Looks like the next TIGSource competition has been announced, this time it’s for procedurally generated games. I’m really excited about the theme, as I think it would be perfect for a shooter idea I’ve had for awhile but honestly time is going to be a major concern. With ERH, I put some stuff on hold and while I was able to catch up to some extent, it puts an incredible strain on my workload to toss another project on the burner.
Without going into the psychological reasons why, one of my ultimate hatreds and frustrations in games stem from gameplay that heavily requires extensive memorized or predictable routines to be performed. I can tolerate it of course, but the old school gamer in me still craves pure, twitch action. The appeal of procedural content to me is creating a game experience that forces a player to always be on their toes. With most games, no matter how hard a section may get, you can always break down the fourth wall and remember that a game designer somewhere created this challenge with a specific solution in mind. Conversely, I would love to provide an experience where a player can go into a battle and honestly not know whether or not they can survive the challenge. There’s something to be said about fighting valiantly against inescapable odds and not backing down against certain death, something that doesn’t really exist in modern games today. If nothing else, I would want to create a game that provided that exact opportunity, while wrapping the player in pure, unhinged action.
My entry for the TIGSource Video Game Name Generator Competition is finished! Get it here:
Download Enraged Rocket House
3.4mb | requires a somewhat decent 3D card
YouTube Gameplay Video
In celebration of my first, actual, completed game I decided to write a short Gamasutra styled postmortem about the process. Hopefully that makes up for my month-long posting dry spell.
About The Game
If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, you probably know I have a lot of trouble sticking with and ultimately completing my games. I’ve touched on a variety of reasons/excuses for why this trend has been so hard to break in the past, but usually it came down to time and focus. Too little or too much, from each category. So awhile back, I promised myself that I would try to break the pattern by entering a competition. I figured that the deadline, the specific rule set, and the public exposure would help keep me on the path and ultimately finish a game. Seems like I was right :)
Enraged Rocket House (ERH from here on out), came up on my 20th or so try with the name gen. I had a Google Doc file open and was just copying and pasting titles I liked that came out of the VGNG. When ERH came up, I instantly thought of the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns and Homer get trapped in a cabin after an avalanche. I even used the quote on my entry page. I spent about a day going back and forth between a couple different scenarios but ultimately settled on a semi-serious vertical shmup where the ERH fights against the evil Bank looking to foreclose. I thought it was topical and could throw a little personal experience into the storyline (we’re selling, not foreclosing…) to make it work. After a few days tho, I felt making a shmup would take me too long to complete since I was unexperienced with the genre, so I went back to familiar territory. After a few iterations and some inspiration from one of my favorite classics, Yar’s Revenge, I settled on a delivery/chase game.
What Went Right
1. The Rocket House
The idea of a rocket house made perfect sense to me the second I pulled that title. It’s a house with a rocket in it, brilliant! Once I settled on the name, I drew about 2 or 3 tame sketches before saying screw it, I’m giving him a giant, snarling mouth. I immediately started modeling and by the end of the first night I had finished the mesh. This never happens for me. Typically, I go back and forth, trying different things revising and revisioning, etc. etc. I’ll attribute it to the deadline, but hammering out the model in the first night was the best thing I could have done. It set a precedent for the rest of the development, as I finished the Ice Cream Truck the following night and the kids a few nights later. I had all the primary models finished within the first 5 days, which meant visually I had something substantial to work with as I started building the code base.
2. All Green
As I always do, I built a task list on Google Docs broken into 3 categories: Code, Art, Sound. I typically write down everything I can think of onto the list, then organize the list by priority. Once that’s settled, I usually do a series of reality checks and finalize my task list. Obviously, the list is fluid and things get shifted/added/subtracted over the course of development. I track progress by leaving unworked tasks in black, in-progress tasks in blue, ‘nice to have’ tasks in orange, and finished tasks in green. If you know my history of completing games, you wouldn’t be surprised to see the majority of my lists never getting out of the black and blue. For the first time ever tho, my entire list was green. I actually finished everything vital and even promoted a few orange tasks up the ranks (I never thought I’d have time to build the neighborhood, so it was orange until the last week).
3. Tasty Treats
I don’t typically rant and rave about my own work, but I love the way the treat gui worked out. The little renders of the 9 different treats came out better than I originally expected and I think really added to the game’s character.
What Went Wrong
1. Form over Function
I’m very proud of how the game looks considering the short deadline and the numerous other real life things I was juggling along with the development of the game. That being said, I spent way, way too much time on the visuals and I feel the gameplay suffered. I realize that the timeframe I had to work in means corners had to be cut, but I spent too much time refining things that had no impact on gameplay, while never fixing things that clearly did. The big one for me is the lack of collision with the kids, knowing people will probably complain about that. I wanted to add things like repairs and restocking of inventory so you could play longer but just ran out of time to implement it to a level I felt was worthwhile. So while the game for the most part looks great, there’s some minor nagging gameplay issues that will endlessly bug me.
Secondly, the game is lacking in the sound and music department. A friend of mine made the little ice cream jingle that plays but aside from that, I was only able to add 3 sfx. Throughout the game, the ERH is completely silent, which to me is a little disappointing.
2. Cleanliness
Perhaps building off of the last item, I felt I wasted too much time trying to make clean systems and functions. I spent about 3 days getting the menus and GUI to animate and behave properly, building a fairly complex and decent animation system. While it’s something I can build upon for a future game, within the scope of time I was operating in, the creation of new technology was probably a bad idea as the power of the system would never really be utilized in any significant fashion. In the end, I should have a little more urgency in my tasks, so I didn’t have to work at a breakneck pace heading towards the deadline.
3. Shadows
The amount of time, energy, and ultimately video ram I invested in giving the game realistic shadows was probably a mistake. It looks nice enough (except the houses), but that’s the last time I bake shadows into lightmaps. Never again. My future games will have at the very least stencil shadows, even if I have to buy a system for them. Ugh. In the end I totally cheated on the truck and kids, just adding blobs underneath them. It’s enough to sell the visuals and probably should have been my system from the onset.
Conclusion
It’s amazing that it’s been over five years now since I first decided to give game programming a try, a long, frustrating road full of pit stops and breakdowns. ERH is by no means the greatest game ever and I’m sure it’s probably something I’ll look back on in 5 years and laugh at, but it’s important to start somewhere and for me, this is it. It’s a fun little game and I’m proud to have something finished and available for other people to hopefully enjoy. This game has been a great experience for me and a boost to my confidence that I can create a good game one day. Right now, I’m looking forward to the next big idea…
Have fun!
