The last post of the year!

So this is the last day of 2009 and I thought, why not write something for the blog about what happened this year? So basically that's what I'm doing right now.

First I want to say that I thank GOD for all that HE's done this year. HE has helped me lots this year with the games, giving me a lot of good opportunities and also I've learend a bunch from them. This was probably the most productive year since the first sponsored game. Also I want to thank my girlfriend and my sister who never deny their help in testing the games even when it's not something very exciting some times :P Also I thank my family for all their support; the sponsors for their interest in the games and for the trust in them; and of course, to the ones that make all the games possible: the players!

The year started with Paralyze Attack, the game that gave the idea for making this blog. The game ran through an extensive development process because I wanted to polish it the more I could so every tiny feedback was heard and implemented (or most of it). Still these last days before the final touches, I've been receiving feedback for the game to be the best it can. I hope that when it's finally released it makes the players have a good experience. It's ironic that the game with which I started the year is the last one being released; however, not this year because we're in the last day and it hasn't seen the light of the internet.

Then we have Perfect Shot, one of my favorite games [of Giddel Creations] of all time due to one thing: its simplicity. That's something of what I've learnt through games, and mostly from this one (and from Dual because of being all the opposite). If you want someone to play your game you don't have to make it annoying for the user, or at least you have to make them see that they are capable of going further. So in Perfect Shot I went to the most basic of the control types: you only have to press spacebar. And impressively it had a lot of acceptance. It was sponsored by Minijuegos.com (primary), Andkon.com, Tastyplay.com, Gameshed.com and ArmorGames.com (all sitelocked), though this last one hasn't yet been released.

Then comes my favorite of all, Head Action Soccer. My favorite because it is a game of my favorite sport and one of the things I like the most in the world: soccer. Also because the game turned out as the idea was conceived, which was of being able to play with a whole team in a easy linear soccer game. Also it was important to be able to master your abilities as you face harder teams, and the AI turned out pretty good in my opinion, though if you become too good there will be no opponent that can beat you, which is good for the hardcore players i think. I'm glad that this game could be released in 2 great portals: Minijuegos.com (primary) and SiKids.com (site-locked). It had a lot of exposure in Minijuegos, which is a Spanish site, and in Spain soccer is very popular as we might know, and I'm a fan myself of the Spanish League. Also, this game was my second to be released in more than one language, this time in Spanish (which is my native language by the way) and English. The game is also being played, as I've said, in SiKids.com which is the kids site of Sports Illustrated. I thank God a lot for both opportunities :)

The last game to be released this year is Calculate Genius, which I commented some posts back. This is another very basic concept which was revolving around my mind for some time. And so, it was finished with some type of minigames in which you only have to calculate how much of this or that there is. It was sponsored by Tastyplay.com (primary) and MathNook.com (site-locked).

The last game I've been working on this year (but hasn't been released yet) and is still in the factory is the last one I commented, which is at this point, probably at a 54.38% finished :P

So this was the last post of the year (unless I come up with something in the next 50 minutes :P). That's all for this year, hope to have an even better year in 2010 and that you all have too. Hope the blessings from God for all of you, your families and the ones you love; and I wish that you play even more in the next year! :D Cya!

Going on right now.

I just wanted to make a small post on what's going on in the factory at the moment. First I have to say that I am greatly thankful to GOD, because HE's been helping me a lot with all the projects. Head Action Soccer did great thanks to Him & I'm very glad for the final product and it's acceptance at the great site of Minijuegos.com. I'm thinking on making a sequel for next year's World Cup, but I'm still thinking about the new features it will have. I have in mind some new stuff but it could drastically change the gameplay, or at least make it be based in a different concept, making the "Head" part not that of a main role in the game.

Talking about the new stuff being written at this time, it's a platformer. I hope it'll be a fresh idea. I haven't tried such a thing before because it has such a bunch of gameplay changes along the story, still keeping the thing simple: jump & run. That's all you do, but there will be a set of challenges that [I hope] will make every level a new dare different to the previous ones, where you'll have to use your ability, sometimes intelligence, and more frequently your patience :)

At first I was doubtful about what the main character will be. I started thinking it to be a yellow dude I used in previous games (Jumpagon, and one skateboarding game that still isn't released). Then I threw in a sort of a ninja dude that I was going to use for an action game, but it is still very primitively drawn because it was just done for testing. I wasn't going to use it and hadn't even considered it, until my sister told me she thought that I was going to use it and that it was good. But I think that consideration came to collision with the new idea I had in mind at that time which is using a bunny. Yup, simple as that... the dude ended up being a bunny.

It's a bit funny how I came up with this (hope not to bore you). One day (well, several actually) I was looking for my sticker albums of the past World Cups whicj, by the way, I still haven't found! So I was messing everything up looking for them, and searching in some papers I have in my closet in which I looked like 3 or 4 times to find them. And in those papers there are old notebooks from school and plenty other kinda things. So I was looking at the drawings I made at the last pages of the notebooks and found this crazy-looking bunny and I thought "that could make a nice character!" (but not in English cus I think in Spanish.. cus I speak Spanish :P). So the idea was sitting there until I decided to take that as the main character.

What was pulling me off a bit was the animation, because that's what I am least used to. What I do the most (and probably enjoy the most) is programming, however drawing has always been something I love and I've revived it a bit lately. So I drew it and thank God I think it ended up pretty well. The animation is done at this point so no more worrying about that :)

There are like 9 levels right now. And I'm trying to bring in the best ideas of the brainstorm I did beforehand. I have to say that my lovely girlfriend and my sister have been much help (and always are) and that helps me to have some better ideas and to make the levels suitable for other people that is not me. I've been delaying the making of this game some days because thank God, as I said, there are some projects running on aswell and am making some touches and adding some logos for some nice sponsors.

So that's about it. I thought it was going to be brief but guess it wasn't :P However if you compare it to a book it's actually brief. And maybe I feel it long because I'm writing it right now, but for you who read it it's just a piece text, as it happens sometimes when you text a message in your cellphone an then realize it was shorter than a tweet and your fingers are aching. Which, by the way, doesn't happen in Twitter because those 140 characters seem just too little for our creative brains sometimes. But well... that's a bit off-topic :) Thanks for reading and God bless y'all!

What's up now...

Hey there! I just want to write a bit about what's going on lately. Thank God, Head Action Soccer is about to be released, hope it will be published this week at Minijuegos.com . Calculate Genius is already out there doing its thing. You can play it at Tastyplay.com.

I've been adding some extra stuff for Head Action Soccer these days prior to its release. At first you could only edit your own team, but now the feature of editing any team was added. This in order for the players to be able to name the teams as they want, editing their uniforms etc, so you can not only make your team look as you want, but chose the opponents you wanna face too.

Another feature is that now it has the option of chosing Spanish language. As it is for Minijuegos and its main audience speaks Spanish, this option was introduced. It wasn't that hard because my native language is Spanish too, so translating was not such a hard task. What was a bit delayed was to get all the text into mc's and pasting code for the mc's to go to the respective frame according to the language. Thank God, it's finished now :D And I'm very happy the (any) team editing was done.

And one last news that I'm excited about is that finally, the game that made this same blog be born is about to be released (or that I hope :) , and I'm talking about Paralyze Attack. Thank God, Arcadebomb.com wants it so I hope to begin working on the logo & score implementing very soon.

Also I've begun working on a new game which has the temporary name of Nightmare Boss. It'll be a platformer with a set of twists all allong your way to face the final boss who, in some way, will be your loyal enemy all across your journey in some ways you might not expect. Hope to be giving some more info as the game develops.

Thanks for reading and God bless you all!!

Calculate Genius

Hey, here againg writing about some of the stuff going on. It's been very short since Head Action Soccer was finished, and now a new game has come. It is actually a very fast project, I started it last week, but was just able to work on the menu like 1 day because my sister had to use the computer for lots of College stuff. So I grabbed the game properly 'til yesterday & am very happy because, thank God, it's going really fast.

The game consists of only calculating. You don' have to do anything else but calculate. For example, a lot of objects appear in the screen and you have to calculate how many there are. Of course there's a given time for each so you can't count them. Then a textbox appear for you to introduce the number you believe is the correct. You'll then get a score from 0 to 100 according to your accuracy (still haven't worked on that part). I'm also thinking of giving certain bonuses for more accuracy, like doubling if you get the very exact number, or +50 if you get it over 95... stuff like that.

So the part of the process in which the game is at now, is that the games (or the skeleton of them) are done. Yay!!! It was actually pretty simple doing them. Of course some gave me a bit of trouble but finally everything came out well. Atm it is a total of 13 games. Kinda trying to squeeze my head to get more, but can't really get some other different enough to the ones that are already there. Of course, the graphics that are right now are descent enough for a 3 year old child. They are just sketches to see if the games worked. I think I finished the menu background, and now to the actual game graphics.

I hope to have it finished this week. It would be great to do so, cus most of the games take me like toooooo looooooooooong, and beg God I do.

So that's about it for this post. Have blessings!

Head Action Soccer

So yeah, Head Action Soccer (actual name of the soccer game which might be changed though) is up for bidding on FGL :) Thank God, finally it's finished. Or just just some small tweaks to be done. It's been an exciting process on making this; it's been a challenge. I'm not used to get projects of this length done, basically because my games are more score-based and are short in its majority. But I always like it more to make games like this. It's very satisfacting to get it wrapped up.

So the final game has 32 teams, 3 game modes, 7 trophies, 2 tricks and some more stuff. I really hope, and believe God it will do well on FGL (or anywhere else), and even more with the audience. I really hope so, cus it's intended to provide fun to the gamers. I enjoy it quite a lot (but I always enjoy them :P) and my goal is to be able to make people enjoy it too.

The hardest part was probably the tournament and team arrangement. Getting it well done gives you some headaches every now and then, but that's the good part of it... what would it it doesn't make you pull your hair of desperation sometime?

Some people hate programming. In fact I think most people does. I don't. I like it as much as designing or even more. My weakest ability imo is animation. That is what I try to avoid, but if it has to be done then it has to. I don't quite dislike it. In fact I began with Flash because I wanted to animate. I just find it tedious sometimes if it is frame by frame drawing.

For this game it was special because of the customizable features. I couldn't only make a leg as a movie clip, and so with arms and else. I had to make, for example the outlines with the lights and shadows in one layer and the color in another and a mask over it. The color is a mc that has a mask applied to show only the needed parts. So it has a lot of layers. But it was very fun to make.

So that's about it. I may get into more details later. Atm I'm watching tv & writing this, so as a man, it's quite a task to do both right, so please excuse any mistake you find :P So cya soon! Blessings!

Da new soccer game

A bit of time since last post it seems. Paralyze Attack (now with a "z" yo!) hasn't been release yet. It's been finished since some time ago but haven't been able to release to the public.

The game after it was Perfect Shot. I am very thankful to God because the game had a good acceptance overall. What I like the most of it is it's simplicity which is vital for some games, and so is with this one. I have failed in that aspect some times back but giving a shot to something just as simple as pressing only space bar ended up having good results. In fact I'm thinking of working on some games under that same concept; with a bit more of depth but as simple as that.

So thank God that game was released already, meaning we're on a new game process :) This one is a soccer game, but based on the idea of a linear soccer, like the platformer 2d games. Something similar to a game called Sumo Sushi Soccer I played some time ago. I asked myself what about making a soccer game that is not top down, but played to the side like platformer games, and then this idea came and remembered of that sumo game and the classic crab volley ball.

The game is turning out well thank God. It's been 2 months of development and I might say that it might take another week or two until it is fully finished. The gameplay is done, just some minor glitches to fix and some features to add. It has been an exciting road to this point. And think it will keep being. I have been very optimistic about it. It will have a championship mode, a league mode (all vs all), an arcade mode (face oponent after oponent until someone beats you) and a 2 player mode. Right now we have Championship mode complete and League mode too, just missing some testing on this last one and some things to tweak.

It also has ulockable stuff for your players. You can customize your team and improve each player to be more capable to face tougher teams later. It has a total of 32 teams. Basically, the motivations for having that number of teams and not 16 (which I also thought of) was because it lets you have one more match in the Championship mode. So you have to play a total of 7 matches to win the cup. The League mode will be available until you get to quarter or semi finals in the Championship mode, still not decided about that.

For the League mode, there's a total of 16 teams, 15 of which are chosen randomly from the 32 (because the 1st team is yours). That because I don't want it to be too tedious for the player to beat this mode, making it a total fo 15 matches. Of course, in every mode there will be the option to save your progress, even your score, because it will be reset every time you submit it. I'm thinking of making these league matches shorter than the Championship ones, because there are more. Same with the Arcade ones.

So, that's a quick view about the game shaping up in the lab at this moment. I hope, if God wants, to have it realeased very soon. Cya!

An advance on the now called Paralyse Attack

So, thank God I think the game is about to be finished. I think I've got a title for it, it will be "Paralyse Attack". It was going to be called "The Pause Shooter" but I got some comments of it being uninspired and it was right, what does "pause" and "shooter" have of interesting or appealing? So I hope that Paralyse Attack is a better title for it.

I have to thank two people who helped me out giving some very valuable feedback on the game: Jonas and Ali from flashkit. They really helped me out with some very good suggestions that were useful to polish the game. So I guess it's getting on the final line. Basically I need the menus and some tweaks I think. I need some more testing because I was testing it some days ago and then I realized that there was a point where your weapon evoluted so much that the amount of enemies wasn't enough to get rid of you almost by any way so at that point the game was terribly easy and you didn't even need of the paralyse feature to destroy your opponents. Due to that, I decided to delay the evolution of the special weapons in two aspects: first, you need to kill more enemies in order to get to the next level; second, the weapon will evolute more gradually because there was a point in the most powerful weapons where it made a big jump and increased its power into an almost undefeatable weapon from one level to the other one.

The cool thing about having those weapons as in any other shooter is that the enemies you had trouble defeating are no longer a menace, like the biggies in this one, which are some very large ships that appear every now and then trying to massacre you. So in later levels they will be a worm against you.

I think I'll try to get a bit of more feedback, just to make shure nothing is missing. I've learned some good lessons because of not getting feedback and just letting myself be the one that tests and suggests about the game. Oh yes, I've learned the lesson. Not that much maybe cus I still have the temptation of not doing it but It's necessary and very useful cus everyone has a different point of view and gets aware of things you didn't and have some cool ideas that very probably didn't pass through your mind. And I thank again to Jonas and Ali because of their help. Also my sister and my girlfriend which help me a lot in this stuff too.

So, things on the list:
-Finish the menus.
-Test if the weapons are ok.
-Add a sound when going up in levels.
-Get a good an noticeable roll-over effect when paralysed.
-Get the options done.

I guess that will be it, so hope to have this one soon. Though I have some work (thank God) on other one to get done, which is called "Water the Bombs". It is the first game with multiple languages that I do so its something new. It's cool to see the game in languages and symbols such as Japanese, which gets a feel of a Japanese game :P.

Thanks for reading & have much blessings from our God!

The pause game

I still don't know the title for this one so I'll just name it "the pause game" temporarily, maybe it'll be called "The pause effect" or "The pause shooter", not shure yet. I've been working in this one maybe for 2 weeks now and I guess it's getting a good shape so far. I think it might be 70% done or a bit more. The ships are done, the weapons are done, or I hope so; I'm still thinking about adding more weapons.

The aim of the game is this: It is a shooter. A spaceship shooter. But you have an ability... you can pause the game!! Yeah, as you heard it!... or read it. Just imagine that. Everything still. Nothing moving. Nothing but peace in the middle of an intergalactic battle. No one bothers you... Well, if it wouldn't been done in videogames since Mario was a born (and before) it might have been a good idea now, don't you think so?

So yeah, you pause the game, but that's not it. While the game is paused, you can do what you want with everything on screen except for you ship. You use your mouse to move the other ships and bullets. Missiles and bombs, you can place them where you want.

When destroying enemies you gain points besides the score. These points count down when the game is paused so you can't stop the game forever, you have to be fast! These points are also used for your special weapons. If you want to use them, these points will low down.

So this is the point where the game is now. The enemies are all done. Maybe one or two more. The weapons are done. I think the next step is to organize how the game will advance. At this moment all the enemies appear as crazy and you get all kind of baddies from the beginning. I'll have to make it so the easier ones appear in the start and then things get harder. I'll also have to arrange the enemies in a proper order. They will be appearing according to their name "e1", "e2" and so on. So I'll have to put the easier ones with the lower names and so the tough guys go at the end.

Thanks for reading & Blessings!

The first post

Hey, how all you doing?

The reason for making this blog is this: I was working in a game at late hours and realized how would it be to have a place to write the process in game making; the ideas that come up; the options to go for and which one I chose; how I hope the game will turn out; how it is actually turning out; the problems that appear; dunno, that kind of stuff. Cus you know, this thing's like a journey. Every single game has it's own challenges, its own characteristics. You learn new things, old things come up, and all wraps up in a final product. So that's what this blog is for: the making of that final product. That one which is intended to impress your judge. The judge in front of the screen. The one that will tell you to better go fishing, or the one that will say "this game's awesome!". At the end no one cares how much programming did you use, how well you code it, your classes, functions, the time in making it, etc. At the end, your judge is the player.

Just a thought to spice things up a bit. So let's write about the gaming process. Blessings to y'all!