21 Prototypes

Slow week

2009-03-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

The next few weeks I'm rather busy unfortunately, and I will probably not do much on prototypes. After this I will continue on normal speed hopefully, until I'm at 21 prototypes.

Also, Thanks so much for following the blog!

Day 18

2009-03-06T13:35:00.000-08:00

Did something with color today.

18_1

Use the arrow keys.

Download Page

Day 17

2009-03-05T14:39:00.001-08:00

17_1

Use arrow keys and space.
I went for a totally stupid game this time without much thinking put into anything just to see what'd happen.

Download Page

Day 15

2009-03-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

15_1

Highscore based minigame.
Use the arrow keys to fly around as the green square.
Press space to shoot a bullet at an enemy.
Enemies shouldn't be killed immediately, because the score they'll get you is equivalent to how long they lived!

I like how with an extremely simple animation the player character feels sort of organic (when you press up).

Download Page

Day 14

2009-03-02T12:49:00.000-08:00

14_1

Controls are explained in game.

Download Page

It's similar to 5_1 actually, but less good. I'm sure you can do something really cool with the idea though. Probably the ball(s) should be bigger and act like skippyballs (a bit squishy as well).

Day 13 - Evaluation Week 2

2009-03-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

What happened this week?

Seems to me it's hard to "evaluate" these prototypes. Now if I were, for example, to make a clay figure each day, it'd be easier to see progress. But games are so diverse. I also try to do something different each day.

When speaking of a general direction it appears I went from keyboard control to mouse oriented games this week. Which is kind of interesting because I concluded in last week's evaluation that I prefer keyboard control...

The last few prototypes are kind of playful, and lack clear goals. They're more of a "experience this" or "play around and see what happens". This week's prototypes are also lacking any kind of meaning or theme, and are mainly about gameplay mechanics or even just visuals.

There's not much else I can say about it really.

Day 12

2009-02-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

12_1
"The Cursed Museum"

Use the mouse.

Download Page

Day 11

2009-02-27T15:07:00.001-08:00

11_1

Click with the mouse to add balls. There's no goal or even much of what we could call "gameplay" but it's fun to look at. Which is something.

I mean, it's a good start to make a game out of I think, so in that sense it's a succesful prototype.

Download Page

Day 10

2009-02-26T15:27:00.001-08:00

Sorry about yesterday, skipped a day there because I was too busy.

I changed the process a little bit. I'm now not using only just the 1 hour to come up with the idea, but allowing ideas to come to me during the whole day.

It's not that I work it out fully beforehand, it's just about small ideas. My argument being that inspiration comes a few or at least 1 times a day, so this increases my chances a lot of getting a good idea.

During previous prototypes it often felt forced, because I had to come up with something quick. Though you could argue that's actually something I need to work on, something I can change or improve on. Still I think good ideas don't always come.

10_1

Just use the mouse and it'll explain itself.
What it doesn't explain is the goal of the game, but I couldn't come up with one yet. And I don't think it's necessary since it's just fun to play with.

Download Page

Day 8

2009-02-24T14:29:00.000-08:00

In the prototype of today you run around on a small planet collecting falling stars.

8_1

Arrow keys to walk and jump. Collect stars! You're on a very small planet, and when you're at the bottom you're "upside down" since the camera doesn't rotate with you.

It looks... weird. Like something I'd never make.

Download Page

Day 7

2009-02-23T15:11:00.000-08:00

Didn't have great inspiration today. Made 2 concepts.

7_1
a.k.a. The 1 Second Game

yeah...

7_2

Use the arrow keys and space, avoid the purple enemies. It's pretty lame.

Download Page

Day 6 - Evaluation Week 1

2009-02-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

No prototype today, since in this project Sundays are meant to evaluate on the previous week.
I'm just going to write random stuff here.

Directions

many prototypes -> 1 prototype

very abstract -> more meaningful

-> more polished

-> better balance thinking vs creating

Genres

abstract shooters
abstract action
platformer
puzzle
minigame
???

Controls ( mouse vs keyboard )

I tried a few prototypes in which you controlled the game with the mouse but all 3 failed miserably in my opinion. I think I prefer keyboard controls, perhaps because they are more... precise / direct, or you feel more in control, or I just prefer games where you have direct control over an avatar.

Enemies

Enemies are easy to put into games. They make it difficult for the player. The first few prototypes this week all had enemies, I think, that followed the player or had to be shot / avoided etc.

3_1 (with the green blob) has enemies but it's unclear whether they have to be killed or not.

4_1 (Long Distance Love) has no physical enemies, your only enemy is time.

5_1 is really just a very traditional / old-school type of game for me. It looks like the games I made years ago. The lasers are your enemies.

Meaning

I like prototype 3_1 because it has conflicting visual feedback: Are you supposed to kill the civilians or not? (you get score points, even displayed in green and with a + sign, but the green blob gets more sad everytime). I guess this is up for the player to decide.

I also like 4_1 (Long Distance Love) because it's a more personal subject, something I hadn't done before. The gameplay is neat too I think and what's interesting is that it's hard/impossible to say what genre the game belongs to.

Another reason to go towards meaning is because of the short time span. I want to make something interesting and this way it's easier within the short time, because part of the idea is not in the gameplay. I mean part of what makes the game what it is is in the concept behind it.
Or, well, it's hard to explain.

Either way it's more interesting to make something with an idea behind it than just a random abstract game like 2_1 and 2_2. After Day 2 I felt like going in the direction of cactus-style minigames (not saying that's bad..) but this changed when I went for just one prototype a day.

?

It's kind of hard to say in which direction I'm going with just a few days. The bottomline is I'm finding a better balance, I think, the prototypes are getting more polished and I'm playing a bit with different themes.

What I'm doing I think is that I just brainstorm a bit until I have a certain idea that sounds new. That sounds like it'd make for an interesting experience.

Exception is 4_1 / Long Distance Love, where I used the end result, the experience / feeling as the starting point. And than tried to make gameplay around that that supported the idea. That's a different way of working than I'm used to but it was interesting.

I have no idea what I'll make next week but I look forward to it!
I must say it's very fun to make something in just one hour, before hand having no idea what you'll make, and usually ending up with something interesting.

Well, I hope this was an interesting read.

I notice I say "interesting" too many times.

Day 5

2009-02-21T14:01:00.000-08:00

The idea for this came relatively quickly, and I had the basics working in the next 10 minutes. The rest of the time was spent mostly on level design, graphics, and play-testing.

5_1

Controls are explained inside the game.
There's one stage, and it's pretty fun to play I think.
You may want to extract the game file since it uses a save file.

Download Page

I feel you can do a lot more with this concept... and it should be much better with more time.

Day 4

2009-02-20T11:26:00.000-08:00

Made just one prototype again today. I notice it allows me to make the prototype much more complete, but it's also difficult since the polishing often takes longer than you think (and sometimes you run into annoying little things that you WANT to fix but you don't see how yet). I went 5 minutes over time today.

4_1
a.k.a. Long Distance Love

Control the girl with WASD and the guy with the Arrow Keys.
You can play this with someone else together but it's perfectly playable by yourself as well.
There's some subtle mechanics behind the surface also.

Download Page

Pretty difficult to make a game on this subject in one hour, hence the brainstorming took a bit longer this time.

Music is by "pianoscantalk". Link.

Day 3

2009-02-19T13:18:00.001-08:00

I took a slightly different approach today, wherein I first brainstormed a bit on paper until I had an idea and than used the rest of the time to work it out.

3_1

In this prototype you control the big green blob by pressing Up to jump, Left and Right to steer in the air and Down to fall down quicker.

Download

The brainstorm session lasted less than 10 minutes and this is the result:

Day 2

2009-02-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

Today I made 3 prototypes.

2_1

Use the arrow keys to move, hold Space to shoot. Hit enemies.

2_2

Use the arrow keys to move. Shoot enemies (bullets flow automatically). Avoid everything white.

2_3

Use the mouse to place 10 turrets on the screen, click on them again to rotate in which direction they are shooting. Make sure they hit the approaching red squares.

Download here

Day 1

2009-02-17T15:02:00.001-08:00

Today was the first time and I made 5 small prototypes in just under an hour (this includes thinking about them, which I didn't really do actually).

1_1

In this prototype you move the blue circle around with the arrow keys and have to avoid the red squares that follow you.

Press space to shoot a missile in a random direction.

1_2

Here I made a platformer in which your jump height is random every time you jump.

Then I quickly stopped when I realized it's an idea I had long before and it's yet another "platformer with a twist" (and it's a bad idea, too).

1_3

Move the mouse to make the bubbles bounce in directions, when they hit each other they turn into a black square.

1_4

When you click with your mouse somewhere the randomly generated dots move towards that point. However when they hit each other they bounce off.

1_5

You move the black square around with the arrow keys. Every second a black and a red dot get placed somewhere on the screen.

The red dots are enemies that deplete your health (see bar) when you hit them with the square.

Black dots will follow you after you touch them and when you press Space they will kill the nearest red dot to them.

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Download link (all EXEs in one RAR file)

I'm not sure whether I already should evaluate anything, but at least it felt like fun doing this, and even though the things I made now aren't very great I feel I can make progress over time.

I felt pressured and kept looking at the clock, and this also made me think less and just make. I think next time I should take a little more time for thinking and make only 1 or 2 prototypes.

21 Prototypes

2009-02-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

This blog will be used to report daily on my progress in a personal project aided by Prof Karel Millenaar.

The project:
Everyday I will take one hour to make at least one prototype for a game concept.
This should be something new and not something I've been thinking of for a while.

The project is meant to stimulate my rapid prototyping skills and by working in a different way I'm used to it should teach me new things.

Bla bla I'll write more here later.

The blog is in English because some day I wish to make it public to other people.
Please reply in English.