I figured it's a bit awkward to have my photos link to the home page of a website dedicated to my programming projects and games, so I made a separate space for them!

​     Check it out here.

In celebration of the one year anniversary of my website ​The Archive is now live, featuring the first four games I've ever made! Additionally the Projects tab has been streamlined to accommodate for all of the content I might add.

     Some of the most valuable skills I can takeaway from the course are the strategies for the game development and testing discussed in the textbook: Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games by Tracey Fullerton. One of these skills is the art of play-testing and an understanding of its importance. Aside from actually testing the game and making sure that it's ultimately fun, the feedback obtained from players is extremely important to the development of the game. In fact several ideas that were added to Recess Rabbit Rumble were suggested and implemented after the first release.

     Therefore getting this feedback early is important encase there are changes that need to be made to the games mechanics; while they aren't always necessarily large, any problem is better to be caught early. Prototyping is the easiest way to develop and iterate on the core mechanics of a game idea without investing too much time in creating a complete playable demo.
     The MDA (Mechanic, Dynamic, and Aesthetic) design philosophy is something else that I will take away from the course. It's an interesting take on game design, and at the very least for me it's a more formal way to design a game. I will almost certainly continue to pursue game ideas that occur to me on a whim but having an idea of how I can break down the parts of a game and help to improve all of them is a huge plus.

​     Recess Rabbit Rumble (RRR) is an arcade style third person shooter starring two rabbits named Hoppy and Skippy. The current story for the game is that the two rabbits are the classroom pets of an elementary school and the class is trying to replace them. The new pets become jealous of the rabbit brothers and decide to try to get rid of them!

     The main mechanics of the game were largely inspired by the arcade game Cabal which I had played and talked about in my first blog post. Additionally, the boss design takes hints from Cuphead since I've been enamored by that game recently plus the large set piece bosses of Cabal (being the large tanks, war boats and such) were definitely the most interesting part of the game so it felt natural to continue to expand on it.

     Since everyone in the group was already familiar with the Godot engine, it made the most sense to use it when making RRR. After extended use there are some clear advantages to using Godot: many of its methods rely on Strings which makes it surprisingly flexible when wanting to change an image or even the entire control scheme.

     Currently there are plans to have five stages (Slytherin Serpents, Sleeping with the Fishies, Fearsome Furry Fiends, Ravenous Reptiles, and The Terrible Tortoise!), plus the tutorial stage (Night of the Living Dummies). The game is being designed to work on the SJSU Arcade Cabinets however the control scheme will be altered when the game is released to the general public.

     At this point there are very few people that are familiar with what Pokémon Go is or how to play but for the unfortunately uninitiated, Pokémon Go is an augmented reality game developed by Niantic where the player is tasked to walk around the real world and catch 'em all! After creating your character with a fairly robust character creator, choosing your starter Pokémon, and then catching them you're let off into the world. While simple, the first few steps that Pokémon Go walks you through are sufficient for having a new player understand the rules of the game. Those rules include:

• Each player belongs to a specific team (Mystic, Valor, and Instinct)
• You move in the game by moving in real space
• Tapping on Pokémon on the GPS map around you will give you a chance to capture them
• You throw Pokéballs at the Pokémon in an attempt to capture them
• Going to Pokéstops, checking in daily, and leveling up allows you to collect more items
• Gyms can be taken over for you team by having your collected Pokémon defeat the Gym's
• Pokémon can be leveled up through battle or by feeding them specific Candy​

     The most interesting results of these rules stem from the fact the game is predominately controlled by simply moving; by using the user's phone's GPS to determine the player's position in the world and game, which as you are probably already aware had created a social dynamic to the game. People of the same team would naturally congregate in public areas to catch a rare Pokémon or friends would venture out to hike up a mountain in the hopes of finding more powerful bounty. The social aspect of the game is no doubt one of the more interesting developments to have occurred as a result of the game's inception, however the changes in people's lifestyles are another development. The act of physically venturing out into the world has encouraged many to swear by Pokémon Go as a way to motivate them to be more physically active.
     Another way Niantic has encouraged player interaction is by making Gyms easier to take over for a team if you have more people form the same team attacking it at once. Also since release, Niantic has added raids in the form of Legendary Pokémon: large groups of players are required to work together to defeat one of the most powerful Pokémon in the game.
     However prior to the introduction of these raids, players would often go to extreme lengths to capture rare and powerful Pokémon including trespassing. Hilariously this caused several public spaces and privately owned businesses to create their own rules about toward the game. Some shops encouraged players by providing wi-fi or outlets to charge player's devices in exchange for their business while others had to explicitly forbid people from playing the game.
     One of my favorite developments that has occured as a result of Pokémon Go is the fact that players have discovered secrets in the game and started sharing them. Admittedly I miss this fact from the games of yester-year where you weren't able to look things up and were instead forced to ask around the playground for the latest tips and tricks; and while you're certainly able to look things up, word-of-mouth is very powerful in a game where everyone's already out-and-about.

     Day of the Devs was a fantastic event showcasing a lot of interesting and unique games from many developers. Since I saw so much and many of the developers there were more than willing to give me an interview my response to the event is over 3000 words! So that I don't just make one super long post I've separated them! You can find more information about my thoughts and impressions about each of the games in the following posts:

     A huge thank you to my buddy Andrew for inviting me and Chaz for being my fellow game adventurer while we were there! Another big thank you to Alex Neuse, Derek Yu, Justin Ma, Garret from Choice Provisions, Kristen Kho, and anyone else who put up with my questions! And finally a huge congratulations to DoubleFine and IAm8Bit for putting on an amazing event, looking forward to next year!

Day of the Devs Post Preface:
     Thanks to a very impromptu invitation from my friends, I was able to attend this years Day of the Devs (DotD) event in San Francisco. I treated DotD as I have the past few speakers and events I've taken part in and took notes on the games being showcased. A huge thank you to all of the developers I spoke with for being so open to my questions!

     Perhaps the game that surprised me the most in how interested I became after playing it was Aegis Defenders, a game where the player controls Bart and Clu (a daughter and father/uncle relationship, can't remember that detail) by either dynamically swapping between them in singleplayer or by working with another player in coop.
Initially my demo began as a side scrolling puzzle game where I was introduced to the tight movement and charged/uncharged weapon firing system. Additionally firing at certain minerals and resources will drop collectibles that each character can use to craft specific structures. Bart for instance is able to create barriers that he can upgrade into turrets and Clu is able to craft mines that can be used to blow up bridges or enemies. They start out separated, and each have their own segments of puzzle platforming to make it to the same area. This part was engaging enough and was certainly sufficient in teaching me how to play.

     What I wasn't expecting was what happened when Bart and Clu did end up meeting each other: the game turned into a 2D tower defense game of sorts. Enemies would spawn from specific points on the right side of the map and the player is given set up time to gather materials and swap between each of the characters to build a defense. Probably the most impressive element to this is that I had a seamless experience in singleplayer because the game will take over whoever you aren't controlling and fight as them as opposed to having that character idly stand by. The coop experience I can gather simply from my bias of having played other games, but the single player experience added a unique real time strategy element of managing where my other unit was. Not only that but enemies are more vulnerable to weapons of a particular color and more resistant to others meaning sticking to a single character with their weapon may put you at a disadvantage.
     I played 3 rounds of this; between each round I gathered the renewed material resources, built new and upgraded existing defenses, and positioned Bart and Clu just where I wanted them to defend against the oncoming enemies. Unfortunately this was the last game I played at DotD so I didn't have the time I would've wanted to talk in depth with the developers about the game or even to explore the world they were setting up. For me this is a game I'm definitely going to keep my eye on and have already wish-listed it on Steam!

Day of the Devs Post Preface:
     Thanks to a very impromptu invitation from my friends, I was able to attend this years Day of the Devs (DotD) event in San Francisco. I treated DotD as I have the past few speakers and events I've taken part in and took notes on the games being showcased. A huge thank you to all of the developers I spoke with for being so open to my questions!

     There were well over 50 games to experience at Day of the Devs this year so I didn't get to dive into a conversation with the developers for all of them however I still want to point out the most interesting games that I did have time to play but no necessarily speak to the developer about!

     RHB is an 8 player 4 v 4 basketball game where each team controls a giant robot. Every player is a smaller character and each team needs to work together to control the massive automoton to somehow get the ball into the hoop. On top of this the other team is trying to do the exact same with their machine. At an event like Day of the Devs its a blast and after just one round you could see the meta strategies forming: jumping into the opponents robot, raising higher to block their shots, or maybe having players assigned to specific sections of the robot's controls. It makes a fun mess of a game of basketball and if you have a friend (or several, again is supports 8 players at once) go try it out because it's FREE. And if you do enjoy it, consider dropping them some monetary support since it is pay what you want!

     Initially when I saw it on the show floor it seemed like a Tron game; And in a lot of ways I wasn't wrong. Like Tron the goal is to create walls of laser to defeat your opponent, as a player is eliminated if they touch one, all while avoiding the walls of your opponent's color. However rather than having the walls created behind you, they are summoned when you character runs over a white glowing rod in the ground which creates a pre-determined shape of your color. The games were best of 3 with a single round being a best of 5 (15 possible rounds played at the most). Each character also had unique abilities such as being able to melee or have a faster movement speed.
     So not only do you need to create and avoid the walls of death speeding everywhere, you also have to avoid the other players! another interesting mechanic is that players aren't tethered to a side of the arena. Meaning there's a fun dynamic where one person on a team might cross the field to run interference and steal the white rods that spawn on their opponents side.
I should mention that my friend got to try this and he noticed that players loop in the arena: by that I mean if you enter the left side you come out the right side. So what he did, was as soon as the round started, he rand to the left which brought him almost immediately to his opponents side, and melee'd one of them putting them at a distinct disadvantage. You can revive players by running over where they were slain, but that's much more difficult when an opponent is standing over your fallen comrade. GG and well played.
​     I should mention that my friend got to try this and he noticed that players loop in the arena: by that I mean if you enter the left side you come out the right side. So what he did, was as soon as the round started, he rand to the left which brought him almost immediately to his opponents side, and melee'd one of them putting them at a distinct disadvantage. You can revive players by running over where they were slain, but that's much more difficult when an opponent is standing over your fallen comrade. GG and well played.

     People had a hard time getting over it. But that's the point, and the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do get over it and the feeling of dread when you fall off of it are unique in the way that it always enough to push you forward to keep trying. If you weren't already aware, yes this is made by the developer of QWOP.

     GDC 2016 was the first place I saw this game at the Unity booth and it's definitely come a long way. The same tight movement and jumping controls are there, complemented by the unique presentation and interesting level design. The game was designed as a lover letter to anyone who couldn't stop playing the bunny hop maps that often populated Counter Strike 1.6 servers as well as the ones that still make up a significant portion of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive servers today. The only red flag that I have about this game is whether or not they will be able to introduce enough variety to keep the game feeling fresh. The levels demoed do suggest that this is something they're working on, so I am very interested to see how the final game plays as a whole.
     Also I just wanted to make special mention that they had a timed demo which I hope future developers catch on to!

     Without a doubt, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK was the most unique game at the DotD. Not everyone enjoys games that focus on social commentary or point and click, but this game is even further made niche by the erratic nature of its presentation. Seeing the game on the show floor, all I could make out was an explosion of colors and shapes that pulled me in to discover what on earth was happening on screen.

     The interface is that of a desktop, with each icon taking you away to a mystical land filled with interesting characters and vibrant environments. I only explored a couple of the "programs" before being a bit overwhelmed by how colorful it was but I think the unbridled energy the game presents itself with is part of the charm.
     Again I'm not claiming this is for everyone, but give it a try. It's definitely more of an experience than a game and you don't have to play all of the icons to get a feel for it and once again it's pay what you want on itch!

     You and a friend take the roles of doctors desperately trying to prevent multi-colored viruses from reaching a patient's heart. One player acts as the navigator moving the x-ray camera through the patients body spotting out the infections while the second player uses a syringe to gather antibodies and administer them into specific points in the body to eliminate the germs.

     It's frantic, exciting, and requires a ton of teamwork to do well. My friend and I managed to make it to over 700 seconds but the highscore is well over 1000. If the hardware required to play this game is within the $20-$50 range (about where board games usually are) I would seriously consider buying Vaccination. Hopefully it appears at alt.ctrl.GDC as I would love to play it more!

     UFO 50 is a collection of 50 smaller games developed in Gamemaker 1.4 (they were mid development when Gamemaker 2.0 released and didn't want to interrupt their workflow). Derek Yu, the representing developer best known for Speklunky, said that every game in the collection is meant to be a "complete game experience" and each one had its own director. While the game was worked on by several people, he said that they didn't use Git and actually had a main build of UFO 50 that the smaller experiences were simply added to. However despite this he said that when there were mechanics that would crossover with each other the team made a point to reuse scripts and objects from other games to expedite development and increase efficiency.

     I was also told that there were several ideas that were thrown out simply because they weren't fun and the selection of games that were enabled for the demo were certainly strong showcases. Not only that but the games range from being singleplayer, score-attack, and can even have cooperational or competitive goals in mind. For instance one game was a turn based unit versus unit game where attacks were dealt by sliding one's unit represented by a puck into another player's puck dealing damage. Another was a Micro-Machines styled racing game with--appropriately enough--UFOs. Another had a physics enabled soccer ball and each player knocked it around into each other and enemies. The wide gamut of game archetypes definitely shows how differently everyone on the team likes to design their games and from a design standpoint seems like a great exercise in experimenting with new game mechanics.

     Reiterating what both Yu had told me and what each of the games had convinced me of: for $5 no one would buy these games separately because they don't stand well on their own on a store page despite being fully fleshed out and refined experiences, however together as a collection there's a lot of value here.

     I f***ing love BitTrip. I'm actually a fan of rhythm games in general but that's besides the point. I purchased most of the games when they were released for WiiWare and bought the 3DS physical collection when it came out. I own Bit Trip Presents: Runner 2 Future Legend of Rhythm Alien on steam, and have a 70% achievement completion including Perfectionist and Hardcore. Runner 3 was a game I HAD to play when I found out I was attending DotD. When I played the first level of Runner 3 I proceeded to collect all of the optional gems, skipped the checkpoint, and messed up the timing of the bullseye at the end of the level like I would usually do in Runner 2: fantastic.

     In terms of gameplay not much is different which means if you weren't a fan of Bit Trip Runner or Runner2 then this most likely won't be for you. However if you aren't a fan of rhythm games in general or just aren't good at them, I would seriously consider picking one of the aforementioned games or Runner 3 when it's released. In a way the game can be treated as a platformer where every level is auto-scrolling and the invisible wall is always right behind you; you only need to time inputs for jumping (and now with double jump!), floating after jumping, kicking, sliding, and a few others to get to the end of the level (supposedly blocking isn't making a return). What makes the Runner series especially statisfying and interesting is the fact that all levels have a background song that accompanies the main melody created by performing all of those actions; every jump over an enemy or gate destroyed creates a sound that along is a single ping, but together is a symphony. Playing the game is almost like playing an instrument in that sense, except not really.
     Some new additions to the Runner formula this time around include vehicle segments. The two that I saw being demoed included a rocket ship which could be moved vertically along the screen and a rocket car which moved horizontally while speeding you forward. Additionally there is now a ground pound that I forgot to test out, more difficult optional paths that are the only way to collect gems, a death counter to help you realise how hard the game actually is, a dynamic camera rather than the static one kept the game moving in to two dimensions in previous installations, and the same "delightful" art style seen in Runner 2. Also more Charles Martinet which I think is really their best selling point.

     A question I was curious about was whether or not the music of the game was developed before the levels or if level design came first. As I had sort of expected the answer is both. Sometimes the time would work off of a song and other times they would focus on a mechanic and incorporate a melody later. Alex Neuse, one of the founding fathers of the Bit Trip series, said that he believed the levels that were built around a song were the strongest as they would naturally "rise and fall" with the music creating a satisfying flow to the level. Additionally when designing levels, knowing the BPM of the music helps them establish the layout and difficulty of a particular stage.
     One of the last things I was told about Runner 3 during my demo was that it will be much more difficult than Runner 2 and I look forward to getting my hands on the game and putting that claim to the test, as well as finding the no doubt well hidden secrets sprinkled in Commander Video's colourful world.