So that was one hell of a journey. Granted, with Weapons on Wheels being the first real game I’ve ever developed, I probably did alot of things the long and hard (twss) way.
So that’s it. Go try it out and tell me how disappointed you are in the comments!
In all seriousness, though, I learned alot when developing that game. Both in terms of code-stuff and in terms of what makes a game fun. I’ll be using all that knowledge as I develop Hero Dude, which will hopefully only take me a fraction of the time it took me to make Weapons on Wheels.
So I figured I would make a post about this, since I thought it was pretty interesting. Here is an image showing the sprite development I went through trying to find a nice design for the player/boss sprites for Hero Dude.
The first two versions of the main character differ pretty greatly. At first I was thinking I’d just toss the main character into this Mega Man-style suit of armor lookin’ thing. Since I was going for a humorous take on the game, I figured it didn’t matter how silly he looked or how many times I stamped his “HD” (Hero Dude) logo on him.
The second and third versions of the main character have more of a resemblance between them. It looks like I started getting the mindset that he was going to be some sort of a soldier or something. This becomes more apparent in the third version.
The boss didn’t undergo much of a change. I always knew he was going to be a cliche mad scientist trying to destroy the world or something (lol spoilers). He kept his white labcoat and gray hair through both versions, I only made him fatter and got rid of his huge hair stacks. (This was done to preserve the shape of his head/body, which I want to be uniform throughout the game.)
And yeah, that’s about it. Today I’ll be getting back to work on Hero Dude. Mainly working on some gun action today. I want to start drawing ideas for levels and whatnot. I already know that 95% of the game takes place on the Boss’s flying ship-fort thing. The other 5% is the player getting to the flying ship-fort thing.
So I’m going to keep this post short, mostly because I’m tired and just want to relax go watch some TV.
ForTheLoss.org has a new design. If you’re not seeing it, that must mean you’re a regular visitor, holy crap, thanks! It also means you have to clear your cache.
It was a spur of the moment decision. I wanted to give this site a definite “look” and develop some sort of brandable logo for it that I can put into my games.
On Friday night I decided I would develop one more WordPress theme – one for this site.
On Saturday I designed the whole layout in Photoshop.
On Sunday I coded it.
On Monday I WordPressified and launched it.
Fascinating, I know.
Also, I know this isn’t one of my best themes. I really don’t care so Paul you can go suck a long one.
I wanted to give off a retro arcade pixel-y sort of look and I think I stayed kinda stayed true to that theme. Again, whatever. It’s not like this is a web design blog, am I right? HA HA.
Quick Game Stuff
Well that’s it. This is all I’ve doing for the past few days. Tomorrow I’ll resume work on Hero Dude.
Also, regarding Weapons on Wheels, I accepted a bid on FlashGameLicense.com last night. Once the sponsor and I exchange some words, I’ll finally be able to release that game. Gonna be so cash.
PS – If you see any bugs in the theme, tell me. I didn’t even bother testing it in other browsers or Operating Systems. It’s not like I was going to release this theme for the public, so yeah.
It’s gonna be a very classic and comical 2D platformer. I’m working on it every day, making pretty good headway.
More updates coming up later.
In other news, I’ve spent the past 10 hours in a ustream chatroom waiting for Shay Carl and his wife to have their fourth kid. I went as far as leaving my computer on next to my head while I slept so when Shay started a quick live feed on ustream or tweeted a message I’d wake up.
Yeah. This can’t be healthy in any way.
For those of you that don’t know who Shay is, for shame….
So while I wait for a winning bid on FlashGameLicense.com for a sponsor for Weapons on Wheels, I’ve begun work on a new game project.
I’ve been switching back and forth from working on the graphics (player/enemy art, animations) and some of the main engine of the game. It’s going to be a very retro-sort of platformer. Not necessarily retro in the graphics-sense, but rather in the gameplay-sense.
I want it to be a very short and fun game, not lasting more than 15 or so minutes. (Is that long in Flash-game time?) Also, I’m really going to focus on making the graphics pop with colorful and unique-looking characters.
The gameplay itself will be very fun and fast-paced with some hints of “Castle Crashers”-sort of humor.
So yeah, I have more to say but I think this is already quite a boring post. Kudos to those of you that actually read all of it and cared.
In other news, go play Exit Path multiplayer, one of the funnest Flash games I’ve played in a while.
