Student Area

I think the biggest thing I did this weekend was decide on a soundtrack. After playing around with using freesound.org again and composing my own music, I ended up settling on a song that I found just a few hours ago. I’m hosting it here:

http://soundcloud.com/andybiar/karlofs-the-darker-side-of

I want to make this game fairly sound-intensive (yayy Music Tech), with the soundtrack developing as you explore the different rooms (Definitely doing a tile-based zelda type thing in GameMaker). So expect something hopefully cool with lots of variations of the main theme.

The one thing I have left to decide before I have a working demo is what the subject of the game will be.  I’ve been thinking about an abstract autobiography where you have to fight against projections of yourself, but I’m not 100% sold. Comments are always welcome!

Iiiiiiiiiiiii don’t have a demo because I am using Flixel instead of Gamemaker, because Flixel lets me include Flash stuff and other shiny things but requires a bit more backend stuff before it actually starts to look like anything. So I have the backend stuff written but it looks boring and is not demo material. Demo will occur SOON but not yet, meanwhile have the character and a summary:

Right, so, you’re this girl. You’re in high school and you spend a bunch of time hanging out with your best friend. Everything is excellent but then your friend goes out with a dude who seems a little sketchy and he turns out to be a kidnapping alien whose motivations are– actually who gives a shit, dude just kidnapped your best friend, you don’t care why he did it, you’re going to go beat his ass.

So you grab your best weaponry (roller hockey gear) and do so. Your friend keeps texting you to tell you where she is, so you can avoid all that “princess is in another castle” nonsense.

TL;DR You’re rolling through your high school hitting aliens with a hockey stick, following the directions your friend texts you. Also, comic-book-page cutscenes, because Flash and Because I Can.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.

Also I will totally take name suggestions for the main character. Her friend’s already named.

Oh right music yeah though I’m still pretty undecided on that

A mainly exploring game.  I haven’t actually figured out gameplay yet, but most likely you will just move around and interact with the environment.  You play as a girl who has been sent on a mission to explore a nearby world and see if it is inhabitable.  Every world has a single world tree that all the inhabitants live within and get all resources from.  

So for my GameMaker game, I want to make a really simple plat former/side scroller. You’re able to move left, right, and able to jump. You have a bow, from which you can fire arrows; there are no enemies, but the arrows you fire become platforms. Essentially, there’s no real puzzle or huge challenge in it; you just go through and explore the places. When an area is completed, the character is taken to one of a completely different season, sometimes a similar place, but possibly different. The seasons/weather will be a variety, from temperate, snowing, storming, raining, fall times, etc. We’ll see how many of those I actually get done.

The soundtrack is from the instrumental/soundscapey tracks off The Ethnographer’s Dry Season, tracks I, II, III, and IV; The game is inspired by the album as a whole.

Here’s the first area!

I can’t figure out how to upload a Mac executable so here’s a screenshot (background is a work in progress) + the music I’m using!

Music: “Fall Out” by Masayoshi Minoshima http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxShM-kcTe0

My game is currently untitled but the premise is that you are exploring a futuristic world. I’m considering the idea of having time stopped for everyone but you and a few other characters that you encounter, and you have to explore/unlock parts of the city and determine who’s behind the time-stop.

Here’s a screenshot in Flash. You are the astronaut, who is searching for her son, but is really searching for a legacy.

My song is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJg5tY8QZLk

займ онлайн на карту без отказа новый займ на картуplatiza займ онлайнвзять мини займ онлайн займ без регистрации картызайм королевzaimo займ займ до зарплаты северсквзять займ студентузайм киви без паспорта займ на карту по телефонузайм в рассрочкузайм под 0 процентов с 18 лет

Okay I just realized that these images are really minuscule but on the left is a brief glimpse at the main character who is a little girl and on the right is the monster that she can turn into to beat up other monsters.

So basically that is the main premise of the game, figuring out why you can turn into a big monster and to do that you have to fight monsters and collect certain items. Basic adventure game style but I am pretty excited for it. The environment is going to be really scary and the music is going to really contrast it.

Whistle Theme from Deadly Premonition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OUP_Z3iZPs

So the game that I got this from is actually somewhat of a grisly horror game and the feel of this song just really isn’t that and it is one of the reasons I love that game because of its quirkiness. Anyway, enjoy the song! Love you!

Right click this and download linked file on a computer that has Blender (all the macs in cluster)

Narrative Environment and How to Do Things with Video Games

Both of these pieces deal with the utilization of environment experience. Narrative Environment deals more with the explicit use of environment submersion as an escape from the narrative-less cityscape of Southern California. The discussion focuses centrally on the environment existing for the sake of itself. The purpose of the narrative environment in this case was not something to be enjoyed in passing, but to be explicitly visited with the intent of having an experience. Video games, specifically MMOGs, are cited as a virtual representation of this immersive environment.  How to Do Things with Video Games is written with much the same focus, with the exception of reasoning behind our need for a surrogate environment. While the first writing tends to place blame on our ‘historyless’ surroundings, the second blames the efficiency of travel. We are no longer required to experience the world we pass through, and instead everything is streamlined. Video games offer a surrogate environment to experience in place of what we are missing out on.