2014 indie game maker competition

Day 3: Planting the Seed

NEW Objective: Build a prototype by June 2

After playing Ore no Ryomi 2 (talked about in my previous post), it gave me a lot of ideas for what I want to make. Ore no Ryomi 2 has a lot of good ideas, but it does deliver short a bit in some areas such as balance. Some of the food just aren’t worth their trouble. Nevertheless, the game is overall fun and there are things I’ll probably take from it. There are a few things I’d like to change as well, and a few things I’d like to add to give it more depth. For example, Ore no Ryomi 2 really lacks in the management metagame in favor of the restaurant gameplay.

I want to start working on a prototype for my game now. I still have no idea what to call it. The prototype will be very simple: an order appears where you can click it or press its corresponding hot key. Activating the order brings up the first minigame, based on beer minigame from Ore no Ryomi 2, where you press down to fill up a beer. The beer has five states: empty, light, half, full, overflowing; and customers can order either half or full beer.

The minigame is closed with the return/enter key and pressing the order gives the food to the customer. Depending on the success of the minigame, the result can be: excellent, okay, and terrible. For this prototype, this will repeat indefinitely. This should help lay the framework for when I develop more to it.

Day 2: Finding the Right Seed

Objective: Decide on a game by June 1

As I said in my previous post, I want to avoid doing traditional platformers or top-down action-adventure games. I can safely bet that the majority of the entrant will be one of the two (with RPGs being the latter). I’m not against them, but I want to do something I haven’t done before and be original.

Some ideas I had floating in my head were games that were composed on mini-games. Something like Wario Ware Inc. where you play short, five seconds micro-games in a fast sequence. Making something like that for PC would allow it to be highly moddable as people could develop their own micro-games and sets. It also meets my requirement of being short and simple.

While trying to think of a game, I remembered an old game that I played back in middle school: Ore No Ryomi 2. It’s a very simple game where you run a restaurant and have to cook your customer’s orders in quick mini-games while trying to fulfill as many orders possible before they leave angrily.

ONR2header Continue reading →

Day 1: Tilling the Field

During work, I check my email to see another Humble Bundle deal. I usually just mark them as read and forget about them, but this one caught my eye. The sale was on RPG Maker VX Ace, and assorted RPG Maker games. I was shocked to see it go on sale!

I’ve always had a soft spot for RPG Maker as it was my first foray into game development. Before I learned how to program in high school, I would play with RPG Maker and toy with its features, making very rough and primitive games. The kind of games people make fun of newbies for, but I learned a lot from it. It gave me a massive head start to programming as it taught me some fundamental programming concepts at an early age. And it’s really fast and easy to get results immediately.

Along with RPG Maker was a contest: the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest, which really grabbed my attention. I’ve dabbled in game development before, such as leading the development for the now defunct My Little Pony fan game Budding Friendships, in which during the year and half development, I learned many valuable lessons when it comes to game development and project management. I’ve also worked on smaller, less ambitious projects that were mostly clones of other games such as Simple Mario, Custom War, and other handful games that I haven’t posted anywhere such as a Pokemon Red/Blue clone that didn’t get far. My most recent game Balloon Pop was my first original and feature-complete game, that only pends final play testing before being placed on the Google Play store.

With all that stated, I am very much capable of making games. The hardest part is always seeing the project through. I am going to enter this contest because I want to make and publish a game. The purpose of starting this blog is to track development for whatever game I’ll be developing for this contest. It helps to keep yourself motivated when you post updates as it shows progress even during the darkest of times. Additionally, it’s fun to read older posts to see how your game has metamorphosed during development. And lastly, it looks good on your resume. I honestly don’t expect many people to read, much less care about this blog. This is mostly for myself and anyone that may be interested in seeing a game grow from nothing.

With my resume out there, now comes the actual important part: starting the game. At the moment, I have no idea what kind of game I’d like to make. The contest ends on June 30, which gives contestants the entire month to work. Since it’s still May, I figure I’ll give myself time before starting. Time management and pacing are very crucial skills, so I’m giving myself my first deadline: decide on a game by June 1.

In my experience, the simpler the game, the more likely you’ll see it through. Budding Friendships taught me the pains of wanting to do too much and not knowing exactly what to do. Since then, all my projects try to be simple. Balloon Pop is the first actual result from that philosophy.

Another thing I’ve learned in game development is making sure the game is fun. When people think of game development, they think of stories they want to write. I’m guilty of such, as some of my designs are built with the story first and the mechanics follow. It’s not a very effective way to design a game, but it’s a way. I can bet most RPG Maker games will follow this pattern. It is game development after all. You want to make a game, not write a story.

My goal for this game is to make something different than the common platformer or top-down action-adventure game. It also shouldn’t be a clone of another game. It needs to be original and stand on its own. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take inspiration from another.

A game that has caught my eye lately is 100% Orange Juice, which is a silly Japanese indie game, but it’s a lot fun. It’s the closest to Mario Party on PC you’ll get and it’s a blast to play with friends. The rules are unclear about multiplayer games, but I would like to try something multiplayer. Maybe I’d like to make a party game.

There are other technical aspects that I’ll have to consider, but I’ll leave that to my next update. I want to try updating this blog at least once a day. I’ll leave the next few days to think up ideas for fun games. June is shaping up to be an exciting month!