Candy Jam #2 - Non-random random tiles

Today was pretty productive, so why not check out this demo of how it works so far?

http://www.bigstompyrobots.com/candy/

Edit: demo has been replaced with the Beri-remix of the completed game.

I thought I had the tile stuff pretty much done and dusted, until I exported the demo and run it in the browser... So in the dev environment everything comes in randomized but for some reason the html5 version doesn't want to randomize on a tile by tile basis for some reason. There's also a weird bias in the clearing mechanic as well... but I'm not sure I'm going to have time to look into it. Since it doesn't break anything, for now it's totally an intentional feature.

Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to be able to get the battle mechanic working. Essentially the player and an AI take turns at seeing who can pick the best batch of candy in a short amount of time, loser of which takes damage. I have some options for adding a little more depth to it, but it's all going to come down to time really.  If I can get it done quick that will hopefully leave Sunday to add a little more depth or some nice bells and whistles. I still have a couple of other art things that should probably get done as too, like a title screen, and every time I look at the game I see another element that could be done better, so I suspect I'm going to be using all the time I have.

Candy Jam #1 - Scrolls of Candy: Apple of Memory Saga

So, apparently the people (and there's been 2 of them so I assume "the people" is more accurate than "a person") demand more BSR.

Since it's been a while, and indeed it's a new year, I may as well state for the record where I'm at... So towards the end of last year I was made redundant from my job as a train whisperer. Since I hadn't really had a proper holiday for a few years I decided to take a break and spend a little time taking it easy and playing video games/wallowing in self pity. Then Christmas happened. Then searching for a new job happened. Then my sister's wedding happened. Then Australia Day happened. Now we're here.

It's sadly looking more and more like I'll be unable to pick up a new job in the industry any time soon for a number of reasons, but I don't want to stop making games or trying to improve myself as a game designer. Regardless of what I end up doing employment wise I want to get back to the stage I was at at a couple of years ago, where I was at least making new things weekly. This time though, with more of a focus on game design or at least improving the skills I already have.

So with all that in mind: I plan on entering as many game jam type things this year as possible. I had intended on entering the Global Game Jam 2014 to start the year off, but unfortunately it clashed with my sister's wedding. Instead, I ended up latching onto the Candy Jam, a protest jam against King.com's suspect legal practices. I wont bore you with specifics, so check out the link if you want to know more.

Because I like overkill, I've named this attempt "Scrolls of Candy: Apple of Memory Saga". I guess the gameplay will be a mash of Candy Crush Saga with Puzzle Fighter and a side of Magic: The Gathering. I've done the majority of the art (see above) but I've been pretty slack over the last few days. I've still gotta do the code, and I haven't really made a falling tile puzzler (or at least, haven't really attempted on in a while) but I think I can handle it before the deadline of February 3rd. However, the other Jams this year that are only over two days, I might have a bit of trouble doing everything by myself.

Oh and also... This isn't the only thing I've been working on. I actually started something else before the end of the year that's maybe around a third/half done, but at the time I was more in the mindset of just getting things done rather than talking about doing things. As it turns out, that might have been the wrong way to go about it... If I've learnt anything from these last two months, it's that it doesn't matter anywhere near as much how good you might be at something, it's more important that you talk the talk. I guess that's something I need to work on. Also, I'll show stuff from the other game after this jam. Maybe.

Where ever I lay my hat

So, congrats to newlyweds Heath and Jenna. Less congrats to my hangover.

Fail state

So this weekend I'm trapped away from a computer... And my backup plan of having art already done has fallen through (on account of only drafting one post before I left). Cousin's wedding though, so what was I going to do? 

So to make up for it I was going to draw up something on this tablet, but right now that doesn't appear to be an option. So please, enjoy this Limerick instead:

There once was a man from port pirie,

Who found it hard to rhyme things with pirie.

So he laid in bed

With a very sorry head

Something something something rhyming with pirie. 

Get a hair cut and get a real job part 2

Some old favorites, some new favorites.

I definitely think I've struggled with the hair the most out of all the layers so far... I'm just glad I made the faces cartoony enough that I could get away with all the oversimplification.

Other things I've learnt:
- I need to redo the ears for all of the face variants to fit the hairlines.
- If I want to do facial hair (and of course, I do) that needs to be a separate layer under hair. Which is fine, because I need somewhere for eyebrows, and what are eyebrows if not little moustaches for your eyes?

Get a haircut, and get a real job

So I thinking 8 different hairstyles (plus bald I guess). I'm also thinking it's going to be easier to just make the hats variants of the hair and keep it in the same layer, so I'm going to do that instead.

Take off your coat and jacket

I think 4 jackets is going to be fine, since the enemy wont always be wearing them. There's still multiple colour variants so that's more than enough. I am waaaaaaaaaaay too tired to talk about much else tonight.