The Anniversary Game – Lessons I will probably never learn vol. 1

The way I’ve built my tilesets, I have to make the level, then put down all the outlines on the architecture (don’t ask).  What this means is that a level has to be entirely finished gameplay-wise before I put all the outlines down, since changing anything after that involves two steps, which is kind of a pain in the ass, but oh well.

So I finished a level, and I tested it to make sure I didn’t screw it up.  After testing it, I realized that it wasn’t exactly clear what I wanted the players to do, so I added in some spikes to direct them the way I wanted them to go.  (That is called “The player is always wrong and I am awesome so do it my way,” and I’m sure there’s another lesson in there somewhere too).  Then I added in the outlines.  That was two days ago.

Then I was running through the entire game again today (since apparently I had nothing better to do) and I realized that (a) I’d made one entire passage pointless with those spikes, and (b) I’d made the level impossible to complete.  So…I had to rearrange the architecture significantly, THEN redo the outlines. It probably only took ten minutes, but it was still a face-palm moment.

So, today’s lesson that I will probably never learn: Don’t change anything after testing if you don’t plan on testing it again!  You will inevitably screw up the entire level.  If you’re me.

Progress today: Finished another level (up to 9!), researched saving to INIs, ate a sandwich.

The Anniversary Game – Title Screen

I made a title screen for The Anniversary Game, check it out after the jump.

The Anniversary Game Devlog

Long time no post, eh?

I started a development (developer’s?) log over at the TIGSource Forums for The Anniversary Game, which is a game, that I am making.  Yep.  I don’t feel like reformatting everything for WordPress (sorry), so I’ll just post a link.  In the future, I’ll do it on WordPress first, since that seems to be a bit easier.

The Anniversary Game Devlog

Stay tuned for further updates and screenshots!

The Game Crafter

I’m a bit late on this one I’m sure, but it still deserves props for being so freaking awesome.

The Game Crafter is, essentially, Cafe Press for board games.  In other words, you can upload your resources (art, rules page, etc.) and they will manufacture your game on demand.  Awesome.  You can also include generic pawns in 10 colors (and it looks like they’ve started doing some specialty ones, like soldiers), dice, play money, or poker chips.  Cool!

Plus you get to keep the intellectual rights to your game, so you can do whatever you want with it later.  And while they do take 50% of the profits, I’d say that’s not bad considering there’s no upfront cost, and if you get a better deal, you still own your game, so you can take it to somebody else.  Neat!

Okay, so go make a board game somebody!  Yay!

PS: Every paragraph in this post except the first ended in some sort of exclamation of awesomeness.  This was not intended.  Sweet!

Pikmin is depressing

So I was having a discussion on one of my previous posts with  Mr. DeezGames (I realize I do not know his real name), and he mentioned something he called “Procedural Rhetoric,” basically  what the rules of your game say about your view of the world.  [EDIT: This phrase actually came from Ian Bogost, as Mr. Deezgames informed me later] This got me thinking about what games I’ve played might be saying, even if accidentally.

This line of thought lead me to this conclusion: Pikmin is a deeply depressing game.