The Party

I just thought I'd print the party walking around. Nothing special but still fun for me to see :)

The Silent Protagonist

While writing up the game design document for the game I often think of scenarios I want the party to find themselves in. Often these scenarios involve dialog and I always picture Rohe as being a silent protagonist.

The idea behind this project is to create a RPG I would have loved to play as a kid (definitely aiming for some nostalgia) but I'm wondering if the silence is really necessary. I mean yes, it would really bring me back if Rohe was silent (than again it's not like silent protagonists have gone anywhere) but is it really necessary to make the player feel more connected to the character?

If anything the silent protagonist might make the player feel less like he or she is in control of the situation because other characters are always speaking or making decision for them. If my goal is to make the player feel like he's Rohe (making him a generic boy hero) would they really feel more connected if they never made the decision to go to dungeon X but had Jill bully them into going?

That's why I decided to ask the question on Gamedev. Hopefully someone will come in and answer my question with a clever angle I never considered.

Whoa whoa whoa, let's go back a few spaces

So it's been months since I've posted anything on here. I wish I had some great news about how I've been too busy working on the game but really I just haven't had the motivation. This doesn't mean I've stopped thinking about the game, quite the contrary, I think about it almost on a daily basis.

I realized that to get the game started I needed a partner. The project in it's last life was a bit too big to handle. I wanted too much and I had no clear direction. Though Zedix was good at keeping things grounded and building the tools we needed, he soon found himself immersed in another project, one which took up most of his time. That meant I had lost my partner and with it the motivation and focus to pick up his code and go on. That's where I had the idea to downgrade the project to a smaller scale RPG, something with smaller graphics and a simpler scope.

First thing I needed was a partner and here enters Kyle. Long time friend and fellow programmer. He was always interested in making games but due to the geographical distance between us I always hesitated on building a game with him. This was kind of silly considering Zedix and I barely ever spoke outside of IM.

Second thing I needed is a game design document. This is where I am now. The biggest problem these small projects have is that scope creep gets to them. It would be awesome to do this, oh we should do that! BAM! Next thing you know you've scope-creeped yourself into a corner that you can't come out of. This is what I'm going to avoid this time around. I currently have a 10 pages document outlining some of the features that I want. This document is currently in its draft form which doesn't flesh out all the details to the letter but it does help me create a scope.

Badass Becomes Doctor Who

So I had posted some concept sketches for the "badass" of the party a while back. He was going to be a cheesy ninjaesk character with glowing neon-green goggles and super-rollerblades. I decided to scrap that idea after being hooked on the new season of Doctor Who. I think Matt Smith is a great Doctor and figured I'd tip my hat to the show (it is an inspiring source for this project) by making the last character a Doctor knockoff. Enjoy!

Rohe and Saucer retrofied...er...

So I messed around with my old sprites and redid Rohe on a 16x16 grid. I decided to also go ahead and make my saucer character as well. I think it's a lot more fun to work with this size constraints because if keeps me from worrying about the smaller details. I like the saucer's force-field effect.

Project is pretty much dead, or is it?

Well the current itiration of MB is pretty much canned. I wanted to keep going but I couldn't do it without my partner who's life has taken a turn for the busy. That being said, I had way too much time invested in the project to let it die. I decided to save some of my assets (mostly the story stuff) and create a much more modest game (think original Earthbound or Dragon Warrior).

The game will be seriously cut down in features but I think the scope is small enough that I can actually finish it. So basically we've downgraded from a SNES look to a NES look. Take a gander at NES-esk Jill:

(Click on bigger version to see unfinished walk cycle)

That's right, I remade her in 16x16 pixels. I think limiting the size of my sprites will help me a lot too. Now I won't fret over every single detail, I'll just do my best with what I have and keep pumping out my graphics.

I was inspired by the team over at the Games & Technology forum of Penny-Arcade who were working on a XNA game called Breath of Death VII. I saw that the 8-bit era games could look fantastic (okay so I'm cheating by using more than the NES's colour palette, sue me ;))

Eventful Summer Makes for Uneventful Game Development

So every school year is pretty much the same when it comes to game development. You pour all your spare time into the project dreaming of the long summer nights where you'll have tons of time to invest in the project. Next thing you know summer rolls on over and as soon as it showed up it's over. What the hell happens?

Summer is fun, that's what happens. I have been involved in multiple weekly activities which kept me away from the computer most nights. I've been rock climbing twice a week, playing volleyball in a recreational league, heck I went bungee jumping on Sunday! I know Zedix's summer has been just as busy as mine.

So that being said, summer is almost over which means all our weekly activities will be up! Hopefully then work on the game will resume and we'll have more than enough progress to brag about. The current project has progressed during the summer, it was just at a much slower pace... we're talking snail pace here.

Excuses out of the way, I'd like to point you guys in the direction of the Boolean Brothers' site (again) which is where we'll post most of the real news about the game. We even have a feed that lets you guys know what we commit to our SVN and a small section that shows off our earlier projects.