So I’m going to give this another try.

This year, the spring PyWeek happens in May, so I will be able to do both! Yay!

Here’s my loadout:

• Language: Python
• Library: Pygame
• Graphics: GIMP
• Sound: Some sfxr variant, not sure which
• Music: Milkytracker, if at all
• Level Editor: Tiled, if needed

I’m not sure what I’ll make, but probably a shmup. I’ve been meaning to make another one. Besides, shmups are pretty easy to make.

Remember, folks:

Failure is always an option!

Peace, love, and ambition,

– Henry

Wow, we’re having another warmup weekend! 😀

I’m definitely in for that.

I’m probably going to make a shmup of some kind. It’ll be a good break from my current project.

So, that’s cool. Warmups are always a good idea.

Peace, love, and exuberance,

– Henry

So, I decided a while back that I would join the warmup weekend.

It’s much longer than a weekend, and that makes me happy.

My game is a shmup. I’ve been working on one, but I need a cleaner code base to work from. The one I had is a mess of excess inheritance and unimplemented methods.

Here’s the premise: You fly a little space ship and shoot bad guys. On different intervals (in kill count) enemies either give off a bigger explosion, drop a score/weapon/extra life item, or give off a bigger explosion and drop three items.

The levels are assembled randomly from hand-made parts and have randomly chosen bosses from about a dozen hand-scripted bosses.

The idea is this: Motivate the player with scheduled reward to make the game more compelling.

The idea comes from the idea that games work partly by rewarding the player. Hence, I figure that I can make a compelling game simply by deliberately rewarding the player.

The Wikipedia article about behaviorism can give those who are curious a better idea of how this is supposed to work.

Peace, love, and manipulation,

– Henry

Edit: While I’m at it, here’s the article about behavior modification, which is also relevant

So… psychological design got boring quickly. It hit me that the thing actually would be kind of meaningless and boring to play.

So… I took what I had and went in a new direction. Basically, I am un-forking my two shmup projects, merging Pew Pew into a different one entirely.

Basically, I’m remaking an old game of mine.

In 2007, I was in high school. I had learned Java in a class and was happy. I had made Tetris for the class’s final project, and the presentation had gone very well. I was pleased.

But… I wanted to make a shmup. So I made Space Assault, which was a mediocre shmup, but it was a working game that I made. I was very pleased.

Now, some years later, I’m more experienced in game development. I have knowledge of better tools (I used Swing for the original Space Assault) and I am better with artwork.

So… time to start fresh and do the thing over. Time to remake Space Assault.

Here’s a screenshot:

The player's ship on a green background. It'll make sense later, promise!

I am going to do a really nice remake of the original game later on, but for the LD warmup I just want to get it working as a serviceable shmup. I will make some boilerplate, which I will use for the LD jam. I’ll post a zip of the boilerplate when I have the stuff that I intend to use later.

Trying a new type of sendoff here…

When’s the last time you strolled down memory lane?

– Henry

So here’s things. Space Assault is taking a long time as-is. I’m going to have to simplify the hell out of it to make it work.

This is informative for me, though. I’m realizing that I set my sights way too high for projects. I’m not sure what I’m communicating, I suppose.

I’ll… um… have something soon…

Is this what it’s like to learn a lesson?

– Henry

So… having simplified the design of my game, I can say with confidence that it will be a game by the end of the warmup.

I do still intend to finish it afterwards, but for now I’ll settle for the following components:

• A few different player weapons
• Three levels, each with a boss
• A few different types of baddie
• High scores in a local file

Not incredibly ambitious, but it’s a start for a shmup.

I was kind of inspired by looking through some MAME roms and seeing galga and remembering how fun it was to player in a compilation of old arcade games that I used to have. (The compilation was for a console that my family sold to some friends to pay for something else and so that the other family’s two kids could play more up-to-date games)

I was inspired to go “back to basics” with Space Assault. Therefore, it will be a fairly simple game. I have a rough idea of the weapons and baddies that will be involved in the game, but I’ll talk more about that at another time.

That’s pretty much it for now. I’ll post more as I go! 😀

So…

Do we really need fancy things to have a good time?

– Henry

Basically, here’s what happened to my warmup entry: School. My last week of school for the semester ate all of my spare time.

That being said, I’m going to be in for the jam regardless. I have an exam on Monday which I’m confident that I’ll pass (Biology, for those who are interested) and that’s it until fall.

So… I’m in for the jam. The exam… F**k it! We do it live!

This summer will involve lots of freelance work to save up  for the class I’m taking in fall (after four years, finally finishing my… associates’ degree), so I’m reveling in gamedev now while I still have plenty of free time.

So who’s ready to dance?

– Henry

I am ready. I have an idea for each and every theme in round 5. I’ll share the list later, promise!

My noisy family is going to be in the next county for the weekend. My only school obligation is an exam that I have already studied for plenty. I am ready.

I… was going to write some really intense motivational stuff here, but I’ll save that for when the compo begins.

Are you ready for the fight of your life?

– Henry

So I have this idea.

It’s titled WARRIOR BLITZ, and it’s about medieval warriors fighting on tiny islands of reality suspended in non-existence (basically making them worlds of their own).

It’s an RTS with three unit types and no structures. The maps will be generated procedurally.

More to come, folks!

Are we ready to party hard?

– Henry

Well, it’s only a few hours in and I’ve already got a guy on the screen. It feels like I’m moving a little slowly, though…

Well, I slept for a few hours.

Here’s a pic of mah dood on the screen:

This is exciting, regardless of how little progress I’ve made.

Well, I give you all my best.

Are we having fun yet?

– Henry

So here I am. It’s Sunday and nothing got done. I partnered with someone on IRC (you know who you are) and he spent the whole day getting his toolchain together. I’m going to dump that idea for the sake of my emotional well-being.

So I have plan b, which I’ll talk more about later.

Rule 0: Delivar

– Henry

So… at my almost-graduation party (long story) I got a new laptop and a copy of Visual Studio 2012 Professional. I’ve got XNA ready to go. I will spend the next couple of weeks getting familiar with XNA and refreshing my rusty C# and VB.NET skills. (A game in Visual Basic? Yes, that’s right. I’m naughty like that.)

I’m ready for the Mini-LD next month. Bring it!

Are you ready to see my true power?

– Henry

So… there’s a Mini-LD this month, right? I thought so.

Well… I’m going to be doing freelance work (hopefully), but I can will carve out some time for the Mini-LD.

So here are some tools that I’m thinking about:

• XNA with C#
• XNA with Visual Basic (as of 4.0 “refresh”, XNA supports Visual Basic!)
• Construct 2
• Unity Free
• Python+Pygame+py2exe
• Game Maker (unlikely, though)
• FlashPunk + AIR
• Flixel + AIR

That being said, I’m not sure yet. I’m leaning toward XNA+C# or Construct 2 at the moment…

Any thoughts on this are welcome!

With this many options, how can I go wrong?

– Henry

So I looked at the theme Sophie chose. I love it. 😀

To practice, I’m going to use my tool of choice – Construct 2 – and make some tiny games. I’m entering with a 128×128 game, so I’m going to get ready by making some 128×128 games. It’s practice, kind of. I will probably make some kind of post showing my sample games on my Dropbox account.

I’m going to try making the following:

• A shmup
• A platformer
• Snake (of course!)
• A zelda-like

This should be an adventure and some welcome procrastination from my current (and first) Unity project.

How small can it possibly be?

– Henry

Edit purely for attention:

You know it’s in your heart…

So, Construct 2 turned out to be a huge hassle to work with. The non-coding nature of the scripting made things difficult once I wanted it to do anything that wasn’t built-in.

I’ve played with SFML.Net (the .Net bindings to SFML) and have gotten some results quickly and easily. I’m very excited about it.

I’m working on my shmup first this time, but I’m varying from “128×128 all the things” by making it 512×128. It’s a Defender clone!

Isn’t it nice to finally find something that works?

– Henry

Hey there, LD! I took a break from game development for a while, but now I’m back and ready to rock.

I’m in for this month’s LD.

I’m going to be working on getting my personal game framework ready for the jam. Hopefully I can do it in time!

I’m probably going to try making a JRPG, since I’ve been fascinated by them lately. I’ve been playing Breath of Death VII and am going to start a game in Cthulhu Saves the World soon; you can get both of those in a pack on Steam for $2.99 USD, by the way. 😀

So, that being said, I’m looking forward to this.

Did you miss me?

– Henry

I forgot to talk about the tools that I’ll be using in my previous post!

Here’s my tech:

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional – IDE
• Visual C# – Language
• SFML.Net – Base library
• FoxerCommon + FoxerSFML – Personal libraries
• Gimp – Pixel art
• Sfxr or Audacity – Sounds
• Milkytracker – Music (if any)

I’m pumped!

– Henry

So I know that I said at one point that I was going to use C#, SFML.Net, and some other things to make a JRPG.

Those who know me at all should probably have known what kind of speculation that was.

I’m not going to speculate about what kind of game I’m going to make. That usually gets tossed shortly after the jam begins.

I am going to speculate about my tool set, though!

I’m switching from C# and Visual Studio to ActionScript 3 and FlashDevelop. I’m dropping SFML.Net and personal libraries for good old FlashPunk. I’m keeping the graphics and sound tools that I originally stated (Gimp and sfxr), though. I might use Musagi instead of MilkyTracker if music makes its way into my entry, though.

That being said, I’m looking forward to this even more than I originally was!

- Henry

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2012 at 9:28 pm and is filed under LD #24. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

It’s time for warmups, ladies and gentlemen!

I’m doing one in AS3, FlashPunk, and FlashDevelop.

I’m not telling what it is until I have a demo, though.

– Henry

I’ve recently gotten this weird… urge… to make arty games. I’m not sure why.

I might make a cool, arty platformer for the jam. Well, I might. Otherwise, I’ll probably make a shmup. I’m pretty good at those.

My warmup game is (provided that I can stop pushing the start+end back) going to be a little arty. Not pretentious – I don’t believe that makes for good art – but definitely arty.

And for the record, “arty” is a word; I don’t mean “artsy”. “Arty” is a good thing, “artsy” usually isn’t. I’ve had people get after me for that before, so I wanted to clear that up now.

– Henry