We'll, I've finally settled down someplace, I'm now in a rented room and have had my desktop set up for a few weeks.
I think it's about time I let loose a peek at what's happened in those few weeks.
The music in this trailer's by API, check the bloke out at newgrounds.com, he has good music.
Anyway, this is a quick sneak peak at some of the work I'm doing with Sahaquiel, I've kicked a shoddy special attack system off the features list in favor of something completely new that seems much more promising and feasible.
So, the first thing you're seeing in the video is indeed, a chainsaw sword (raise your hands if any of you got it right, have a cookie!) The physics for this weapon were deceptively involved, but turned out to be decently easy to implement, and, in the process, the engine got some new work-arounds built in!
What's fun about this weapon is you only need two buttons to do all the swordplay in the video!
Just tap the right mouse button and you turn your sword into a spinning glave of death as it rotates based on the way you aim it... so it's harder to explain than I thought, ah well! It also deflects bullets and has a lot of involved gestures by the player's ship, plus, you can use it to open cans (really big, shoot-em-up sized cans.) With that shape, maybe it's also the key to a very large monster truck, who knows?
Other than that, you'll see some of the super-epic-meal sized sprites I'm using for the first boss. This sprite happens to be the front end of a really huge, flying siege machine, what everyone hasn't seen yet is the main cannons the player has to face head on, they were a project in and of themselves. But, if I showed those to you, there would have to be some James Bond-esque spy action and I'm too tired for that.
So things are moving again, signing off, everyone!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Things Yet to Come
This is an intermediate update, sit tight and you'll get a few hints as to where my time's going, plus a juicy preview!
Things have been hectic since I've moved house, most notably my current rig's video card has a mechanical failure that make splaying 3d games impossible and seriously affects 2d games, it's some issue that causes gaps in directx functionality. Development on Sahaquiel's been held off and I'm busying myself with a stopgap project that isn't as irritating to work with with DirectDraw errors (mostly due to a lack of multiple backgrounds and alpha effects.
The details of this project won't be disclosed any time soon, but it is almost completely different in direction from Sahaquiel which, once again, I'll stress is only on hold.
My current plan is to make the Vista leap (it's either that or replace the card and buy a new computer a year or less from now, I have to upgrade sometime because my AGP ports don't support new cards.) The cheapest solution will be me getting a new motherboard, 3d card and OS, overall it shouldn't be too expensive (accept for RAM, which I've heard vista eats up.) I can only hope the OS is stable enough to not give me an early death by frustration when I upgrade. Only time will tell.
On top of these issues, I'm typing with a badly scraped up elbow because of an evening trist between my bike and some sedan. Unfortunately I was still on my bike when it happened, and it happened with me merging lanes and the car still up to some speed, luckily the result's only a few scrapes, saved again by my helmet, and saved from any more agony by my luck, whatever contributes to it. That might put a stall in things, but things will go on, accept biking on LA streets past sundown, that I'm avoiding.
As promised, here's a tidbit of my stopgap project, although the tidbit doesn't suggest it, there will be guns, there will be missiles, there will be action, enough said.
(Needless to say, even though this is raw, new stuff, it's still my intellectual property and Anuki, Earth, Sky and the Winds of Change is copyright Aaron Senese)
Things have been hectic since I've moved house, most notably my current rig's video card has a mechanical failure that make splaying 3d games impossible and seriously affects 2d games, it's some issue that causes gaps in directx functionality. Development on Sahaquiel's been held off and I'm busying myself with a stopgap project that isn't as irritating to work with with DirectDraw errors (mostly due to a lack of multiple backgrounds and alpha effects.
The details of this project won't be disclosed any time soon, but it is almost completely different in direction from Sahaquiel which, once again, I'll stress is only on hold.
My current plan is to make the Vista leap (it's either that or replace the card and buy a new computer a year or less from now, I have to upgrade sometime because my AGP ports don't support new cards.) The cheapest solution will be me getting a new motherboard, 3d card and OS, overall it shouldn't be too expensive (accept for RAM, which I've heard vista eats up.) I can only hope the OS is stable enough to not give me an early death by frustration when I upgrade. Only time will tell.
On top of these issues, I'm typing with a badly scraped up elbow because of an evening trist between my bike and some sedan. Unfortunately I was still on my bike when it happened, and it happened with me merging lanes and the car still up to some speed, luckily the result's only a few scrapes, saved again by my helmet, and saved from any more agony by my luck, whatever contributes to it. That might put a stall in things, but things will go on, accept biking on LA streets past sundown, that I'm avoiding.
As promised, here's a tidbit of my stopgap project, although the tidbit doesn't suggest it, there will be guns, there will be missiles, there will be action, enough said.
(Needless to say, even though this is raw, new stuff, it's still my intellectual property and Anuki, Earth, Sky and the Winds of Change is copyright Aaron Senese)
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Pulling Anchor
One may notice a gap in posts before this point, that's because I was gone for a month working three hours up north for a recycling and salvage company under sponsorship by the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps (it's even funner as an acronym.)
Also, in less than a week, I'm moving from one coast of the USA to the other, California, here I come! I'm guessing there won't be much marked progress of Sahaquiel for a long while, hopefully I will be able to resume in my new environment, but nothing's given.
Also, in less than a week, I'm moving from one coast of the USA to the other, California, here I come! I'm guessing there won't be much marked progress of Sahaquiel for a long while, hopefully I will be able to resume in my new environment, but nothing's given.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The Last Page of History
In this entry, I'm going to discuss some of the work involved with developing the stories for my game projects, hopefully some of the things I mention will not only ring true for my own work, but might reveal something about the kind of work that goes on in game development in general.
First, though, I'd like to say that this blog entry is what it is because of Joe Morse's generosity in allowing his music to be used in Sahaquiel's brand new story trailer, more on that later. Joe Morse is a solo musician and also a member of the band Astronaut Down . You can find out more about him and hear his solo work on his website. I encourage you to check out both his music and his band's because, as far as I can gauge, they have a great sound to their music and Joe's been helpful and giving in working out getting the trailer off the ground, I spent the last handful of days getting everything sorted out with him and I have permission to use his song "Silence" in the story trailer.
Now, all pleasantries well taken care of (read: I hope.)
Here is the trailer that I've hinted at; it takes you on a short romp through the desperate and aged world of Sahaqiel, it features parts of the introduction I've produced to be played at the onset of the game and some original work, you can find the music used in the trailer at Joe Morse's website.
When I make video games, I don't have a fourty head team working at my whim, making art assets, writing graphics engines or figuring out the best way to spin game play to make it seem as new as possible (although any penny pincher investing in mainstream gaming would say the less new, the more safe it is and thusly more desirable,) so we can't always expect much from that. What I am is one high school grad with free time, so that means completely different means to development, and maybe a completely different end.
First off, I don't go with what's safe, instead, usually something will hop out of my head, if it sounds good, I'll catch the idea mid jump and throw it on the drawing board, that's where the fun begins. I would at this point say "what do I have to do to get this working and working well?" About half the time, its out of my reach as a coder (game maker language, not mainstream coding yet,) an artist (I'm an infantile 3d modeler) but hardly ever is it out of my reach as a writer!
They say the best stories are told over and over again in many different ways; a hero, a villian, a conflict, a place, a time and somewhere along the line we start blurring the lines for all of them.
As the player, are you really a shining hero, sole defender of humanity against people who are evil through and through? Or are you part of an exercise in uselessness, one ship staving off an endless army -intelligent and deadly- to defend billions of people against a dozen power brokers trying to buy their way into heaven by playing god with the universe. This almost sounds like a tale of dark towers, wizards and sword wielding knights. Well its actually set thousands of years in the future.
The question above is one faced day in and day out by Dallako Rossen, hand-picked pilot of Sahaquiel. Spun on a molecular level, the result of thousands of years of scientific knowledge and at its core, one of the greatest interface constructs ever conceived, theoretically giving the pilot the ability to bend the very fabric of space and time to his will. Theoretically.
Until that time comes, he is the pilot of a very expensive, unarmed, vulnerable fighter against an army of automated drones a billion strong and growing commanded by a handful of incredibly powerful but hopelessly insane and sadistic AIs. How do you save the world with those kind of odds, how do you even survive? Ingenuity.
In Sahaquiel, that is your only ally as you go on a romp across the universe assisted by a crack team of strategists and thinkers that drop you into the field against some of the most awe inspiring machines of war to date, on the hunt for the five AIs that even now attack humanity mercilessly.
Eventually, if the enemy's genocidal attacks can be curved, if they can even be damaged, you must somehow break through the enemy's invincible stronghold and face an enemy you know nothing about, only then will the universe be saved.
This has been one of the most out-there stories I've had to write for a game, it's been a challenge just settling on the overall premise, and now i have to create a living world for the player to be taken on a thrilling ride through, somehow create details that captivate and inspire, bring the world the player now inhabits to life.
Part of that was emphasizing the atmosphere of the story with music, nowhere is this more true than in the introduction. I had a great deal of tries finding good music for the intro, but this time it came to my serendipitously as I mucked about singing and trying to emulate some of the work in the Homeworld and Homeworld 2 soundtracks. What I recorded was sorrowful and haunting, that's what I heard anyway, form your own opinions and don't take my word for it though.
Have a listen yourself.
So that's it for this entry, I've released a new trailer, divulged on the story of Sahquiel and maybe let some people pick up on new ideas, I hope anyone who's had a go at this entry has enjoyed the read.
My next entry will concern what goes into making the game play of my project come alive, the levels and the enemies you face along the way.
First, though, I'd like to say that this blog entry is what it is because of Joe Morse's generosity in allowing his music to be used in Sahaquiel's brand new story trailer, more on that later. Joe Morse is a solo musician and also a member of the band Astronaut Down . You can find out more about him and hear his solo work on his website. I encourage you to check out both his music and his band's because, as far as I can gauge, they have a great sound to their music and Joe's been helpful and giving in working out getting the trailer off the ground, I spent the last handful of days getting everything sorted out with him and I have permission to use his song "Silence" in the story trailer.
Now, all pleasantries well taken care of (read: I hope.)
Here is the trailer that I've hinted at; it takes you on a short romp through the desperate and aged world of Sahaqiel, it features parts of the introduction I've produced to be played at the onset of the game and some original work, you can find the music used in the trailer at Joe Morse's website.
When I make video games, I don't have a fourty head team working at my whim, making art assets, writing graphics engines or figuring out the best way to spin game play to make it seem as new as possible (although any penny pincher investing in mainstream gaming would say the less new, the more safe it is and thusly more desirable,) so we can't always expect much from that. What I am is one high school grad with free time, so that means completely different means to development, and maybe a completely different end.
First off, I don't go with what's safe, instead, usually something will hop out of my head, if it sounds good, I'll catch the idea mid jump and throw it on the drawing board, that's where the fun begins. I would at this point say "what do I have to do to get this working and working well?" About half the time, its out of my reach as a coder (game maker language, not mainstream coding yet,) an artist (I'm an infantile 3d modeler) but hardly ever is it out of my reach as a writer!
They say the best stories are told over and over again in many different ways; a hero, a villian, a conflict, a place, a time and somewhere along the line we start blurring the lines for all of them.
As the player, are you really a shining hero, sole defender of humanity against people who are evil through and through? Or are you part of an exercise in uselessness, one ship staving off an endless army -intelligent and deadly- to defend billions of people against a dozen power brokers trying to buy their way into heaven by playing god with the universe. This almost sounds like a tale of dark towers, wizards and sword wielding knights. Well its actually set thousands of years in the future.
The question above is one faced day in and day out by Dallako Rossen, hand-picked pilot of Sahaquiel. Spun on a molecular level, the result of thousands of years of scientific knowledge and at its core, one of the greatest interface constructs ever conceived, theoretically giving the pilot the ability to bend the very fabric of space and time to his will. Theoretically.
Until that time comes, he is the pilot of a very expensive, unarmed, vulnerable fighter against an army of automated drones a billion strong and growing commanded by a handful of incredibly powerful but hopelessly insane and sadistic AIs. How do you save the world with those kind of odds, how do you even survive? Ingenuity.
In Sahaquiel, that is your only ally as you go on a romp across the universe assisted by a crack team of strategists and thinkers that drop you into the field against some of the most awe inspiring machines of war to date, on the hunt for the five AIs that even now attack humanity mercilessly.
Eventually, if the enemy's genocidal attacks can be curved, if they can even be damaged, you must somehow break through the enemy's invincible stronghold and face an enemy you know nothing about, only then will the universe be saved.
This has been one of the most out-there stories I've had to write for a game, it's been a challenge just settling on the overall premise, and now i have to create a living world for the player to be taken on a thrilling ride through, somehow create details that captivate and inspire, bring the world the player now inhabits to life.
Part of that was emphasizing the atmosphere of the story with music, nowhere is this more true than in the introduction. I had a great deal of tries finding good music for the intro, but this time it came to my serendipitously as I mucked about singing and trying to emulate some of the work in the Homeworld and Homeworld 2 soundtracks. What I recorded was sorrowful and haunting, that's what I heard anyway, form your own opinions and don't take my word for it though.
Have a listen yourself.
So that's it for this entry, I've released a new trailer, divulged on the story of Sahquiel and maybe let some people pick up on new ideas, I hope anyone who's had a go at this entry has enjoyed the read.
My next entry will concern what goes into making the game play of my project come alive, the levels and the enemies you face along the way.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
So Far
So now that you guys know a little something about the feeling of the game, hopefully you'll get something about the development so far.
I started project Sahaquiel perhaps half a year ago with the intent of making a clean, short and dirty game to expand my portfolio, but since then, the game's evolved into something much, much bigger. This was primarily due to my experience with Hideo Kojima's work on zone of the enders, I finished the game less than a month into Sahaquiel's development cycle. His work on Zone of the Enders had a look and feel like nothing else out there, being an avid creator of all sorts of things, I took that as a challenge :P.
So Sahaquiel changed from a game where you were a tiny ship with a giant melee cannon that smashed into enemies into a full-blown game-play concept with a story on a huge scale. It wasn't long before things started resolving on how I wanted to handle this newly proposed project, how I wanted things to look, how I could make the gameplay as odd, yet simple as possible, I had found my time-sink that would last me a long while.
Some months later, I hade developed a nicely comprehensive physics engine, at that point it was downright bogged down with bugs, but it was a ball to mess with (read: throwing mechs into other mechs and watching them bounce about in delightfully correct ways.) The lovely thing about the throwing physics was I could use a simple "massactor" variable to define the movability of an object, meaning a tiny flying drone could be kicked around like a playground ball, but an assault carrier would be about as movable as a mack truck with its brakes on.
I had also developed the swinging system, which was fun since it allows you to rev up a good spin with your ship and smack things hard in the face with any old hunk of metal lying about the playfield, the fun thing is they would also fly off paralell with the spin velocity so you really felt the umph involved with the action, much to the elation of my classmates who were having a go at the time.
Some time afterwards I had a nice catalog of enemies, each with differently configured intelligences, some programmed smart, others dull as a rock as I felt was fitting to their frame. One nice example is the gunship, a mean little automated frame that makes up for its lack of size with its clever use of its many weapons, they could evade, circle while sputtering away at the player with their sizable rear turret, or dive into battle while their fellow gunships held a back line and harassed the player. Sometime around then was when I made the tech demo trailer, quite a few months back.
I soon started developing the first level as a prototype, progress proved slow at this point as I didn't feel the look and gameplay were meeting my standards, that changed rather quick as I came up with plans for the first boss that would be waiting for you at the end of the fourth stage. He's a barrel of fun, and I'm sure people will love how alive his machinery is; giant turrets spew fourth plasma beam death, then spout steam from their muzzles as they re-cycle to fire again. Hydraulics whirr as launch bays slowly slide open, then catapult fighters from their depths, point defense guns spin up and unleash gigantic volleys of muzzle flash and ballistic firepower and spew fourth storms of shells.
Recently, I went ahead and developed the menu infrastructure, which was nicely modular and easy to program once I set up my own structuring for menu options. Another thing that's different about this game is the menu, suffice to say it's not a simple vertical setup like most people are used to. Not to mention my "test group" once again was egging me to start a campaign that didn't yet exist they were so impressed and ready to see the game run tip to tail.
The next entry is going to talk about my adventures with story development and my random inspiration for the haunting music that will play through the intro. For now, here's a shot of a great cradle of humanity, roasted alive by the mysterious drone armies of the Exiles, back from isolation to tell humanity of the end they saw fit for the universe. This is all in respect to the story of course.
I started project Sahaquiel perhaps half a year ago with the intent of making a clean, short and dirty game to expand my portfolio, but since then, the game's evolved into something much, much bigger. This was primarily due to my experience with Hideo Kojima's work on zone of the enders, I finished the game less than a month into Sahaquiel's development cycle. His work on Zone of the Enders had a look and feel like nothing else out there, being an avid creator of all sorts of things, I took that as a challenge :P.
So Sahaquiel changed from a game where you were a tiny ship with a giant melee cannon that smashed into enemies into a full-blown game-play concept with a story on a huge scale. It wasn't long before things started resolving on how I wanted to handle this newly proposed project, how I wanted things to look, how I could make the gameplay as odd, yet simple as possible, I had found my time-sink that would last me a long while.
Some months later, I hade developed a nicely comprehensive physics engine, at that point it was downright bogged down with bugs, but it was a ball to mess with (read: throwing mechs into other mechs and watching them bounce about in delightfully correct ways.) The lovely thing about the throwing physics was I could use a simple "massactor" variable to define the movability of an object, meaning a tiny flying drone could be kicked around like a playground ball, but an assault carrier would be about as movable as a mack truck with its brakes on.
I had also developed the swinging system, which was fun since it allows you to rev up a good spin with your ship and smack things hard in the face with any old hunk of metal lying about the playfield, the fun thing is they would also fly off paralell with the spin velocity so you really felt the umph involved with the action, much to the elation of my classmates who were having a go at the time.
Some time afterwards I had a nice catalog of enemies, each with differently configured intelligences, some programmed smart, others dull as a rock as I felt was fitting to their frame. One nice example is the gunship, a mean little automated frame that makes up for its lack of size with its clever use of its many weapons, they could evade, circle while sputtering away at the player with their sizable rear turret, or dive into battle while their fellow gunships held a back line and harassed the player. Sometime around then was when I made the tech demo trailer, quite a few months back.
I soon started developing the first level as a prototype, progress proved slow at this point as I didn't feel the look and gameplay were meeting my standards, that changed rather quick as I came up with plans for the first boss that would be waiting for you at the end of the fourth stage. He's a barrel of fun, and I'm sure people will love how alive his machinery is; giant turrets spew fourth plasma beam death, then spout steam from their muzzles as they re-cycle to fire again. Hydraulics whirr as launch bays slowly slide open, then catapult fighters from their depths, point defense guns spin up and unleash gigantic volleys of muzzle flash and ballistic firepower and spew fourth storms of shells.
Recently, I went ahead and developed the menu infrastructure, which was nicely modular and easy to program once I set up my own structuring for menu options. Another thing that's different about this game is the menu, suffice to say it's not a simple vertical setup like most people are used to. Not to mention my "test group" once again was egging me to start a campaign that didn't yet exist they were so impressed and ready to see the game run tip to tail.
The next entry is going to talk about my adventures with story development and my random inspiration for the haunting music that will play through the intro. For now, here's a shot of a great cradle of humanity, roasted alive by the mysterious drone armies of the Exiles, back from isolation to tell humanity of the end they saw fit for the universe. This is all in respect to the story of course.
Introductions
Hello to anyone viewing this blog for the first time.
This blog was started by me as a venture to help promote my solo game project called "Sahaquiel." Hopefully I'll be recording progress made in development and you all can see how ballistic my methods are compared to the big dogs who actually have experience in this field besides years of hobby work. Similarly, I can't make any promises about how frequently I'll bring this blog up to date; since this blog hinges on me having free time during game-development, which hinges on me having free time during life :P.
On to the game itself.
You can see the game in action here courtesy of google video, the owners of which consequentialy made this blog possible, which I find a bit funny (funny ha ha not funny wierd.)
Sahaquiel is a a traditional top-down shooter with a twist, your ship isn't equipped with onboard weapons for the most part, just a set of manipulators it can use to grab and handle objects. What objects the player manipulates to defeat the enemy is up to them and what's at their disposal, giant mecha firearms, stray drones, missile bodies (which make lovely clubs for smacking things.)
The aftermath of this system's been pretty good amongst the pinched group I've tested it with, mostly my classmates in Robotics 1, who have had a great deal of fun smashing the living snot out of the enemy or otherwise making things explode. Hopefully the trailer illustrates the fun I intended the game-play system to have.
In the next post, I'll bring everyone up to speed on the nearly half a year the game's been in development.
This blog was started by me as a venture to help promote my solo game project called "Sahaquiel." Hopefully I'll be recording progress made in development and you all can see how ballistic my methods are compared to the big dogs who actually have experience in this field besides years of hobby work. Similarly, I can't make any promises about how frequently I'll bring this blog up to date; since this blog hinges on me having free time during game-development, which hinges on me having free time during life :P.
On to the game itself.
You can see the game in action here courtesy of google video, the owners of which consequentialy made this blog possible, which I find a bit funny (funny ha ha not funny wierd.)
Sahaquiel is a a traditional top-down shooter with a twist, your ship isn't equipped with onboard weapons for the most part, just a set of manipulators it can use to grab and handle objects. What objects the player manipulates to defeat the enemy is up to them and what's at their disposal, giant mecha firearms, stray drones, missile bodies (which make lovely clubs for smacking things.)
The aftermath of this system's been pretty good amongst the pinched group I've tested it with, mostly my classmates in Robotics 1, who have had a great deal of fun smashing the living snot out of the enemy or otherwise making things explode. Hopefully the trailer illustrates the fun I intended the game-play system to have.
In the next post, I'll bring everyone up to speed on the nearly half a year the game's been in development.
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