304: The Number of the Ben

News, News, News!

2009-12-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

No new alpha builds for now, as I have been busy doing all sorts of interesting things. However, I do have some other things to mention!

Firstly, I have written a post mortem piece on that Featherweight game, so if you want to see what I think of it a few weeks on, head on over to Gnome's Lair!

In XAGE news, Dan now has proven that Awakener can run on a Mac over on the XAGE blog, and he goes into depth about some changes that are really good ideas!

And finally, SSH has put up a poll on the AGS blog to see which of my games you lot like the most. If there was a poll for polls that amuse me the most, I'd vote for this one! Funnily enough, the votes seem to be all over the place :D

Yes, I know I haven't uploaded the source files for ! yet. I will do it soon :)

More Rubbish

2009-12-20T05:38:00.000-08:00

Despite a vast number of distractions today (Hooray for the internet!) I got some more work done on the game.

Mostly just adding puzzles and junk in so far, so it doesn't look that much advanced from where it was yesterday - but putting things into the editor is always where I slow down, so I kinda expected it.

If anyone is actually interested, next alpha is here.

! seems to be going reasonably well in the 2 days it's had online. Most people are happy with the puzzles, which was my #1 goal here - and though I know I'm never going to make something that everyone likes, it is nice to see that the majority like it.

If no bugs have been reported by tomorrow, I'll throw the source files up here on the blog for anyone who is interested to have a poke around.

Assorted Silliness

2009-12-19T04:51:00.001-08:00

First things first, here's another silly little comic. I hope you enjoy =D

Secondly:

Not only did yesterday mark the release of !, it also marked the day that my cheap, old, limited version of Photoshop gave up the ghost. Seriously, I tried installing it on 2 different computers, uninstalling, restarting - no matter what I did, nothing worked. Deciding I could probably do with a newer version of PS Elements anyway, I jumped online and ordered myself a new copy in the mail. Sadly, this is going to take a while to get here and thus I'm stuck here with no Photoshop and time on my hands (I tried using GIMP and just got frustrated).

So. I kinda told myself that ! would be the last short game for a while, because I have some big projects that I really need to focus on.

But time off work means I need things to keep me busy, so I thought "It can't hurt too much to just make another *tiny* game that only takes a few days, to keep me busy until I get new Photoshops". Because I'm going to be working on the game pretty much every day, I thought it'd be fun to post what I've done at the end of each day for you lot to see - kind of like a development diary, I guess. So far the game is called Fictional Memories (but I don't like the name at all) and there's only 2 rooms and one real interaction, but most of the day was spent getting a few little graphics together and cursing the fact that our power went out for a few hours. It's only the first day, so don't expect heaps.

I'd love to get some feedback on this as I won't be looking for beta testers this time, seeing as it will be such a small game. I personally think the colour palette is awful and have considered changing it, but haven't done so mostly due to laziness. If you feel like testing it out, feel free to download the first alpha here. Otherwise, feel free to look at the screenshot and tell me how far I've fallen when it comes to using good old GraphicsGale to do my graphics.

Oh, and yeah, the first few puzzles are probably going to be very odd. Actually, all of the puzzles will probably be very odd. But hopefully they'll start making sense at some point :P.

!

2009-12-18T04:23:00.000-08:00

YES

IT IS OUT

CLICK THE SIDE BAR THING

Nerdy Jokes Yay

2009-12-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

Hmm, I really should have warned you folks about the fact that I went quite silly whilst making backgrounds for these comics. Hey, I had fun. Anyway, here's another one for you to groan at - this is probably one of the nerdiest jokes I've ever though of, and I'm dreadfully ashamed of my past self for actually being willing to commit such a thing to pixels.

Seeing as this was all done with mouse and line tool, the lines are pretty horrible and uninteresting, but doing 'lineart' has always been a weakness of mine. I am actively trying to improve upon this in the last week and have been making myself practice doing strictly line sketches in between my normal background drawing and the like. If you're interested to see how far I've come, here is my sketch page from yesterday:

And yes, this does mean I am considering doing something a bit higher resolution in the future.

Nearly!

2009-12-15T21:23:00.000-08:00

I know I said that ! would be out soon and it's not out yet, but we've nearly got it done (just one more tune, folks!).

In the meantime, I was digging through an old hard drive and found something rather amusing (to me, anyway). A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I drew some cruddy webcomics for a friend's website. They're pretty badly drawn (this is back when I used to use MSPaint for drawing :P ) and most of the jokes probably only make sense if you are me... but instead of letting them rot on my hard drive (the friend's website has long since shut down) I thought it'd be fun to post one up here. I already posted one ages ago here, but this one made me smile so much I just had to post it.

If anyone is actually interested, I can probably be convinced to upload a few more. Otherwise, stay tuned for !.

And More!?

2009-12-12T16:08:00.000-08:00

The third of my four Design Taught in Pitfalls is now up on A Hardy Developer's Journal.

It contains my musings upon the really hard bits - you know, the parts of game building after the first 2 weeks where it's not new and exciting anymore and starts getting hard to stay motivated. This is where heaps of people I know stumble and I'm quite certain it's the #1 reason that games get abandoned, so of the 4 articles, this is probably the most relevant.

And if you're sick of words, well, there's a screenshot of my oh-so-nearly-done new game up there. You know, just in case you need further incentive to go and have a look at the article.

Check it out!

Random News

2009-12-02T00:44:00.000-08:00

Two little random pieces of news:

Firstly, I have been interviewed by CaptainD over on his blog, which I guess you can read if you're not bored of what I have to say yet (I won't hold it against you if you are, honestly).

Secondly, something that surprised me as much as anybody else! Jake over at TellTale games apparently liked the silly secret Dancing Winslow animation I made for IWWHIIWWHITOMIROTPG (I'm getting quicker at typing that!) that he turned it into an actual smiley for the actual TellTale actual forums. I don't know what to say to that except umm... "woah"?

IWWHIIWWHITOMIROTPG: The Game!

2009-11-28T21:55:00.001-08:00

Monkey_05_06 asked me to draw pictures for a silly + short fan game of a fan video of a game series based on an old game series.

I did.

You can download the game here.

Coming Soon! (yes, again)

2009-11-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

What's this!? A new banner in the shiny and still quite new "Games:" section! Oh dear, don't tell me there's already another one nearly ready for release!

Yes folks, I've got a mildly chaotic little experiment of a game coming for you soon. I started working on that final puzzle tonight and got roughly 1/3 of it done (it's an easy puzzle to build, but getting the characters' lines right is a time consuming process).

If Awakener was a spiritual successor to Shoot, I Got Abducted!, think of this one as a spiritual successor to Man Boy vs Doctor Sock. And no, Awakener was nothing like Shoot!, nor will this be anything at all like Man Boy vs Doctor Sock save for the mindset I went into the game with.

Also, I've decided to release the source code here on the blog once the game has been out for a little while and I'm satisfied there aren't tons of bugs. I've commented tons of lines, so those of you who are brand new to AGS scripting might pick up a neat trick or two, and those who are already familiar with all that stuff still might enjoy finding some of the little jokes and easter eggs I've hidden in the game's scripts :D

But hang on a minute... why haven't I put the title in the banner yet?

And is that a 5 colour palette?

Good Lord...

More Rambling!

2009-11-25T07:55:00.000-08:00

For those who didn't notice it on the AGS site:

The second part of my 4 part 'Design Taught in Pitfalls' ramble is up on A Hardy Developer's Journal.

And if you're bored by the things I write, you can at least go there and look at the pretty pictures. There's one there you probably haven't seen before (well, not in its finished form anyway =D )

It's also probably a lot more relevant to most designers than the first one!

Intervju

2009-11-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

Carl-Johan Johanssen of Swedish gaming blog Blog 'Em Up asked me to do an interview about Featherweight (or Fjädervikter) and making games in general, and you can read it here.

If you're interested in that sort of thing.

And can understand Swedish :B

Thanks for the article, Carl!

The Future

2009-11-19T01:35:00.000-08:00

I always like to do a mockup every now and then - means I can draw a world and one or more characters without the added work of going and turning it into an enjoyable story. Did this one today and thought it might be fun to post it on here.

I started putting a few little extra touches in while drawing the Featherweight backgrounds - stuff like stronger sky gradients and more obvious light glows, and while it's nice to learn things bit by bit, I am starting to feel like all of my backgrounds are starting to become a bit 'samey'. I pushed myself to try something new with the Awakener background, but here I am back to the same style I've been doing for months aside from a few minor little touches I've learnt along the way.

I'm not complaining or saying it is necessarily a bad thing, but it does seem like I could benefit from trying to draw a wider variety of things. Not that there's anything wrong with weirdo sci fi stuff, I guess. I have some stuff in mind that I'd like to try, so if I can break the habits I've allowed myself to form, I'll see about pushing myself further with this drawing business.

All talk of drawing aside, I decided it would be kinda fun to turn my attention towards another silly experiment game rather than a 'normal' adventure game for a little while, and whilst it has already been started I'm not really pushing myself to get heaps and heaps done because I feel like a bit of a break anyway. I managed to finish a couple of DS games this week, so it's been a nice relaxing time with much less looking at AGS scripts and animation frames and much more time looking at other people's games.

Oh, and some complaints about puzzles aside, Featherweight seems to have been received pretty well, which is awesome.

Stay tuned for more info about the weirdo experiment 'game' :)

Featherweight!

2009-11-15T06:05:00.000-08:00

Alright, taking only slightly longer than predicted in my announcement post, despite making tons of unexpected changes, I am proud to announce that Featherweight is now available for download, and possibly even enjoyment!

You can get the game from the link in the shiny new 'Games:' box off to the right there!

In other amusing news, I thought it would be a bit of nice sentiment to save my 1337th post for announcing Featherweight, and upon doing so and checking my profile to send a PM or 6, I noticed this:

Ah, Bigbluecup.com, will your ways ever cease to amuse me?

I doubt it.

Blog Renovations!

2009-11-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

Just a quick bit of news - with (what I hope) is the final beta of Featherweight sent out to testers after a ton of tweaking, I decided to do a little bit of mucking around on here; meaning that I have now got a "Games:" section!

It's pretty simple (the first html I've written in like 5 years!), and Arjon tells me off for not making it chronological (something I'll consider fixing), but I'm pretty proud of it. If Peder isn't too busy, I might get him to teach me how to do mouseover highlights (another Arjon suggestion :P).

Who knows, maybe I'll even make a new banner at some point? o_O

Design Taught in Pitfalls

2009-11-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

Igor Hardy, of the varied and insightful adventure game site A Hardy Developer's Journal asked me to write a little bit of an article about, among other things, getting inspired and staying motivated when developing one's own game.

Sadly, I got a touch carried away and wrote more that I really should have, so we've decided to split it up. Part 1 of 4 can be found here, with the next part due to appear in 2 weeks!

Enjoy :)

Coming Soon(ish. I think): Featherweight

2009-10-30T06:08:00.001-07:00

Some time ago I did a background for a competition on the AGS forums and decided that I really liked the style and would like to do a game in that style.

Not one to waste resources, I took the background and started writing a short story around it.

This story is called Featherweight.

With all the stuff I've had going on this month I'm amazed that I can even post this before the month is out, but I'm pleased to say that real world distractions aside, I've just zipped up the beta and sent it off to some testers.

Sebastian gave me some ideas that helped me push this game into some new territory - while there are the usual "use junk on other junk" puzzles and some Shifter's Box style puzzle game puzzles, there's also some new gameplay stuff in there when compared to my previous work, so it will be interesting to see the reaction it gets. I've also tried some small but interesting new things in the graphics and writing departments (whether anybody else notices this is yet to be seen), so it's been an interesting process.

There's still a lot of work to do on the game - mostly polishing graphics, but also editing some writing and adjusting some of the puzzles - but here's me saying that if all goes well (which it sometimes does), you can expect to see Featherweight in a couple of weeks.

See you then!

EDIT: After some feedback I have decided to go through and make some of the puzzles more elaborate, so it might take a little longer to get out than previously anticipated (depending on how hard my ideas are going to be to create). Hopefully this will mean a more enjoyable game in the end :)

I'm a Convert!

2009-10-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

Lots of interesting news to talk about lately - and this might possibly be one of the most interesting pieces of news:

I've been interested in Dan Alexander's XAGE engine as soon as it was clear that it was going to mean that we had the possibility for developing for other platforms than the PC - most notably being the Xbox 360 (although browser based games would certainly be something many will be interested in).

I'd been in contact with Dan a couple of months back when he asked to use a background of mine in his game The Fourth Wall. We'd since discussed various things about developing for XAGE, and it was something definitely lurking in my mind.

Thus, when going in to build Awakener, one of my main goals was to keep it suitable as a conversion test subject from the AGS to XAGE engine. This meant keeping scripts clean and easy to read, gameplay nice and simple (no crazy Shifter's Box puzzles) and making a game worth spending the effort to convert on. Apparently I succeeded on at least one of these points, and I am pretty darn excited to see that Dan has posted a video of Awakener running on his Xbox360 on his blog.

There's still work to be done on the conversion process (see here), but these are certainly most interesting times indeed.

Nice work, Dan!

An Interview!? ME!?

2009-10-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

They've obviously run out of interesting people to interview over on the AGS blog, so they've decided to interview me instead.

Hopefully it raises more questions than it answers ;)

Captain Hat!

2009-10-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

I swear, nothing pushes one's abilities like creating an hourgame. I haven't done one since Jelly, and all the cool AGS kids were having a competition today. Sadly, their normal 7:oopm time is the awful time of 3:00am for me, so I decided to do a little hourgame all by myself.

The end result is this: slightly chaotic, barely coherent and hopefully comedic. Done in exactly one hour (I used every single minute of it, too!) and with a massive 3 colour palette, Captain Hat is a romantic point and click adventure that you'll surely remember for years to come.

DOWNLOAD HERE!!

(left click uses + talks, right click looks, and the inventory is invisible due to time restrictions - so Captain Hat automatically uses new items when you left click objects)

One year on...

2009-10-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a year since I started blogging. I would do the usual thing and complain about not having enough time and real life taking over and the like, but to be honest, I've had a pretty good twelve months.

In the time since I've started The Number of the Ben, I've released 4 short AGS games - weird graphical experiments (Annie Android: Automated Affection), weird science fiction theories (Shifter's Box - Outside In), weird story/design/gameplay experiments (Heed) and a little world full of weird little characters (Awakener).

Despite all of this weirdness, these four games have been incredibly well received; I've been extremely honored to find them mentioned on sites such as the Indie Games weblog, Tigsource, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, JayIsGames and Gamasutra (among others), and even more honored and surprised to find one of my games mentioned in the PC games magazine I've been reading since about the age 9. Interesting times, indeed.

I've managed to learn a very satisfying amount of things about graphics, animation, design, scripting and writing. The amount I've evolved as an indie game developer has been very pleasing, on almost all fronts. And all this has only shown me how many new things I can aim at learning.

What the next 12 months will bring is hard to predict. I have my hopes for what I can achieve, but setting out a list of goals and saying "This is what I will do with the next year" has never been my thing. If I can release another four short games and improve to the same extent I've improved this year... let's just say I'll be very pleased.

Here's to The Future! :D

Awakener Released

2009-09-29T05:25:00.000-07:00

I remember Dave Gilbert talking about how he feels every time he releases a game, and thinking to myself "If Dave still gets the feeling, I guess it never goes away".

In other words, Awakener has been released here and I am nervous about it, as always.

I'm gonna go have a shower and pretend I can ignore the fact that I really, really hope people like it.

Coming Soon: Awakener

2009-09-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to make a short, one room game similar in play style to Shoot, I Got Abducted! all year, and have started a couple but have always gotten distracted.

However, I've finally had a bit of time to sit down and put something together - in the form of a colourful little one roomer called Awakener - and it is getting close to the stage where I'm ready to release. I still have a few interactions, an ending, a couple of little features and animations to add, but I've been scripting and animating a whole bunch of things, and Sebastian has been making sounds and music from his new secret base in Spain, and it is starting to actually look like a game.

The game should be ready... soonish - basically as soon as I can get around to finalizing all the little details. Until this time, however, feel free to have an Awakener screenshot:

I look forward to seeing what you guys think of it! :D

More Graphical Stuff

2009-08-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

I decided to have a long overdue cleanup of my desktop, and while I am fond of my Metal Slug 7 wallpaper, I thought it would be nice to have something fresh.

I couldn't find anything I really liked online, and was sick of searching, so I decided to try something I've always wanted to try: making my own.

I've always been enamored with game promo art, so I thought I'd try my hand at doing a similar style of scene and this is the result (the style is intended to be something of a cross between Psychonauts and Earthworm Jim):

(note, clicking on this takes you to the rather large original image)

Some of the elements are a little rough, and it isn't as clear as it could be (as I drew it smaller then resized it), but I am quite pleased with how it turned out. Perhaps next time I'm looking for a fresh new wallpaper, I'll have another go at something like this.

General Gaming Update and a Small Preview

2009-08-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Well, as of roughly yesterday it has been a month since I started obsessing over my latest project. I hit the first of several milestones earlier in the week by getting the first act ready for testing and response so far has been quite interesting.

I celebrated hitting this milestone (by which I mean gave myself a break from working on the game) yesterday by finally getting around to playing Full Throttle (I never got very far the first time I started playing it), and I really, really enjoyed it. I managed to finish it in about 6 or 7 hours I guess, and I can't believe I left such a gem sitting on my shelf for so long. I wish there were more adventure games around like this now - although I have to say I really enjoyed the recent AGS game Death Wore Endless Feathers - Disk 1 and am really hoping that all four episodes of this game get released. If you haven't played it yet, I can't recommend it enough.

The day before that I spent an hour or so finally beating the F-Zone of Sonic Rush on my DS, bringing my finished (commercial) games for the year to seventeen, so I am well on track to match last year's efforts.

I've also been eying quite a number of older games for sale up on GOG.com and have plans to buy the second Simon the Sorcerer game (I really loved the first) and Oddworld: Abe's Oddysey at some point in the near future. I also really like the look of some of the RPGs such as Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator and Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, so I'll keep those in mind as well.

Reading a number of reviews of my last little project Heed has been quite interesting. I made the game at a point in life where I had very little free time, yet my frustration at how little I'd done in AGS drove me to create something. I learnt quite a lot building the game (as I always try to - if you do not try different things then any hobby is bound to get dull and uninspiring eventually) and whilst I don't think it is a game whose playing style I'll pursue (except perhaps in portions where I feel it is suitable), I am glad I made the choice to create it. The amount of downloads it has gotten, considering the extremely unconventional style of the project, has really been quite surprising.

As for the aforementioned game project that has been consuming my life for the last 30 days, I'll end the post with a small screenshot. The second act is underway, and the road ahead is a long one, so my apologies for the lack of posts and I hope you have all had as much fun with your game playing and making as I have in the last month :)