Christmas Game Journal - Week 2

The Jump: Check Plus - The Script: Check Minus

from JoeUser Forums

This week I tried to diversify myself and get some hefty work done in various areas. Unfortunatly, my list was too long for a week that felt WAY too short. Here's what I shot for....

Elfington's three jumping stages: 'Pre-Jump', 'Jumping', and 'Falling'.

1.) Clean up the Code: The interactive walk cycle from last week had some TERRIBLE code, so I wanted to go in and clean it up. My goal was to create an Action Class for handling animation, a Game Object class to generalize the character code, and work in hit detection with the environment.

    Verdict: Got Everything done except for the environment handling code...which gets pushed to next week.

2.) Get Elfington Jumping: This task required 3 new animations (concept and animation) and the new code to get them working in-game.

    Verdict: Done and done!


Similar to last week's Interactive Example, but now with 110% more jumping goodness (just use the space bar).
Oh, and Blame Explorer for the slowdown, not me (the animations are smooth as butter in EXE format).

3.) Write up Episode 1 Script: Needed to get a basic script rolling, so I set out to complete a simple rough draft of all cutscenes in Episode 1.

    Verdict: Eh...not really. There's some rough work done on the intro scene, but this task still needs serious work.

4.) Concept for Santa, Old Man Winter, and Head Knight: These are a few character that havn't gotten much love so far, despite being central to the plot.

    Verdict: Got some shoulder-up work done on Santa and Old Man Winter, but the Head Knight is no more than a few scribbles ATM.


The villainous magician, Old Man Winter, in full conceptual glory.

So I guess the week was fairly successful. I really need to get a basic script started, along with final designs for key characters, but the game portion is coming along nicely.

And since I'm making a video game I suppose that's all that really matters.

 

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Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
BoogieBac - awesome. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
EEeeeeenteresting.
DeskScapes - Bring your desktop background to life.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looks good. The program is running with 0-choppyness on the site if you’re worried about that. You just need to put in NPc handling, the fighting, and collision detection and the in-game state should be finished. Easier said than done.
Don't worry about a script this early in development, just know a very basic story (i.e. bad guy steals Christmas, player goes to save Christmas, Christmas is saved.) Nothing more should be needed this early in development.

Is the program going to be distributed for free or will we have to pay for it? Keep working on it and don't give up!
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Thanks guys (and gal)!

Yeah, the script isn't TOO important, but I really want to get back to my cartooning roots and get some cutscenes in to move the story along. While the plot is basic eough to tell in dialog boxes and such, I just think the game will be received with more enthusiasm(sp) if you heard the character's voices and the whole thing felt like an interactive cartoon.

Oh, and this is definatly going to be free (chalk it up as a marketing expense)
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looks good!