

Also, I'll work on actually learning the platforms I use in depth, be that Game Maker, Flash, Pygame, or even C++ with some kind of library or framework. I'll work at getting the knowledge I need first. For example, although I know some Python, I'm still a beginner, just now exploring topics like recursion, classes, and abstract data types with any depth. So I'll work at it.

Day 2 of Game Development Week Overview

I mostly still did Game Maker tutorials. The first tutorial I did today and the one I did yesterday did teach me about the Drag and Drop interface, but the tutorial I did where this Breakout clone came from (Once again, none of the assets in the picture are mine, but YoYo Games' creation) was supposed to teach me about how to write Game Maker Language, and I learned nothing. I just did what it told me to, and the last instructions, which would teach me to make a title screen, a high score system, and other finishing touches didn't even work. I didn't really try that hard. Like yesterday, today was a write-off.

I also started a side project in easy-to-use hypertext system Twine, but that project will probably not be finished. It's based on a really dirty and bad question that I asked myself today that I found so ridiculous that I had to write it down. But that game would be NSFW and generally way too much information than you want to know about me. However, if there is interest in my short, personal, disgusting joke game, I might release it.

Tomorrow, I might start work in Ren'Py to start working on Eatnonymous. That will be nice, because almost all of the programming I've done in the past year is Python, and I'm familiar with Ren'Py.. I also might skip the built-in tutorials and just fiddle around with Game Maker.

Day 1 of Game Development Week Overview

OK, time to get embarrassing: I haven't actually worked with Game Maker before. So all I did today was do a basic Game Maker tutorial that came with Game Maker and make this "Catch The Clown" game, where you click on a clown that changes directions frequently, as well as speeding up every time you click on the clown. (Note: None of these visuals are mine, but rather the property of YoYo Games.)

I would have done more Game Maker tutorials, but I was out with my parents for most of the day and watching movies with my Dad for most of the night.

Thoughts:

-The two-person random door shooting game I mentioned earlier is way too intense for a nine (and, to be honest, let's call today a write-off, eight)-day period for a beginner like me. I still want to make it, but not this week.

-I still want to make Eatnonymous, but not in Game Maker. I'll make it in Ren'Py, because it's Python-based, and Python is the language I'm most comfortable with; it's text-based, and I have no idea how to make a good text-based game in Game Maker; and the fact that I have used Ren'Py before.

-So, if I'm not making those games in Game Maker, why even try learning Game Maker? Well, it's my friend, MaverickPixel's  birthday today, so, as a gift, I asked him to make a game idea that I would make. He came up with a game on the spot that's based on bad MIDI music, stick figures that bump into each other, and the refrigerator. So, I came up with a game idea that I could make around those things in Game Maker.

So, that's the first day of Game Development Week. I have until February 23 to make a game. Can I do it?

So, as you can tell by this blog, I'm not very committed to game development. Maybe this is a sign I'm actually not interested in game development. However, I'm putting that aside for a just over one week period, because from February 15 to February 23, I have Reading Week at my school. And instead of getting caught up and being the best student I can be, I'm going to try to make games!

I have a couple ideas that I want to strive for, but recognize that I could fail with these ideas, as they might be too big. Even if I fail with these, I'll still make a game.

Eatnonymous - You are on a date at one of the most mysterious and bizarrely romantic places to go on a date - A restaurant completely in the dark. There is no judgement over looks or how fancy one's clothes are, just a date with a person and their personality.

However, there's a chance that your date might be trying to poison you. Try to figure this out through the dialogue. If you refuse to eat food that is not poisoned, the date ends. If you eat poisoned food, you die (obviously). If you make the right choices of things to eat, you win! Hopefully, you go on a date that's nice and non-life threatening!

I don't want visuals other than text, so I could theoretically do this in something like the hypertext authouring system Twine. I do want there to be a little randomization with the dates and the dialogue, as well as some sound for ambiance. Twine can do these things, but I can also use the Python knowledge that I have learned in the past year and use the Python based visual novel maker Ren'Py to do it. However, since I'm using Game Maker Studio to make the next game, I might use this game to experiment in Game Maker for that game.

-The second game is a two-player local multiplayer game. There are four floors of five doors. If a person enters a door, they get sent to another door that was randomly decided before the match.

Two people have guns, and each person is trying to shoot the other person. Use the doors to traverse around the floors and try to shoot the other person. Another game about shooting people, how original and progressive. 

So, next Saturday will hopefully be the start of this venture. I'll post progress on this blog. Time for me to stop talking and start doing.