agameaweek.com

This fine developer has been doing for three years what I've done for three weeks. I hope I can make it through the year!

In any case, this is worth checking out. It's always impressive and inspiring to know that there are folks out there who are also into the same things you are.

Related Link: agameaweek.com

Game Development: Robot in the City progress!

I was able to get some progress done on the Robot in the City game. More importantly, I've decided to make it in such a fashion that making sequels will be easier. I've also decided to scale forward some features and just get over my laziness. Most important being removing the one room limitation. I've added some variables to the "createActor" and "createThing" functions to call for starting positions for X, Y as well as room.

Here you can see some things already working:

• Dialogue appears as a lightbox with profile picture on left and text on right. The same occurs for when you use an object, examine an object and so forth. Basically any interaction will use that.
• Dialogue works in that when you say one thing, it accesses the main brain of the dialogue tree and proceeds to check if there's another node to follow. If yes, it will "showDialogue(node)" otherwise it will simply close the dialogue lightbox.
• You can interact with objects and pick up ones that have a "_pickupable" variable equally true. The only weird finagling I had to do was assign it an inventory slot, which appears on the bottom of the screen as well. This limitation differs from the old Sierra and LucasArts games in that it's not simply pushing a new object into your inventory array and you are limited to how many items you can carry based on how many inventory slots have already been preassigned.
• While you can examine things and have them interact with other things (things or actors, including yourself), I have yet to determine if I want the ability to have things interact with other things in your inventory. I'm sure it's a quick implementation, but I haven't really thought about it yet. I probably need to assign "inventory._type = "inventory"" and do a quick check or something.

Anyway. Looking forward to actually working on the game now. I've got an Excel workbook ready so by filling in the fields it can generate the proper "createThing" and "createActor" code for me. Otherwise it's a bit too long and slightly confusing.

Review: All The Better To See You

I've been a fan of the indie game development work of Bento Smile for quite some time. It's always nice to see an entry in a Ludum Dare competition with them in it. I'm always particularly fond of the pixely art style in their visual novel games. I decided to download one of the older titles and give it a go.

All The Better To See You is indeed a tiny visual novel game, probably taking a maximum of five minutes to get through all the different options in the game. What resonates more strongly, however, isn't the length of the game but rather the message within the choices and responses to those choices. Many of the Bento Smile visual novel games do this and they do it quite well. This is no exception to the rule.

It really made me look at the potential mundane acts we perform under constant routine. What seems like limitless potential turns into this cage of "same thing, different day". While I don't feel that way in my current life, it's definitely a theme I see crop up in more places than one in both fiction and reality. I liked the way it was presented in this game and I recommend anyone with a few minutes to experience it for themselves.

Paring it with Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf was also brilliant. Releasing this in time for Valentine's Day this year was also brilliant, in a punch-your-holiday-in-the-face kind of way.

Download: All The Better To See You (PC, Mac and Linux)