Table of Contents
Day Eight
After a couple of days away from the project, it’s time to sit down and attempt to lock down the game I’m going to make. So far I have a spark of an idea, and I need to build it into a fire by fleshing the idea out. It can be risky to try to develop an idea too early. Sometimes ideas need time to cook, and trying to force them to take shape before they’re ready can ruin them. But with a week of the jam already passed, I need to have a clearer path forward if I’m going to get something completed.
I still really like the Neo-Winnipeg idea as a setting and narrative device, but I haven’t hit on a game idea that really excites me. When I try to picture the game, I keep seeing it as a top down, retro style RPG. Maybe it’s because I see such great story telling opportunities in the setting, and games with story heavy emphasis automatically make me think of RPGs. Or maybe it’s because I had the the Cryptomon idea, and I’ve just mentally melded that style to this idea. For whatever reason, my brain has locked onto the idea of this game being a retro styled RPG.
You would travel around the open world of the game, interacting with characters and engaging in some sort of combat. This is where the card game element would come in. Or maybe it would be a straight up Pokemon style, turn based RPG battle system. I’ve always thought that turn based, tactics style game mechanics would be a good metaphor for hacking, and I consider that approach. Hacking is programming, so I also think about having a battle system where you do some sort of bot scripting and have your bots try to infiltrate systems. Maybe incorporating some tower defense elements that your bots have to overcome.
I do a bunch of brainstorming and come up with a bunch of potential ideas to follow. They’re all fine ideas, but none of the game ideas excite me the way the Neo-Winnipeg theme excites me. I like the theme so much that I don’t want to waste it on a game that doesn’t get me equally as excited.
Day Nine
After a spending a evening trying to flesh out my concept, I’ve decided not to do Neo Winnipeg. I really like the idea. Too much in fact. I think there’s too much there to do the idea justice even in a month long jam. Instead of using it for this Jam, I’m going to let the idea continue to cook, and use it when I have an exciting game idea that fits the theme.
Of course this now means I’m back to square one. I had high expectations for this week, and placed a real emphasis on the importance of making some good progress if I wanted to end this jam with a complete project. So far there’s been no progress this week. Only regression. That is not a good omen for the fate of this jam project…
Day Ten
It’s post Halloween, so we’re already into the Christmas season. The seasonal sections of department stores are starting to fill with Christmas themed items, and holiday music drones over PAs as I wander the aisles. For the past couple years I’ve had the idea of making a custom video game featuring me and my friends to give them as a holiday gift. Unfortunately I usually start on the project late and scope it to large, so I have yet to actually deliver on the gift.
Since I’m looking for a new idea for this Jam, maybe I can take a crack at making the gift game? It’s still early November, so it’s a good time to start. The idea I had for the game last year was a top down RPG where my friends and I go on a quest to save Santa. I just rejected the idea of making a top down RPG, so I’m not going to revive last year’s game. Instead I think it might be cool to pursue another idea that’s been on my bucket list for a while: making a fighting game with a roster of all my friends.
Day Eleven
I haven’t tried making a fighting game before, but I know it’s not going to be a small challenge. If I try to build something from scratch, there’s no way I’ll get something finished in time for the end of the jam, or even by Christmas. Making a fighting game has been on my radar for a while, and I have done some research into it in the past. In that research I came across the Universal Fighting Engine in the Unity Asset store. It sells itself as a complete and customize-able engine for creating fighting games. Sounds like just the thing I need.
When I looked into UFE in the past, I was put off by the high cost of the package. I hold the belief that if you want to make something truly unique and original, you need to have full control over your engine. The license that gives you the code access to UFE is way more than it is worth for the scale of projects that I had in mind for it. Even the cheapest license is more than I would want to spend on a jam game, and so I never really pursued using UFE.
But for my Christmas game, the hook is that it’s me and my friends as characters. I don’t need to make the game-play unique in order to differentiate it from other games on the market. The bespoke nature of the game is its selling point. For this project I can use one of the lower cost UFE licenses, keep the engine default, and focus my time and energy customizing the art assets. And since it’s a gift for my friends, I don’t mind paying the cost for a license.
Before I spend the money, I do a little more digging into UFE. I check out some reviews of the package, and I watch some of their online tutorials to get a feel for how it works. It sounds promising enough that I decide to try using it. UFE has a nice upgrade path where you can move up license tiers by paying the difference between the cost of the license you own, and the cost of the tier you want to move up to. So I decide to purchase the cheapest tier license. This will let me start building the game, and if I get to a point where I feel like I need more advanced features, I can always upgrade.
Day Tweleve
Now that I have a copy of UFE, I start digging in and playing with the template. Since I only purchased the Lite version, I’m limited to making a 2d or 2.5d fighting game, but that’s fine with me. My friends and I did play a ton of Tekken and Soul Caliber back in the day, so a full 3d fighting game would be cool. But my formative years were spent playing Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, so 2d fighting games hold a special place in my heart. I’m eager to make one of my own.
One of the biggest challenges that I’m going to have is making the art for the game. I have to create assets for the characters of all my friends and all the attack animations. The first choice I have to make is whether to go with 3D or 2D with the art. I don’t have an excess of skill in either style, so no matter which I choose it is going to be challenging. I have limited experience with low poly 3D modeling. I used to do a lot of drawing, but that was when I was a teen. I’m getting better at pixel art, but I’m usually working in way lower resolutions than you need for a fighting game. None of the options inspire confidence in me. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve scoped too big a project yet again…
To help me pick an approach, I decide to play around in UFE and see what’s involved with creating a new character. I don’t have any 2D art ready to go, but I do have a bunch of low poly 3D assets from Synty Studios that I’ve used in the past. One tutorial and some finessing later, have a custom character fighting in custom level. The visual of two Santas throwing down in a mall is the kind of stupid fun I love about making video games. The ease with which I was able to get it all hooked up fills me with confidence. I know that once I get some assets, I’ll be able to easily integrate them into UFE. After stressing about how I’m going to make the art for the game, getting something running is good progress and a positive step forward that rebuilds my confidence in the project.
Day Thirteen & Fourteen
Part of the reason I used the Synty low poly assets for the character test yesterday was that I had them readily available to use. But another reason I used them was to see how the low poly style felt in when it was animated in UFE. My limited experience with 3D modeling comes from doing a low poly course on GameDev.tv. Ever since doing that course, I’ve wanted to try making 3D art assets for a game in that style, but haven’t gotten a chance to do it yet. If I plan to build my own models, they’re going to end up being in that low poly style. Making models of all my friends will be a ton of work, but I still feel like it would be less work than having to hand draw all the frames for all the animations I would need. At least if I work with 3D models, I only need to create and rig the model. Then I can source ready made animations to use.
I open up Blender and immediately I feel like I’ve underestimated how much I’ve forgotten since I took the modeling course. I vaguely remember things like Object Mode, and Edit Mode, but I can’t remember any of the hotkeys, and even just navigating around the application is frustratingly challenging. I head over to GameDev.tv to look back through my old course content and refresh my memory on how this is all supposed to work.
GameDev.tv greets me with a bunch of ads for courses that are currently on sale, including a couple of courses from the same teacher of the low poly class I had taken. I had really enjoyed the low poly course and felt like I learned a lot, so I purchase a couple more Blender courses that I think would be beneficial. One is about modeling Anime style characters, and the other is about rigging and animating characters.
I start into the anime character course. Working through the class content refreshes my memory, and gets me back on my feet working in Blender. Again I feel like I’m learning a lot by following along with the class. The topology of the model is more complex than the simple meshes I was making in the low poly class. After plowing through the first third of the course, I’ve modeled an anime style head and feel good about potentially making this game with 3D models.
Week two ends with my slow jam plans having changed drastically. As I started the week, I had a theme and was trying to find a game that would fit it. Now I know what game I’m trying to make, and now I need to find a story and theme to fit it. I’ve also blown up my slow jam timeline. Now that I’m aiming for this to be my holiday gift to my friends, I don’t feel like I need to strictly adhere to the jam deadline. I still want to participate in the presentations at the end of the jam, but I’m not going to stress about having a complete game done by then. I can just demo whatever progress I’ve made up to that point.
I still plan to maintain this blog about the process. I’m finding it fun and interesting to track the evolution of this idea. It’s also inspiring to be able to look back and see how much I’ve accomplished in such a short time. It feels like it’s been a lot longer than just two weeks. I have so much to left to do, and I know if I’m not careful, the time is going to just fly by. At this point I think completing this game in time for the holidays is doable, but the next couple weeks will determine how realistic that goal is.