G.I.F.T.

As I promise, I'm going write something about my new game: G.I.F.T. actually new version of the ice cube game. In G.I.F.T. we are controlling a kid and helping him to get his gift. Base mechanics remained same. We are controlling him by sliding on the surface. I've uploaded the game on kongreate and newgrounds. (Kongregate link - Newgrounds link to play the game.)

Here is how I converted an old game to a new one.

First, I started with changing the character. I wanted it to be a kid. And I started to draw something. First, I thought the kid as a stickman figure. But I didn't like that and I changed my idea. Then I applied some colors and I got this result:

This was my first attempt to draw something for my game.

Than I started to make tiles. In my mind, there was winter atmosphere for the game. For that reason, I made snowy tiles. And I used gradient effect for the background image. This is the tileset that I've made:

And a snowball which is an obstacle:

I know that they're not so good. But making them was so fun for me. Also, using them in a game was a great experience.

I also made some jumping sounds. It can be hardly noticed because its volume is low. That's because I recorded them by using a cheap microphone.

Now, some technical stuff:

I made all the levels as a different class which derives from FlxState. I chose this way because reseting was too easy. Just a line of code which is FlxG.resetState(). But I couldn't put a loop music to the game, because when it resets the game, it also resets the music. For that reason, maybe this decision wasn't that useful. I think whole game must be in just one state to fix this problem. Reseting can be done with setting all variables' values to thier first values. Another bad thing is that I wrote almost same things for the all of the levels. In the ice cube project, I wrote a Level class and derived all levels from this class. I think this way is better and more object-oriented.

I hope you have fun while playing G.I.F.T. and please rate and leave comments.

Ice Cube Has Gone

From the beginning, I didn't like the idea of ice cube game. But I liked the base mechanics of it. For that reason, instead of making new game I wanted to change and enhance it. I've been working on it for more than a week. The game has changed entirely. I think it's better than the previous idea.

I will give more information about the new idea soon. For now, I'm putting an image which reflects the game directly.

An internship ends

It's been two weeks since the internship ended. But I can have a chance to write something at that moment. I've been busy with writing report and other stuff. In this post I will write about internship and the game that I made in this period.

Little information about game: It's a 2D platform game. The character is an ice cube. We're trying to get him to the north pole to make him live free there.

In my previous post I wrote

I'm having trouble designing the levels and making these levels hard.

As I wrote, I really tried to make the levels hard but when I watch people playing my game, those levels were VERY VERY HARD. They could finish the levels and proceed the game. I designed the difficulty of levels for my ability which was totally wrong. Because, while I was making the game, I played it a lot and I got used to controls and eveything. I understand that I missed a very important point which was playtesting. I should have done more playtesting. Maybe, the levels were not going to be that hard. I will put the game here, but I need to do some arrangements.

The game has lots of missing things. It's not fully completed (like my other game-ish things). But this time, there is a little bit much. Maybe I tried to complete some of them. But I really don't like to deal with a project after its deadline has passed. I rather want to make new things.

An image from third level

There are three weeks for college to start. Until that time, I want to find a game idea that I satisfied. Also I need to think something for my senior-year project.

See you soon.

Ice Ice Baby

                                              

(This ugly image of an ice cube is drawn by a developer who tired of using placeholder one-color images.)

Second week has passed. Sometimes I enjoyed coding, sometimes not. Anyway, I implemented some features.

Here is the list of things I did and some thoughts:

• Flixel is really cool library. For example, making fade in/out effect is just one line code. (Flash effect is that easy, too.) Also, it has a nice documentation.
• Dame is also cool. If you export as a CSV file, your code will be much smaller.
• Character controller, movements of the traps were coded. You can see those in the GIF. (I couldn't make the GIF properly. Actually, they are moving well.)

• I tried to design some levels. It was really hard. I will work on that later.
• By the way, I'm having trouble reseting the game after the ice cube dies. Deriving levels from FlxState is a solution, but I do not like that idea. Because I have to change the level switching also. If I do that, I have to add the character before every switching. (Maybe there is a solution but I couldn't find.) 

There are 2 weeks to the end of the internship. I hope, I'll finish most of the game.