with hernhand I was mostly interested in sound and space. I was inspired by spaces in oldish 3D sci fi games and sort of wanted to have similar places but where you didn't need to shoot the enemies or find gregory's old phone and return it to him etc, and instead you could just stroll through and listen to the various ambient sounds. I like the bad loose look of hernhand. I was very slack with it, throwing a few cubes around with ms paint images on them. it makes everything feel dirty and unappealing which I can thoroughly enjoy and appreciate. I enjoy the blurry texturing and very angular models in dated 3D graphics, so luckily that wasn't hard to create for the Hernhand. Also, Jpeg files added noise to the MS paint images I made for textures, it's like free HD detail on my simple drawings. I was interested in using a variety of sound effects and ambient hums to make up for the simple/rough look of the game. I'm happy with how the game has turned out, I can enjoy walking through it myself which seems like a good sign.
While starting out making the game I had been watching gameplay videos of Star Wars: Bounty hunter and The Neverhood, their sounds and spaces were a strong influence. star wars bounty hunter has cool levels with nice sounds and little creatures running around, but it's constantly disturbed by endless noisy laser firing. Although I do love laser firing, I think the laser firing in that game is a god help me awful design decision, especially against the really good environments. anyway it was still a strong influence for space and ambience + little creatures on the ground. The Neverhood has really nice sound design too. I really like the spooky ambience during the outside scenes, they influenced the open plain areas and ambience in hernhand. Also the ridiculously long background story of the Neverhood really appeals to me, I wouldn't mind writing some ridiculous nonsensical context for hernhand, maybe like an encyclopedia. Anyway, these games and a few other sci fi games were the main influences for Hernhand's sound and graphics and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Tom's Bernband was definitely another influence. I really like the style, quite strong in the style department I reckon. when I first saw a video of his game, when he turned the camera to reveal the 3Dness of his game it just looked so good. I also think the sound in his game compliments the visuals really well, everything feels solid. It feels like it's made of stuff. Hopefully hernhand feels like it's made of stuff too. Hernhand is much more of a 'walk this way for ages' genre while Bernband has a lot of corners and turning and small tight spaces. Bernband is quick to race through, you can take different routes and be real quick. I can appreciate the run around the game real quick style, but I also love long boring wastelands to walk through. So I guess the games work well together, maybe?
anyway check out Hernhand and Bernband, give them a rate comment subscribe and click the like button and comment + subscribe
links: Hern http://gamejolt.com/games/adventure/hernhand/34868/
Bern http://gamejolt.com/games/other/bernband/34864/
Friday 26 September 2014
Tuesday 23 September 2014
blurry trctyures
Blurry textures are so exciting imo, I mean they just get me so excited. it's like the texture is keeping top secret information from me. somehow They is more realistic than HD texture. I mean I can tell that this is blurry texture is wood... hey no need to go all HD on me I can work the rest out myself. I was pretty astonished to be able to use ms paint textures in a 3 dimensional game of my own, my was it exciting or what. Imagine if we lived in a world where blurry textures required more computer power over HD textures... So we'd all be fighting for who can get the most blurry texture, and you'd need the latest computer to be able to process all that untold information hiding in the wood, the concrete, the space_technology textures. And then when you're driving in vice city, everyone would be complaining about the ugly HD fully realised textures coming into view before eventually, phew, popping into the blurryness we're all after.
Wednesday 17 September 2014
sanctuary2 platformer
I made this platformer a few months ago called sanctuary 2 which was once again inspired by young developer's first game maker creations, and a few of mine as well. My first few games I made were platformers, they were very dull, not much happened and they were glitchy and did strange things. Because of the looseness in their programming and design random things would occur in the game such as enemies falling off platforms to their death and space ships touching one another and exploding. When I look back at these games now I really appreciate the naivety in their design and the randomness that happened each time you played. With sanctuary 2 it's another of my attempts in trying to capture at least a bit of these elements I like about beginner game maker games.
One of my early platformers was Super Army Dude, it was a very slow and boring game. You would spend most of the time walking across these huge empty levels with a few buildings scattered around, and you played as this Super Army Dude and would shoot aliens. There were a few kinds of enemies like glitchy green humanoid alien people, flying saucers and groups of mud people that would throw mud at you. All the enemies would get stuck in the ground or in a building before long, and if a flying saucer exploded near the aliens it would throw them dead aliens across the level and they'd be airborn while still in lying down position. This would happen mostly off-screen and would completely ruin the enemy set-ups I had made, so by the time you'd reach a group of enemies they'd probably have their heads stuck in the ceiling or be walking mid-air and the ufos would be getting stuck and exploding. This is what made the game interesting though, it felt a bit like other things were going on and it wasn't really about the player at all.
One thing I've tried to do with sanctuary 2 is to make kind of a 'better' version of super army dude, but because the good thing about super army dude was in the terribleness and basicness of it's design I haven't quite got the same effect. it seems to be hard to try and goodify that badness without just making a bad game. But this is another of my attempts and I am quite happy with how it's turned out, it's not too bad but it's not too good either. Check it out!!!!!!!
Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJSVWNwQD4Q&list=UUdHYgVqhh1ioQ7E1yWhn9IQ
You can download sanctuary 2 from Gamejolt: http://gamejolt.com/games/action/sanctuary2/29084/
One of my early platformers was Super Army Dude, it was a very slow and boring game. You would spend most of the time walking across these huge empty levels with a few buildings scattered around, and you played as this Super Army Dude and would shoot aliens. There were a few kinds of enemies like glitchy green humanoid alien people, flying saucers and groups of mud people that would throw mud at you. All the enemies would get stuck in the ground or in a building before long, and if a flying saucer exploded near the aliens it would throw them dead aliens across the level and they'd be airborn while still in lying down position. This would happen mostly off-screen and would completely ruin the enemy set-ups I had made, so by the time you'd reach a group of enemies they'd probably have their heads stuck in the ceiling or be walking mid-air and the ufos would be getting stuck and exploding. This is what made the game interesting though, it felt a bit like other things were going on and it wasn't really about the player at all.
One thing I've tried to do with sanctuary 2 is to make kind of a 'better' version of super army dude, but because the good thing about super army dude was in the terribleness and basicness of it's design I haven't quite got the same effect. it seems to be hard to try and goodify that badness without just making a bad game. But this is another of my attempts and I am quite happy with how it's turned out, it's not too bad but it's not too good either. Check it out!!!!!!!
Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJSVWNwQD4Q&list=UUdHYgVqhh1ioQ7E1yWhn9IQ
You can download sanctuary 2 from Gamejolt: http://gamejolt.com/games/action/sanctuary2/29084/
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