software.dev

Got a ton done on the Gadget today and I’m feeling like tonight is the night to submit it. I put a lot of finishing touches on a few minutes ago, and things I believe all the functionality is in place. I had a small hiccup with IE compatability issues, but I managed to take care of those fairly easily. I’m pretty impressed that I got this much done, this quickly. I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday — only working on it. That’s probably one of my best qualities, I think — persistence. I don’t give up easily when a deadline is approaching.  The end result is refreshing and VERY cool (I’m a bit biased)

So what does all this mean? Time to start on Gadget #2! I don’t know if I’ll have time with a midterm coming up, but I’m going to do my best. I’m not completely settled on a second idea at this point, but I’m kicking around an idea, trying to see if it’s viable. Time will tell what I come up with.

Looks like Flash is going on hold for the next week or so.  After attending the Google info night at school, I found out about the Google Awards competition.  First things first — the Google night is just another reminder of what you’re up against, if you want to work at Google.  My roomate and I got there an hour early and were among the first to arrive but by the time the thing started, there was standing room only.

And then it hit me.  Google Gadget Awards.  What better way to stand out from potential candidates then to play Google’s game.  Show them you have good ideas, and take a concept from just a thought to completion.  So with a week left, I began work on a Google Gadget for submission.  I don’t even know if there are prizes or anything, but what I’m really interested in is Google’s eye   When I’m applying for a job and whatnot and they inevitably google ‘Eric Farraro’, how cool would it be if it came up saying I had won one of their contests?  This particular contest is only open university students, so I figure if I did well, I could put UC Davis on the map too and bring in even more recruiters.

Totally energized coming out of the Google info night, I wrote down about ten to twenty ideas (which I can’t share yet, but I will!)  I settled on one that I’m currently working on.  The contest has been going on since August, but I’m going to have to compress those several months into one week.  Actually, I’m planning to submit TWO gadgets if time allows.  It’s definitely a learning process.  I’m decent with Javascript but no expert, and that’s primarily what you need to write the web gadgets.

The contest ends November 1st, so I’ll be busy working on this until then.  I’ll be sure to post the gadget here on this page once contest has over.  The funny thing is, I’ve known about gadgets for along time, but I’ve always been too lazy to work on one.  But throw the word ‘contest’ in there, and that really gets the blood going.  I love competing in events that I can do well in, and it’s a strong motivator.  The idea that I could get my name into the hands of the right people doing something I love doing drives me to get this done.
If anyone from Google reads this, talk to me!

Back to work!

Been awhile since I’ve written, but I have certainly not been idle! This past weekend I read up on ActionScript classes, and have sort of gotten the hang of how they work out. I made a Missile Command style game without using classes, where each object had its own ActionScript (without a specific .as file; it was written write into the object). While this was certainly easy, and apparently, some people work like this, I did not really like it at all. I think this approach might be more intuitive to someone with less of a programming background but for me, I much prefer to separate out the ActionScript from the Movie Clips.

There are two things I really like about Flash for game development. Firstly, it’s really easy to get into. There aren’t dozens of lines to get a blank window on the screen, I don’t need to write routines to load graphics, playing a sound is simple, etc… Basically, Flash abstracts all the boring stuff, and lets you get into the actual ‘game’ part very quickly. Secondly, it’s very easy to distribute your game. Getting people to download a .exe can be difficult; getting people to view your game on a popular Flash game site is really easy. Certainly, Flash is less appropriate for ‘epic’ games, but I think it’s superb for quick, fun games.

Right I’m currently working on what I call a ‘Swarm Game’. Think those games where you’re in the middle of the screen, and progressively powerful enemies continue to attack you in greater numbers until you’re swarmed to death. That’s basically what I’m making. You are controlling a turret in the middle of the screen and can swivel your gun to fire at incoming enemies. The game starts out pretty slow, and quickly picks up. Of course, I love power-ups, so there will be a multitude of power-ups (the usual suspects: rapid fire, score multipliers, limited invulnerability, etc …) as well as several different types of weapons. I hope to have a demo, at the very least, up in a week or so.

Until then..!

A few days ago on Digg, I saw another Flash game that inspired me to try one myself.  It wasn’t super impressive, yet it had a certain fun quality that attracted me to it.  I’m talking about the ‘Gladiator’ Flash game that you can try here:

 http://www.gamefudge.com/Swords-and-Sandals

I decided I was going to make a similar game, though I’m more of a fan of ‘magical’ games, so I opted to have dueling wizards as the central theme of my game.  The game ‘flow’ in my game (if it goes as planned) will be very similar.  Basically, you’ll fight a series of battles, winning gold and experience if you win, that will give you access to new weapons, armor, spells, etc…  I’m a sucker for games with items and power-ups.

The kicker is that you will cast spells using a ‘Lost Magic’ interface; that is, while you’re running around with the WASD keys trying to blast the other wizard, you can hit Shift  to bring up a ‘casting rune’ where you trace out the shape of the spell you want to cast.  If you’re successful, the spell is ‘activated’ and clicking the mouse button will fire the spell.  Currently, I have about 20-30 spells planned, spread out across six schools of magic: fire, arcane, temporal (space/time related), disruption (kind of a twist; spells that burn mana, reflect spells, etc… ), light, and shadow.  The magic is laid out in a ‘tech-tree’ of sorts, so some spells have prerequisites.  It should be pretty cool once it’s done (assuming I finish )

I’ll post some pictures soon because right now, it’s pretty hard to describe the gestures used for the spells in the game so far (there are 3).  You can see what it looks like currently, at any time, at http://www.ericfarraro.com/flash.  It’s a WIP, obviously.  WASD is movement, and you can see the ‘casting rune’ by hitting Shift.

Check back soon for screenshots and more instructions!

Now the fun part — deciding what type of game to make   I’ve been doing some thinking about what kinds of games I’d like to see [more of] and here’s what I came up with:

- RPG styled like Megaman: Battle Network.  I didn’t really like the feel of MM:BN, but I think it has a lot of potential.  It takes a little more twitch skill than, say, an FF style RPG.  I also absolutely love the idea of ‘cards’.  I never played any TCG seriously because they’re too expensive, but I like the idea of customizing a ‘deck’ and drawing abilities from that deck in battle.  There was a pretty cool Gamecube game like this.

- ‘Reactive RPG’, ala Mario RPG.  Again for similar reasons as above.  I like the idea of using a little twitch skill every now and then to increase / avoid damage.

- I recently played a cool little Flash game called ‘Nevermore’, which apparently, is like Hapland (I didn’t really think so, but they both have cool art styles).  In any case, Nevermore is basically a ‘puzzle platformer’.  It has a kind of mysterious, surreal feel to it that I kind of like, almost like Myst.  I’d like to see a game like Nevermore, but longer, and with more point and click interactions instead of straight platform jumping.

- A turn-based strategy game where, when units meet, they are controlled in a real-time battle.  You probably notice a trend here.  There was a game like this on PS called ‘Unholy Wars’; it was a turn-base strategy game with a really simple resource model, and maybe… 8-10 different units with different abilities.  You could attack adjacent units, entering a battlefield where each player controlled their unit, and had four different abilities to attack with.  This was presented in a third person view.

- Stylus (mouse drawing) game.  The Wii and NDS have really got me thinking about ‘drawing’ games.  It’s certainly not as fun to draw with a mouse, but I think there is a lot of untapped potential here.  More on this later.

- Puzzle platformer, centered on a mage-like character.  Possible ‘color’ theme, or more specifically, ‘ elemental’ magic.  Maybe you could pick the type of mage you wanted, or would have to use several types of mages to solve puzzles… not sure yet.

- Generic Flash ’survival’ game.  I like the idea of a mage character here as well… learn spells, get gold, buy defenses, keep playing until dead.  I’d like to see a game like this with a bit more strategic depth than is normally themed… more options.

- Fantasy-themed Worms game… specifically with base-building.  One of my favorite ‘house-rules’ ways to play Worms was to set the amount of girders allowed to infinite, with which my friend and I would build huge fortresses and put our Worms inside before we started the match.  We also built ’sky bases’ (girders in the air in the shape of say, an airship) and boats (girders in the water); the other person had to siege the base.  I think a game that actually included a mode like this would be a ton of fun to play.

- Some other union of genres that doesn’t really fit.  I played a side-scrolling RTS awhile back (I forget the name, but it was kind of Steam-punkish).

I’ll continue this later, but I think I have an idea I might go with… currently thinking of a ‘Gladiator’ type game where you control a mage from a top-down view to blast opponents with magic.  Specifically, drawing runes on the screen ala Lost Magic, but hopefully implemented better.  Several schools of magic should make it interesting.  We’ll see!