http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/Sun, 12 Feb 2012 04:50:19 +0000en-USSquarespace Site Server v5.11.81 (http://www.squarespace.com/)musingsAlexander ShenSun, 12 Feb 2012 04:49:08 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/11/get-him-to-an-emergency-room.html547432:6300571:14995066
[via Eye on Springfield]]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14995066.xml52 weeks of game developmentgame developmentAlexander ShenFri, 10 Feb 2012 22:49:41 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/10/punch-city-fighters-update-v101.html547432:6300571:14980337
DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL UPDATED RULES: CLICK HERE (.PDF)

Josie and I played the game last night. She said the game is too slow, too complicated and there's too much randomness (which is actually a main reason for the slowness). Someone on the Board Game Geek forums called it akin to a "tax audit". They're all right.

I went and made some changes to streamline the experience and to require less components.

Damage: Instead of five health bars corresponding to five Fighting Dice, there is now only one health bar. As the Damage Counter moves down the health bar, it will periodically knock out Fighting Dice along the way. This provides a lot of options for character creation in terms of the rate of how Fighting Dice are lost, how many can be lost before defeating an opponent and making it less based on luck for matching.

Dice Change: The dice now have these faces: blank, block, hit and double hit. No more need to match kicks and punches and all that other jazz.

Super Moves and Spirit Counter: I took a page out of Street Fighter and Red Dragon Inn. Instead of having a different Spirit Bar to charge up for a Super Move, I have a Spirit Counter that starts at the bottom of the health bar. As it charges up, you just move the Spirit Counter up the health bar. If the Spirit Counter ever meets or passes the Damage Counter, you then have enough to do the Super Move.

This is more like a fighting game, which is what I wanted, since you typically gain Spirit during the match from doing attacks or getting hit by attacks. In the latter example, as you get hit and lose health, you're essentially closer to being able to do the Super Move.

I've updated the rules and hopefully this plays faster. I wonder if I can get Josie to test it out again tonight.

DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL UPDATED RULES: CLICK HERE (.PDF)]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14980337.xml52 weeks of game developmentgame developmentAlexander ShenThu, 09 Feb 2012 19:16:34 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/9/52-wogd-week-6-punch-city-fighters.html547432:6300571:14963812
DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL RULES: CLICK HERE (.PDF)

Week 6 of 52 for 52 Weeks of Game Development has dropped like it was hot. This week I have a board game for you, just like I promised I would! I've had this need to do a dice based fighting game for a long time. Unlike other dice games out there like Cookie Fu, the dice play more of a Yahtzee role than anything else.

You can download the official rules above, but the quick run down of the game is as follows: two players choose a character to fight with. Each character has five Health Bars and Health Bars determine how many dice you roll (for example: 5 Health Bars = 5 Dice to roll or 3 Health Bars = 3 Dice to roll). Dice have four different faces: punch (x2), kick (x2), block and blank. You roll the dice at the same time and calculate hits from the results.

Simple, right?


The strategy comes from when the moment after the dice are rolled. You can see what your opponent has rolled, but then you place the dice behind a screen and arrange them in any way you would like on a grid of six slots. So when you start comparing the dice, you compare them in sequential order from the slots (so the less dice you have the more likely you'll get hit, but not necessarily).

My future plans with this game are to distribute and update the game rules while keeping the game free for all. I also plan on doing better artwork when I have more time (and am not under the "game a week" ruleset). I also plan on starting a Kickstarter project to fund a Deluxe version of the game. The Deluxe version will have custom dice (versus the ones I've made or substituting with standard six-sided dice), professionally printed Character Cards and nice box.

If you have any ideas or comments about the system, character balancing, new modes or even new characters, please let me know! I'd love to continue to support this game and keep it free as long as possible.

DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL RULES: CLICK HERE (.PDF)


Punch City Fighters by Alexander Shen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.shengames.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.shengames.com.]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14963812.xmlillustrationsAlexander ShenTue, 07 Feb 2012 20:59:39 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/7/valentines-day-card-for-someone-who-sweeps-a-lot.html547432:6300571:14919785 I drew a 3x5 Valentine's Day card at lunch today. I decided it'd be fun to have it target people who do a lot of sweeping. I suppose the card would have made more sense if I had feet being swept into the air than hearts. It would probably be less romantic. Or more. I don't know.

Anyhow, you can download the 300dpi version (for fancy high resolution printing) by following the link below.

Related Link: Valentine's Day Card - 300dpi]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14919785.xmlgame developmentAlexander ShenTue, 07 Feb 2012 05:01:26 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/6/tabletop-games-section-now-open-on-shen-games.html547432:6300571:14910966 The Tabletop Games part of Shen Games is now open. It's about, I don't know, four months late.

My next 52 Weeks of Game Development game will actually be a tabletop game. I spent some time during lunch today working on the rules and I'm pretty excited about it. It's my fighting dice game and I'm finally at a place that feels good to me. I'll hopefully have it put it up soon (definitely by Saturday)!

Also, since the game won't need custom-custom pieces, it'll be free for all! Woo!

Related Link: Tabletop Games on Shen Games]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14910966.xmlmusingsAlexander ShenMon, 06 Feb 2012 17:53:19 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/6/how-freelancing-works.html547432:6300571:14901512 In the defense of the client, they got to a point where they're able to actually pay you by making good decisions at one point in their careers. That or they inherited a bunch of money from a pirate ship.

[via drawn.ca]]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14901512.xmlmusingsAlexander ShenFri, 03 Feb 2012 14:55:04 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/3/watching-pencils-being-sharpened.html547432:6300571:14857447 [via drawn.ca]]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14857447.xml52 weeks of game developmentgame developmentAlexander ShenWed, 01 Feb 2012 19:49:40 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/2/1/52-wogd-week-5-mailing-a-package.html547432:6300571:14829201
Week 5 of 52 for 52 Weeks of Game Development has arrived earlier than expected. I was actually going to do a word game, but have pushed that aside for this choose-your-own-adventure about my horrible experience at the post office yesterday. Mind you that it wasn't, strangely enough, the fault of the post office but of my own negligence.

The interesting thing is that I decided to use this piece of software called Twine. It's essentially a piece of software that let's you make interactive websites. I always find it easier to lay out ideas and game flow in my sketchbook, so finding software that mimics this (and is free) is always a plus. Its exported project is also a webpage, which makes it widely available for others to experience. I think it's a wonderful prototyping tool and would look into using it more in the future.

Related Link: Mailing a Package]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14829201.xmlcomicscomicsgame developmentmusingsAlexander ShenWed, 01 Feb 2012 00:54:23 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/1/31/webcomics-and-flash-distribution.html547432:6300571:14815418 A thought came across my brain this morning regarding webcomics and distribution. I was thinking that it would be a good idea to package up my comics, either in volumes or complete archives, and then place them all into one Flash file for easy distribution.

Now this isn't to say that I'll change my site to a Flash based one. No, that would simply be awful and an SEO nightmare. It's to package it so people can enjoy a huge chunk of it at their favorite portals or simply download the SWF so they can enjoy the comics on their computer at their leisure without an internet connection.

Does anyone remember webcomic lists? It's definitely a very useful service, but navigating through those directories is a horrible experience. There's just too much content and it can be overwhelming. Webcomics can also fall victim to "horrendous web design", like your comic is buried 900 pixels beneath the fold where you've pasted your blog, tumblr, three ads and picture of your cat. It's not that you're a bad comic artist, you just may not know better.

In any case, I hope this idea is something that works... but is one that is only used for good. I can see it quickly taken advantage of and worthwhile distribution networks getting spammed up to their necks in these "comic compilation Flash travesties".

Are there any other avenues of distribution for content like webcomics? I'd be willing to give up all of those ad impressions (one per comic view) on my site if I can simply reach more people to just read the dang thing and minimally utilize ads at all (maybe one at start).]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14815418.xml52 weeks of game developmentgame developmentmusingsAlexander ShenMon, 30 Jan 2012 17:21:34 +0000http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/2012/1/30/52-wogd-week-4-failed-but-here-comes-another-week.html547432:6300571:14790672
I missed week 4. I couldn't finish the game I was working on. The game I wanted to do was inspired by the old arcade game called Timber. You would be controlling a lumberjack as trees popped up. Your goal would be to cut down as many trees as possible before time runs out.

Then my mind shifted and I had a slight change in design. The game would still revolve around the lumberjack walking around and trying to chop down as many trees as possible. However, the goal would be to survive as long as possible as the screen would continue to populate trees on the game board. Each step you took would increase the "tree deploy" counter. When that counter hit the "deploy" mark, a tree would be randomly generated on the board. Ultimately the board will fill up before you could cut down any more trees.

That also didn't happen since, well, I didn't finish the game.

Some of the reasons that it didn't work out:

• I wanted to use HTML5, so I employed the efforts of the Construct 2 engine. I literally got as far as having the lumberjack move around that ultimately wouldn't be the way I wanted him to move around. It's a nice environment to work in, but I just wasn't able to get it to do exactly what I wanted right away (what I would know how to do with AS3). I may have to stick to languages I'm familiar with until I get a better grasp on this HTML5 stuff.
• I completed a bathroom remodel with my wife. I spent most of my free time painting, knocking down drywall compound and installing fixtures.
• I had to finish up a freelance project due last Wednesday.

In any case, I'll be able to revisit this idea some time in the future. It also doesn't mean I'm giving up my quest! It just means I no longer have a blemish free record. Wins: 3 Losses: 1

On to next week!

PS: It's funny as the Global Game Jam also happened last week, something I really wanted to participate in. Go fig!

Related Link: Lumberjack moving in HTML5]]>http://www.alexandershen.com/blog/rss-comments-entry-14790672.xml