You could've been number one.

One day I've really gotta get around to finishing Starlight. Pretty much all the coding is done, I just need to get around to doing all the art and placing all the levels.

The main character is this guy, Mr. I'm-totally-spacing-on-his-name. I'm pretty sure it was some Muse reference though, just like everything else in this game. For instance, he's part of the military order of the Knights of Cydonia. He pilots a ship that has the universes only U.N.O. gun. There are also Super Massive Blackholes. Also revelations.

In other related news, my old sketching pen finally ran out of ink so I've been forced to move on to another one. It's a different brand and not as good in my humble opinion. I should've bought up big with the other pen, but I guess that's something to remember for the future. Furthermore last night I was well and truly wrecked so I rushed the colouring somewhat. Story over.

Triumphant return!

Life has been busy, what can I say...

To the left, you will notice a screen shot from the upcoming Starlight game I've been working on. Co-incidentally, the same screen shot I promised some month ago. My dog ate my computer, OK?

Admittedly, I haven't really been doing as much of my own stuff as I had planned. I have been getting valuable insider experience, which is great because I'm learning new things everyday and piecing together old stuff I didn't understand from before, but I still feel like I'm letting myself down by not running my own show as well.

So about Starlight then?

It's a sci-fi puzzle type deal, inspired in a game sense by Portal and in a musical sense by Muse, loosely tied together by a tale of intergalactic love and exploding stars. In all realism, I'm just one guy. I'm not expecting this to rival Portal, or indeed any game. That's not the point. The goal here is to produce something I'm proud of and learn from in regards to game design.

The basics that I want to learn, and emulate with this game revolve around guided thought. Each puzzle, or star system, is supposed to build on the last. The puzzles aren't supposed to seem random, there should be some logical link between them and previous ones. This in itself isn't remarkably tough, but I do think that also having a balanced difficulty curve on top of that will be the kicker. More on that later though, no doubt when I'm finishing up levels I'll have learned a little more and have a more informed view.

My reference to 'Eastern Game Design' in the previous post might have to wait a little longer to be explained. It's cold here and my hands are starting to freeze up. Basically, it's in regards to control scheme. Take Super Mario Bros for example; in the old ones all you had was movement and jump (and shoot I guess). The game required you to take these basic moves, and slowly increase your understanding of them and use them in progressively difficult ways. That's the kind of aim I was taking when I was thinking about Starlight; simple base control system that gets employed in different ways as the game goes on. But as I said before, thats a bedtime story for another night.

Meanwhile, my current plan will be to update this blog on Mondays and Fridays. I've got two different projects on the go, my nights divvied up and a brand new determination to ROCK ON THRU.

Bets on me keeping that schedule are currently sitting at 15:1.

Arrrrrgh... I hate it. I really do...

So once again; behind the eightball, breaking my promises, incapable of knowing if this is the correct usage of ";"...

But its not all bad news! Sure, I've been super busy with work the last couple of weeks. Sure, I've had to endure the terror that is my parents coming to check up on me (and I do mean terror, trust me on that), but not everything is a total bust up.

With my one free day these last couple of weeks, I managed to clean up this engine I had sitting about my hard disk, wasting space. I've managed to iron out the immediately visible bugs and create something of a pre-pre-alpha version of the game I wanted to make together. Please note that not only is this incredibly early, but it's supposed to be this easy because I'm deliberately leading you to the answer. Every time you understand whats going on, It makes me feel just that little be more superior.

Anyway, check it out here.

This is really an exercise in eastern game design. It's fully a topic I intend to write about in depth (when I'm warmer and more in control of my fingers) but until then you'll just have to work out your own what the hell I'm babbling about. Until then... Rock out.

(Note: There is no picture or anything because I am hammered and I have nothing relevant to show. This is a test to see if I can convince myself that posts can consist merely of words without the need of images. Who knows, I may wake up tomorrow feeling guilty and have to google image search an appropriate image out of shame. Only time will tell.)