the drawing board

Update on RiftMaker

I’ve been continuing to work on RiftMaker, albeit fitfully.  I’ve drawn icons for several of the spells for the toolbar, and I’m most of the way through loading the spellbook XML file, which contains definitions for possible spells (what they do, who they target, how powerful they are, who can use them, etc).  No changes to actual gameplay yet, although I’ve corrected a few bugs (hopefully including the strange bug that caused folks to get stuck in the overworld after emerging from the desert/house) and reorganized some of my code to make development easier.  (Or, if I were writing a formal computer science paper, to “facilitate development.”)

More news to come as it develops.

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Lessons From Adventures of Kyle

Last night I randomly started playing one of my really old Games Factory creations - the Adventures of Kyle, a weird hybrid of Diablo and Zelda. I spent a lot of effort on this game, but the results aren’t all that entertaining, so I thought I would record “lessons learned” so to speak - things not to try again, not counting the inadvisability of writing a game based entirely on the personalities of your own group of friends.

1. Isometric view is not drawn at a 45 degree angle.
One of the more frustating elements of this game visually is the wacky perspective. Isometric is the perspective used by Diablo, Starcraft, and Mario RPG to simulate a 3D perspective entirely in two dimensions. It occasionally looks wacky as objects do not diminish in size as they get farther away, but this wackiness could be hidden or reduced with appropriate graphics tricks. Needless to say, I did not use any of them in Adventures of Kyle, in which I also drew everything at a 45 degree angle - more effort then drawing things head on, while at the same time appearing highly distorted and amateurish. The actual angle is something else that I’m too lazy to look up right now.

2. Games aren’t fun when you can’t kill a single enemy without getting hurt.
This may be less true of RPGs where combat is abstracted and healing mechanisms are plentiful and expected, but for games with any action component, there’s really nothing more frustrating than finding that no amount of skill can save you from getting hit by a monster at least once.  Stocking up on health potions merely to survive long enough to beat the next level is un-fun.  Having the option of potions to help mitigate an avoidable disaster is fun.  Good enemy design, therefore, means no random, jerky enemy movements, no unblockable or undodgable projectiles, and no enemies that chase you inexorably that can kill you instantly.

3. Challenge should not derive from poor play control.
One of the decisions I made early on with Adventures of Kyle was that I would imitate the mouse-driven control style of Diablo.  I also thought, evidently, it would be a good idea to extend that control with a variety of obscure keyboard commands.  Mouse driven control requires a lot of finagling to get right.  Although a simple left mouse click tells Kyle where to walk to, he has no pathfinding capabilities whatsoever.  Many of the enemies move too fast to right-click (indicating a desire to attack), and the range of Kyle’s sword swing is so low that you have to be practically hugging the enemy to get a hit in.  Naturally, all this is overcome-able with some ingenuity and practice, but who WANTS to?  The more satisfying video games give you a significant element of responsiveness and control - the challenges are external, not internal.  Zelda aficionados know that it can be great fun to mow grass in “Link to the Past” - the grass is no challenge, but it represents a crisp exertion of power in the video game world.  Games can’t be too easy, of course, but no one minds levels that start simply or build in challenge.  Super Mario Galaxy had an excellent challenge curve.  The challenge should not be in just walking around.

4. You really ought to be able to walk behind trees.
Of course, at this point in my Games Factory career (9th grade, maybe?), I didn’t have the slightest idea how to create objects that you could go both in front of and behind.  Legends of Kyle had me trying to be a little too clever by shifting trees around the Z-axis (depth level) slowly but visibly during gameplay.  By later games (never finished and probably lost to a disabled hard drive), I had found plug-ins for Multimedia Fusion that did the trick, but simply punting on the issue and forcing Kyle to walk all the way around the tops of trees as though they were flat instead of standing up was just bizarre.  Some more clever level design might have corrected the problem.  Maybe the lesson here is, if there’s something important you can’t do, redesign the game so no one notices!

5. Make the game accessible to people who don’t know you and your friends.
Although the point of a lot of these games that I made WAS to build fantasy worlds for and involving people I knew, there are likely ways to mitigate that that I wasn’t really interested in doing.  Jokes instead of in-jokes, ample introductory material to present folks to people who don’t know them, etc. etc.  I’m sure that there are limits even then, but I figure they ought to TRY to be broached, rather than simply run away from.

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Old Haunted Mansion Midis

I found these sitting around my “My Documents” folder, so I thought I’d go ahead and repost them for all to listen and enjoy.  These are concept midis I wrote for several different Haunted Mansion: the Musical songs, some of which are basically still the same and others have been jettisoned.

• the-ghostly-bride - The second song in Act One is almost entirely the same in my mind as this initial concept midi.  The song is sung by Madame Leota to Jamison Philes, explaining the situation the Mansion is in and pleading with him for help.  The only differences now are a new ending section and a cleaner bridge.
• i-want-to-be-close-to-you - The final love song of Act Two, sung by Sam to Caroline.  No lyrics yet, but I like it enough to leave it largely the same I think.
• unnatural - I like this draft of “Simply Unnatural” still, but chord-structure-wise it’s too close to the opening number, so I didn’t want it to become repetitive.
• simply-unnatural - I also like this draft, but it doesn’t strike the quite right notes for what I think Caroline should be feeling at that point in the story.  Also, the melody is really hard to write lyrics for.
• its-my-life - I’ve tried a number of variations of this theme for Caroline’s rebellious song at the beginning of Act Two, but I keep coming back to the original concept here.  I play “the Ghostly Bride” on top of the second verse, but I think I was more poking fun at myself for all my songs sounding the same then suggesting that I actually intend to pair them in the musical, although it might be cool.
• the-way-that-it-used-to-be - an earlier midi-only version.  One of the first songs I wrote, and it hasn’t changed much since this version.

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A Quick MP3 of “Simply Unnatural”

News from the Haunted Mansion musical front:

I’ve finally found a melody for “Simply Unnatural” that I really like, and doesn’t seem to clash as much with “The Way That It Used To Be,” which comes after the following scene.  “Simply Unnatural” is sung by Caroline after she awakens from her unconsciousness, having been scared to the point of fainting by ghosts who can’t help but scare people - good-naturedly, of course.  Jamison is off on the other side of the darkened ballroom (at this point in the scene we don’t know where we are), having been told by Caroline that she needs to be left alone.  The ghosts, of course, refuse to let her be uncomforted.

Here’s the sample mp3 (a few flubs, nothing too bad).

Lyrics:

CAROLINE
I don’t
Believe in
Ghosts or ghouls or myths that people fear.

(She takes a tissue from a floating box of Kleenex with a light “thank you”)

CAROLINE
And no ghost
Can make me.
So all you ghosts had better disappear.

(She tosses the used tissue into a floating wastebasket)

CAROLINE
It’s simply…
Simply unnatural.
It’s simply…
Simply unnatural.
That’s all, all it is.
That’s all it is.

Did you
Believe that
I would like to learn that I’ve been blind?
Or do you
Not know that
It’s impolite to blow somebody’s mind?

(The Hitchhiking Ghosts gently provide backup from the shadows)

CAROLINE (GHOSTS)
It’s simply…
Simply unnatural
(Don’t you love to go exploring?)
It’s simply…
Simply unnatural
(We know natural is boring)
That’s all, all it is
That’s all it is

Don’t you dare inform me how I ought to feel!
I’ll decide what I’ll believe is mythical or real!

It’s simply…
Simply unnatural
(Sorry for your perturbation)
It’s simply…
Simply unnatural
(Could not stand up to temptation)
That’s all, all it is
That’s all it is

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Possible Line for Haunted Mansion

I thought of this on the train coming home today - suppose we have Sam and Jamison racing through the Haunted Mansion to try and find Caroline, discussing, along the way, why Sam was so willing to let the relationship die when he clearly still cares mountains for the girl.  Of course, among other things, there is the (sigh) fear of commitment issue, which is succinctly dismissed by Jamison as follows:

SAM
You know, forever is a long time!

JAMISON
Yeah, well, never is even longer.

Is this neat, silly, or just nonsense, do you think?

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RiftMaker To-Do List for Combat

The following items still need to be taken care of for RiftMaker combat:

Sound Effects:

• Enemy dying
• Blunt attack
• Slash attack
• Pierce attack
• Heal spell
• Flee sound

Music fade-in/fade-out

Skills bank for characters, assignment of skills to hotkeys, animation of skills

Target selection

Character animations:

• victory
• pain
• weak
• dead
• attacking
• casting spell

It’s quite the bill to fill, but I’ll let you know how it’s coming along.

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RiftMaker Demo 0.8

So I’ve got RiftMaker to a point where I feel like I can post a demo for all to see and marvel:

Click here for the demo.

What’s new?

Combat! Well, not quite. You can now run into random monsters in the desert, which will bring up the combat screen with actual pixelated images of 3 different monsters I drew my very own self (it was not easy for me). To win a battle, all you have to do is push any key, and push any key again to return to the map. Actually, this may be more fun than having a real fight. Maybe I’ll just leave it like this…

Instructions:
Arrow keys to move
Shift to dash
Space bar to open chests, talk to people, enter houses
“S” to look surprised
“M” for menu

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RiftMaker Music - Now Without the Metronome!

Before the Drawing Board was so rudely destroyed (by me), I had posted my latest five sample tracks for RiftMaker, but I had forgotten to turn off the metronome ticking. Nobody seemed to notice, but it wasn’t intended. Here are the tracks without the light hi-hat every quarter note:

Victory.mp3
Combat.mp3
Desert.mp3
Menu.mp3
Realm of Strife.mp3

You may not notice any difference at all, but here they are, in case you’ve missed them.

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Rough Draft of “The Way That It Used to Be”

So I’ve been thinking about Disney’s Haunted Mansion: the Musical again - an idea that’s just too good to let die, even though there’s a behemoth corporation standing in the way of it ever being fully realized.  I’ve now written a draft of lyrics for the song “The Way That It Used to Be,” sung by Jamison Philes to Caroline towards the end of Act One.

By this point in the story, the secret of the mansion (that is - it’s haunted!) has been revealed to Caroline, who is none too happy about having her world turned upside down.  Jamison tries to coax her out of her chagrin, and at one point in the conversation, is asked why he thinks this place is so special anyway.  Jamison replies, eventually, that there’s a history there - a story of generations and a past that’s been lost.  Throughout the song, he sings more “at” Caroline than “to” Caroline, who never quite accepts what Jamison is telling her, making it, I think, more sad and more effective - especially as it provides tension to help the audience return to see Act Two!

Here’s an mp3 I made to help you follow along.  It’s piano only, but you get the general idea.
The Way That It Used to Be

JAMISON
Can you not feel it?
Can you not sense it?

An older day
An older way
A diff’rent way…

A graying painting,
Decaying portrait,
A faded tint,
A shiny glint,
A tiny hint
Of something old
Or something very new…

An attic unexplored,
A dusty harpsichord -
Old things so long ignored! -
The way that it used to be, but -

If you will look, you’ll find something beautiful…

(The ballroom undergoes a transfiguration, restoring itself to its original late 17th-century state.  Caroline continues to not look at him, even turning away.  Jamison is joined by the spirits of two ballroom dancers, who re-enact his story for him.)

JAMISON
Across the ballroom
He meets her eyeline.
Feels like she’s flying
Beyond the skyline.

He takes her hand
To touch her hand,
To kiss her hand.
A courtly bow,
And ev’rything feels new…

(The spirits begin to dance.  The three Hitchhiking Ghosts emerge from hiding to back Jamison up.)

JAMISON (HITCHHIKING GHOSTS)
A promise in each glance,
Each step within the dance
Is more than just romance…
The way that it used to be!

And though there’s highs and lows (highs and lows!)
That dance will last, she knows, (For she knows)
Because it’s what they chose - (It’s how they chose to be!)
The way that it used to be!

There’s hurt and joy for those who won’t hide, afraid.
To be alone is not why the heart was made!

(They are joined by many other pairs of dancing ghosts, who begin to twirl elegantly about in the air.)

JAMISON
One beautiful dance,
Then you can fly!
If you will try…
Then you could fly if you would only start to try…
Then you could fly!

(Caroline again refuses to take his hand, so he dances, by some magic, in the air by himself, amidst the ballroom dancers.  Soon, the dance draws to a close, and the ballroom spirits fade away.  The ballroom itself darkens and returns to its eerie, dilapidated original form.)

JAMISON
Your broken heart’s still sore,
So not again you swore.
You’d heard it all before.
The way that it used to be,
But…

If you will look, you’ll find something beautiful…

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Whoops

In my fumbling attempts to upgrade my WordPress installation to something with capabilities beyond directing additional  spam into my email inbox, I have managed to erase my entire previous blog.  Well - I actually have it stored in xml format on my desktop, but WordPress refuses to import any blog information larger than 2 MB.  Heaven forfend.

So I am taking this opportunity to start fresh!  The Drawing Board will be creative-project specific, and I will be creating another blog to handle religious/political thoughts, such as they are.

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