Fledgling Videogame Developer

I started sketching a game for FGL's "week long game jam" , and noticed quite soon that I have a game idea that would need smoke animation. I did not have previous experience how to create one, so it was time for few trials. One of them proved to be useful for me, and here is description how it was done with Construct2 . First of all, I tried different styles of "particles" or objects for a smoke. My target was to create something like volcano-style smoke, meaning that it will appear in certain point and starts ascending slowly to the sky. Simultaneously, this puff of smoke expands and gets thinner (=opacity decreases), and at some point it disappears totally. Just like in the still picture below: I tested couple of options for creating a smoke object, and ended up something like described in the picture below: Somehow, round shapes looked the best, but I tried cloud-like objects also. The background was light blue, so dark colors were better in this...

I started evaluating new game development tools for a few weeks ago. My target was to find out which kind of tools are available for creating games for e.g. HTML5, Android, facebook etc. During the search I happened to find out that there was a Construct 2 jam ongoing at Newgrounds, and realized I did not know anything about the tool. So I installed it to my windows desktop and started to find out how it works.  Tool itself is quite easy to use, and so far I have created couple of demo HTML5 games that can be run on almost any platform. Tests have been run without problems on linux and windows PCs (using browsers), Nokia Lumia (Windows 8 phone), and couple of Android phones. Earlier I was skeptical about the performance of HTML5 games, but to my surprise at least these specific demos were running smoothly on all tested devices. Even if I have not much experience on developing game for multiple platforms, I have at least one guideline to share: Keep in mind what input devi...

Yes, I am still alive and kicking, although no blog postings or games released for a while. Sometimes it is a good idea to have a little break and take a closer look what you have done recently. After releasing  Explopool , I have mostly been planning and creating different game prototypes. I've also explored various game development environments and engines to get an idea what kind of tools are available. There are plenty of choices, but I have not yet decided which one to try next for releasing a game. Haxeflixel might be a good candidate, but first I have to get better understanding on it. Stencyl 3.0 came available couple of months ago, and I've been gradually migrating to it. Android support has been the main driver for that, because I really want to go mobile at some point and Stencyl is the most familiar development environment for me currently. Since I am running my game development activities over Linux, it's not always so straightforward to switch to a new t...

Since Mochi Media is winding down the services  in the end of March, I started to look for alternatives for publishing and spreading my own flash games. Previously, I have posted couple of games to Kongregate just to test the flow, but there has been only handful of players for each of them (with zero marketing). However, I also posted Explopool  to kong for a week ago, and this time there has been enough players to get the ratings visible (2.7 / 5.0 stars at the moment). Clear progress, I would say. :) I have heard stories about Newgrounds and how demanding the audience is there. So it has been bit frightening choice for the fledgling game developer who is unsure about his own skills. Nevertheless, I decided to make a Newgrounds version of Explopool (with scoreboard and ads), and test how game publishing flow works there. Basically, integrating Newgrounds API to game made with Stencyl was very easy: Just create game project at Newgrounds and copy the API ID and encry...

It is somehow rewarding (and also relaxing) to get something finished. I am happy to tell, that after all that debugging, polishing and problem solving we got " Explopool " flash game ready and released. Game mechanics is not too complex, but still there were challenges to be overcome before we were able to say that this (possibly) works. The basic idea of the game is simple: place and set a bomb to pool table, wait it to explode, and see how balls are pushed by the shock wave. If ball goes to the pocket, you will receive some points and handful of coins. When coin meter (on the right hand side) is full, you will get one more bomb. There is also possibility to get 2x or 3x points, if you get enough balls to the pockets with one explosion. There are few special features available to make game more interesting and challenging: black hole: sucks all balls in certain range to the hole color match: if this is activated, balls of same color will disappear if they col...

"No matter what you publish, as long as you publish something" . I have tried this strategy for a while when learning game development and released several flash games (or equivalent) without much self-criticism.  There are many hobby game developers who start a project, work passionately on it for some time, and finally dump it to the trashcan or leave to the drawer to wait for better times. And this is repeated over and over again, for every game project. Basically, there is nothing wrong with this approach: sometimes project has to be terminated for some reason. And there is always something to learn from each project, even if it was left unfinished and never shown to anyone else.  For most game developers the funniest and most interesting parts are concept creation and actual development of the game. Who would not like creating game assets and mechanics, or sketching characters and new worlds? Bug-hunting, game polishing and balancing are also tolerable tasks for most...

During the past weekend my target was to finalize " Explopool " flash game. Basically, the game mechanics was working pretty well and the content was also in good shape from my point of view. However, I found some flaws in the first tests and decided that overall gameplay was not on the satisfactory level. Therefore decided to postpone the release date and started to do some major modifications to improve gameplay and overall look&feel.  Testing your game is extremely important, especially if you are going to make a public release of it. Although your brand new game seems to be finalized on the surface, it is very probable that there is still some polishing to do and in most cases also some bugs to be fixed. Finding those may require very intensive and creative testing.  Common target for game design and testing is to make a game that will be a positive experience for the end user. If game designer (=you) is the only tester, then it is very probable that the testing e...