Stoz Studios

Game Maker: Walking Up/Down Slopes

2012-03-02T20:59:00.005-06:00

As an avid Game Maker user for 1.5 years now, I've run into quite a few problems that are rarely if ever addressed by tutorials or documentation. This post will hopefully be the first of many to address some of the problems I've come across and how I've solved them. If you're using Game Maker to craft your own game, or even if you are using another engine, I hope you find this helpful. Now, on to today's problem...

Problem:
I want my character to walk up and down angled slopes, but my character just collides with things and then stops, even if it's only a 1 degree incline! Help!

Solution:
This problem can be handled in many ways, but the easiest I've found is to use what I've dubbed an "angle sweep". In simple terms, your character will, every step, check a number of points at various angles in front of it to determine where it can walk.

How do we do that? Luckily for you, I've written a script to take care of it! I've included two versions. One has a ton of comments to explain exactly what the script is doing, and the other doesn't.

Link to the commented script

Link to the comment-free script

I've written out the script below so you can see what you're getting yourself into before you download, and I've included a video so you can see the script in action. Have fun!

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// Script: Walking up/down slopes.

// Written by Seth Coster of Stoz Studios (www.stozstudios.com)

// Paste this into a script named something like "scr_Walk".

// Call this script in the key presses of your character which are for movement.

// When calling the script, use scr_Walk("left") to move left, and scr_Walk("right") to move right.

// Note: This script assumes the character has a variable called "movespeed" which determines how many pixels the character moves at a time. Use 10 as your base movespeed and tweak it from there.

// First we check which direction to walk.

if argument0 = "left" {

dir = -1

}

else if argument0 = "right" {

dir = 1

}

// Now that we have the direction, it's time to do the angle sweep. Since this will occur in a loop, it sweeps over a crapload of angles every step.

anglesweep = -90+40*dir; // This is the starting point of the sweep, in degrees.

anglerem = 100; // We're going to use a 100-degree sweep.

pathclear = 0; // "pathclear" is a toggle switch. If we find a path to walk, it gets set to "1" and we break the loop.

while (anglerem >= 0 && pathclear = 0){

anglesweep += 5*dir; // We're doing 5-degree jumps in our sweep.

anglerem -= 5; // Decrease "anglerem" by the degrees in each angle interval.

// Using the lengthdir function, we grab the x,y coordinates of the target location found for the current angle.

groundspotx = x+lengthdir_x(movespeed,anglesweep)

groundspoty = y+lengthdir_y(movespeed,anglesweep)

// Then, we check if the spot is free and if there's ground beneath it.

if place_free(groundspotx,groundspoty) && !place_free(groundspotx,groundspoty+5)

pathclear = 1 // If so, HOORAY! The path is clear for walking. If not, "pathclear" will stay at 0 and the loop will end after checking its 100 degree sweep.

}

// The loop is now finished. Time to check if we have clear ground to walk on, and if we are already on the ground.

if (pathclear == 1 && !place_free(x,y+1)){

// First, change the character's X and Y coordinates to the destination.

x+=lengthdir_x(movespeed,anglesweep)

y+=lengthdir_y(movespeed,anglesweep)

move_contact_solid(270,15) // This will drop the character to contact with the ground if he ended up a few pixels above it.

vspeed = 0 // Not required, but useful at times.

hspeed = 0 // Not required , but useful at times.

}

// If we failed the "path clear" test, we check to see if we're airborne. If so, we just move right/left in midair.

else if place_free(x+lengthdir_x(movespeed, 90-90*dir), y)

x += dir*max(movespeed-abs(hspeed), 0)

// Last if we aren't airborne and have no clear path to walk, we'll just move to contact the closest solid obstacle.

else{

move_contact_solid(90-90*dir, max(movespeed-abs(hspeed), 0))

movingleft = 0

movingright = 0

}

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// COMMENT-FREE VERSION

// Script: Walking up/down slopes.

// Written by Seth Coster of Stoz Studios (www.stozstudios.com)

// Paste this into a script named something like "scr_Walk".

// Call this script in the key presses of your character which are for movement.

// When calling the script, use scr_Walk("left") to move left, and scr_Walk("right") to move right.

// Note: This script assumes the character has a variable called "movespeed" which determines how many pixels the character moves at a time. Use 10 as your base movespeed and tweak it from there.

if argument0 = "left" {

dir = -1

}

else if argument0 = "right" {

dir = 1

}

anglesweep = -90+40*dir;

anglerem = 100;

pathclear = 0;

while (anglerem >= 0 && pathclear = 0){

anglesweep += 5*dir;

anglerem -= 5;

groundspotx = x+lengthdir_x(movespeed,anglesweep)

groundspoty = y+lengthdir_y(movespeed,anglesweep)

if place_free(groundspotx,groundspoty) && !place_free(groundspotx,groundspoty+5)

pathclear = 1

}

if (pathclear == 1 && !place_free(x,y+1)){

x+=lengthdir_x(movespeed,anglesweep)

y+=lengthdir_y(movespeed,anglesweep)

move_contact_solid(270,15)

vspeed = 0

hspeed = 0

}

else if place_free(x+lengthdir_x(movespeed, 90-90*dir), y)

x += dir*max(movespeed-abs(hspeed), 0)

else{

move_contact_solid(90-90*dir, max(movespeed-abs(hspeed), 0))

movingleft = 0

movingright = 0

}

Towel Fight of the Gods

2012-01-29T14:54:00.011-06:00

Created in 48 hours for the Global Game Jam.

FREE DOWNLOAD (Windows .exe)

"GREATEST. GAME. EVER."

- rkj1337 (Youtube)

"This is why game designers should get free drugs."

- Wurminfektion (Youtube)

"I want banana arms."

- bigp3rm (Reddit)

Short Introduction:
You've been warped from your shower into the arena of the gods. Your arms are bananas. Fight for the favor of Pete or Quetzal and tip the scales of fate in your favor.
Platform/System: Windows

Brief Play Description:
WASD: Move
1234: Choose Weapons
Mouse: Aim
Left-Click: Fire

You are caught in a war between Pete, the god of the sea, and Quetzalcoatl, the god of the land. Your arms have been replaced with bananas. Choose a side, and use your animal cannon to blast cyborg chainsaw geese and jet sharks INTO OBLIVION!

Note: Towelfight of the Gods is also great for teaching children about animals.

"What does the whale say?"
"EEWWOOOOOORREEROOOOOOOWOOOOOORRRR!"

Project 87 Gameplay Trailer

2012-01-25T10:38:00.000-06:00

Project 87 Wallpaper

2012-01-19T01:04:00.000-06:00

HEY! We got a fancy-pantsy new Project 87 wallpaper ready for the snagging. Or maybe snogging.

Click the image to enlarge! The image, I mean. Not yourself. Or perhaps both... I won't judge.

Haven't picked up your copy of P87 yet? Hit up the demo!

Humerus?

2011-12-24T07:14:00.000-06:00

Aloha, gangsters and gangstresses!

My apologies for the sparse posts of current. I have been residing in India for the past month and will be here for another month more, and for many resulting reasons my game development time has been a bit more constricted than usual. Also, I have grown addicted to Reddit, which is apparently a black hole for my brain.

HOWEVER, I have been hard at work hashing out new game ideas as well as finishing old ones. Buried Alive has undergone some major overhauls. First and foremost, I got frankly SICK AND TIRED of writing boring dialogue. Despite the fact that the game is about a man trapped in an underground cave who wants nothing in life but to rescue his wife, which I admit is a serious topic, I had for some reason made a conscious effort to suppress my urge to write goofy dialogue. Well, NO MORE.

Note: Yes, this scene depicts a wife trying to get her husband back instead of the other way around. I'm not concerned with such technicalities.

I went back and rewrote every single sentence of dialogue, and I am happy to say that the result is... interesting. Now, interesting can mean "great" or it can mean "horrible." I'm not concerned with matters of preference; what's important here is that the dialogue is not boring.

I want to ensure that this beast is as shiny and slick as possible with the right amount of polish and gusto, so I am holding off on announcing any kind of release date. Like a wizard, Buried Alive will arrive precisely when it means to.

To India!

2011-11-23T17:16:00.000-06:00

Hello, readers!

I've got a few announcements. First and foremost, development on Buried Alive is going to slow down a tad, as I'm about to board a plane to visit family in India within a few days. Add that to the typical Thanksgiving holiday shenanigans, and it's definitely bound to be a fairly busy time. But I do plan on charging full steam ahead with the intent of finishing Buried Alive and getting it ready for testing within about 5-6 weeks.

In other news, Project 87 is slated for release in Japan through Japanese Indie distributor Playism. We're still working through the translation process (which has proved to be somewhat tedious), but it's coming along great. They have a very efficient and hard-working crew who have been really helpful so far.

I'll keep posting updates pretty regularly from India, so stay tuned for more Buried Alive!

Progeny: Buried Alive Progress

2011-11-17T15:12:00.000-06:00

Development of Progeny: Buried Alive is coming along great. More than any game idea I've had, I'm really excited about the story that is being told through this game. And probably unlike some of my previous games, I am taking my sweet time with this one in order to very thoroughly test it and polish it as I go.

I've had a few "eureka" moments where some interesting game mechanic just manifested itself and begged to be implemented. The most recent one is shown below.

As you may recall from my preview video, Dan's energy pistol has two firing modes. The primary fire shoots a green projectile that deals a pretty good chunk of damage to enemies. The secondary fire is not actually an attack but is more of a utility option. It's called "Propulsion" and allows you to throw yourself in the opposite direction of where your pistol is pointing, sort of like a rocket engine.

As I began playing around with the game and testing the first level, I kept instinctively attempting to use my propulsion in order to throw projectiles back at enemies. It just felt like that's how it should work. After all, if it throws out enough thrust to make me fly through the air, why can't I also use that force to send enemy projectiles back at them? So I worked it in, and I'm happy with the results. Check out the video of the current alpha state of the game below to see it in action!

Progeny: Buried Alive (Video)

2011-11-11T17:03:00.000-06:00

Progeny: Buried Alive (Preview)

2011-11-06T19:01:00.001-06:00

This week's game tells the story of Dan Palladian from the Progeny.

Before the crash, Dan was the ship's entertainment mogul, eventually owning and operating almost every single cinematic establishment on the ship. He wrote, directed, edited, and acted in all of his own films. He had recently married Paige Ellsworth, the lead actress of one of his latest films. But when the Progeny went down, the two of them were funneled into separate escape pods.

His pod crashed into a mountain and embedded itself deep in an underground cave. He survived for a week underground, defending himself with the low-tech energy pistol that comes standard in every escape pod and eating the cave-dwelling fungus and creatures he could find. Captain Moore found him after seven days.

Unlike a traditional platformer that is "on rails", this one will take place in a huge, expansive cave system with no designated "end" and no levels. You simply have to survive for 7 days; to that end, there is a big emphasis on open-ended exploration. Your "hunger" is constantly going up, but you can satisfy your hunger by eating mushrooms and eating the critters that you kill. If your hunger hits the max, you starve to death. So there is no way to simply wait around for rescue; you have to keep moving so you can forage and avoid starvation. Each in-game "minute" is one second of play time, so that means you have to survive for 2 hours and 8 minutes before rescue arrives. Most of the creatures in the cave will kill you if you get too close to them, so you have to be very careful and try to blast them from afar.

But there is a catch: your only light source is your weapon. The weapon has a battery that charges over time, but each shot you fire takes up battery power. So the more you shoot, the darker it gets, and you are in the dark until your gun recharges (somewhat quickly, however). Most enemies and food items glow in the dark (bioluminescence), so you can still see where things are, but you won't be able to see the terrain or non-glowing objects when it gets too dark.

In addition, enemies behave differently the darker it is. For example, the worm thing you see in the screenshot moves faster as it becomes darker.

I'm also working on implementing creatures that only exist in darkness. So when it gets very dark, their glowing eyes will pop up, but when the light comes back, there's nothing there. Stay tuned for more updates!

Progeny Chess

2011-11-04T14:10:00.002-05:00

FREE DOWNLOAD
(Windows. Multiplayer only -- LAN & Same-Screen)

Progeny Chess is a new version of chess with modified rules. The main gameplay mechanics have stayed mostly the same, but some new features have been added. All of the original pieces are there (pawn, king, queen, rook, etc) and move in the same way as they do in standard chess. Like normal chess, the goal is to take out the enemy king. Unlike normal chess, Progeny Chess does not have a "check" or "check mate" system. Instead, you must simply kill the enemy king. This adds some additional concentration requirements from both players; if they don't realize their king is in trouble, there is nothing shouting at them to get the king to safety.

However, each chess piece has additional abilities beyond its ordinary movement/attack abilities. Using one of these abilities uses up your turn.

Trooper / Pwn-Bot (Pawn): Can self-destruct to destroy both itself and the piece immediately in front of it.
Captain / Commander (King): Can deploy a pawn to the space immediately in front of it. This ability has a 10-turn cooldown.
Guard / Blocker (Knight): Can drop a Barrier onto any open space within one square of itself. A barrier blocks that space and lasts for 8 turns. Only knights can jump over barriers (just as they can jump over other pieces in traditional chess). Neither friendly nor hostile pieces can pass through a Barrier.
Engineer / Scout (Bishop): Can drop a Smoke Bomb onto any open space or onto any enemy within one square of itself. Any enemy under the smoke cannot be selected by their commander, effectively disabling that enemy while the smoke lasts. Smoke bombs last for 6 turns, and do not negatively affect friendly targets.
Sweeper /Dozer (Queen): Can destroy all Smoke Bombs and Barriers within one space of itself.
Beardman / Grinder (Rook): Can trade places with any one of your pawns anywhere on the board. This ability cannot be used on your opponent's back row.

As you can imagine, these additions provide for some very interesting strategic opportunities and a lot more depth than traditional chess. Progeny Chess is multiplayer only and has a LAN & Same-Screen option. There is no online play currently. Windows only.

Progeny Chess Preview

2011-11-02T17:54:00.004-05:00

Two days of development left for PROGENY CHESS! Here's a breakdown of the rules. The main gameplay mechanics have stayed mostly the same:

All of the original pieces are there (pawn, king, queen, rook, etc) and move in the same way as they do in standard chess.
Like normal chess, the goal is to take out the enemy king. Unlike normal chess, Progeny Chess does not have a "check" or "check mate" system. Instead, you must simply kill the enemy king. This adds some additional focus requirements from both players; if they don't realize their king is in trouble, there is nothing shouting at them to get the king to safety.

However, each chess piece has additional abilities beyond its ordinary movement/attack abilities. Using one of these abilities uses up your turn.

Trooper / Pwn-Bot (Pawn): Can self-destruct to destroy both itself and the piece immediately in front of it.
Captain / Commander (King): Can deploy a pawn to the space immediately in front of it. This ability has a 10-turn cooldown.
Guard / Blocker (Knight): Can drop a Barrier onto any open space within one square of itself. A barrier blocks that space and lasts for 8 turns. Only knights can jump over barriers (just as they can jump over other pieces in traditional chess). Neither friendly nor hostile pieces can pass through a Barrier.
Engineer / Scout (Bishop): Can drop a Smoke Bomb onto any open space or onto any enemy within one square of itself. Any enemy under the smoke cannot be selected by their commander, effectively disabling that enemy while the smoke lasts. Smoke bombs last for 6 turns, and do not negatively affect friendly targets.
Sweeper /Dozer (Queen): Can destroy all Smoke Bombs and Barriers within one space of itself.
Beardman / Grinder (Rook): Can trade places with any one of your pawns anywhere on the board. This ability cannot be used on your opponent's back row.

As you can imagine, these additions provide for some very interesting strategic opportunities and a lot more depth than traditional chess.

I'm able to successfully set up a LAN connection for the game, but am still working on getting online play to work. Hopefully I can get that all hammered out within the next two days. Check back Friday night for the final version!

(PC Only for now; though I plan on getting it out for iPhone and iPad early next year.)

Games

2011-10-29T15:27:00.027-05:00

	Bacterium - [Info] [Demo] [Buy ($0.99)] Influence a population of realistically-behaving bacteria to complete objectives! Bacterium blurs the line between education and gaming as it simulates the mechanisms of evolution. (Single Player, PC)
	Goat Milk - [Info] [Free Download] Don't get milked! Run from Farmer Jerry as he looks for new sources of dairy revenue after the DJIA plunged and he lost 6% of his retirement savings. (Single Player, PC)
	Progeny Chess - [Info] [Free Download] A modified version of standard chess in which all the pieces have additional special abilities, adding a new layer of depth and strategy. (Multiplayer LAN/Same Screen only, PC)
	Project 87 - [Info] [Demo] [Buy ($2.99)] A mind-bending puzzle game in which you must manipulate gravity in order to escape increasingly complicated logic problems. (Single Player, PC)
	Towelfight of the Gods - [Info] [Free Download] You've been warped from your shower into the arena of the gods. Your arms are bananas. Fight for the favor of Pete or Quetzal and tip the scales of fate in your favor. (Single Player, PC)

GAME-A-WEEK

2011-10-28T14:34:00.001-05:00

Chess: THE SEQUEL

2011-10-27T14:24:00.002-05:00

I'm building a new game that's my own twist on the classic game of Chess. There are only two changes to classic chess, which should provide some interesting gameplay:

There are no kings to capture, no check, and no checkmate. Instead, you must wipe out all of the opposing team's pieces. Think of it as a chess deathmatch.
Every chess piece can move as it normally would. In addition, each piece has one special ability that the player can choose to use for his turn, instead of moving a piece in the ordinary fashion. You can see two above as examples (pawns self-destructing to kill themselves and the piece in front, or a rook jumping over one piece and killing the piece behind it while sacrificing itself).

I haven't thought of a name for this yet.

BEARD MAN

2011-10-25T18:59:00.002-05:00

Coming soon.

BEARD MAN WALLPAPER

Putting a Team Together

2011-10-25T10:22:00.004-05:00

It's been a strange couple of weeks. I finished my final exams from the first quarter of my MBA classes, and then I sent an email to the dean announcing that I was withdrawing from the MBA program. As I progressed through that first quarter, it struck me that I was putting the cart before the horse.

My goal is to make games. But not just by myself; I want to be a part of the industry, working on big projects. In order to successfully do that, I need a much more honed set of skills. I need to become familiar with more programming languages, understand the tools of the trade, and learn about what it takes to make a game as a part of a larger team. If I get my MBA now, I'll graduate in 1.5 years, degree in hand, without any more game development knowledge than I started with. And what good is an MBA in the game development world if I don't know how to make games on a professional level?

So I withdrew from the program; it's time to resume my own self-education process. I'm now spending my days working through learning C# and learning to craft games within the Unity3D engine. Progress is slow because these things are so alien to me, but it's still progress. In the meantime, I am putting a team together for the next big project. Until now, I have been running solo on all aspects of game development except for the music side. But I have some big ideas, and I know that I wouldn't be able to do them justice if I attempted to run solo forever. So it's time to build up a talented crew to make it happen.

The big project I'm building a team for will play like a top-down dungeon crawler, set in a Sci-Fi theme, with heavy emphasis on co-op and versus multiplayer gameplay. At its core will be a robust crafting system which will produce all of the items in the game. I'm still banging out all the details of how everything fits together, but it is taking shape very quickly.

If you want to join the project, I'm looking for:

Unity3D Programmer (C#, Java, or Boo)
Visual Effects Designer
2D Artist/Texture Artist
3D Modeler
3D Animator

This will be a commercial game, so there will be monetary rewards for successfully completing it. I'm not overly concerned with how much experience you have in making games; all that matters at this point is your talent in your specialty and your passion for making games. The rest will fall into place, and our team will learn and grow together as we build our game.

If you are interested in one of the above positions and have the chops to crank out high-quality work in that position, shoot me an email:

seth.coster@stozstudios.com

PROJECT 87

2011-10-14T12:50:00.026-05:00

"I am now decidedly addicted to the game..."
- Indie Game Magazine

Project 87 initiated. Logic processors stable.

Wake up and get moving! Why? Stop asking questions. That's not what you were designed to do. Now, take this energy cannon and blast those Gravity Crates... Yes, just like that. You may find that applying constant pressure to a switch activates... Right. I suppose you've got that figured out. Still, it's not as easy as -- What's that? I said stop talking. You'll just overload your frontal cortex, and then we'll have to scrap you and build a replacement. It'll set the project back by days, so just shut your yapper.

Oh, and please ignore the distant explosions. They don't concern you, probably. Just hold on to something.

WARNING: Project 87 is not for the faint of brain. Use with caution.

SCREENSHOTS:

New Bacterium Trailer

2011-10-07T15:22:00.001-05:00

Check it out... FOR SCIENCE!

Bigger, Faster, Stronger

2011-09-15T09:49:00.003-05:00

Hey, readers! My posts have been a bit more sparse this month due to "crunch time" for Project 87. I'm going to be submitting it to the Indie Games Festival, and I need to finish it soon to allow enough time for my team of elite testers to get their hands on it!

In other news, Project 87 will probably be my last Game Maker game for a while. Game maker has been a great tool to teach me the fundamentals of building games, but at the same time, it is fairly limited in what it can do. It has 3D capabilities, but they're quite weak and require a lot of workarounds to do basic things (lighting, for example). Also, I realize that I have been using Game Maker for almost a year now, and I have grown increasingly more comfortable using it. So much so, in fact, that I have almost gotten bored with using it simply because there are no more challenges. If I want to make any gameplay mechanic (in 2D), I can. While this is an exciting prospect, I have to acknowledge that although my Game Maker skills have come a long way, my skills in other, more practical game development areas are lacking. If I'm comfortable, I'm not learning. I need to get out of my bubble and teach myself something new.

So it's time to move into uncharted territory: Unity. Unity has built-in 3D support and a physics engine, and it beautifully handles all kinds of crazy things that I don't even understand yet. And it can create games for almost any platform! To use Unity, I'll have to learn C#, which is going to take a fair amount of work.

The plan from here on out, then, is to finish Project 87 in Game Maker, submit it to the Indie Games Festival, and then dive headfirst into learning C#. I recognize that C# is going to be way more complicated than what I've been dealing with, but I fully intend to plow through it and start using Unity within a month after I start learning C#.

As a side note: Skybrawler is not scrapped -- I will be rebuilding it in Unity. This will allow for much better gameplay and graphics in the long run and will be well worth the transition.

Wish me luck!

Project 87 Gameplay video

2011-09-10T14:30:00.001-05:00

Here's a gameplay video of the tutorial stage of Project 87. Enjoy!

Project 87 Screenshot Preview!

2011-09-05T20:46:00.001-05:00

Here's a little glimpse of one of the further-along puzzles in my Indie Games Festival submission, Project 87!

The beta test begins around October 8th and ends by October 17th.
Want to become a Project 87 beta tester? Go here to sign up!

BACTERIUM now available!

2011-08-28T19:04:00.005-05:00

Get those nutrients, little fella!

BACTERIUM is now unleashed upon you! I have made available a playable demo with the first five challenges unlocked, and if you like what you see, you can buy the full version for $4.99 via PayPal or Google Checkout at this link.

Project 87: INITIATE

2011-08-27T22:37:00.004-05:00

Big news today! First, Goat Milk has landed at the #2 top rated platformer slot -- for all time -- at the YoYoGames site. To get that slot, it had to beat out over 11,000 other games. On the one hand, I'm pretty pumped about this, since I only spent a single weekend building it. It's the first game that I've really "unleashed" on the public, so its success gives me a lot of hope for my next project, which will take way more than just a weekend to create.

Speaking of my next project, here's a first-glimpse screenshot of one of the early levels:

Click image to enlarge.

The game is called Project 87. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that it's a puzzle platformer which blends elements of Portal and VVVVVV. In Project 87, you play a small robot that is being subjected to a series of logical challenges while some overseeing figure is observing your progress (for reasons I won't yet disclose).

Bottom line: Project 87 will melt your brain into a puddle.

Goat Milk

2011-08-21T16:15:00.008-05:00

DOWNLOAD LINK (Windows)

(Freeware)

Many weeks ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suddenly plunged by 500 points. Jerry the dairy farmer's retirement savings were destroyed, and he went into a profit-driven frenzy to recoup the loss. Searching for new sources of milk, Farmer Jerry turned to the nearest thing he could find: Barry the mountain goat.

You play as Barry the Goat. Your goal: don't get milked! All this running from Farmer Jerry makes you tired, though, so you must make the occasional stop to eat grass, goatberries, and coffee beans, all while avoiding bottomless pits, mud holes, tumbling boulders, high winds, and burning hot magma.

Goat Milk features six action-packed levels of Goatberry-munching glory.

Music generated at http://www.earslap.com/projectslab/otomata

Sounds made by voice and sfxr.

Created with Game Maker. Graphics and animations created using Inkscape.

SETUP:

Windows only. The zipped folder contains a .exe file. Extract the .exe file into its own folder -- this is where it will store your saved progress. Double-click the .exe file to begin! Controls are explained on the menu screen.

Created in under 48 hours from scratch for the Ludum Dare competition, August 2011.

GravPLAT!

2011-08-17T21:30:00.001-05:00

MY FACE IS SHOWN! Also, I'm prototyping a gravity platformer.

Particles! Explosions! Glowing things!

2011-08-09T15:37:00.000-05:00

Bacterium: The Evolution of Strategy

2011-08-08T13:51:00.021-05:00

(Windows only)

BACTERIUM by Stoz Studios is a strategy game wherein the player influences a population of realistic bacteria to complete certain objectives. The bacteria in the game behave very closely to bacteria in the real world. They use nutrients to survive, and they must find and collect more nutrients in order to replicate. They also mutate and pass on their mutations to their offspring. The player must influence the movements of the bacteria through chemoattractants, avoiding viruses and influencing the evolution of the bacterias' population to ensure its survival.

BACTERIUM lies in the gray area between gaming and education. Unlike other media, games have the unique capability of demonstrating complex, working systems with dozens of interlocking parts, made interactive. While playing BACTERIUM, the player can witness and influence the evolutionary process and interact with the mechanisms of genetic drift and natural selection. It plays like a strategy game, but the player comes out of the experience with a much more intuitive understanding of how the evolutionary process fits together.

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Full Version Only

Click below to purchase the full version.

Bacterium Publishing & Teaching Through Games

2011-08-05T16:29:00.004-05:00

Bacterium is essentially finished. Rather than have a simple sandbox game, I opted to put in a tutorial, a sandbox mode, and 15 challenge stages where the player can try to accomplish certain goals with his/her bacteria. For example, the player may have to infect 30 enemy bacteria with a virus simultaneously, or obtain a population that's triple the enemy's population.

Now that those things are all in place, I've reached out to YoYoGames Publishing to see about getting this bad boy delivered on the iPhone and iPad. I've designed the game with those platforms in mind, so it has scrolling via dragging and an intuitive one-button interface. I'm hoping YoYo will be as happy with Bacterium as I am!

As I've spent the past week developing Bacterium, the core principle behind the game really struck me as something powerful that I should try to take advantage of in the future. That is: the game teaches the player about a real-world phenomenon without the player fully realizing that they are learning.

For example, in Bacterium, you control a population of bacteria that are competing with one another and with enemy bacteria for resources. If a bacteria doesn't acquire resources in time, it dies. The slower/weaker bacteria tend to reach the resources last, and they then die more easily, so in the long run, the population tends to become faster and stronger. This is the basic model of evolution through natural selection. It also happens to make for a really interesting game mechanic, and it, along with the general behavior of bacteria, make up the core of the game Bacterium.

So the player, who is literally playing around with different elements of the evolutionary process, may not fully realize what it is she is doing at the time. But if she were to then pick up a book or attend a class to learn more in-depth about evolution, she would have an intuitive understanding of how it works burned into the back of her mind because she played Bacterium.

Games are perfect for this kind of teaching, because they allow us to interact with working systems in motion and see how all the parts fit together. We can't get that depth of understanding from a diagram or reading a passage in a textbook. Now that Bacterium is near completion, my brain is bursting (figuratively) with ideas on what game project to pursue next. There are so many extremely complicated real-world phenomena that people greatly misunderstand -- but would be easy to understand in game form -- that I could easily spend my entire life teaching people how the world works through turning the world into a game. This idea goes beyond the old educational games like "Math Blaster" -- which were essentially animated worksheets.

It's a pretty damned exciting concept, to say the least. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed here so you can see what the next project will be!

BACTERIUM!

2011-08-03T10:56:00.002-05:00

Nearing completion. Enjoy!

I'm finishing up a tutorial and will be putting together a bunch of challenges. Hoping to submit it for publishing on iPad and iPhone. And PC, if I can find a good way to distribute it. Woohoo!

Wisconsin!

2011-07-28T10:13:00.003-05:00

I'm off to Wisconsin for the weekend! Upon my return, I'll have some info about our next game project, which is an RTS-style game in which you command an army of bacteria to conquer a drop of liquid. Very exciting. The goal is to have the bacteria and their various mechanisms be realistic models for real-world bacteria. In essence, it's an evolution simulator.

Check back early next week!

Lanturn Trailer!

2011-07-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

Lanturn development is nearing completion, and we're making final tweaks and tests to ensure it's ready for release. In the meantime, feast your eyeballs on the promotional trailer!

A Short Break

2011-07-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

Hey, readers! I have some slightly bad news which is the result of one awesome chunk of good news.

The bad news: I'm taking a short break from Skybrawler. By "short" I mean another week or two. As a result, I won't have a Friday video blog up to showcase anything this week. That means you're going to have to read!

The good news: The Saint Louis Game Jam went so well that my team and I decided to push Lanturn to the next level. I've been working on it all week with a bit of help from the rest of the team, and we now have 23 levels (with seven more on the horizon), unlockable challenges, and some pretty insane gameplay. By some stroke of luck, one of my team members at the game jam was David Whatley, CEO of Simutronics. He also has his own indie studio, Critical Thought Games. Since he's been in the games industry for over 25 years and has all the know-how and the contacts, he's our main man when it comes to IP, distribution, and the general business side of things.

The game jam made me realize a few things. First, making games in a group is even more fun than making games on my own. I've been doing this by myself since around November, and while it has been a blast, the more tedious parts of game development can wear on me -- when I'm alone, that is. Over the weekend, it was a whole different story. I was completely energized by having a team of people helping with every aspect of the game -- special effects, artwork, and sound -- to the point where I only slept for four hours on Friday night and it didn't phase me one bit. After the jam, I left at 8:00PM to start the 4.5 hour drive back to Iowa City. By the time I arrived, even though it was midnight, I had to force myself to get in bed and sleep because I was still so pumped.

Second, I discovered that I was able to learn way more in a group than I ever could by myself. I've been self-teaching every aspect of game design through reading various books and trial and error, but the one big problem is that I have not been around anyone who understands this stuff. I've been living on an island, basically. So when I encounter some new problem that I need to solve, I have to do it from scratch because I have no point of reference and nobody to guide me down the right path, which puts me at a lot of dead ends and takes a lot of time. But over the weekend, I learned more about game design and development than I have learned over the entire summer. And it all had to do with being around people who knew about the things I'm trying to learn.

Both of these realizations have forced me to acknowledge that my number one goal right now should be to find a couple people to join up with and make more games. It makes the process so much smoother when people on the team can specialize and when I'm not doing everything alone. It also serves as a motivating factor. Have you ever gone to the gym by yourself? It's easy to shrug off workouts because nobody holds you accountable. The same thing applies to any activity -- when you are part of a team, the motivation of every person combines into a snowball effect for the team as a whole.

And last, after talking to David Whatley, I realized that I've been going about establishing myself as an indie developer completely backwards -- and it's the main reason why I'm taking a short break from Skybrawler. Skybrawler is a massive project. If I continue at this pace, doing everything but the music by myself, it'll take at least another three years to finish. And when it's all said and done, maybe it will sell, and maybe it won't. With a huge development time like that, and with such an uncertain payoff, Skybrawler could turn out to be a total disaster (financially). If it does, then I'll be at square one, which is that I'll have nothing to show for my game development career.

Instead, I should be spending a lot of time developing smaller games that are easier and faster to develop, with addictive and fun gameplay that can capture a wide audience. If I can crank out one of those each month and get it distributed, even if none of them sell well, I'll start to see a trickle of income. Over time, that will add up, and I can use that income to assemble a team to work on bigger projects like Skybrawler. In finance terms, this would be "diversifying my portfolio." As it stands, Skybrawler puts all of my eggs in one basket, and the future of that basket is uncertain.

So... Lanturn will be the first of those small games. I'll post more updates on it as we continue to refine the concept and as we get closer to distribution.

To say the least, this has been a life-changing week.

Saint Louis Game Jam: SUCCESS!

2011-07-10T16:26:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting right now at the Saint Louis Game Jam, and we just submitted our entry.

This was probably the coolest weekend of my life. I met some interesting people, and then joined with those interesting people to make an awesome game -- in 24 hours total -- called Lanturn. In Lanturn, you play as a princess who is traveling through a dangerous, magical forest. The princess's only companion is Lanturn, a magical lantern that can manipulate time.

Lanturn is a 2D platformer, but instead of controlling the princess, you control the Lanturn in her hand. She travels through the level on her own volition, and you must use Lanturn to prevent projectiles from hitting her by speeding them up or slowing them down.

I'll post a video blog about it tomorrow, but here's a link to the Game Jam page for Lanturn. You can download it and play it through that link. We have the first two levels totally finished, and the third is done but not fully tested.

Quick Update: Video Blog, Game Jam

2011-07-07T16:30:00.002-05:00

I just have a quick update for the day, since I've been running full blast all day. I got a ton of stuff implemented today; they were mostly housekeeping things that I've been meaning to do but haven't gotten around to. Now that the interface is almost totally finished, I can focus a bit more on the game's content.

For example, one of the big things I did today was go back and make "exploration" versions of all of the levels that currently exist. Once you complete a level, it would be weird if you could then go back and fight the bosses again or if the characters would say the same things. Instead, I want to create a sense of forward progress at all times, and I want to make it seem that the player's actions impact everything in the game world. So if you go through a level and rescue some alien buddies, when you return to that level, they should be safe and sound and no longer under attack. If you've killed a boss at that level, the boss should be dead when you return. And so forth.

I'd estimate that now, after about 2 months of 55-70 hour workweeks, Skybrawler is roughly 10% complete. Thankfully, the interface and core mechanics are shaping up, so from here on out it's mostly story writing, dialogue writing, level design, artwork, and generally just coasting -- with a few cinematics thrown in, of course. I have only a couple weeks of full-time development left for the summer, and then I'll be trying to squeeze it in on the weekends and in the evenings after MBA classes. I'm still planning to get 20+ hours of development in each week after mid-August.

Tomorrow I'll be starting Level 9: The Front Lines. It's a battlefield in the Searing Sands where the Stonefangs have set up barricades and have prevented the Dredgers from attacking them in their hollowed-out mountain, Dianttua. Captain Moore will be assisting the Dredgers in pushing through the front lines. I'll also be posting a brief video blog, but it will be fairly short since I'm leaving for the Saint Louis Game Jam at noon.

In all, it has been a short but very productive week. Stay tuned for the video blog!

Testing, Searing Sands Wallpaper!

2011-07-06T14:11:00.006-05:00

READERS!

I've made an executive decision (not just a regular decision) to start spreading out alpha tests by at least a couple months. While it was great fun to rush to cram together something playable each Friday for the past couple weeks, I don't want to burn out the alpha testers by having them play through the game every week. Plus, I'll be starting MBA classes at the beginning of August, which will slow down development tremendously. So I'll plan on having the next Alpha build out on September 2nd. It'll have a bunch of new levels, interface improvements, gameplay tweaks, bug fixes -- the whole works. If you want to see how it's coming, just check out the patch notes at the forums!

In the meantime, though, here's some other news. The Searing Sands zone houses the Dredger capital city of Airo, and it is also the site of a huge armed conflict between the Stonefangs of the Stonefang Mountains and the Airo City Dredgers. In the next Alpha build, you'll be able to play through the Searing Sands zone. To help you prepare for the glaring sun, dive-bombing Eibo monsters, and bloodthirsty Cactogons of the Searing Sands, feel free to download the wallpaper above and plaster it onto everything in sight!

Ability Stats

2011-07-01T17:09:00.003-05:00

My Friday this week was spent developing the stats page for your various abilities. It's coming along pretty well! One of the more important features of the stats page is the ability to see whether or not you can purchase upgrades for whatever ability you're looking at. Here's an example:

(Click the image to enlarge it)

Friday video blog #5: Interface & Overlook Tundra!

2011-07-01T13:11:00.000-05:00

Midweek Update: Alpha 0.0.3 tomorrow!

2011-06-30T16:48:00.003-05:00

I'll be releasing the next build, Alpha 0.0.3, tomorrow. I've got tons of big changes coming, particularly with the interface. Here are some of the highlights:

A new level, "Overlook Tundra," which is the last level of the Overlook Plateau.
A much more easy-to-understand interface when it comes to taking damage, picking up health, and picking up resources.
A pause button!
A variable main menu screen, which changes based on how far you have gotten on your most progressed save.
Punches cause less recoil, allowing you to avoid bouncing to your death much easier.
Your punches become more powerful as you defeat more enemies. It is a small effect in the short-term but accumulates to a large effect over the entire game.
You have a "combat rating" which is tied to your "combat score." Both of these things are based on your kills at each difficulty level and your overall deaths.
The Daniels Industries shop now has prices. The prices are reduced depending on your combat rating.

And a bunch of other shenanigans. To see the full patch notes, check the forums. In other news, I've been shopping around for animators, and I very well may have found one! Always moving forward.

Testers: Keep an eye on your email either tonight or tomorrow for the next alpha build!

New Stoz Studios forums!

2011-06-24T13:52:00.004-05:00

Got a discussion board up and running.

http://stozstudios.freeforums.org

Want to chat about Skybrawler stuff or game development stuff? Come on over and drop a post!

Friday Video Blog #4: The Hive, Interface changes, and more!

2011-06-24T12:39:00.002-05:00

Enjoy the movie magic! Also, Stoz Studios is now on Twitter. Username: StozStudios. I think it's a pretty catchy username. FOLLOW IT.

Patch Notes!

2011-06-22T17:38:00.003-05:00

Now that I've got a legion of alpha testers, it's time to start actually documenting the game's changes! You can get to the patch notes either through the link on the sidebar, or, if you are an alpha tester, you will be able to get to the patch notes through the game's main menu.

And if you're super lazy, here's the link right here:

https://docs.google.com/a/stozstudios.com/document/pub?id=1UPJ1wx4_epYjfC1-Pp4Qit1WZFWANEbcqaD4JO6mWVQ

Enjoy!

Updated HIVE!

2011-06-21T14:20:00.001-05:00

More doodads and fun stuff to die on! Click to zoom.

Level: The Hive

2011-06-20T18:52:00.005-05:00

Just southeast of Jamestown, on the Overlook Plateau, there is a vast, underground network of tunnels. Within these tunnels lies the Dive Worm Queen, hatching thousands of eggs every day. The Dive Worm menace started as a simple nuisance. Nobody could determine where they were coming from, but they seemed to grow more numerous day by day. Over centuries, the weaker creatures of the Overlook Plateau were weeded out as they were carried off and wrapped in coccoons, buried deep underground in this vast hive, soon to become snacks. And today, there are almost no animals left but the Dive Worms and their insectoid cousins, all constantly streaming out of the Hive.

James Daniels chose a location just northwest of the Hive as a "safe haven" for the Jamestown outpost. Of course, it is anything but. Daniels thinks his turrets will hold off the swarms of Dive Worms, but each one that falls from the sky is replaced by three more. As long as the Queen and her hive persist, the Overlook Plateau is firmly in the hands of the Dive Worms, and Jamestown will never be secure.

Friday Video Blog #3: Daniels Industries Shop, Abilities

2011-06-17T13:09:00.003-05:00

New video blog! Here you can see some of the upgrades purchasable at Daniels Industries once you have built Jamestown. I've also got some ability previews in there. On to making more levels now!

Dev Update

2011-06-13T09:39:00.000-05:00

I'm a month into development for the summer, and I have just surpassed the point where I thought I'd be at the end of the summer. This is obviously great news, and I've learned a lot so far. In addition, I'll start sending the game out for alpha testing to my Kickstarter backers fairly soon.

I've also decided to make a few changes to the blog; namely, I'd like to make it more video focused than text-focused, since that's a much better way to showcase what's actually happening in the game, and I can ramble about how things are going while you see it in action.

Here's some stuff to watch for in upcoming videos:

The character progression system -- getting new skills and getting stronger!
Skill previews, including teleportation, bombs, energy pump, hydraulics, and more.
Zone and level previews.
BOSS FIGHTS!

There'll be some structural changes to the site as well, but stay tuned for the Friday video blog!

Friday Video Blog: Jamestown

2011-06-10T18:35:00.002-05:00

Friday Video Blog: Intro and Beginning Levels

2011-06-03T15:24:00.000-05:00

The first of a series of weekly video blogs for the summer!

Daniels Industries Presents: The DI-PDP Pocket Turret [Model X-37.2B]!

2011-06-02T00:00:00.001-05:00

DANIELS INDUSTRIES

is proud to present:

The DI-PDP Pocket Turret [Model X-37.2B]!

Perfect for dinner parties with your annoying neighbors!

Daniels Industries, maker of the famous DI-1.22GWEP5K Energy Pump and the Skybrawler Combat Suit, is proud to bring you our latest and greatest creation, the DI-PDP Pocket Turret [Model X-37.2B]! The PDP comes fully equipped with a self-generating ammunition chamber, capable of producing one face-exploding ball of energy every 2/3 of a second! Each of our lovingly crafted face-exploding energy balls comes complete with a homing device. It'll destroy your enemies!* Guaranteed, or your money back!**

ALL FOR THE LOW-LOW PRICE OF $143,997.98!

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

The PDP is fully upgradeable and customizable! If you would like YOUR PDP to shoot EVEN FASTER and EVEN HARDER, mail us a hefty quantity of steel scraps, hyper-explosive chemicals, bacon, and $400,000. We'll send you the parts you need to EXPLODINATE THE BADDERTONS!™

CALL NOW and receive a complementary apple, valued at $0.89.

THIS DEAL WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY!

Daniels Industries: We make things.™

* May also destroy your friends.

** Not a guarantee. We will not refund any money.

Garry's Army: DOZ-3R

2011-05-27T09:34:00.000-05:00

DOZ-3R ("Dozer")

Aim for the weak spot?

The Dozers of the Progeny were originally built for clearing forests and doing all manner of heavy lifting. But the Progeny has been floating in space for several hundred years now, and the Dozers have just been sitting in storage, mostly forgotten. But not by Garry.

During Garry's mutiny, he dusted off a few of the Dozers and retrofitted them with modified force field generators. Although the high power cost of the force field generators essentially robbed the Dozers of most of their original functions, they do have two new abilities: short periods of invincibility, and the ability to overcharge their force field generators to emit a powerful shockwave which can known down almost anyone or anything nearby. They aren't particularly dangerous when alone, but when placed in the ranks of an army, a Dozer can disrupt enemy forces so powerfully that it can almost single-handedly turn the tide of the battle.

Garry's Army: B0-UNC3R v4.28

2011-05-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

B0-UNC3R v4.28

Not as jolly as it looks.

Garry developed the first version of the B0-UNC3R as a form of sentient bomb, coated with a hyper-elastic synthetic alloy, to be dropped from aircraft. But there were too many accidents in the testing phase, during which a huge amount of Garry's military equipment was destroyed by B0-UNC3Rs that had bounced off the ground at terminal velocity and then exploded on impact with whatever they hit next.

Not one to be a quitter, Garry continued refining the B0-UNC3R until he settled on version 4.28, which oddly resembles a reclining fat man. Garry claims that this is the most aerodynamic shape possible.

Garry frequently deploys B0-UNC3Rs all over Desia for a myriad of uses, including bombardment or flushing out underground tunnels and cave systems. This latest version can even be set to only detonate on impact with certain individual targets! This is bad news for Captain Moore.

Character: Saphrix

2011-05-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Saphrix

Saphrix comes from the Liosse Clan of Stalkers, who dwell in the Deep Woods. Although most Stalkers work alone, the Liosse clan is one of the few organized Stalker communities on Desia. However, true to Stalker form, the Liosse Clan's community revolves entirely around teaching and learning subtlety and misdirection. Saphrix showed tremendous talent and finesse even at a young age; so much so that she caught the eye of Master Sioro, the most skilled warrior on the northern continent. Master Sioro took Saphrix in and trained her starting at age seven. Today, she is only 22 years old but is now revered as one of the most skilled blade dancers of the entire Stalker race. Rather than using the customary Stalker daggers, Saphrix developed a new fighting style using arm-mounted blades, granting free use of the hands in combat.

When the Progeny crashed to the planet's surface, Saphrix used her skills to move undetected while observing and tracking Garry's forces. She began picking off bots one by one, but Garry quickly grew tired of hunting something he could not detect, so he sent in a legion of bots to clear out the entire Deep Woods, assuming that without a thick forest to hide in, Saphrix would be left a sitting duck. She and the Liosse clan have been fighting back, but the forests are being cut deeper and deeper. Soon, Saphrix and her tribe will have nowhere to go.

Character: Sacred Atom

2011-05-20T08:00:00.002-05:00

Sacred Atom

Thousands of years ago, the Channelers were a simple race, dwelling on the Sumiria Archipelago as sea-faring fishermen. In those days, Atom was a young merchant who had set up shop on the shores, frequently trading with the local undersea-dwelling Gluaglian tribes. One day, the Gluaglians brought a strange, bluish crystal to Atom's shop. It had a pristine purity to it, and it seemed to catch the light in such a way that made it glow. Atom offered to purchase the crystal so he could examine it further.

He took the crystal home and kept it secret as best he could. He soon became obsessed with the thing. The more he was around it, the stronger he felt. And the crystal's luminescent glow seemed to get brighter and brighter the more he was around it. It was almost as if it knew when he was near.

Atom went to the Gluaglians and offered his life savings in exchange for as many of the crystals as they could find. To his surprise (and joy), they came back with armfuls of the things. Atom bundled them up and secreted them away to his home. But fearing his fortune would be discovered, he migrated to a small nearby island and took up shelter in a cave, surrounding himself with his crystalline companions. He spent the next thirty years studying the crystals and obsessing over them. He came to understand that the crystals rejuvinated him and seemed to prevent him from aging or feeling hunger or pain. And with enough concentration, the crystals allowed him the ability to manipulate water molecules. He could create steam from the humidity in the air, or create vortexes in the sea. He could even direct the water molecules in the air to create wind and currents, which allowed him to fly. But he also discovered that the crystals seemed to store his life essence within them, so that if he were to get too far away from them, he became weak and wracked with pain. If he was away from the crystals for too long, he would surely die.

It was then that Atom decided to ensure his immortality and strength by embedding the essence crystals into his own body. The self-surgery was traumatic and amateur, and Atom lost his legs due to infection by the time he had finished. When he had finished, he was forever changed. His blood ran blue with crystal dust, and he glowed with the light of dozens of essence crystals emerging from his skin. His eyes were no longer black but instead surged with a glowing white light, as if they were a window to the soul of the crystals he had buried in his body.

As Atom gracefully floated on air currents back into the village, thirty years after he had departed, hundreds of his fellow Channelers crowded around, awestruck. They all thought he had died at sea, yet he had returned with supernatural power and immortality.

Atom believed that the essence crystals held the key to solving hunger, pain, and war. He wanted to spread his message and teach about the power he had discovered, but he wanted to ensure that it did not fall into the wrong hands. He chose a handful of worthy disciples and spent the next fifty years teaching them all he knew. From then on, Atom returned every fifty years to select a new handful of disciples.

Today, Atom is now revered as Sacred Atom, and he has thousands of disciples who have all embedded essence crystals into their bodies. Although none have attained the power Atom wields, each of his disciples is honorable and good at heart, just as he had anticipated. Sacred Atom now resides somewhere out on the sea, and he and his disciples serve as protectors of the secrets of the essence crystals, only unveiling them to those who are worthy and pure of heart.

Character: RA1-VYN

2011-05-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

RA1-VYN

RA1-VYN, known by the Progeny's crew as "Raivyn", was built by Dr. Coz to serve as his research assistant. Because she has no need for sleep or food, Raivyn spends 100% of her time in either the medical bay or the botanical research wing of the Progeny, setting up experiments and collecting mountains of data for Dr. Coz. Most recently, Raivyn has been beaming up alien plant specimens from the Desian surface, supplying Dr. Coz with a near-endless supply of research topics.

Raivyn is programmed with a perpetual curiosity generator. She doesn't always ask the right questions, but she certainly asks a lot of them. She has been dubbed a "smartass" by many of the Progeny's crew because of her tendency to respond to questions with still more questions. She also has an overclocked loyalty chip and a turbocharged sarcastic algorithm generator, giving her a unique personality among the bots aboard the Progeny. Unlike most of the bots, Raivyn does not answer to G-M550. She is entirely self-contained and has a perpetually-evolving security system, making her memory impossible to hack. Dr. Coz has entrusted all of his research secrets to Raivyn, knowing that they will be safe in her memory banks.

Raivyn will be accompanying Dr. Coz to the Desian surface to set up a research laboratory. Thanks to Raivyn's help, Dr. Coz has discovered some incredibly potent healing properties in some of Desia's plant species, and he intends to replicate those properties to revolutionize medical technology. Raivyn will likely be instrumental in accomplishing this daunting tast.

Zone: Olbion Basin

2011-05-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Olbion Basin

The Olbion Basin is a lush, peaceful region that has never seen war or drought. Although perfect for settlement because of its abundant plant and wildlife and its easy access to fresh water, it is a rather poor strategic outpost. No Desian race has been foolish enough to build a settlement at the bottom of this green bowl, as it is difficult to get out but easy to fire into with any sort of weaponry. In essence, the Olbion Basin is a military death trap.

The topographical difficulties in escaping the Basin are compounded by the presence of a particularly territorial tribe of Stalkers dwelling in the forests lining the rim of the Basin. Unfortunately, one lone escape pod has had the bad luck to land directly in the bottom of this deep hole. While the pod's crew have all they need to survive inside the Basin, Garry has dispatched his army to seek and destroy all of the Human escape pods, leaving this particular crew in a precarious position.

Zone: The Darklands

2011-05-13T15:41:00.001-05:00

The Darklands

We don't go to the Darklands... Mostly because we can't.

The appropriately-named Darklands is a haven for nocturnal creatures; there is no daylight in the Darklands. The entire region is covered by a strange purple fungus which only grows in perpetual darkness. To maintain its health, the fungus grows large pustules which burst and release particles into the air which block out sunlight. As a result, the Darklands, drenched in a heavy fog that extends skyward for miles, has not seen sunlight for thousands of years. The fungal covering of the Darklands has developed an entire ecosystem around it; nearly every creature in the region entirely depends on the fungus for shelter and/or food. Much of the animal and plant life in the area have also developed bioluminescence as a means of either navigation or luring in prey, much like the anglerfish of Earth.

Only two of Desia's races care to venture into the Darklands. The Stalkers feel right at home here, as they can fade into the darkness with very little effort. And, of course, a few venturesome Berserkers wander into the area from time to time to see what kind of trouble they can get into. Very few Berserkers have managed to make it back out, however, since they simply get lost and wander aimlessly until death by either being devoured or starvation.

Several of the Progeny's escape pods have had the unfortunate luck of crashing in the constant darkness of this zone. Luckily, Captain Moore and his team have flashlight technology, so navigating the Darklands shouldn't pose too much of a problem, although the same can't be said for the hostile wildlife in the area. But in the meantime, the crew of the escape pods have hunkered down, using the onboard lights from their escape pods to stay alive. Hopefully they can last long enough for a rescue operation.

Blogger Down!

2011-05-13T11:38:00.002-05:00

Blogger went down for the past 24 hours, and some of my recent posts were temporarily deleted. They'll be coming back shortly. I have one scheduled for this morning, so it should pop in any time!

Garry's Army: Crusher

2011-05-12T07:56:00.000-05:00

Look up.

Garry has built thousands of these machines and planted them all over Desia. Simple yet effective, the Crusher was designed as a means of blocking off choke points from unwanted visitors. Its suction claws allow it to grip horizontal surfaces and stay suspended in the air indefinitely. As enemies approach, the Crusher releases itself and plummets to the ground below, attempting to pulverize any unsuspecting targets. And if the enemy dodges out of the way, the Crusher simply uses rocket propulsion to launch itself back up to the ceiling, grab hold, and try again.

Zone Bio: The Flood Plains

2011-05-09T15:05:00.000-05:00

The Flood Plains of Marcatia

Up until recently, the Flood Plains were a central trading hub for many of the Desian races. The regular precipitation and constant sediment deposit from the many rivers flowing through have caused the Flood Plains to be some of the most fertile farmland on Desia. Even the cliffs which separate the Flood Plains from the Barren Valley are so rich that they have supported thousands of Ascendants of the Arelian Tribe for generations. The Ooreahian Dredgers, seeking to trade with the Arelians, tunneled through the cliff faces and created large cliff-face trading ports, mutually benefiting both civilizations.

The Gluagian civilization called the Goggi has also maintained a large trade presence on the western coast of the Flood Plains for thousands of generations. This constant three-way trading in the Flood Plains eventually led the three races to dub the region "Marcatia," which is an amalgamation of the Gluaglian, Ascendant, and Dredger languages that means "Land of peace and prosperity."

The opportunities of Marcatia haven't been so prevalent as of late, however. The strange red substance which began bubbling up in the Deep Woods made its way downstream and contaminated much of the fertile soil of Marcatia, killing off the region's forest and much of its plants and wildlife. Worse yet, the recent volcanic flooding of Ooreahi City in the Barren Valley has spilled out through the trade ports the Ooreahian Dredgers had tunneled into the Marcatian cliff face, incinerating a huge number of Arelian crops and causing massive damage to the land below.

Juliog Goggi, the queen of the Goggi Civilization, has offered a helping hand to a few thousand Ooreahian and Arelian refugees who have been displaced by the traumatic events.

And to top it off, a pair of escape pods from the Progeny have crashed in the middle of it all`. The Desian races, unfamiliar with the humans, have not lent a helping hand, and the humans are finding themselves surrounded by danger and with only a very slim chance of survival. They have set up camp and are attempting to make contact with other escape pods that may have crashed in nearby regions.

Meanwhile, some unusual structures have appeared at the southern portion of the zone. They appear to be harvesting the dangerous red liquid from the rivers and from underground and concentrating it into large spherical tanks. Nobody saw the structures being built; they seemed to appear almost overnight, just a few days after the Progeny crashed. It is impossible to tell what these structures are doing and why they are there.

Settling into Summer

2011-05-08T08:58:00.000-05:00

Finals are over, and it's time to get cracking! I have my daily schedule ready to go for summer, and I am already in game development mode -- although yesterday I picked up my lady from the airport, and today is Mother's Day, so I don't have the whole weekend to work on Skybrawler.

In any case, I just finished another zone and another is on the way. I'll be spending most of this week fleshing out the world map and tweaking the story and dialogue before diving directly into the actual programming portion. In addition, I'll be working on learning C++. I'm using Game Maker to put Skybrawler together, and Game maker uses a programming language called GML (Game Maker Language) which is based on C++. I figure if I can get some mastery in C++, it'll help me in the long run both in terms of using Game Maker and in making games from scratch.

I plan on posting roughly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this summer to show off whatever it is I've put together at that time. Tomorrow I'll have a new zone up, so pop back then and check it out!

Eight Days

2011-04-29T19:15:00.000-05:00

Eight days until Skybrawler is in full swing. I have an exam on Monday and an exam on Friday, and then I'll have a solid 3.5 months of uninterrupted game development time. It hardly needs to be said, but I'm pumped. I'll have character bios, zone information, creatures, and story elements popping up on the blog roughly 3 days per week during that time, so be sure to check back often to get your weekly dose of Skybrawler!

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at Dr. Coz, the ship's botanist and chief Medical officer.

Did someone call for 500 CC's of ass-whooping?

Wading Through Finals

2011-04-25T17:12:00.002-05:00

It's been a little while since my last post, so I though I should just make sure everyone knows I'm still alive. It is the start of finals week, which means one week from this Saturday I will be developing Skybrawler full-time! I'm trying to pace myself with my studies so I don't get burned out, and I'm making room each day to work on Skybrawler so I can get ramped up for summer. And of course, I'm also taking time to enjoy some of the finer things in life, such as the newly-released Portal 2.

Speaking of which, I opted to try my hand at submitting a shirt design to teefury.com. Teefury is a site that has user-submitted T-shirt designs. Their staff chooses one shirt each day, and that shirt is only available for that day. The artist gets $1.00 per shirt sold.

I call my design GYARaDOS. It's a cross between GLaDOS (from Portal) and Gyarados (from Pokemon).

GYARaDOS SEES ALL.

If it gets chosen, I'll put all the proceeds toward Skybrawler. Woowee!

Come on, law school. Hurry up and get over with! I want you gone.

New music page!

2011-04-21T16:43:00.000-05:00

Our resident composer, Joe Fraioli, has put some of the Skybrawler Original Soundtrack up on the site at our brand-new MUSIC PAGE for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!

Give to charity AND indie game developers! Humble Frozenbyte Bundle

2011-04-13T09:25:00.000-05:00

There are some really fantastic games in here. I'm a big supporter of Frozenbyte and also of helping charities, and you can do both of those things by buying this games bundle! Plus, you can pay whatever price you want for the bundle, and it's cross-platform and DRM-free. So, you know, just buy the damn thing.

3D Stonefang

2011-04-11T08:00:00.005-05:00

Here's the Stonefang as it appears in Skybrawler:

And here's the concept art, which I made about 6 months ago:

I actually posted this video back in November, but that was long before I had fleshed out the Stonefangs and their place in the world. I thought some of my readers might enjoy a second look at this guy. You might also be thinking, "Hey! The 3D one looks way cooler than the 2D one!" I agree. Sadly, though, I don't have the tools yet to make 3D games, so we'll have to stick with the 2D fellow for a while.

Garry's Army: X-9001 Bombing Drone

2011-04-10T18:55:00.001-05:00

X-9001 Bombing Drone

How do those bombs fit in there? Lots of lubrication.

Originally built as pre-colonization scouting vehicles, the X-9000 Scouter was built to carry one pilot and a large number of planetary sensors which could be quickly deployed onto a planet's surface. Garry retrofitted the X-9000 Scouters with miniaturized munitions factories, allowing them to rapidly craft and drop bombs as they flew. He replaced the pilot's cockpit with a computer, threw in a few automated sensors, and presto! The X-9001 Bombing Drone was born. The X-9001 is an integral part of Garry's arsenal, and it is frequently used to clear a path for some of the slower-moving ground bots.

The X-9001 drops Gargantuan Tri-uranium Flux Ordinance (GTFO) bombs. These massive projectiles are difficult to fight against, as they have three different modes. Some GTFOs simply explode on impact just like any normal bomb, but the GTFO can also expand and transform into a Shellbot, depending on certain calculations the bomb's internal computer makes as it descends. And better still, the GTFO may also explode into even more bombs. As Garry has always said -- or at least, as he just started saying recently -- "You can't go wrong with more bombs."

Garry's Army: Shellbot

2011-04-09T17:03:00.000-05:00

Shellbot

[SPOILER ALERT: The Shellbot description contains some elements from the Skybrawler game's story.]

Keep your distance. A really long distance.

Garry began manufacturing Shellbots as the faction war began to escalate. Captain Moore's rag-tag army of alien refugees and beaten-down Progeny crash survivors proved to be a much more potent fighting force than Garry had originally estimated. To drive back the onslaught of Moore's Army, Garry set his bots to work converting a portion of the Progeny to manufacture Shellbots.

Shellbots are equipped with dual gauss rifles for extremely long-range artillery shelling, capable of firing accurately for hundreds of miles. For short-range combat, Shellbots can fall back on their shoulder-mounted rocket salvos. These potent explosion factories also have ammunition regeneration technology, allowing them to fire almost indefinitely. The only way to shut off a Shellbot's bombardment is to destroy the Shellbot.

Once Garry had completed a vast army of Shellbots, he dispatched them across Desia, typically alongside other bots to serve as long-range support. By Garry's estimates, Captain Moore's probability of success against the oncoming tide of Shellbot bombardment is lower than 1%. But Garry has been wrong before.

Creature Bio: Dredgehog

2011-04-08T22:02:00.001-05:00

Dredgehog

Adorably irritating!

The Dredgehogs of Desia get their name from the common dwelling they share with the Dredgers. Often found bumbling about in the dark underground tunnels of Dredger cities, these little guys subsist on a diet of dirt, rocks, and the occasional worm. Dredgehogs are infamous for hampering large-scale city excavation efforts as Dredgers tunnel new underground cities. In the early stages of any tunneling effort, Dredgehogs are often found wedged in tunneling equipment. It is because of these spiky beasts that Dredgers have given up on inflated rubber tires for their machinery; the brutally sharp spines on a Dredgehog's back will puncture even the thickest rubber.

Nevertheless, the Dredgers have learned to tolerate Dredgehogs as common pests. They make great lab rats for scientific experiments because of their rapid procreation, but they are quite dim-witted and difficult to pet, making them terrible pets.

Possible Logo Design

2011-04-06T20:46:00.001-05:00

Howdy! I took a short break from reading my eyeballs off to cobble together a possible logo idea for Stoz Studios. I'm going to be setting up the studio as a business this summer, and I thought it's about time I retired the 2-year-old "devil" logo for something a bit more relevant. Plus, I heard that the devil is a jerk, and here at Stoz Studios, we care about our brand.

Still pondering. I don't want to commit just yet; I figure I should treat it like a tattoo. I must think it over well, because it might be stuck to my butt cheek for the rest of my life.

Hibernation: ACTIVATE WINTERBEAR MODE

2011-04-05T10:33:00.000-05:00

After a long week of reading, writing, and coming down with an epic cold, I've entered into "game development hibernation" mode. I have three weeks of classes and two weeks of final exams left, so it's time to start the law grind and set Skybrawler aside for a short time.

I will be tweaking a few things in the game as the weeks drag on, but for the most part, I will be focusing my time and energy on ensuring that my semester of classes has been well-spent. Although I'd like to try to chunk off blocks of time for Skybrawler, near-constant exposure to legal texts really puts the smackdown on any potential creative juices. So rather than delivering a half-assed attempt at game content, I'd rather wait until summer arrives so that I can dive into Skybrawler with all cylinders firing. Whatever that means... I'm not a car guy.

The good news, though, is that once finals are finished, I'll be developing Skybrawler full-time, 8:00-5:00 (or longer) every day for about 3 months! I'm extremely excited for the opportunity, and I've also picked up some programming books and other educational materials so that I can expand my knowledge in game development as a whole.

Meet the Developers: JOE FRAIOLI, Music Master

2011-03-29T08:00:00.001-05:00

Here's a quick snippet that my bud Joe Fraioli, the resident composer for Stoz Studios, wrote up for the site!

-------------------------

Hello friends! My name is Joe Fraioli. I’m originally from Long Island, New York, but currently reside in Iowa City, Iowa. I’m a JD Candidate at the University of Iowa, but in my free time (my very, very limited free time), I compose music. I’m a classically trained musician, having played the clarinet for over a decade, as well exploring other instruments, including the oboe, alto saxophone, piano, and most recently the violin. I mostly compose orchestral music for various ensembles, mainly influenced from the late romantic, modern, and early contemporary periods, and have recently traversed into the realm of composing for video games. Progeny: SkyBrawler is the first full-length score that I am composing, though I certainly hope it is not the last!

If you would like to contact me, please use the Stoz Studios website. Please refer to the Intellectual Property page for all information regarding property rights of all music used for Progeny: SkyBrawler.

RAAAAAAAGE!

2011-03-28T09:44:00.002-05:00

I've had a "super punch" or "enrage" mechanic built into Skybrawler since nearly the first week of development. I liked the idea of giving the player the opportunity to go ballistic and just destroy everything around them, if only for a brief moment. But I realized that I haven't been exploiting the enrage mechanic to its fullest, and that I can really squeeze some crazy gameplay out of it if I tweak it enough.

The Previous Enrage Mechanic worked as follows:

The player has a "rage bar" that goes up to 7.
Killing an enemy has a chance to drop a "rage orb" which you can pick up, thereby increasing your rage by 1.
When your rage reaches 7, you can activate "enrage mode" by pressing "e". While enraged, your punches do 50% more damage, and you fly much faster and farther than when normally punching.

This system gives the player some semblance of control over their character's rage, which is good, but it is lacking in a few key respects. Namely, it doesn't change much about how the player plays the game; it essentially just gives them an "I WIN" button that they can activate almost on a whim. So I pondered for a while, and here's the new rage system:

The player has a rage bar that goes from 0-100.
Rage constantly drains, so staying out of combat for about 15 seconds would drain your rage all the way down to zero.
Punching an enemy grants 10 rage. Once your health drops below 50%, punching an enemy grants more rage as your health approaches zero. (The current formula is 10 + 2*floor(50/health)).
When your rage reaches 100, your character becomes enraged automatically.
While enraged, your punches cost no energy (allowing you to punch constantly), you hit for 1.5x normal damage, and your punches make you fly through the air at 2x speed.

The more constantly and frantically the player fights, the higher chance they have of becoming enraged and laying waste to everything in their path. This new mechanic essentially rewards the player for playing like an insane person (hence the term "Skybrawler"). In particular, the player gets rewarded through increased rage generation if they continue beating the crap out of things even as they are near death.

The search for an animator + Striders in a cave!

2011-03-22T20:08:00.000-05:00

I've begun searching for a 2-D animator to help ease my workload over the summer. While I still will be designing and illustrating all of the character models, the sheer amount of time required for the animations may be far too much for me to get the game finished in a timely manner. I'm just rolling the idea around in my brain at the moment, but it would certainly be nice to be able to focus on level design, basic sprites, story design, and programming while getting a boost on the extremely time-consuming animation side of things. We'll see how it goes!

In the meantime, here are some Striders trapped in a cave! They've been beaten down by the Stonefangs and pushed into this cave, where they're about to get attacked in a final push. Good thing Captain Moore showed up... or is it?

Where do I put the saddle?

Spring Break Update

2011-03-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

It has been a great week so far. Although I have finals week looming over my head, this Spring Break has been a nice preview of what is to come for the summer. I've made some great progress on Skybrawler over the past few days, and I was finally able to implement moving platforms! Although I opted not to go the traditional route of simple platforms that move; instead, when Captain Moore needs to traverse long distances above treacherous bottomless pits of death, he rides on the heads of lazy, flying creatures.

Pick up the pace, Flappy McFlat-Head!

I'll get these suckers into the Creatures page in due time. I also started work on the first Overlook Plateau level, which revealed a large number of things that I needed to work on right now. Since January, I've been focusing on pumping out a large amount of content that I can show on the Blog. But as I started work on this first level, a number of things jumped out at me that needed attention right away.

As a result, here is some of the stuff I've implemented over the past couple days:

Some new terrain for the Overlook Plateau levels.
New buildings for the Stonefangs.
The first Overlook Plateau level is fully designed and nearly complete.
The "objectives list" feature has been condensed into a single "active objective" which is now always displayed at the top left of the screen.
Enemies now have their names over their heads. When they take damage, their health bar appears right beneath their name.
Friendly NPCs also now have their names over their heads (but in green).
I have nearly finished implementing an expandable human base, which will be used as the foundation of Jamestown. I don't want to reveal too much about it here; I'd rather have people see it in action in-game.
And, of course, several bug fixes.

Unfortunately, all of this has caused me to neglect my law school outlining. My brain finally got revenge on me by giving me nightmares last night in which I kept screwing up my class assignments. Okay, okay, I get the hint! Time to work on "important" matters. The game can wait (a day or two).

Creature Bio: Eibo

2011-03-12T20:51:00.000-06:00

New creature added to the SB: Creatures page!

Eibo

Eibo (both plural and singular) are typically found in marshy regions, nesting in the foliage and traveling in large flocks. These round creatures have impeccable eyesight but lack any depth perception, which causes them to be unusually susceptible to running eye-first into obstacles. Also lacking a mouth, Eibo stick to wet areas of the world so that they can absorb their nutrients through their porous skin.

These awkward creatures are well-known throughout Desia not for their eyesight or unusual eating habits (or lack thereof); rather, they are known for their powerful and destructive defense mechanism. When threatened, Eibo tuck in their wings and dive-bomb onto whatever has attacked them. If they pick up enough speed during the fall, the impact will cause the Eibo to explode in a shower of acid, melting through most biological tissue. This counterintuitive survival tool seems to work for the Eibo, as most predators stay away and leave these flapping balls of death alone, knowing full well the consequences of a confrontation.

PUNCH LIFE IN THE FACE™ with the all-new DI-1.22GWEP5K!

2011-03-08T11:34:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, during a long, hard day of punching the crap out of alien monsters' faces with your rocket gloves, you get tired. You get exhausted. You can't summon the strength to punch even one more hideous alien face. Let's face it; we've all been there. But don't despair!

Hi! I'm James Daniels of Daniels Industries. Here at Daniels Industries, we feel your pain. We know how stressful a life of alien face punching can be. And that's why we are happy to introduce:

THE DANIELS INDUSTRIES 1.22 GIGAWATTS ENERGY PUMPOTRON 5,000*

* Consult your physician before use.

When you need a little boost to get through the day, just slap down the trustworthy DI-1.22GWEP5K. Bask in its radioactive blue 1.22 Gigawatt glow, and POWER YOUR FACE PUNCHING TO THE NEXT LEVEL™! That's right, folks; with the DI-1.22GWEP5K, you can:

Punch faces indiscriminately™ without regard to your own personal well-being!**
Attract members of the same or opposite sex! ***
Increase your stamina at the workplace! ****
Gain confidence in your public speaking! *****
Lose that excess belly fat -- with no effort, exercise, or dieting whatsoever! ******

So what are you waiting for? Get out there! Get energized! And PUNCH LIFE IN THE FACE™ with your shiny new DI-1.22GWEP5K!

Daniels Industries: We make things.™

** Possibly not a true claim.

*** Daniels Industries claims no responsibility if the DI-1.22GWEP5K destroys your marriage or current monogamous relationship.

**** Results may vary. Not applicable if your workplace is boring.

***** Just kidding; nothing can fix your complete lack of self-esteem.

****** Come on.

WARNING: EXCESSIVE, MODERATE, OR LIGHT USE OF THE DI-1.22GWEP5K MAY CAUSE UNWANTED SIDE EFFECTS SUCH AS BROKEN LIMBS, BLINDNESS, BAD BREATH, AND A SPIRALING DEPRESSION WHICH MAY CAUSE IRREPARABLE HARM TO SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR USE BY PREGNANT WOMEN. TAKE WITH FOOD.

Variables Zones, Captain's Journal

2011-03-07T12:46:00.000-06:00

I've been working on a few new features. The first one will add quite a bit of visual depth to the story of the game. As you may know, Skybrawler has a fairly large world map (see the Planet Desia page) which you regularly visit -- between every level. I've been pondering how to make the world map more interesting, and I stumbled across a fairly obvious and easy solution.

I now have it set up so that as you progress through the game, the world map changes to reflect the things you have done in the story. For example, if you establish a base, the base appears on the map. If you blow up a mountain, the mountain becomes a crater on the map. And the list goes on.

All it takes is splitting up the big map into 36 small parts, turning each part into an object, and then having each object check the game's progress. If a certain level has been completed, that zone will update its sprite to reflect the change. This will be to such an extent that the final world map (when the game is finished) will look quite a bit different than it did when you started, and you will be able to see the path you have carved as you have made your way through the story.

The second feature is going to replace the standard, boring, "Objectives" list. Instead, there will be a Captain's Journal which you can open whenever you like. The initial page of the journal will always be your "To-Do list" (to replace the Objectives list). But from there, you can flip through the pages and look at information about the game. As you encounter new enemies, characters, or alien tribes, information about those particular things will be entered into your journal. By the time you finish the game, your journal will be a full encyclopedia outlining all the details of the game. This is similar to the Tome of Knowledge concept from Warhammer, although executed in a slightly different fashion. I really liked the concept in Warhammer, and it's unfortunate that it hasn't carried through to many other games, so I fully intend to resurrect the concept on Skybrawler.

Plus, I can't count on every player to spend dozens of hours at this web site reading through all the info, so I should at the very least make it accessible in-game.

Zone: Ignea

2011-03-05T20:53:00.001-06:00

Howdy! I've got a new zone up for today, which will be in the Planet Desia page. (See below if you don't feel bothered to visit that page.)

Ignea

The twin islands of Ignea have been the home of the Komidians since before history began. Known as the birthplace of all Igneum stone, Ignea is easily the most dangerous region on the planet. The great mountain of Ignea, known as Hailum, constantly churns out Igneum dust, coating the entire region with the explosive substance.

The area is inhospital to all but a few forms of life, as nearly anything in the region will explode on contact with organic matter. The Komidians, however, have evolved a sort of hardened skin that somehow prevents them from suffering the ill effects of contact with Igneum, likely through some kind of chemical secretion. As the only sentient race able to live in Ignea, the Komidians maintain an extremely isolationist stance. They have everything they need on Ignea. They harvest most of their food from the sea, granting plenty of leisure time. They are free from political or power influences of the other races, as no race will enter Ignea to wage war on the Komidians. The Komidians have used their eternal state of peace to build up an advanced society replete with scholarship, advanced astronomy, and constant scientific endeavors.

They were previously spread all over both islands, but recent geological turmoil has pushed the Komidians to congregate on the southern island exclusively. Large cracks have opened up in the ground, and a sticky, toxic substance began oozing out, poisoning anything it touched. The Komidians have been frantically attempting to uncover its source and put a stop to it. If this traumatic process begins to take hold on the southern island, the Komidians may be forced off of Ignea and onto the mainland. This would disrupt their entire way of life, as they would be exposed to the other races of Desia. But fortunately, the Komidians' top scientists think they are on the verge of a breakthrough to solve the problem. Then again, perhaps no amount of knowledge can keep the ground from crumbling beneath their feet.

Back to game development!

2011-02-27T23:47:00.000-06:00

This weekend was a success; I buttoned up that paper I had been working on. It still has a few tweaks to go, but it's taken care of, which means I can get my nose back into Skybrawler! Expect a couple new zones this week, on top of whatever crazy shenanigans pop up as things progress.

I also plan on finalizing the Dialogue system by the end of the weekend and (hopefully) implementing an "objectives" portion to the user interface so that the player can quickly and easily see what he or she has to do on each particular level.

Information Management

2011-02-25T23:23:00.000-06:00

Hey, all! I just have a quick update on what's going on over this weekend. My apologies for being light on the posts; as I mentioned previously, I'm being slammed by some heavy coursework between now and Thursday. After bouncing some ideas off my older brother, I believe I have the solution to my dialogue woes. Note: this post is about the nuts and bolts underlying the game. No pretty screenshots here! If that's not your cup of tea, you might want to stop reading before you fall asleep.

Basically, this dialogue-box situation is little more than an information management problem. All I really needed to do was to simplify it and whittle it down to its bare bones. When the player talks to an NPC, a dialogue box should appear that says something appropriate for the circumstances. As it turns out, those circumstances are:

Which character is talking
What objective the player is currently on
What level the player is currently on

Those are the three major variables that need to be accounted for. And the best way to do this -- at least at this point -- is through a pseudo-three-dimensional spreadsheet using arrays. Here's the basic funcionality.

Each level in the game is assigned a number. When the player enters the level, a variable is switched to reflect which level the player is currently on.
The objectives within each level are linear. As you complete each objective within a level, it unlocks the next objective. Therefore, there is a variable that tracks the number of objectives completed within each level.
Each NPC (that talks) is also assigned a number. When the player speaks to that NPC, that NPC's number gets dropped into a variable to reflect which NPC is currently talking.

So the pseudocode would be:

Player presses "x" on an NPC, which starts the dialogue box opening event.
Variable global.current_npc = [current NPC's index number]
Check the dialogue library where the following variables coincide: current_level, objectives_completed, npc_index

Think of it as a three-dimensional space, with the level number on the X axis, NPC index on the Z axis, and the number of completed objectives on the Y axis. All throughout this space are points representing the particular chunk of dialogue needed for any particular point in the game. All I needed to do was to build a system that simply goes into that three-dimensional space and points at the correct point. Easy!

Quickie Screenshot: UI Changes, Dialogue Boxes

2011-02-23T21:09:00.000-06:00

Still experimenting with various UI tweaks to see what feels and looks the best. I like this current one, although I think the health and energy bars should be a bit higher up. Then again, they don't obstruct anything or cause any issues, so it may be well and good.

I've also got the basic UI components for the dialogue boxes. They aren't functioning fully yet, but I'm getting there.

I'll be under a rock until next Thursday, as I've got a somewhat bulky paper to write over the next week, but I'll still be plugging away at game-related things; I just won't have a ton to post over the next week.

Thoughts on the UI changes? Let me know in the comments!

Funding successful!

2011-02-22T22:01:00.000-06:00

Skybrawler is officially funded! I've removed the Kickstarter link from the side of the page and replaced it with a set of shiny new navigation buttons for all to enjoy.

I'm also still clunking through the new dialog system and making some other UI improvements; expect screenshots soon!

Tangled Web of Dialogue

2011-02-21T18:49:00.000-06:00

I never considered myself naive when it came to the amount of planning that goes into a game, but there have always been certain things that I have taken for granted. A great game just works, and if the game is immersive enough, the player simply doesn't have room to question exactly how it all fits together. It's seamless. If the player can feel the seams (via bugs or bad design), the game won't make it very far.

This is why, in games ranging from Pokemon to Halo to Final Fantasy [whatever number] to WoW, the player doesn't scratch her head and ask why her character doesn't fall through the ground, or how gravity works, or how the game knows when to play a sound or to animate the character in a certain way. Good games don't allow these questions to come up, which is why most players don't really consider them.

But now that I'm on the other end of the screen, it's time to dig in and answer those questions in my own way. One of those seemingly simple things that we tend to take for granted is a game's dialog. Skybrawler is a story-based game with a huge number of NPCs (non-player characters), which means that I have to develop a system to track and manage all of the various dialog that will pop up during the game. And more importantly, the dialog that is displayed must match the portion of the game the player has reached.

Let's take Chief Engineer James Daniels as an example. He's in the game right from the start, and the player will have hundreds of opportunities to talk to him as the game progresses. Obviously, Daniels can't say the same thing over and over; that wouldn't make sense, and it would surely prevent the story from going anywhere. Instead, Daniels needs to say different things depending on where and when you talk to him. If he just helped you take on an army of Stonefangs, he should say something about it afterwards when you talk to him.

So each major character will have an entire library of phrases that must be conjured by the game, depending on when that character speaks. And if that's not a daunting enough task, I have to make sure that I assemble this library of dialog in such a way that it is flexible. That is, if I need to make a change as to how the dialogue is displayed, I don't want to go in and manually change every single stored chunk of text; I should be able to change one variable at the top end, and the lower-level functions should flex accordingly.

I think I have the basic system down, but I need to ensure that it is functional, efficient, and flexible before I go about actually implementing it. It would be a hell of a job to undo it once it's in place.

Zone: Grasping Plains

2011-02-20T22:10:00.000-06:00

New zone added to the SB: Planet Desia page!

Grasping Plains

Constantly irrigated by the Mollu Glacier's melted runoff from the Overlook Plateau, the Grasping Plains have long been the fertile "heartland" of the northern Desian continent. It fares much better than its neighbors, the Barren Valley and the Searing Sands, although the Grasping Plains' ecosystem is certainly more strange.

The Grasping Plains are home to the Strider nation of Kiliat. The Kiliats once roamed the plains and hunted the herds of rhinoceros-like Huutas, but a few hundred years ago, the Huutas suddenly became scarce. An entire generation of Kiliats was faced with famine, and many Kiliats migrated to other zones where game was more populous. Those who stayed soon discovered that the Huutas were vanishing because they were being systematically devoured by an enormous creature which lived beneath the fertile ground of the plains. Its tentacles snaked through the ground like an eel through water, and it seemed to have the capability to recognize where creatures were walking on the ground. Any slight vibration of the loose topsoil would trigger a wildly flailing tentacle to shoot up from the earth, snatching up whatever it could and pulling it underground in an instant to be immediately devoured.

The Kiliats feared for their lives upon making this discovery, and they moved their portable homes onto the large, rocky outcrops that dotted the plains. It seemed that the beast's tentacles could not penetrate solid rock, so the Kiliats were safe for the moment. Perhaps out of rage or perhaps out of starvation, the Kiliats quickly began to strike back. They set up traps to coax the creature's tentacles to burst from the ground, and the ambushing Kiliats would charge at the tentacles and slash them to bits. After a few war marches on the demonic tentacles, the Kiliats realized that the tentacles were perfect for nutrition, as they were almost entirely composed of muscle. One severed tentacle could feed an entire village of Kiliats for weeks, and there never seemed to be a shortage of this monster's flesh.

Since then, the Kiliats have adapted to their situation and have settled in a permanent home on the rocks, regularly venturing out to chip away at the beast's appendages for the next big feast. Their tormentor became their sustenance. Nobody understands how, but for every tentacle that is removed, two seem to take its place. But the beast's rapid growth is becoming increasingly troublesome; its enormous tentacles are venturing closer and closer to the Kiliats' rocky fortresses, and they seem to grow larger with each passing day. If it gets any larger, the beast will very likely wipe out the Kiliat nation. Several recent expeditions have attempted to find the head of the beast and kill it, but not a single adventurer has returned. It's coming down to the wire; if this thing isn't dealt with soon, it seems there will be no end to its growth.

Zone: Deep Woods

2011-02-18T23:50:00.001-06:00

Deep Woods

The dense forests of the Deep Woods have remained safe from the Stonefang attacks over the past half-century; Stonefangs don't fear much, but they do fear Stalkers, and there are plenty of those to be found in the Deep Woods. The Stalkers have claimed this region since the beginning of recorded history, and nobody on bad terms with the Stalkers dares to enter the Deep Woods.

The forests themselves are replete with a variety of carnivorous plants and even more carnivorous animals. Even Berserkers are hesitant to venture into the Deep Woods. Berserkers are showboats and always display their risk-taking prowess, but most who enter the Deep Woods are never seen again. And it's certainly difficult to show off if you have vanished.

A recent phenomenon has killed off a significant portion of the forest, however. A strange red liquid began bubbling from the ground quite recently, and there doesn't seem to be an end to it. Its source is unknown, but it has recently begun overflowing and converging with the rivers that travel to the flood plains just southwest, which is causing huge problems for the wildlife there as well. The Ascendants who live on the east side of the Barren Valley's eastern mountain range live close to this red liquid, and some of them have reported seeing strange hallucinations and hearing voices after exposure to it. A tribe of Ascendant elders has been attempting to discover the source of this dangerous substance to put an end to it, but no solution has revealed itself as of yet.

Meanwhile, the Gleagski Clan of Gluaglians has taken a foothold along the southern coast of the zone. Although they normally stick to deep water, the Gleagskis have been pushed onto land after Reabl, one of their younger and less intelligent members, startled a massive nest of hibernating Gruffpac Eels at 5,000 feet while attempting to steal their eggs to sell on the surface. The school of 40-foot-long constrictors angrily devoured half the Gleagski Clan -- including Reabl -- before the day was through, and the remaining Gleagskis have set up shop along the Deep Woods coast while they wait for the swarming eels to calm down. So far it has been two years; Gruffpacs aren't known for their forgiving nature.

Self-Healing: Heal bomb!

2011-02-17T21:34:00.000-06:00

I was scratching my head over a way for Captain Moore to heal himself in case he gets in a pinch. There have been times when I've been testing combat against various enemies where I've gotten a bit overwhelmed and had to quickly flee out of combat, only to find that I only have a tiny sliver of health left and no way to get it back. This can cause a big problem, because some of the enemies in Skybrawler take a number of hits before they go down, and if you take damage at all during that time, you may lose that last little ounce of health and go kaput.

So I've introduced the Healing Bomb into the game. It works pretty well so far.

Chase it!

It takes 100% of your energy to use it, and it restores 25% of your health. This means that you can't just indiscriminately throw these little suckers around during combat, or you'll lose your ability to fight for a short duration while your energy recharges. So it's best used as one of those patching-yourself-up tools after a big fight. There will also be times later in the game where you'll have to assist friendly NPCs as they fight off armies of baddies, which means this healing tool will come in quite handy as the story progresses.

As you can see in the top right, the Healing Bomb sits at Numpad 7. The top row of the Numpad will primarily be comprised of "utility" abilities which aren't specifically combat-related but will help in some way. I won't give the other two utility abilities away yet, so you'll just have to keep an eye out!

Cleaning it up

2011-02-15T22:22:00.000-06:00

Every now and then I'll go back and check out my previous programming in various aspects of the game, and I will always find something that could be done better. It's interesting how this works; I'll program something in a way that seems efficient at the time, but after two weeks of not even thinking about that specific chunk of code, I'll glance at it and suddenly say, "WHOA! What was I THINKING??!?"

I've also had odd anomalies where I'll be sleeping, and suddenly I'll wake up at 3:00 in the morning and smack myself on the forehead for having messed up some small snippet of code a week prior. I'm not sure what this all means, but it must be some kind of testament to the ability of the human brain to keep something going on the "back burner."

Although I was crushed by a mountain of textbooks today, I did manage to go back through some of my code and weed out a few inefficient chunks. This game is going to be really big with tons of objects and all kinds of things happening all over the place, so this constant grooming and preening of inefficiencies will really pay off in the end.

In other news, between tomorrow and Thursday I'll have a new zone ready to post, and I should have another one between Friday and Saturday. Although the first few zones you've seen have been fairly "normal" (in the relative sense), some of the upcoming zones are substantially more alien and weird, and they offer a much greater potential for crazy stuff to go down.

Race Bio: Stalker

2011-02-15T00:57:00.000-06:00

New race added to the SB: Races page! This is the last of the Desian races to be featured in Skybrawler.

Stalker

Ambidextrous? Nah, he's just very determined.

The Stalkers of Desia dwell primarily in the heavily-forested regions of the planet. Their name comes from the means by which they tend to hunt and fight; they stick to the shadows and excel at being unseen. This may not be apparent by the light of their bio-luminescent, glowing eyes or their choice of weapons, but rest assured that despite these unusual features, a stalker will see you before you see it. Some speculate that their stealth prowess is a result of carefully-placed camouflage warpaint, but this assertion is somewhat absurd. In truth, nobody understands how Stalkers manage to dissolve from sight the way they do.

Lacking any real political affiliations with the other Desian races, the Stalkers keep to themselves and don't tread on others' business. The Stalkers spend most of their time in solitude, perfecting their hunting skills and stealth capabilities, and they lack any semblance of a political structure even within their own culture.

The Stalkers' history is cloaked in the shadows. Nobody knows where they came from, and they have never left behind any written records of their activities. Although Stalkers live all over Desia, they are just as mysterious as the Komidians, and the other races can do little more than spin stories and legends about them.

News Update!

2011-02-13T23:19:00.001-06:00

Hey, gang! Just a few news updates today. Still working on the new trailer; ran into a little snag, so we'll see how it goes. I'll be finishing the Stalker over the next couple days; I want to really take the time to make sure I get the concept exactly how it should be. It will definitely be one of the coolest-looking races, although also one of the most mysterious. I'll also be working on two new zones this week.

In other news, Kickstarter fundraising ends on Thursday! And I have an extended weekend coming up, which means plenty of time to really hash out some content. Here's to a good upcoming week!

Experimentation

2011-02-12T23:51:00.000-06:00

I'm working on a new mechanic to put into the game. I haven't integrated it into the UI as prettily as I would like, but it's functional, which is what matters at this stage. It's a gauge that shows the energy of your suit, and each of your abilities uses energy. Energy recharges constantly and at a pretty good rate, but it does push the player to choose a bit as to how they use their abilities. For example, sprint makes your energy decrease slowly, rather than regenerate. If you punch while sprinting, it takes a chunk out of your energy, and your sprint gets cut short, because you can't sprint without energy!

This makes the gameplay a bit more interesting. Before, I only had cooldowns attached to each skill. Now, I can reduce the cooldowns and let the player choose how they want to spend their suit's resources. It gives the player quite a bit more control over the gameplay.

All I need to do now is tweak some of the energy costs of things, and, of course, pretty up the UI!

Zone: Barren Valley

2011-02-11T20:33:00.000-06:00

New zone added to the SB: Planet Desia page!

Barren Valley

Sandwiched on three sides by lush forests, the Barren Valley is a peninsula of desolation jutting out into a sea of life. Like its neighbor, the Searing Sands, the Barren Valley has difficulty supporting basic life. This hasn't stopped the Dredgers from making it their home, however; directly beneath the center of the valley lies Ooreahi, one of the largest Dredger cities ever built. Its vast underground network of tunnels sprawls for miles, and the Dredgers have managed to cultivate vast fields of bio-luminescent fungi that dwell far underground, providing an endless supply of food and light.

The Barren Valley has seen a relatively conflict-free past; it has little to offer in terms of resources, and the extreme temperatures at the surface are nearly unbearable to endure. However, the Berskerkers find this type of region quite appealing because of its danger. And once the Stonefangs took over Mount Arua, the Berserkers simply couldn't stay away. They had to get in on the action. A bastion of a few hundred berserkers migrated to the Barren Valley over the past half-century to show off their prowess in fighting against the Stonefangs around Dianttua. It is said that whichever Berserker can manage to get into the hollowed-out mountain and come out alive will have eternal glory. No one has succeeded as of yet.

While the Ascendants from the region were grateful for the Berserkers' help, the Berserkers weren't interested in politics; they simply wanted to fight things, and the endless legion of Stonefangs provided the perfect opportunity. The campfires marking the Berserkers' temporary settlements dot the northern region of the Barren Valley to this day, for it seems that as long as the Stonefangs are holed up in Dianttua, the Berserkers will be close by, engaging them in bloody combat.

Some of the Berserkers have had difficulty staying focused, however, because a new temptation has arisen just to the south. As the Progeny was falling out of orbit, pieces of debris (or perhaps escape pods) plummeted to the Barren Valley like a steel hailstorm, decimating whatever they impacted. The shock waves from the impacts caused Taluiq Mountain, the largest mountain in the zone and a previously dormant volcano, to burst open and spew lava all over the southern portion of the region. This has caused a split in the Berserker tribe, as many of the more insane individuals have been coaxed to go for a swim in the newly-created lava pools.

The lava flows pervading the zone have caused untold damage to the Dredger city of Ooreahi, and the rumbling from the debris has caused much of their infrastructure to collapse. It seems that several thousand Dredgers may be trapped below with no clear means of escape. One thing is certain; this once peaceful desert has become a literal hotbed of dangerous activity. Tread with caution.

New Trailer + Upcoming Race: Stalker

2011-02-10T19:27:00.000-06:00

I've been plugging away at a variety of code-oriented things in the game, so I don't have much in terms of screenshots today. However, I have begun work on the final Desian race: the Stalkers.

That's all I'll put up for now; more to come! I'll also probably have a new trailer up on the Kickstarter page by the end of the weekend to show off some of the new features I've thrown together since the page launched a month ago. Back to work!

Some UI Tweaks, New Abilities

2011-02-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Today I managed to squeeze in some game mechanic tweaking, and I finally got the chance to implement a shiny new ability: SPRINT. It's an activated ability that doubles your run speed for a short time. It has a moderate cooldown before you can use it again. It's one of those things that will really come in handy, so you might want to save it for when you get caught in a tight spot. For example, if you need to hurdle a Cactogon.

This trajectory doesn't look safe.

You may also notice the newly-configured UI in the top right corner. Since the game will ultimately use the entire numpad for all of the player's combat abilities, it only made sense to configure the abilities in the same layout on the interface. Let me know your thoughts! I'm on the fence about its size, but it does a good job of disappearing when you're playing, and the more centrally-located health bar is a bit easier to catch from the corner of your eye. This is just a prototype UI, though; I'll keep playing with it as time passes.

And now, Captain Moore punching a Dune Sloth in the face.

This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you.

Zone: Stonefang Mountains

2011-02-08T14:16:00.000-06:00

New zone added to the SB: Planet Desia page!

Stonefang Mountains

The Stonefang Mountains are the home of the largest group of Stonefangs, and it it is the staging ground for the Stonefangs' largest military operations. In ancient times, before the Ascendants had converted to the agrarian lifestyle, the Ascendants viewed this mountain range as prime hunting ground for Stonefang meat. But once the Ascendants began farming, the gargantuan mountain in the center of the region became regarded as a sort of promised land, and it was given the name Mount "Arua," which is a contracted form of the phrase "bridge to the sky." Mount Arua provided so much vertical farmland that it could support potentially millions of Ascendants at a time. Tens of thousands of Ascendants flocked to the mountain, covering its surface with their fields. Ascendant towns and cities blotted the mountain's face for millenia.

A few generations ago, however, a massive army of Stonefangs seemed to simply emerge from nowhere. It is rumored that they had spent most of recent history living deep underground in the northern caves, developing war technology and building their numbers, but this is unlikely; the network of caves is a breeding ground for an untold number of incredibly dangerous creatures. The Stonefangs swarmed the face of the mountain like locusts, burning the Ascendants' crops and massacring any who failed to escape, using grappling hooks and various war machines to scale the mountain. Once the Ascendants had been dealt with, the Stonefangs set about converting Mount Arua from a fountain of life into a fortress of war. They blasted the mountain with explosives until they had hollowed it out, allowing only one entrance sealed with a massive stone door, and they moved all of their war machines inside.

In the decades since the uprising, the Stonefangs built defenses all throughout the region as a warning to all outsiders that this territory was now theirs. Mount Arua lost its namesake and, over time, became known as "Dianttua" which translates to "suffering giant." The once green and lush mountain range had been burned and scarred until it was nothing but an endless field of jagged rocks. The other Desian races learned to stay far away from Dianttua, although it is of little use; the Stonefang attacks mounted from Dianttua have become increasingly severe and frequent as the Stonefangs venture farther from their mountain home.

Only Stonefangs are allowed inside the mountain, and there is little more than speculation as to what the Stonefangs are building inside. Others are simply uneasy because although the Stonefangs have assembled attacks on the other races, these attacks are nothing compared to their initial massacre of the Ascendants; they seem to be biding their time; it is clear that they are planning something major inside the impenetrable walls of Dianttua, and there is very little to stop them.

We have liftoff: A personal thanks.

2011-02-07T07:22:00.000-06:00

Skybrawler is now 100% funded with 48 backers and 15 days of fundraising still to go! It has been an interesting journey so far, and it will only get more amazing as each piece of the game fits into place. I've seen an outpouring of support that I never could have anticipated. I have even met a number of people along the way, including Joe Fraioli, who will be composing the music in Skybrawler. It's inspiring to see the excitement and energy that a project like this can generate in people, and I look forward to seeing that excitement build as the game progresses. I am glad to be taking you all with me on this ride.

I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has dug into their pockets to make this project a reality; my friends, family, and a whole crowd of people I have not met (yet). Yes, this project is ambitious, and I recognize that putting your money into a project being built by a novice indie developer is something of a risk. But I promise that I won't let you down. I can't help but polish and tweak this game until it is exactly what I envisioned from the start, because I will not accept anything less. This obsession is somewhat distracting, however; as I read case briefs and write papers for my law classes, ideas bounce back and forth in my head until I finally give in and plug away at some new game mechanic for a few hours. But I can't avoid that, and I certainly don't intend to.

I see the potential in Skybrawler, and I plan to make it into something truly great, but my time is so constrained by my studies that I can only eke out a few little tweaks and modifications each day. I have made it a priority to build something in the game each day, and I have certainly lost sleep as a result, but it has been well worth it so far. Not to worry, though; my time constraints will soon be lifted, because this summer, thanks to my devoted and generous backers, I will be developing Skybrawler full time, all day, every day. No classes, nothing to interfere with the game's progress. It looks like Skybrawler will indeed have its place at Indie Games Festival 2012.

This is the start of something big. Thank you all for making it happen.

Updated Map: Searing Sands

2011-02-06T12:00:00.000-06:00

The old placeholder graphic for the Searing Sands has been destroyed, and this polished glory muffin takes its place. I've also updated the full world map on the SB: Planet Desia page to reflect the changes.

Updated Map: Overlook Plateau

2011-02-05T12:00:00.002-06:00

I've updated the old placeholder graphics on the map for the Overlook Plateau. Searing Sands will be next!

Race Bio: Strider

2011-02-04T12:00:00.036-06:00

New race added to the SB: Races page!

Strider

Saddle up, Buckaroo.

The Striders, who share a common ancestor with the Ascendants and Channelers, are nomadic huntsmen who roam the plains of Desia in highly mobile tribes. Strider tribes are highly mobile and frequently splinter into smaller tribes when game becomes scarce, and over time, this constant segmentation has spread the Striders all over both major continents of Desia, although they tend to prefer large, open, plains areas where they can get to a full gallop.

Very few Striders hunt with weapons; it is a sign of strength in most Strider cultures to engage prey in hand-to-hand combat. With their four incredibly strong legs and equally strong upper body, Striders can quickly and easily catch herd animals and pummel them into submission.

Unfortunately for both the Striders and the Stonefangs, starting in ancient times and up until only a few generations ago, the Striders believed that the Stonefangs were unintelligent pack animals, and the Striders hunted the Stonefangs relentlessly until the Stonefangs were on the verge of extinction. One day, the Stonefangs simply vanished. There were none to be found for decades. But two generations ago the Stonefangs suddenly returned with a vengeance and now seem hell-bent on returning the favor to the Striders.

The several-decade nonstop warfare with the Stonefangs has pushed many Strider tribes out of their typical hunting grounds and into less familiar territory, while some tribes have been wiped out altogether. A large bastion of Striders has been relegated to the Overlook Plateau, relying on the surrounding mountains and cliffs to protect them from the Stonefang onslaught. Some Striders have retreated to Tariae in the South, while other more desperate tribes have even migrated to the Razor Grasslands. Rumors have been spreading that the Striders are considering negotiating an alliance with the Dredgers and Ascendants to push back against the Stonefangs once and for all. Whatever happens, the Striders must find a way to strike back, or they will be obliterated.

Updated Environment: Overlook Plateau

2011-02-03T21:48:00.001-06:00

Today I finally sat down and rebuilt the Overlook Plateau environment from the ground up. I changed the grass so that it's no longer that goofy-looking, grid-like astroturf; now we've got a nice, smooth, genuine, grassy surface to roll around on. You may also notice in the background that there are no more awkward, jagged lines resembling "mountains" in the background. Say hello to actual mountains!

[Click the image to enlarge]

Mountain man, ready for action.

I also managed to come up with a completely revolutionary idea that has probably never been done before in the history of game development. That's right: I added clouds.

Thanks for protecting my delicate skin from the sun, clouds!

The clouds are in two layers so the smaller ones drift across the background at a slower pace, so it gives a nice depth feel. I'm pretty pleased with the whole scene overall! If you feel inspired, let me know what you think in the comments.

Interface Improvements

2011-02-02T23:18:00.000-06:00

I had the good fortune of being trapped in the house due to a blizzard today, so all of my classes were cancelled! This proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Since I had a large block of unanticipated free time, I went to town on revamping the UI in Skybrawler. I started at about noon, and I didn't realize how long I had been working until I checked the clock and saw that it was 9:00pm. So now I'm quite behind on my work for class tomorrow, but that's okay; I have a damn shiny new UI to show for it!

Click the images below to blow them up.

Some health lost; 3/7 rage bar. New character information hotkey icon in the top left, also!

Full health, full rage, and the open character information window. Shh... Lionel's reading.

Race Bio: Komidian

2011-02-01T10:48:00.000-06:00

New race added to the SB: Races page!

Komidian

What do you mean, "hunchback"?

The Komidians are a mysterious race; they have never been seen outside Ignea, the two small islands that lie between the North and South continents. Legends hold that Ignea is the birthplace of all igneum stone, and these islands are therefore recognized the world over as a fountain of destruction. The igneum dust which coats everything on Ignea has squelched out nearly all life, save for a few unusually hardy species, as igneum has a tendency to react explosively upon contact with carbon-based organic substances and even some metals. Speculation holds that the species which survive on Ignea are not organic or carbon-based at all, but something else entirely.

The harsh environment of Ignea doesn't seem to bother the Komidians, however, who seem to thrive in the fiery wasteland. They have only been seen by the other races from afar, since no other Desians have managed to venture into Ignea without spontaneously combusting. No one knows what -- or whether -- the Komidians eat, how they fight, or even what language they speak, if they speak at all.

Because of this lack of access, the other races' perception of the Komidians is built largely around legend and superstition. The shroud of mystique surrounding the Komidians causes even the warmongering Stonefangs to cower in fear at the prospect of coming face to face with one. Some myths posit that the Komidians are living incarnations of igneum stone, cursed by some ancient misdeed so that everything they touch will conflagrate. Like all myths, though, this is little more than fantastical conjecture. Probably.