A Short Week and a Short Week to Come - Mami Update

Easter Break: a terrible holiday.  No, it’s not the ham, or the eggs, or the religious aspects about it; it has to be the block of time it takes from the two weeks the holiday falls between.

Thus, 4 days will be lost between this week and next as colored orbs are sought for and pigs are slaughtered.  I pause here as I look upon a wall of stories yet to be completed for Mami… Though a break is much appreciated from the grind of collegiate life, I shudder at how far back Team Squaybies’s development is likely to be.

Despite the woes to come, I must mention the success of Sunday night’s Fools Day game faire.  Both Team Squaybies and Perpetuam Memoriam had a great showing, with playable demos and a large contingent of group members able to attend.  After playing some other games at the faire, Mami received some usable quality assurance testing from an attendee, which our illustrious lead coder found and amended.

Speaking of programming fixes, remember the issue of not loading into the next level at the correct frame?  That was fixed at the faire, too.  Thus, after also garnering video recordings of the commendations put forth for the games I’m working on, our team handled some nagging issues in the various program features.

So, progress was made in this short week.  There likely will fail to be much coming up at least through the start of next week, but I know Team Squaybies can pioneer like the best of them.  Take care, and have a restful weekend!

P.S. Long title FTW.

Games for Fools - Mami Update

Wow – what a week!  Enemy distance handling, tile loading quality assurance, and a big fair to boot.  It is safe to say that some Mami work has been done!

What do I mean about “distance handling”?  The enemy spirit object that rests on the stage patrols a static location just fine, even with the screen scrolling, but when it comes to registering where the player is and the relation the character has to the object is a bit funky.  Over the last week, the other programmer and I learned a lot about Actionscript 3’s location functionality; our player’s position locally – player.x – and globally – player.truelocation.x – stays the same at a range of the screen.  The change is also skewed as that anything that is represented globally is double what happens locally.  To say the least, the enemy is having glitches on telling what the player’s location is.

The main programmer is gone for the weekend, so our project manager and I practiced good QA skills; we broke things.  After exiting the introductory level, it appears that a few of the objects of the intro remain in the next level.  After removing a few of the offending collisions, it became noticed that we start not at the start of the next level, but exactly at tile ‘n+1’, where n is the number of tiles prior to the level change the player encountered.  The solution: send the setup of the level an integer to compensate the offset position, placing the player in the correct tile.  Ta da!

Now, Sunday is April 1^st, All Fools Day.  This year is having the 2^nd annual All Fools Day Game Fair, where the Game Design professors nominate and sponsor various games being made or conceptualized here at the university.  With both Mami and Perpetuam Memoriam being nominated, I am well on my way to loving the heck out of this event – mass free game testing!  Mami will feel quite clean after this, and Perpetuam will get its first public appearance since Global GameJam 2012.

Other going-ons with Team Squaybies concerns moving finalized vector assets into the game and removing the lack-luster filler blocks.  My level layout is being placed into the primary level of play to give a dynamic sense of progression through the world.  Further, I do believe that certain animations and attacks are finishing themselves quite fine.  All in all, the work can be called progress.

I’m unsure of what will come in the next 2 weeks; Easter is going to most definitely be a jam in the flow of things getting done.  But, if this week and the pace we’ve been setting in both Team Squaybies and the Perpetuam Memoriam game is any indicator, the end of the spring semester is going to see 2 finished projects.  Woot!

Well, I had best get back to programming.  Enemies, platforms, and code-cleaning… Take care until the next update.

A Slow Vacation - Mami Update

Well, here it is.  We’re at the end of the week of Spring Break.  And as I update my version control for our project, the log shows only 2 updates: a file I myself created and a single other document.

So, what did I submit?  Well, I created the newest version of our main executable Flash file.  Implementing some tested deletions, I cleaned most of the filler pieces and test objects that have been hanging around since build 1.  Double-checking my changes, the team’s main file is much leaner; it’s not a lot, but it’s at least something to better the project as it is.

The other file is an idea doc of a few thoughts that 2 other members constructed.  I admit I’m a pretty sorry excuse for not reading it, but the summary is that it covers a slight bit more on a puzzle type we’ve been playing around with.  If it works out, it can be utilized in the current level layout plan; if not, we have 2 other puzzle ideas to easily take its place.  Hurray for options!

Despite the efforts taken this week, the projected jump in position of our workflow has been a little limp.  However, please, as a reader, don’t take this as bashing; rather, take it that this is Spring Break at the school, and that any work done is more work than what would have been asked for, given the circumstance.  And, if anything, Team Squaybies should be refreshed and ready to go come this next week.  With a month left of development, Mami is well on its way!

If you have any questions or suggestions for either the game or the development team, or would just like to chat, don’t forget to comment.  I promise to keep updating, and definitely hope that you take care until next time.

Prior to a Break - Mami Update

Next week is Spring Break, and students will do as students do – disperse to the far reaches of anywhere and everywhere.  Despite fun and relaxation, the production process doesn’t cease to plod on.

This next week is hoping to see at least 2 stories from our compiled list finished up, which will accelerate Mami’s development; prior planning has Team Squaybies finishing 4 stories per week without including Spring Break.  That, with the final stories queued by a teammate and I, the content-lock that’s scheduled for April is within reach.  A few Skyped team meetings during the break will allow for regular check-ups on any progress made.

Enough talk of next week.  This last week has had 1 story finished at the time of writing; I’ve coded node collisions for use in the main game that call a function to do whatever-the-heck is needed in game.  The nodes will help facilitate a tool to include puzzles within the playable level.  I’ve also started going through a copy of the Mami executable to test the elimination of various Library assets in Flash; there is a lot of junk!  Taking the initiative to start this has made me feel like a real Senior QA.

Other than Spring Break Mami plans, and the slow pace of this last week, nothing much is new.  Team Squaybies is still strong, and it is hoped that momentum is not lost over the course of the open week.  What are your plans for Spring Break?  Whatever they are, take care, and I’ll be writing blog posts throughout the week.

Spying on Uncharted 2

The other day a buddy of mine was playing through Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, committing an 8-hour marathon of Nathan Drake and the Uncharted cast of characters, new and old.  Before I get into the gist of what I witnessed, this is my disclaimer that I did not play Uncharted 2, but merely watched!

Let me just say that Uncharted 2 looks great.  The improved graphical content from the first is a welcome addition to the game.  The sound isn’t half bad either; the slightly greater assortment of firearms blast with much stronger affect to believability.  The voice-work is top-notch, following in the footsteps of the first Uncharted, which is readily heard from the increased number of cast members in the game that receive some considerable screen-time.  The story, however, is a bit more farfetched than the game’s predecessor, but that is a minor miff at an otherwise grand and energetic tale of adventure; some of the most engaging storytelling I’ve ever seen, in fact.

My biggest concern with the game is, just as in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the horrific difficulty present throughout the levels.  The friend of mine that was gaming was cussing-up a storm, after pounding dozens of rounds into hoards of baddies that, even on the “easy” difficulty, still managed to give a tough fight.  The skill curve, especially on the last boss, is uncalled for; my plea to the developer, Naughty Dog, is to please balance out your titles!

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is by no means a bad game; heck, it’s not even a good game, but a great game.  Tight controls in a visually stunning world with some quite witty characters to tell a grand action adventure make the game one fun enough to watch, let alone play.  My only word of caution would be to handle the difficulty with extreme caution!

Now, on current events, I’ve been gaming up on Deus Ex: Human Revolution in my spare time this winter vacation.  I’m unsure when that will be completed, but it is quite a blast to play so far.  Expect a write-up before then on Uncharted 3 (since I’m watching this one be played now).  Take care, and please comment if you have any thoughts!

• + Visual improvement with better sound.
• + Keeping the wittiness of the first title, even with a larger cast.
• + Tight controls.
• + Fun adventure story.
• - Hoards of cannon-fodder villains.
• A fix: Invest in more memorable opponents (e.g. Halo elites, Half Life headcrabs).
• - Forgot to correct the shameful difficulty curve first seen in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.
• A fix: Some quality time with quality assurance may be in order to balance this one out.

To Dream of an Undead Nightmare

To create an entirely new campaign wrapped in the utility of a DLC is a daunting task, even for an astounding studio like Rockstar.  Creating a living, breathing world of monsters that delivers one of the best, if not the best, stories from an expansion is even more difficult, but Rockstar’s done it with the stand-alone zombie western Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.

When first entering Undead Nightmare, I was dropped-off exactly at the midpoint of the original Red Dead Redemption game, enjoying the easy life set for me from the first game.  Though to know what happened before is helpful in grasping some of the relationships the characters have with each other, Rockstar delivers enough ambiguity to keep the relative histories vague for new players, while retaining the entertaining nostalgia veteran players have from the first game.  So armed with this inside knowledge, I begin.

Immediately, the game is filled with hair-raising action, as John Marston (the protagonist of RDRUM) battles his friends and family in his nightwear.  To uncover why his loved ones are attempting to maul him, he sets off to find associates from his past for a cure.  However, it is soon discovered that the undead are stampeding (ok, ‘shambling’) all over the western frontier.  This began a long and beautifully crafted campaign for my next 10 or so hours.

Initially, the world is quite unforgiving.  Hordes of undead soak ammo like sponges to water.  I found myself madly fleeing through the crowds to snag a bullet or 2 from foes finally laid to rest, all the while kiting a mob behind me.  Many times I got surrounded, eaten and beaten to a pulp in mere seconds of melee.  Even after more powerful and efficient guns are found late-game, with ammunition no longer a major crutch of play, it was easy to become stunned into bloody submission by being pulled off my horse, run-over by bullish zombies, and utterly engulfed in a throng of putrid, violent limbs.  Certain perks and steeds help Marston on his way, but no matter the unique brutality of some weapons exclusive to RDRUM, zombies don’t care if their buddies vaporize next to them, as long as the player ends as the main course.

 Galloping through New Austin, I was exposed to many branching theories as to why the world was in chaos.  The uniqueness of the ‘why’ Armageddon’s happening really speaks to Rockstar’s insight into the disorganization that may occur in society, and lends to a believable backdrop of the stereotypical zombie apocalypse scenarios modern culture holds.  Included are some tragically comedic breaks in the pressure of the plague, but those may be Undead Nightmare’s weakest points.  Some of the ‘humor’ is over-done in a way that almost caused me to feel bored, or made it apparent that the situation was beyond ridiculous.  There are points in the game where John Marston could easily save those he knows from undead consumption, but chooses not too; instead, neither ending their suffering before they die, or ending their damnation as undead.  This was not a flavor I am used to from Red Dead Redemption, thus is the only real deviation from the norm that partially subtracts from the game’s experience.

Overall, this one-disk, stand-alone game was truly a blast to play.  Having barreled through 100% completion, I feel that the West has been won, despite the hocus-pocus dealings of its inhabitants.  I can’t say that there is a plethora of stuff to do after completing the main story, but the things to do won’t make you feel worse toward the game in any way.  And heck, it is always fun to expunge zombies with explosive cannons!  So, especially concerning that this holiday season is coming up, I suggest nabbing this good game for no more than $15, even if the parent game, Red Dead Redemption, hasn’t been played (though, if it hasn’t, GO OUT AND PLAY IT NOW!!!).

But, before I go, here is something new I am going to try after all posts from now on: my ‘critique!’  Let me know how if this works, and take care.

• + Use of zombies plays to cultural stereotypes, instead of trying to hide the fact of how cliché it is.
• + A model of how to construct an apocalypse in history usually reserved for modern times.
• + Varied, one-of-a-kind weapons with quite pleasing effects of destruction.
• + Nostalgic enough for familiar players; ambiguous enough for new players.
• - Not much to do after the story is completed.
• A fix: Include an exclusive end-game monster or series of clean-up quests to keep the player engaged.
• - Overused, sometimes misplaced, humor situations that seem unrelated to the fiction of the world.
• A fix: Lend some of the classic RDR investment by the player into the cut scenes, so as to keep the gamer concerned, even if not providing as much tension.