In this category you’ll find posts about my projects. I have lots of them and most of them are on hiatus but here you might find the occasional update from time to time. Be sure to check out the subcategories.
I posted a preview of the new tileset on my ko-fi page. Soon I’ll have a working “mini-world” with all the environments ready to show. The tileset will undergo further revisions but the overall feeling is there. Right now we’re working on doors, enemies and powerups.
So I found an artist willing to collaborate with me on my GameMaker Studio 2 book. Thank God I can work with him once again! He’s the most talented Pixel Artist around. He knows about game development and the whole process and he can draw pretty much everything you throw at him.
I bet you can recognize his style! “Guess who’s back…” nudge nudge wink wink…
This will have a major impact over the whole project as the entire graphic assets will be distributed along the complete source code of the game. It will be freely modifiable and it will be freely available to be used in commercial projects as well as long as the original art credits will be included (you know, he remains the father of the original pixels).
You won’t be able to redistribute the graphics in reusable formats though. But this is to be expected. Your customers or your game’s players should not be able to export the graphics and re-use it for other projects. They will have to buy the book if they want to do so.
You’re also free to use the graphics for other game engines as well. You’re not restricted to GameMaker Studio 2… and to be honest some of the book’s concepts apply to other engines as well.
I’m rewriting the whole book from scratch and I hope to have the initial draft for review by December.
The book will come with the complete development process on video. You’ll have free access to the complete development process. I’m recording everything I do and I will be editing it once the book is being finalized.
If you like the idea about what we’re doing here, please buy us a coffee. It will send us a strong support message. Also the more coffee, the more content we will be able to fit into the project in terms of both assets and development contents.
Thank you!
P.S. just in case you didn’t get it, the artist is obviously Darftey!
So, in response to this hilarious tweet by Burrito Tim, I’m officially naming my 2D Sci-Fi Action Adventure Platformer, Dark Titan – Battle Over Fire!
Indies, not sure what to call your next game? Pick any of the red tiles: pic.twitter.com/KcMMWnTk1G
— Burrito Tim (@Burrito_Tim) 22 August 2018
Here it is in all its glory. Well… more or less…
I’ve added the energy pickup, the exploding blocks, the “bombable” blocks and enemy spawners that resets upon re-entering the zone. Also added Gamepad support. Next up:
As some of you might know, Fuzeboy’s project scope changed considerably during its development. There’s been an overhaul of features, specifications, goals and deadlines.
Originally thought to be a quick mobile only game, we then shifted our vision a bit to make it playable on desktops as well; now we decided to abandon the mobile world altogether to focus exclusively on the Desktop platform.
This opened up a ton of possibilities as we’re not limited to touchscreen inputs anymore. The very essence of the game changed, as we made changes to game mechanics, enriching and expanding the world of Fuzeboy.
Fuzeboy’s going to be a full fledged, complete platformer game for desktops (Win, Linux, Mac) but we’re not yet ready to show anything new to the world as I’m rewriting it from scratch in GameMaker Studio 2 while Darftey is reviewing (and adapting) all of the graphics.
We’re also starting a new project. Not because we suffer from shiny object syndrome (basically a disease of distraction) but because rewriting Fuzeboy from scratch, made it possible for us to reset our mental state.
Although far from a possible Fuzeboy-induced burnout, our mental state was then set for something new; different. That not only applied to Fuzeboy, but to both of us as a game development team. We took a step back and looked at our future as team Blocksword. And we saw things…
As we reviewed and re-started Fuzeboy, we reviewed our plans, projects and priorities as well. And we saw this…
Due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received, we’re now thinking about making it our primary focus. We’re also considering funding as I didn’t plan to live off of my savings for this long without publishing a commercial title.
Should we decide to crowdfund the new game, we will have to define a clear project scope and commit exclusively to that for the time it will take to ship it. In that case the development of Fuzeboy will be put on hold (let’s say we will change it’s queue priority). As of now this is the most probable scenario.
Should we decide to keep going without funding (or fail at funding), we’ll suffer from a bit of a slowdown. I will have to seek a part-time job (or something) while working on both games at our discretion (we would have zero deadlines and relatively more freedom in the way we manage and evolve our own projects).
All of this might annoy someone; especially those who were waiting for Fuzeboy anytime soon this year. Especially if they were waiting for a mobile game. We know it and we don’t like when people get annoyed because of us; we will make up for it.
To sum it up: we’re working on the new Fuzeboy while defining the scope of this second project and defining the resources we need to allocate to each of these projects. Just know that we could completely shift our focus toward this new RPG game very soon (we’re evaluating feedback).
Yet another official announcement: Fuzeboy is now being rewritten in GameMaker Studio 2.
After getting familiar with the new UI and the new GML functionalities, I’ve realized it made little to no sense at all to keep using GM:S 1.x. I’m already rewriting Fuzeboy from scratch so I might just use the new, improved IDE. I need a faster workflow and GameMaker Studio 2 definitely improves the workflow.
Coding with the new intellisense code-completion and making levels in the new room editor is just fantastic.
Since I’m working on a 1366×768 13″ notebook, I set the DPI scaling of GMS2 to 80% (76 DPI) so it doesn’t feel claustrophobic working in it.
I already feel better when coding Fuzeboy in GMS 2.
Me and Darftey have been developing Fuzeboy for five months now. We met in late Novemeber 2016, experimented a bit with prototypes and then started serious development in January 2017.
It all started as a small mobile game (you can see the touch controls in the image above) but soon it was clear Fuzeboy was no small game anymore; the mobile world isn’t fit for him. He’s bigger than that.
So here we are today officially announcing to the world that Fuzeboy will be developed uniquely for Steam (PC, Linux and Mac). A mobile adventure of Fuzeboy is still being planned but we’re not actively working on it (and it will be a different game).
In fact I am rebooting the development of Fuzeboy. From scratch. Still, I’ll be using GameMaker 1.x but this time the whole project will be PC oriented. We’re letting go of the many mobile limitations to expand on the gameplay mechanics.
While I’m starting to rewrite the engine from scratch, Darftey is already at work to come up with exciting new elements and ideas for the game. It’s going to take time and effort. It’s going to be exciting. It’s going to be big.
Read moreHow I Scale Fuzeboy Resolution on Mobile and Desktop Devices
Don’t you hate it when, during a death animation/sequence, your character accidentally touches a powerup or a health pack… and then it dies anyway?!
This is what we wanted to avoid in Fuzeboy: unfairness. If you catch a heart during the final knockback, you will have another shot at it.
In November 2016 I met Denis (@darftey). He’s a pixel artist. One of the best I’ve ever met, actually. We teamed up to develop Fuzeboy.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that since then, the development of KREN has been put on hold indefinitely.
We’re pushing hard on this mobile platformer game.
There is still no official release date but we’re making progress 24/7 on every front. From music and sound to gameplay mechanics, from platform specific issues to minor graphic details.
Lots of care is being put into making this game as fun as possible. We care about details. We care about story and gameplay. We are in love with this game and we’re making sure everything goes the way we envision.
Stay tuned for more Fuzeboy news in the near future.
A well developed metroidvania game should start with a solid planning phase. One of the first things to figure out is the character movement. I’m not talking about physical variables such as speed, friction and acceleration. I’m talking about figuring out what are the movements we want the Player to be able to execute during the game.
Can the character crouch? If so, should it crouch only when standing still? Can the character crouch in mid air or does it simply aim downward? Is it possible to walk while being in the crouching position?
These are serious design considerations that should be carefully planned and addressed well in advance as they define the feeling of the game. The player will act and react based on what movements are available. It’s the absolute first response to player’s inputs.
In both games, you can crouch. But while in Metroid you stay in that position even if you let go of the down key/button, in Axiom Verge you get up as soon as you let go of the key/button.
Also, while in Axiom Verge you can walk while being in the crouching state, you cannot do so in Metroid Zero Mission. Yet if you press the down key again, you morph into a ball.
The mechanics are different and so is the gameplay. Plan carefully what you intend to create and plan it well in advance. If you can, plan it all out even before any test level you might be tempted to sketch.
It will greatly simplify the overall development cycle (i.e. you won’t be rewriting big chunks of core mechanics code again and again, risking to break previous works).