Global Game Jam 2013, T.B.R.S and the reintroduction of Game Maker

 

Last weekend was Global Game Jam, an event that happens all over the world and brings everyone from total amateurs like myself to industry vets all together into a building (in Toronto’s case, the King St. George Brown campus), and tasks them to make a game across one weekend. You do this on your own or in as large a team as you’d like. It’s a great way of getting some experience in game design and also a fantastic way of meeting like-minded individuals.

Game Jams are basically the coolest things of all time. No exaggeration, I truly love these gatherings. Global Game Jam, in particular, has a special place in my heart as it was my introduction to the game development scene in Toronto one year ago.

Randy Orenstein and Troy Morrissey are the main organizers for the Toronto contingency of Global Game Jam (Toronto Global Game Jam, if you will), and we, as Torontonians who make games, are incredibly indebted to them for all of their hard work. I’m very grateful to have met them both. Troy has been very generous, allowing me to have interned with him for several months last year. This was a great opportunity and my first real experience working on music and sound for games, as opposed to simply writing game music for myself. 

On my first day volunteering at Global Game Jam last year (which was my first encounter with this huge community), Randy scolded me for sitting in my corner reading my book, nervous and unaware of what else to do. He sat me down next to Droqen, Damian Sommer and Jon Remedios over a lunch break, which was when I started realizing I was surrounded by geniuses.  It was overwhelming but also a great introduction to this whole world that was down on King street. As such I have a lot of respect for Troy and Randy, along with the many volunteer (and sponsors!) that help make game jams like this happen.

Last year I just volunteered for the clean up at the end, as I’d signed up too late to be part of the actual jam. This year however, I partnered with Daniel Orellana and we signed up in time. I had a fantastic time and I’m very proud of what we came up with.

Basically, we made a mostly functioning prototype for a game currently called T.B.R.S — Turn Based Rhythm Shooter. If that’s a mouthful, just wait til I tell you how it works:

You play as Trip, this bounty hunter of sorts who is on the hunt after this monster/thug/villain of sorts and catches up with him in a night club. Here you face off in a long series of gun and music duels, as you try to match the flurry of bullets he sends at you to the beat of the music.

The game is split up into four phases, with each phase lasting two bars of music. There is a white guiding line (think: Lumines) that scrolls across the screen, left to right signalling the passing of time. Once the white line gets to the other end of the screen the phase is over.

 

PHASE 1

In this phase you control Trip, dodging bullets that pulse out of the monster, all while you spin the slots. You can re-spin the slots as long as there is still time left in Phase 1. Your health bar is the big pulsing heart, while the Monster’s health is the bar in the top right corner.

 

PHASE 2:

In Phase 2, you continue to dodge the monster’s “bullet hell”, while selecting which of the three slots you would like to use. The options are: Regular Shot, Charge Shot and Heal (represented by a purple gun, turquoise gun or green heart, respectively). If the slots turn up more than one of the same type (such as two of the purple gun in the image above), you are given the option of selecting a more powerful attack. So if you got three of the same slots, you would have the choice between a regular, lvl. 2, or lvl. 3 version of an attack. Variety!

PHASE 3:

In the third phase, the Monster begins shooting out a more intense barrage of bullets in time to specific notes that show up at the bottom of the screen, triggered by the musical melody that plays in the background. The melody that plays is governed by your slot selection in the second phase. The “L” and “R” at the bottom of the screen correspond to the buttons that YOU will have to press in the fourth phase. They appear on the grid (and musically) as the white line travels across it.

PHASE 4:

After three phases of just dodging attacks, Trip finally gets his chance to shine! The Monster stops attacking and Trip must now press either the “L” or “R” button, shown at the bottom of the screen, in time with the melody. Each note he gets correctly makes him fire a shot. While you’re hitting those notes it’s important to line up Trip with the Monster so that his shots connect. Usually, the notes turn pink if you get them right, or grey if you miss them. In the picture above I missed all those notes because I was taking screencaps of the game.. cut me some slack!

And with Phase 4 finished, it jumps back to Phase 1! Hopefully you’ll have done more damage to the Monster’s health than you he has to you. Basically this 4 stage process goes on and on until whoever dies first, like a traditional random encounter from a JRPG of yore.

It’s very much an audio-visual game and on paper it probably sounds a bit dull, but really it’s quite exciting and fun, if I may say so myself! The original concept was by Daniel, who is an artist first, programmer second. I’m still absolutely floored by what he was able to accomplish over such a short period of time. It really blows my mind, not just him but basically all the programmers at game jams. The amount of work that goes into making stuff like this is incredibly humbling.

T.B.R.S is a mish mash of various styles (a “Bullet hell Parappa meets The World Ends With You” has been my one-sentence pitch of the game), and it’s the first time I’ve worked on something where the music isn’t just in the background, it’s a necessity for the gameplay. It’s fascinating and taps into what I think all games should do: make the music as interactive as any other element in games. Making the music at the game jam was fun but also took me a while. At TOJam 2012 I was able to churn out four songs quite quickly for “FRANK!”, which I made with the guys from Nifty Studios.

My little setup. I downscaled to a smaller keyboard for this jam. It was worth it because I had a pretty snug spot this year.. but man do I not like using such a tiny keyboard 😦

 

But for T.B.R.S I was still working on the one song on Sunday morning. The T.B.R.S song was composed of various smaller audio files that play based on a bunch of variables within the game. The various rhythm instruments and layers would come in and out depending on the amount of health that the Monster has left, while the various riffs and melodies (9 in all, 18 variations if you include the phase 4 counter-melodies) were all dependent on what the player chose in the slots.

Once I’d written all the melodies, I had to give Daniel the value of every note in fractions, for him to then input when the “L” and “R” buttons show up at the bottom of the screen. There is probably a quicker way of doing this.. but yeah this was the best I could come up with. We also had a couple “The Programmer meets the Musician” comedic tragedies, such as how in music you start counting on 1, instead of starting at 0.

It took a while to do, but I think subsequent T.B.R.S songs won’t take quite as long. Perceiving and arranging music not on a simple static timeline, which is what I’ve done for basically everything prior to this, is much simpler and way less time consuming. Here you have to make sure that every audio file that could potentially be played in tandem sound “good” together. You’re not arranging one song, you’re arranging hundreds of possible scenarios. Super cool.  On Tuesday I took the various melodies and sections of the T.B.R.S demo and turned it into a cohesive song. You can hear it and/or buy it from my website.

The music I’ve done for T.B.R.S can be heard on my bandcamp page: http://rainvillain.bandcamp.com/album/t-b-r-s-medley-ep

We have a lot to do on this game still. Right now the Monster and Trip take damage but never actually “die”. As such there is no end to the game. It just keeps going on and on and on. We want to fix this, add a couple more levels, refine the art assets (Daniel was too busy coding all weekend that we ended up using his temp art assets for the final build!), and make the difficulty a little easier — right now the timing window for when your note is registered as a “hit” is incredibly precise and merciless, making the game very difficult for anyone who struggles with rhythm/timing. Sometime in April there will be an event for people to show off the games they made at (and polished and refined after) the Game Jam. I’m hoping Daniel and I can implement some of those tweaks by then.

welcome baaack

The game jam itself was a ton of fun to be at and I’m already looking forward to TOJam in May. I should look into the other jams between then and now as well. The chance to talk to a lot of people in the field is a lot of fun. I spoke to several people about Stencyl vs. Game Maker and almost all of them pointed me in the direction of Game Maker. The strongest argument simply being that it has been around a lot longer and therefore has a much larger community: it’s easier to get un-stuck if there are more people in a similar boat. 

As such, I’ve hopped back to Game Maker. And this time for real. No more back and forthing.

I’ve started reading The Game Maker’s Apprentice, which is beautifully written (much better than the official explanations on Stencyl) and guides you through countless tutorials. It doesn’t go into Game Maker Studio, the most recent version, so instead I’m learning Game Maker 8.1. If I get through this book I’ll upgrade to Studio.

I wanted to write a post about all the great people I saw and the amazing games I got to try at Global Game Jam but really I should get back to work.

Ok, fine. Here’s one. Grab at least three friends and lose yourself in a multiplayer text adventure.

Multiplayer Text Adventure.

Anyone with even a remote interest in the video games industry I strongly recommend you check out your nearest game jam. Whether a musician, artist, programmer, designer, writer, business guy, heck, anything, this is the best possible way of meeting people who might find you invaluable.

Oh, that and it’s STREET PASS HEAVEN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

feels good to be a street passer

Look at this Punk!! an unexpected reverence for DmC: Devil May Cry

DmC: Devil May Cry (2013) is a game that should have come and gone, completely unnoticed by someone like me who’s rarely cared about action games.

Sure, I loved Bayonetta (and who didn’t?!), but by and large these “character action games” I do not care for. This makes it all the more surprising to me that developer Ninja Theory‘s DmC has turned into one of my favourite games of the past couple years. 

Look at this punk. Why should I care about this? And yet…

From the cocky looking Dante to the dreadful, dreadful blend of heavy metal and dubstep, there is seemingly so little to love. The plot is simplistic and, while very well voiced and acted, poorly written for the most part — what a damn shame considering Ninja Theory’s excellent track record for building compelling worlds and characters! 

Dante’s partner, Kat, comes across as helpless and constantly in need of his help. It echoes some of the character dynamics from Ninja Theory’s past work in Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, but this time around the characters are nowhere near as fleshed, nor very likable  Dante’s brother Vergil comes out most unscathed of the bunch. His motivations are interesting and his writing is solid. He occasionally wears a fantastic hat.

 

Your sidekick Kat. Ninja Theory has already proven they can write strong, complex female characters in Enslaved’s “Trip” and Heavenly Sword’s “Nariko”. DmC’s Kat, while far from a two-dimensional cutout, is disappointingly not quite as developed as those past efforts.

But really this is all trivial because the combat and the world design is DmC’s bread and butter. Put simply, this is my favourite “feel” to an action game. Sure, Bayonetta was (a lot) tighter and faster, but the variety of weapons and combat puzzles felt more interesting to me in DmC. Not since Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1-3 have I really wanted to just keep playing a game again and again in hopes of getting better at it. Everything clicked for me here.

And this goes hand in hand with hands down the best level design I’ve ever seen in an action game. The visual design is incredibly varied and the levels are surprisingly large and full of secrets, demanding repeat visits with better upgrades. 

After having played Enslaved, my takeaway from Ninja Theory was that they knew how to craft beautiful worlds and very memorable characters.. but stumbled when it came the time to make interesting combat mechanics. Putting them on the reigns of the Devil May Cry series, which had always put gameplay over storytelling, seemed like a terrible idea at the time. The end result stuck much closer to older Devil May Cry formula than I could have anticipated.

I’m glad I gave this game a shot. I think you should too. I’m replaying it now on harder difficulties (“normal” was quite easy), and want to try out the older Devil May Cry games. They never grabbed me in the past but hoping my new found love of the series will shed a new light on these old titles. The main complaint about this new game is that the combat is too slow and less responsive than in the previous titles. If such hyperbole ends up being anywhere near half the truth, I’m in for some mind-altering gameplay experiences.

Next up..

If this was a review I’d give this new DmC five stars, warts and all. Few games can match it in terms of sheer fun-ness and visual variety. Vanquish, Just Cause 2 and Bayonetta come to mind, in that these are all very stupid games that excel in one or two key areas enough so to completely render irrelevant how forgettable their plotlines are. If DmC had been released last year, it’d be my runner up for Game of the Year after Journey.

Right, so either make meaningful art or make the funnest thing you can possibly make. Hats off to Ninja Theory, as I am now totally on board for whatever comes next from them. Wicked start to 2013.

First day of Stencyl tutorials

A good day of working with Stencyl behind me I am left both pleased and perplexed. Stencyl itself so far seems like a wonderfully robust and complex game engine that ends up looking more like chunks of variable lego parts, rather than an endless feed of black on white text. It’s a welcome (and motivational) thing to look at.

Some very rudimentary Stencyl “events” for basic 4-way movement.

The downside, however, has been the inconsistent documentation. Stencylpedia is a small Wiki-esque collection of the various functions within Stencyl. Somewhat better than a standard wiki in fact, since the whole thing is presented in a potentially linear “book” style. You’re not just being hyperlinked from one random entry to another (though Stencylpedia welcomes you to do this). It is divided into eight broad categories, along with further How-Tos, Troubleshootings and Mobile-specific tutorials. Cool. It’s all beautifully presented and, with a bit of work, could be your one stop shop for Stencyl quandaries… or at least it should be. It still needs a lot of work.

Stencylpedia begins with two “crash courses”, which basically have you creating two games in about an hour or so each. The first tutorial is very easy, providing you with all the required assets (character models, sound effects, background music, tileset, background image), and walking you through very simple “Events”, which are Stencyl’s equivalent of coding. In less than an hour I had a very simplistic, one-screen Mario clone. Small victories, but very cool nonetheless.

A small victory! Stencyl’s programming is Flash-based, but it can actually export to iOS, Android, HTML5, and all that goodness which I don’t actually understand but I’ve been told is important.

In the second Crash Course, they cover more complex behavior systems. This was more interesting than the first lesson but and occasionally over my head, especially considering the amount of typos and mistakes in the explanations. It felt a little amateur, considering this was their official tutorial set. Thankfully, there was consistently a set of helpful users in the comments section below every page pointing out the mistakes, along with how to fix these issues.

From there on in Stencylpedia goes from step by step tutorials to a more descriptive approach of Stencyl’s various areas. Here the examples are occasionally vague and frustrating. So far I haven’t really been stumped by anything, but can’t imagine digesting everything I’ve learned and making a game out of it just yet. Baby steps, I suppose.

There are also a ton of video tutorials online but a lot of the things they mention are from older versions of Stencyl, which seems to be in a constant stage of evolution. Even now, I’m working on Stencyl 2.2, with 3.0 just around the corner; it’s all a little stressful for a first time user!

I still have a LOT to cover in the Stencylpedia, which will certainly keep me busy for weeks, especially with Global Game Jam happening next week.

over and out

My 2013 goal: Make some games

My goal for this year is to start making games. 

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but never really took the initiative. Now, more than ever, excuses like “I don’t have the money for it”, and “I don’t want to learn a whole new programming language” are no longer valid. 

There is so much good, free information online that the only requirement is self motivation and discipline. This has been hard for me in the past and I’m hoping that create a blog here will help motivate me to keep going.

I should state that I do a lot of video game music. This is my first and strongest passion. You can hear some of it on my bandcamp page and do feel free to get in touch if YOU would like some music for your own game.

That said, music is only like, 25% of what I admire in video games. The game design, art design and world building equally inspire me. It’s impressive to see teams of sometimes thousands creating cohesive works.Perhaps more inspiring is seeing the end result of games made by less than a handful of people. In these cases the personality and character of the its creators really shine through. 

2004’s Cave Story is probably the first of this generation’s “DIY” gaming, where this one guy, Pixel, basically coded, created the art and music all by himself. It’s nuts! And quite inspiring. 

Perhaps the “biggest” example of recent memory is Fez, a game ostensibly created by three people: Designer Phil Fish, programmer Renaud Bédard and composer Disasterpeace. 

I’ve been inspired by these (along with lone wolf Toronto game designers like Droqen and Damian Sommer, who have both been doing amazing stuff) to try my hand at making my own games. There’ll be a lot of crap for the first while but my hope is to stick with it and make things that I like to play.

Watching the rise of individuals like David S. Gallant, whom only recently started developing games and to now find them on the front page of Gamespot is humbling. How could anyone NOT at least give game design a shot?

Alas, I do not code and I do not draw. I am busy enough with music work that I doubt I would have the stamina to properly learn a coding language right now, like ActionScript3 or XNA. Instead I’ve decided to learn Stencyl. A game engine running on Flixel and which is (allegedly) quite easy to use.

I chose it after spending a day with both it and Game Maker. Being a musician a lot of my game design ideas revolve around the use of layering audio tracks, adapting to player decisions and choices. In trying to do similar audio projects in both software (having buttons that, when clicked overlap music files on top of each other), it became quite apparent that it was easier to do this in Stencyl than in Game Maker. 

I know you can do this in Game Maker, but I’m sticking with my gut and choosing the software that seemed more intuitive to me. I realize this type of software is infinitely limiting, compared to learning a proper coding language, but with the likes of the original Spelunky and Hotline Miami made in Game Maker (along with SkullFace, a pretty amazing Super Meat Boy clone made with Stencyl), it’s become quite clear to me that these engines could certainly do most, if not everything, of the game ideas I’ve got wrapped in my noggin. 

My other downfall is my lack of drawing skills. I’ve come to the conclusion that my games will probably be a bit ugly. My hope is to create interesting concepts and prototypes that I could then pitch to actual artists like Daniel Orellana.

That said, I’m thinking of taking a basic drawing and colour theory course or two. I think anything would help. I’ve also uh, started doing the Art Academy painting lessons on my 3DS, because why not.

This blog will consist of my experience learning Stencyl — learning to make games, and learning to draw shit like circles and stuff. My hope is to make a little game prototype of some kind by the end of the year that I’m quite proud of. 

But hey it’s a blog I’ll probably post about other stuff too. I might talk about games I’ve played that have inspired me, and whatnot. Anything goes!