Dev Journal 02: Analysis & Start Up

Hello again and welcome to Dev Journal Numbers Dos!

On my previous post I’ve talked about what gave us the idea to start working on this new project as well a briefly talked about why we decided to work on it. I’ll go over a little in depth on what we did to conclude our decision as well as what we did to further expand the simple game idea.

So, after we had a potential idea for a game we headed over to the iOS and Android markets to search if the game has already been made. This won’t discourage us from making the game if we find a similar game, what we’ll do is compare the features and gameplay of that game, then we look into how we can still make a unique game, but, to our luck there isn’t a game in either App Market that’s similar to ours. Great News for us, now we started downloading games that are similar in style and gameplay to gather ideas and see what’s popular amongst players and what specific features are found in all of them.

This step took a while as we had to play them to get ideas and understand the feel of the game. Some of them forced us to create accounts (something I really despise on games, this FORCED account creation thing) and other “Free” games had annoying ads for every menu navigation as well as pop ups that make you accidentally tap on the ad. I’m not mentioning the games we played now because you’d get an idea of what we’re developing. I’ll leave that for later once we unveiled our game.

After nearly filling out our phones with games, we concluded that our planned game is unique and have enough gameplay mechanics to stand out amongst others.

Since our game can be played on paper, we took a couple of our friends and show them the game. We demo the game from its basic gameplay as well as conditions and objectives that we added to vary the gameplay and we received mostly positive feedback. This is a puzzle game so, of course, it’s not appealing to everyone.

I have to say that when I saw enjoyment on our test players while playing the game we’re creating it gave me a sense of accomplishment and it’s the best feeling ever, so, me and my brother knew we were up to something.

So, with all this information about the game, we’re now moving into the “design” of the game. And that is something I’ll leave for the next Journal Entry.

Gotta be honest, I’m getting a little tired of writing the word “Game”, I’ll look at the thesaurus and find an alternative for it.

FINAL NOTES:  I know I said I was going to write about the “setup” of the game, but, I wrote a lot about our progress on how we tested the game and how we got to the Design phase that I just had to device the Journal Entry. Sorry for the misleading Subject. I won’t write the subject on the next Journal Entry unless I know for sure what I’m going to write about. I write this Journal as I work on the game throughout 2 weeks, I edit them just so they make more sense and it’s a LOT of text to go through.

This Journal is still something I’m working on and see what style suits me best so, gimme some time as I find my best style. I’ll try keeping ‘em short as well as informative.

Thanks for reading, as always, if you want to keep up with my Journal Entry or other update, follow us on Facebook or Twitter. See you all next time!!

- GerLuNiMa

Dev Journal 01: Cardboard Project 2016

Welcome to my second attempt at creating a Development journal. We’ve started a new Game project that is going well, so I want to document the progress and share it here in our blog.

Before I start talking about our new project, I want to make clear that our previous project is not cancelled, we just shelved it. It was too ambitious and we didn’t had the knowledge to implement many of the features we wanted to add in the game. One part in the game that I personally didn’t manage to work in the game were the animations of sprites and window transitions. The timings were off and static, it just didn’t look good. We don’t want to half-ass the development of the game so we decided to shelve the project and work on something else that will help us gain the experience needed. Enter the new Game Project which we’ll call “Cardboard”… for now.

Our new project “Cardboard”, like our previous Project, is a puzzle game. The idea was brought in by my brother LuiGiNiMa. During a downtime at work he started doodling on paper and playing some pencil paper type of games until he remembered a game he used to play back in high school. He showed the game to me and a couple of friends and we all enjoyed it, the challenge it offered and how easy was to understand were the key points on why we ended up liking it. So, ideas of expanding the game mechanics and make it into a Mobile App started. After bouncing ideas back and forth for a few hours, we ended up with enough content to actually proceed with the development of the game.

I know I haven’t said much about what the game is actually about, but, until I make an actual playable demo, I won’t say much. Just know, it’s a game you can play on paper, only we are going to expand the game even further when moving it into mobile.

With the Concept in mind we looked at the tools we need and we ended up with the same toolset as our previous project. So far the project Cardboard has been simple to program, it doesn’t require much animation or visuals and the main mechanics were simple to implement. We’re developing a Mobile Game using Abobe AIR, programmed with the IDE Flash Develop, we’re using the framework Axelite to handle the game mechanics and all the visual assets are done using Adobe Flash CS6. Links for each tool can be found here:

• Flash Develop: http://www.flashdevelop.org/
• Axel: http://axel.io/
• Flash: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html?promoid=KFOHS

Refer to my previous Journal Entry for a little more info about why we chose these tools: Dev Journal 01: Intro and Tools.

We're aiming to have this game available first for Newgrounds, then Android and finally iOS. These plans can change depending on the development process

So, now that you have an idea of the game and know the tools we’ll use, we can move onto the next step, which is the setup. Which will be on the next Journal Entry. I know I’ve said this before on my previous Journal Entry, but, we’ve had good progress with this game and I’m certain I can document the progress all the way to the publish day.

If you want to keep updated with these Development Journal, you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter. We also post weekly content like drawings, webcomics and podcasts.

Thanks for reading! See you all next time!

- GerLuNiMa

Dev Journal 01: Intro and Tools

First off, Welcome to my first Dev Journal Entry Number Ún. I’ll be documenting the process and my experience in developing my first Mobile Game. I’m planning on having one entry per week starting from this one, but, we’ll see how it goes from here.

I have two objectives with this Dev Journal: (1) To keep everyone updated with the progress of our game, and (2) teach anyone who is interested in making a game using Flash. I’ll be writing this Journal with a style of Tutorial, so you’ll see links to resources and references to where you can get more information about the subject I write about. With that said, let’s hop in!

First I’m going to tell you what our game is going to be about. I do not want to give away our game yet, but, I’ll give you an idea. We’re making a puzzle game. The player will be faced with multiple puzzles that he/she must solve before the timer runs out. These puzzles will be randomly selected and some will be randomly generated.

Now that we have the idea for the game, now comes our tools for making it, which are: Adobe Flash CS6, FlashDevelop and Axel the ActionScript 3 Framework for Games.

FlashDevelop: This is the program we’ll be using to do the programming of the game. This is an amazing code editor for AS 3 as it offers Code Completion, Project Management, easy integration with Flash, it’s in constant improvement and it’s supported by a great community. It’s also up to date with the latest version of Flex and Adobe AIR, which is what we need if since we want to make a mobile game with better compatibility. This is an Open Source program so, it’s free to use.

Check out Flash Develop here: http://www.flashdevelop.org/

Adobe Flash Professional CS6: We’ll be using Flash CS6 to create the assets for the game. Flash CS6 features tools that allow easy creation of animated graphics and it can a generate sprite sheet as well. Additionally, FlashDevelop offers great integration between Flash, so it makes it easier.

This is a commercial program, I’m not sure if you could still find Flash CS6 in the Adobe website, but, they do offer their latest version called Adobe Flash CC (Creative Cloud). You can acquire this program for a monthly subscription of $19.99.

More Information here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html?promoid=KFOHS

Axel (AS3 Framework): The Axel framework is what we’ll be using as the game engine. If you’re looking to make a games in flash whether platformer or shooters, this is a good framework to use. It’s easy to integrate into your project, it’s easy to understand and it’s well documented. It also has an active community, so, any questions in using the Framework, you’ll get an answer for sure. This is a free library to use for both commercial and personal projects.

Check out Axel here: http://axel.io/

It is possible to just use Flash CS6 and Axel to make the game, but, Flash CS6 only supports Adobe AIR 3.4. The latest version of Adobe AIR is 18 (as of writing this entry). This will limit you with features with Google Play (for Android) and the App Store (for Apple Devices). So, to use the latest version of Adobe AIR you have to compile the game in FlashDevelop.

So, this pretty much covers the tools we’re using to make the game. In my next Journal Entry, we’ll go into details about setting up the Programs listed here as well as setting up the Library for use and more!

If you have any questions, leave a comment.

You can always follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on the Dev Journal.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you next time!

-GerLuNiMa

Pentoon's BOOM Control Medals Walkthrough

Hello, a while ago we've uploaded a game where you take control of the time line of an animation. The game had secrets to unlock that alters the way the scene looks. (The explosion scene is from one of our previous animations called "Pentoon's Birthday Blowout".)

Anyways, here's the guide to unlock all Medals and be a Pro. I do suggest to give them game a go without the list, if you did but still need the guide, read along.

Click here to play "Pentoons BOOM Control" on Newgrounds.

Starting off from left to right (As shown on the Picture above):

• Medal Name: "His World" (Green Star):
  How to Unlock: Between frames 130 and 146, Click the green book that flies off one of the front windows of the house.
  Effects: This will color the scene like the neighborhood of the cartoon "Eddsworld", one of our favorite animations.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the Book.

• Medal Name: "Avifors" (Brown Star):
  How to Unlock: Pause the time line and Click the butterfly that flies across the screen.
  Effects: This will change the butterfly into a bird.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the bird/butterfly. Avifors is a spell from the Harry Potter world that transform targets into Birds.

• Medal Name: "Wreck it Rudolpho" (Grey Star):
  How to Unlock: Place the play head on frame 226 (Last Frame) and wait for a few seconds until a chain falls down, then click the chain.
  Effects: This will activate a wrecking ball to come down and smash the house.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the Chains.The naming of this Medal is obvious, we couldn't think of a better name for this one, we used it because it had "Wreck" in it and we enjoyed the movie "Wreck it Ralph".
• Medal Name: "XRay Gadget" (Blue Star):
  How to Unlock: Place the play head on frame 1 (First Frame) and wait for a few seconds until a box gets dropped in front of the house, then click the box.
  Effects: This will activate an X-Ray Circle allowing you to see inside the house and witness the adverse effects on the characters clearly.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the Box with the xRay Glasses.
• Medal Name: "Known as 117" (Dark Green Star):
  How to Unlock: Place the play head on frame 117 and wait for a few seconds.
  Effects: This will display the ring of Halo in the background.
  Note: The description of the Medal is based on the release of the game Halo 3.. so yeah :/
• Medal Name: "Rated "M" for Mature" (Red Star):
  How to Unlock: Click the Medium quality button 5 times (Which is the total number of Upper Case M's in the Medal's description). The quality controls are found under the Time Line controls.
  Effects: This will display gore version of the explosion and the wrecking ball. Having xRay enabled while this Medal Activated you can see the gore effects happen to the characters inside.
  Note: You can toggle the gore effects by clicking on the body part that flies off from the explosion (Between frames 129 - 226).
• Medal Name: "Looking for Something?" (Purple Star):
  How to Unlock: Spend 5 minutes on the Game.
  Effects: No visual effects on the Scene other than the big purple star on the star collection bar.
  Note: This Medal was added after we averaged the time it takes for one to unlock all medals and experiment with the additions unlocked from the medals.
• Medal Name: "Gold Star!":
  How to Unlock: Unlock the previous 7 Medals to Unlock this one.
  Effects: No visual effects on the Scene.
  Note: This Medal is awarded for unlocking all Medals, so, Congrats! This is also Bonus points for the users at Newgrounds who unlocks all Medals.

So there you have it, have fun finding all secrets and experimenting with the different effects!

- GerLuNiMa

"Mod Bot" the first

               This was my very first Flash Animation I've created. I've never used Adobe Flash before. To be honest, I wasn't even thinking of using it at all, until a visit to Puerto Rico that's when everything changed. I brought with me the "Facebook Hacking" footage, ready to be edited hoping to do something with it. I didn't realized I didn't have a computer strong enough to edit 720p video nor I have my programs such as Adobe Premiere with me. All i had was my old laptop (very low specs). I couldn't just not do anything, i had to do something, be productive. That's when my brother installed the only program that my laptop could run at least decent "Adobe Flash CS3". I had no knowledge of the program whats so ever, the only one I had been using was Adobe After Effects (i know all adobe programs work sort of the same). My brother showed me the basics and i took it from there and let me say that was the funnest learning experience i ever had. The only think i founded difficult was understanding the timeline, since its way different than After Effects, this one had small rectangles, sorta looked like piano keys to me at first. After a dozen mistakes, including adding a "Motion Tween"to a none-Symbol and not using a tablet, i got the hang of it. In every scene of the video i was testing something different, using Tween, frame by frame, panning and zooming etc, that would explain how it Looks. 

-Luis