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 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.

Finding a Game Idea

I'm an intern in a game development company. During the internship, I'm going to do my own project.

First I needed to find a game idea and I started to think. Finding a game idea from scratch is REALLY HARD. Nothing came to my mind. Then, I decided to choose a theme and make a game on that theme. I went this site and "Ice/Igloo" came out as a theme. I got rid of the "igloo" part because I thought that it was very specific. I needed more general theme. 

I chose an ice cube for the main character. And I started to think about how the base mechanics is going to be. When we control the ice cube, If we press left for example, it's going to keep continue to go in that direction because of slippery surface of the ice cube. And the ice cube is going to melt, so we have to finish the level without melting completely.

After the base mechanics, I thought the story and found this:

Every ice cubes want to get rid of their ice cube tray and be free. The heaven for them is the north pole. They can enjoy the freedom in there without the idea of being in someone's drink.

Our character is also chasing this dream.

But it’s not that easy. You have to be so lucky. You have to wait somebody to cool his drink and take an ice cube. When he tries to take out, you have to pop out and run away instantly before the guy gets you.

After all that stressful experience, a new adventure is going to begin for you. You need to go north pole before melting completely. Also you’re going to have hard times with moving because of your slippery surface. There will be some traps which make you melt so fast. You need to be careful.

After all that difficulties, you are going to get your freedom.

(I think the story is not too bad.)

Here are the other decisions and thoughts:

• I'm having trouble designing the levels and making these levels hard.
• I tried to write high-level design document. Some part of it was really boring. It is still uncompleted.
• I'll make this game in Flixel. (Making 2D game in Unity is really painful.) For the map editor I'll use Dame.