Farewell, Waker

This is four years overdue, but I am formally declaring that I've abandoned development on Waker.

For those of you unfamiliar, Waker was a fantasy narrative adventure game that I was largely developing by myself from 2012-2014. The talented Ashton Morris was handling audio. It was to be a full length game with distinct puzzles and a branching story. A fair amount of people (strangers, even!) were excited about it. Folks were asking to collaborate. The game was blogged about. I never had as much engagement working on a project in the years since.

What lead to the demise of the game wasn't the scope itself as much as the fact that I had outgrown the project - my skills had improved considerably over the years I spent working on it. There are still a few really neat things happening visually and narratively - I still love Sue the Poggle.

During a couple of years following 2014, I had thought that I would one day return to and finish the project. While this possibility had rapidly dwindled since then, the release of Danger Zone Friends last winter was the final nail in the coffin. DZF became the full-length magnum opus that Waker was once meant to be, rendering Waker obsolete.

The last build I created is now publicly available in the Posterity Archive. It consists of about half of the planned story. The game ends abruptly when you reach the castle of Eldria, which I never populated.

Again, lots of y'all were really excited about the project, and I appreciate it. Thank you for your support.

Triple Project Update

I'll start with the bad news. My old computer died a couple of weeks ago, and while I've been able to carry over all of my important data to the new machine, I have, of course, had to reinstall a much of my software. One of those programs, Game Maker Studio, is my primary weapon-of-choice for game development. Between the day I originally installed GMS and the day my computer offed itself, YoYo, Game Maker's developer, changed its licensing system. The old version of GMS allowed me to export games to both Windows and Mac - the current version only allows me to export them to Windows. Regaining the ability to port games to Mac will cost me a $150 upgrade. While I would like to purchase this upgrade, I really can't afford to until I find a god damn job.

Long story short, it's going to be a real long time before you'll be able to play Bloodjak and Monsterpunk on your Macs. I hate it that most of my creative work isn't going to be playable by a significant portion of the desktop computing population, but that's the way it is. It'd be an understatement to say that I'm deeply unimpressed with YoYo for stealing a piece of paid software from me.

However, a more pressing matter than my GMS downgrade is my loss of the previous version of the software, Game Maker 8. Game Maker 8 lost all technical support ages ago - even if you can find an installer and have a legal product key, the servers through which you'd register the program are long gone. Unfortunately, GM8 is the version of Game Maker that I had used to develop Waker.

Waker

Waker

I haven't touched Waker in nearly a year. Student game projects and an undergraduate thesis occupied my attention for most of the past 12 months, and completing Monsterpunk has taken priority over Waker, being the smaller of the two projects. However, I've changed a lot since I started working on the game in 2012, and I have doubts as to whether Waker is the sort of game I still want to make.

My plan has always been to revisit the project, polish it up for new demo build, and then decide whether I wanted to see the game to completion or dump the unfinished version as is, and then move onto something more creatively fulfilling.
 
As I said, the game was originally developed in the now defunct GM8. While it is possible to continue working on the game in GMS, it would require me to recode a very large part of the game. A lot of GM8's features are incompatible with GMS because the latter is designed for multi-platform publishing, while the former could only export Windows builds. It just so happens that Waker depends on many of those obsolete features.

It doesn't mean the death of the project, but it's completion is less likely now than it ever has been. If I don't complete Waker, it'll be due to a number of factors that are well worth writing about, but only worth writing about once. I hate to repeat myself, so I'll save the (possible) post-mortem for later.

Okay, here's the good news.

Monsterpunk

Monsterpunk

Monsterpunk's development is nearing its end. I need to add a couple more songs to the soundtrack, I write the endings,  finish implementing a couple of side quests, and playtest and polish the thing. But everything else is done.

Speaking of the soundtrack,  I recently composed a new loop for the game called "Prom 1999." It's probably some of the best digital music I've written so far, give it a listen.

I'm currently in the middle of programming a mini-game for Monsterpunk. It's a birdwatching sim in space. You flip through the pages of your guidebook and correctly identify space birds. It looks like this.

VIDEO GAMES

And, as if I weren't busy enough, I'm ready to formally announce a project I've spent the past month working on.

Digimon Red: A Pokemon ROM hack

Digimon Red

That's right kiddos, I'm hacking Pokemon FireRed and am replacing all of the Pokemon with Digimon. 179 Digimon, to be exact. Deal with it.

Why do this? Well, Digimon fans really never got a good Digimon game besides Digimon World (and even that is disputed), and the original Pokemon Kanto campaign holds a lot of meaning for us 90's kids. It's been a lot of fun so far to redesign and reinterpret a classic campaign and breath some fresh life into it.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your question. You're really asking: why are you spending hours of your life replacing the characters of a game from one highly commercialized children's franchise with the characters of another? Not only that, but the other franchise in question is one that everybody stopped giving a shit about when they turned 10. Aren't fan works inherently immature anyhow?

I'll begin to answer these questions by introducing Gargomon. Gargomon is a Digimon. He's a fat dog that wears jeans and has machine guns for hands.

Gargomon is a Digimon. Gargomon is a fat dog that wears jeans and has machine guns for hands.

You know your favorite character from your favorite fiction of choice? Sydney Carton? Mal Reynolds? Bigby Wolf? Is that character a fat dog that wears jeans and has machine guns for hands? Oh, sorry, is that a no? Then that character ain't got shit on Gargomon.

Also, most internet users spend their time masturbating to memes of pop-tart cats who are actually John Cena. Most of the media we consume (and like) is trash. We're all in this wretched pit of consumer media shit together. Not all of the media I consume is trash, but of that trash, Digimon is my favorite.

Finally, regarding the stigma against fan works: it's mostly a byproduct of copyright law. When you use characters such as Robin Hood, Snow White, and the Big Bad Wolf in your stories, you're a "creative genius" who's taking advantage of the pre-existing narrative meaning inherent to them. By contrast, when you use Darth Vader, Pikachu, and Harry Potter, you're being "creatively immature." All pop culture characters have the potential to be folk characters - however, copyright law makes the usage of those characters in  mainstream culture difficult, resulting in terribly amateur representations of those characters outside their source work, resulting in the general disdain for fan works.

I'm not going to be too pretentious about this project - it's just me screwing around. But it's some of the most fun screwing around with a computer I've had in a while, and I might as well share the end results of that labor with the rest of the world. While it won't be legally possible for me to distribute the hacked ROM, I will be able to distribute a patch you can apply to your (legally) obtained ROM of Pokemon FireRed.

I'll talk more about the technical and creative challenges of this project later on. For now, here's some screenshots.

Disclaimer: Pokemon and Pokemon FireRed are property of Nintendo; Digimon and the Digimon sprites are property of Bandai. This project constitutes fair use: work is transformative, noncommercial, and has no impact upon sourced work's market value.

AIN'T NO BLUES LIKE THE VOID HERO BLUES

I am very pleased to announce that The Void Hero Blues is now available for download!

You can check out the game and download it from itch.io. You can also do the same from Game Jolt, but, let's be honest, the itch.io page is better looking.

I have some things I'd like to say about the game, especially regarding themes of gender and violence, but I'm fairly exhausted from cranking this beast out, and would like to get more feedback first.

Thank you so much for playing! I'm very proud of how this one turned out.

Now that The Void Hero Blues is good and done with, you can expect a lot more writing from me over the next few months, as well as the imminent release of Toilets, Meat, and Drugs: A Pink Monster Story. TM&D has been painfully close to completion for the past month and a half - until now, I simple haven't had the time to give it the little push over the finish line. 

It's been five months since I've worked on Waker. I needed a break, but am trembling with anticipation at the thought of working on it again. I think developing The Void Hero Blues has been a huge transitional phase for me as a game maker, for reasons I'll get to in the next post. I feel energized in a way I haven't felt in a long time. I think I can make Waker really, really special, not only because I have the technical skill, but because I feel driven to do so in a way I haven't felt in a long time.

Void Hero Blues and Toilets Meat and Drugs update

First, I'm going to start with the bad news. I'm formally putting Waker on hold until next year. For the next few months, I need to write half a thesis and finish The Void Hero Blues, and I'm aiming to get Toilets, Meat, and Drugs all done and out of the way. The sound guy for Waker, Ashton Morris, also has plenty on his plate to deal with. People ask me about Waker on a semi-regular basis, and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to resume development on it. Yet.

Good news is, Toilets, Meat, and Drugs: A Pink Monster Story, is nearing completion. I need to add a couple more endings, update the tutorial, update the story, and add music. The bulk of the work is done.

I went ahead and jacked up the speed of the player and all NPCs - it improves the game tons. Combat is oodles better than before, if you wanna play that way, and fleeing/evasion is now a more effective strategy than in the original.

The closer that TMD: PMS gets to completion, the less I have to say about it. When it comes to these projects, silence is often good.

MEANWHILE....!

Development on the Void Hero Blues is picking up. It's my first time working in (true) 3D since my teenage years, first time using Unity, and my first time coding in Javascript. Development is slow. Building the test level above, and simply getting the player to shoot and reload, has taken up the first couple months of development. But I'm finally moving on!

Here's an early model of the grunts you'll be fighting in the game. Designing the grunt was tricky - because the point of VHB is to humanize the victims of game violence, and perhaps re-sensitize players to game violence, I needed something with a human face that could be a subject of sympathy. However, I also needed something that could be mass produced. I compromised by settling for a character with an androgynous build and exposed, expressive mouth, but with their face mostly covered. However, I gave the bulbs on his visor "eyelids" so that they could remain expressive.

Not bad for my first serious attempt at modelling a humanoid, I think.

And here's the player's weapon! It kinda reminds me of Quake III's rocket launcher. I left a blade in there in case I have time to add a melee attack. The texture's still a work in progress - this thing definitely needs a bump map.

If you're looking for something to play in the meantime, why not check out Empty Chambers, Digital Toilet World, or How to Fly?

Toilets, Meat, and Drugs Update, Waker and Void Hero Blues Non-Update

TM&D now has too many monsters. Up to 25 playable beasties:

You kind of have to view it full screen.

There's been a slew of tiny changes, the most significant of which is that NPCs now spawn, grow and evolve as the player grows. Not only does this mean that the game's difficulty automatically adjusts with the player's ability, but previously explored areas never grow dull and constantly change. It breathes a lot of fresh life into the game! The end game is pretty epic when a random assortment of miniature gods crawl across the landscape.

I'm also about halfway done with the new areas. The new game world will be over twice the size of the old one. I also only have 2 more new monsters to program. Once I'm done with both of those things, I just need to rework the story, update the tutorial, write the music, and finish the thing!

Then I'll get back to Waker and The Void Hero Blues. VHB needs to be done by December, so it'll take priority. I'll then focus all of my energy on Waker and try not to be diverted by any more side projects. When I started Waker, I didn't have very many quality games in my catalog, and I felt a need to flesh it out. While Empty Chambers is awfully pretty, and Digital Toilet World has it's charm, both are pretty tiny games, and don't really show off what I can do as a developer.

TM&D is the first mechanically rich game I've made in a long time, is pretty substantial in scope, and really rounds out my collection of work. As a matter of fact, it reminds me a lot of the games I made in my early adolescence. I honestly haven't made a (complete) game of such length, or with such a large world, since I was 14, nor have I found myself pouring so many hours into a game's development. The graphics are pretty shitty too, just as they were back then.

Making games with crude, minimalist, punk graphics is so liberating. Give it a shot.

But, yeah, after this, no more goddamn side projects. Starting next year, all Waker, all the time. Oh, I think Waker's second birthday was sometime last month. Shit. I feel pretty awful, I couldn't work on it at all this summer - by the time my broken wrist was pulled out of the cast, I had been totally derailed by TM&D. So, so sorry.

IndiE3 as an alternative mode of cultural politics

IndiE3, if you didn't know, was a free cyber indie game dev expo that ran parallel to E3 last week. Throughout the week, a group of volunteers in Seattle live streamed indie game trailers and panel discussions. As I previously wrote, I had lost my initial pep for the event a couple of days in, and I missed the end of the event due to wedding attendance, so I didn't find the event fulfilling in terms of raw content. Of course, there were some high points: I caught the end of a fantastic interview with Christine Love on representations of sex in games, was introduced to some cool games through Warpdoor's panel, and saw some intriguing trailers. Sadly, I missed most of the panels, and wasn't very interested in most of the games shown. That being said, IndiE3 is still damn worth celebrating.

Never before have I heard of an international cultural expo being so inclusive. Do you want to attend IndiE3? All you have to do is sit in front of your computer in time for the live stream and chat as it happens. Do you want your game featured? It doesn't matter who you are or what your game is - send an email, and it will be shown, for goddamn free. Want to talk in front of an audience of hundreds? Again, it doesn't matter who you are - send an email, and you can host your own fuckin' panel. About just about anything. Yes, you.

Do you know how cool that is? THAT'S FUCKING ICE COLD.

Just about every other game expo, such as E3,  is rife with barriers to entry. It costs ahellovalota money to book a flight, crash in a hotel, and attend the event. E3 itself is open only to industry professionals, and being able to host a talk requires an even greater level of pre-existing legitimacy. So, through these sort of conventions, a relatively small group of people (technically skilled college-educated white men who like videogames just fine the way they are) gain reinforced status as the elite creators of games. Dominant discourse about games is limited to this group, and remains relatively stagnant.

At this year's E3, the games we see are the same old violent games with white male macho protagonists*. I mean that literally: it seems as though at least half of the new releases I encountered are sequels, spinoffs, or reboots. Mainstream games simply haven't responded to much of the social, narrative, or even ludological criticism that those of us on the fringe have been slinging at them. Games are capable of exploring as wide a variety of human experience as any other entertainment medium, yet so far have only explored a small fraction of it. Mainstream games have so much growing they can do, yet grow so little.

Compare this to IndiE3. While most people involved with the event were men, I noticed a greater diversity of individuals than typically is associated with gaming. Not only that, but panelists seemed to be greatly concerned with social and economic criticisms of games and their production. Panel topics included: "Games have a Racism Problem," "Creating Games Under Capital," and "What Not to do with Native Americans in Videogames." Other panels were more critical of dominant design philosophy and storytelling in games, but even these panels had a socially conscious edge: one panel I overheard on "Designing RPGs without Combat" was critical of how relationships and sex were portrayed in most RPGs.

Now, of course, with such low barriers to participation in IndiE3, you're bound to get some pretty awful games showcased. Some of the games honestly looked a little like the stuff I made in middle school. That being said, there were tons of really cool games too, such as Unrest, There Shall be Lancing, Charlotte Seeker, and Witchmarsh. What's more, the ability for anyone, regardless of their background, to have their creative work broadcasted to over a thousand people around the world, with no strings attached, it amazing. It's an opportunity that, under capitalism, is incredibly rare.

That's essentially what makes IndiE3 so special. The mainstream games industry, and all of the expos associated with it, are capitalist institutions to their foundation. IndiE3, by removing all economic and social barriers to participation to it, is fundamentally critical and egalitarian. It's what a game convention looks like if designed by anarcho-socialists.

Considering the results, that's fine by me.

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I'd also like to briefly share some more personal notes on my IndiE3 experience. Digital Toilet World, unfortunately, was not shown during the Warpdoor showcase as promised - the live streamer progressed through the list of games rather slowly and only played about half of it. 

Toward the end of the event, a volunteer finally confirmed that they had received promotional materials for Waker, but, because of the aforementioned wedding, I missed the trailer showing. I'm currently having trouble finding and viewing its recorded video segment. 

Overall, I think that, since the event was planned over a weekend by volunteers with no budget, it was stronger as a proof of concept than as an actual event. Poor communication and lack of manpower posed problems throughout. However, most of the issues were resolved over the course of the week, meaning that, if IndiE3 happens next year, it'll be as as strong as a magical flying ox. Bad ass.

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Please feel free to talk to me about IndiE3, the intersection between gaming and social justice, or anything else. I covered a lot of subject matter in this and didn't go into much detail about any of it. Hit me up. 

*Seriously scroll back up and watch the video in the link before the asterisk. This is what gaming mostly is. We all know it, there's no excuse for it, and it's gotten boring.

Waker's trailer, initial IndiE3 thoughts

I was in a crunch to get something done for IndiE3, and didn't have time to do clear plot exposition or game play explanation. Also, I'm not a video guy. That being said, I think the trailer represents the game well!

Speaking of IndiE3, there's been some awful developments this afternoon. Long story short, during a live streamer's event, folks commenting through the chat box called the streamer's gender into question, and there was not sufficient moderation to prevent it.

I have mixed feelings about this. One one hand, the lack of preparation for the event has irked me in numerous other ways from the beginning (lack of communication*, inconsistent schedule, and broken promises). And what can you expect from an event that was merely conceived of just a week ago?

On the other hand, the organizers of IndiE3 have admitted complete responsibility, do not condone the actions of the community, and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again. Which is more than I can say about the gender bullshit that occurs at other game conventions.

I've been losing pep about the event since day one, but I understand that the guys behind IndiE3 are doing their best. I honestly don't know how I feel about the event right now, but I hope it recovers. There's good people behind it, and the event has so much potential.

I'll write about it when it's over.

*Waker is on a list of games submitted to IndiE3 I found on Indiehaven. Besides that, nobody has actually told me if, when, or how the game will be shown. I had no idea that the mode of presentation was the live streaming of trailers until they actually started streaming - they didn't even communicate that in advance. This has caused me some unneeded anxiety this week!

IndiE3 is Today!

IndiE3 is starting as I write this! It's a cyber game convention created 4 days ago, open for anyone to participate in, free of charge, which is really cool. It's fantastic that developers like me have spaces to promote their work without economic/professional barriers to entry. The fact that the community managed to pull this out of there asses over an extended weekend is incredible.

Waker should be on shown through IndiE3 sometime later this week. There's new screenshots and updated info about the game on its page. I'm working on a new demo and a trailer, you'll see them in a few days. In the meantime, Warpdoor is showcasing a whole bunch of games over the next four hours, and I'm thrilled to say that Digital Toilet World is among them. 

The channel for IndiE3 is over here.

EDIT:
Here's the other channel. I think Warpdoor's doing their thing over here.

Wrist recovering, many games recommended!

Hey, so it looks like my wrist may be recovered as soon as a month from now. What's more, I was just changed from a full-arm cast to a short-form cast, allowing for elbow usage, and I was given permission to use my right hand for computer operation.

I still don't have amazing dexterity with my right hand, and using it is fairly exhausting, but I am now better able to type and use a mouse. So, I'm pleased to say that I'm starting to slowly hack away at Waker again.

I won't be able to run at full speed for another month, but hey, I'm running. 

In other news, here's some free games I've played in the last month or so that are worth checking out. Fun fact: you can play all of them with one hand:

I Move the People by C. Hughes

An interactive fiction game about life as a human, and life as an elevator. Kind of beautiful.

Death of the Augnob by Jake Clover

Short punk adventure about the death of the Augnob. Clover always does good sound design. Ugly and engrossing as hell. 

Exit Fate by SCF

An oldie, but a goodie that I've rediscovered. I've gotten pretty tired of high fantasy JRPGs, and high fantasy most-things, but Exit Fate is just too damn good. Intrigue? Epic scale? Unique, simple, elegant battle system that evolves and stays fresh from beginning to end? Exit Fate's got it all.

Mogeko Castle by Mogeko

A self-described "prosciutto adventure game" by Mogeko, who also made The Gray Garden and Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea, translated by vgperson. You play as Yonaka, a high school girl trapped in a castle filled with cute but perverted creatures called Mogekos. You will laugh, you will cry, but you will mostly be uncomfortable. 

Recommendation: The Gray Garden, Waker Update, New Project:Void Hero Blues

Item Number 1:
Recommendation: The Gray Garden

The Gray Garden is an RPG by Mogeko, translated by vgperson, who also translated Standstill Girl and Mad Father . It takes place in a world in which, in the aftermath of a great war, angels and demons learned to coexist peacefully. Hell, they get along so well that God and the Devil flirt with each other - it's pretty great. You spend most of the game playing as a demon schoolgirl who lives an innocent life, up until her town comes under attack by flaming bats sent by the devil of another dimension.

The combat's stupidly easy, and it's a bit cheesy, but this doesn't detract from a surprisingly engaging story - it's one of those visual-novel-in-an-RPGs-clothes sort of deals. Combine that with dark humor, quirky loot, and a unique take on Christian mythology, and you have a damn worthy narrative experience.

You can download it for free. It's an RPG maker 2003 game, so it'll require downloading the RPG maker 2000 runtime for it to work. Of course, if you're the sort of person who likes these sorts of games, you've already got it installed, now, don't you?

Item Number 2: 
Waker Update

Sound production on Waker has begun - my audio guy (Ashton Morris, check out his tunes!) is sending me some sick music and sound effects. On top of that, I'm done revising the pre-existing section, finally moving onto actually progressing the story. To be totally honest though, I have to admit that Waker will probably remain in developer hell for longer than I've last estimated (November 2014) because of...

Item Number 3:
The Void Hero Blues Announced

So, I was having trouble this semester motivating myself to work on a year-long student game project. It was essentially just a multiplayer arena game, which I found dreadfully boring to even think about working on. While technically more impressive than anything I had worked on before, creatively, it felt like a step backward for me. I'm ready to move on and make games that are more experimental, political, and self-aware. It was also a problem that, on the seven person team, I was the only one willing to program. It was a depressing situation, but my professor rather kindly allowed me to work on a solo project. That project is The Void Hero Blues.

The Void Hero Blues is a first person shooter game about the objectification of strangers. Every time you kill an enemy in the game, you will be alerted to a bit of personal information about them. One enemy is an avid stamp collector, another is a loving parent, and this information will be made known to their killer - you. Maybe it'll be funny, maybe it'll be sobering, hopefully it'll provoke thought about objectification and violence.

I should have some levels made in three weeks or so, will show 'em off then. It'll be my first project made in Unity, and my first (truly) 3D project since I was a teenager (sadly, all of the first person shooters I made as a kid are forever lost) (and Empty Chambers doesn't really count). It'll be done by December.

Waker Update

     Now that "Digital Toilet World" is done and behind me, and I'm figuring out how to handle this semester's workload, I can resume serious work on Waker. Today I'm working on polishing up the latest build to send to my new audio guy - I'm looking forward to sharing some of the game's tunes as they're made. More on that later.

    Above is a bug I just discovered - the old black n' white character is never actually destroyed and persists from room to room. He's usually hidden outside of the view, but if you try, you can get him to appear. I'm surprised it took me this long to find him! Bugs can be lots of fun sometimes - part of me almost wishes I didn't catch this one and left in it. 

     I've mostly been rewriting dialogue, lately. The story itself has barely progressed for the past seven months, but I've spent enough time improving the beginning section that I'm ready to proceed. No matter what happens, I'm going to leave the dialogue, graphics, and game play up until this point alone, if there are no serious flaws with it. It's about time I abandoned the work as it currently exists and build upon it.

     God damn, I wish I knew what I was getting into.What a monster this is. A sexy monster, but a monster nonetheless.

Waker Fan Art!

 I can't get over this.

My friend, artist and game developer Jon Sandacz, made this awesome 3D model based off of my WIP game Waker, featuring the Waker, Sue the Poggle, Feirn, and Gammon. I've never gotten fan art for a game before - it feels nice. It's especially interesting to see what characters and events other people remember from the game and decide to include in a work like this, and what they decide to leave out.

As always, you can download the October demo of Waker from the "My Games" tab on the website. I'm hopefully going to upload a new demo sometime within the next month.

Waker Update

     This past semester's kind of been kicking my ass, but I've still been putting time into Waker whenever I can. The past month, I've expanded the game's opening - extended the chase scene, quadrupled the size of the snowy area, and spaced out the game's dialogue. These changes have helped much with the pacing - I'm really happy with how the opening sequence plays out.
      However, for those of you who played the demo, I've removed the character of Roger, the hooded Juror, from the game. I had a subplot planned out for him, but he doesn't contribute much to the main story and is just another character to keep track of. In any case, I need to take shortcuts wherever I can if I want to finish this within the next year. I hear artists talk all the time about having to scrap good individual work for the sake of the whole, and it's really not easy, but the more I replay the first section, the more I realize that it was for the best. R.I.P Roger.
     Current goal for the end of the month is to implement a dashing mechanic (Go Go Boots make you Go!) and puzzles with turrets. I hope to finally begin progressing the story again by the end of December.

     I'm sorry I haven't been writing many recommendations/reviews/opinion pieces lately - there has been little time for blogging. I hope to have some more entertaining writing as a holiday gift. ;)

EDIT: Here's a screenshot of the turrets. Still working on getting them to shoot - the lasers are for detecting threats:

Waker's Still a Thing

     Feedback to the demo has generally has been positive or helpful . Some people were turned off by the sheer amount of reading the game required: in that case, the game frankly isn't for you. Everybody else wants to see where it goes. I feel refreshed, and think that I'm going to enter another period of relatively rapid development.

     New things that will be added to the game not in the demo (besides the entire second half): 
-Character temperament that is more strongly determined by how the player has treated them in the past.
-Plot developments more strongly shaped by player choice. While choices made throughout the game will impact the ending, I can only afford to make the consequences of those choices apparent later in the game due to the sheer amount of extra work required by branching plots. Hence, player choice in the short term will primarily have an impact on the temperament of other characters.
-Slightly larger game world.
-Music! I've been in contact with another talented musician who seems to be interested in the project.
-Anticipated release date: November/December 2014. I will probably miss this date, but it should be humanely possible for me to finish the project by then.

     The game may or may not represent what I am most capable as a game designer, but apparently it's still damn good, and it's worth fully realizing. Thanks to everyone for helping me pull my head out of my arse.

   

Waker: Demo Up, Possibly Discontinuing Development

     Internet, it's been a while since I've talked about Waker. For one thing, little progress has been made over the past month. This past semester of college has been the busiest yet; mustering the time and energy to work on the project is a challenge. For another thing, I'm starting to feel constrained by design decisions I made in the beginning of development. As an artist, writer, designer, storytelling, and thinker, I've grown a bit over the past 16 months of game development, and working within the design mistakes made by my past self is frustrating. I'm feeling incredibly low motivation to continue the project at the moment, and even if I recover that motivation, being able to work on the game frequently enough to get the damn thing done anytime soon will be a challenge.

     I made especially bad decisions in failing to implement meaningful core gameplay mechanics from the beginning of development. My approach was a of the "create the story first, add unique mechanics to support each specific plot event as you go along, and achieve ludonarrative resonance!" sort. Unfortunately, most plot events in the game don't inherently demand game mechanics, those that do don't demand meaningful ones, and because I'm only one man with limited time, when given a choice to implement new, really complex core mechanics or forgo them altogether, I will make the choice to forgo them. Lesson learned - don't develop games this way.

     That being said, I've received substantial praise from everyone whose played the game so far, especially for the characters and the writing. One playtester stated that the game gave him good "feels," and others feel genuinely motivated to continue playing for the story's sake. Frankly, the game, despite it's awful, barely existent gameplay, could still end up being a great interactive story. I just don't know - and the only way to know is to commit to at least another year of development.

     I need to know, if I am going to commit my time to this substantial project, will it be worth it? Strangers on the internet have expressed interest in this game in the past - I need to know if people are atill anticipating this game, if there's a large enough audience for it, and if that audience will actually enjoy it. So, I am releasing a public demo of my work up to this point. If you decide to play it, please supply feedback, especially by letting me know 1) if you would really like this game to be completed and 2) whether you would like it completed ASAP, or if you can wait an indefinite amount of time. Please be honest. You can leave a comment, or shoot an email to alchiggins@gmail.com.    

Click here to download the demo.

System requirements: Windows OS, screen resolution exceeding 960x720. A finally version would be able to support greater screen resolutions.

Esc quits. F4 exits fullscreen. F5 saves, F6 loads. F9 takes a screenshot. All other controls explained in-game.

There's currently no sound or menus. There are bugs. The whole thing's a little rough. I am aware of these things.

Thank you so much for taking time to play this and provide feedback. It means a lot.

Waker Project is One Year Old

     As of yesterday, Waker has been in development for one year. I really do mean to write less about its development and write more about other games and game development theory (you generally prefer reading that stuff - I know!), but Waker's birthday a significant event for me personally. I don't think that I've ever worked more than 9 months on a game before scrapping it, and I'm pretty happy with all of the progress I've made this year. May the next year be even more fruitful!

     I'm going to write something cooler next time, I promise. In the meantime, here's some screenshots charting the game's graphical development over time.

Waker Update

     So, I've finished adding all of Sue's lines to the game. At this point, I've got about 30-40 minutes worth of playtime to the game. Having worked on it for almost a year now (the game's date of inception is July 9th), it's a little discouraging - but not surprising considering that I'm just one guy working on it on-and-off primarily concerned with school and work. I keep hoping that development will speed up as I have more assets and code to draw from, and as I get better at figuring out how to tell the story I want to tell - but we'll see. I think that I have finally figured out how to write good interactive dialogue, though. I no longer have the same misgivings about the writing that I used to. I've spent the past four months polishing the same first 30 minutes over and over again without creating much new content. I think that, now that I have a working example of the sort of quality I'm aspiring to and know how to obtain that quality, that the rest of development will be relatively quick.

    The first half of the game will essentially consist entirely of fairly linear exploration, dialogue trees, and a little bit of puzzle solving. I aim to get this half completely done by the end of the summer. I'm currently thinking that the second half of the game will consist of some old-school action-RPG action and more open-world exploration, and will be the focus of the second year of development. We will see.   

     This project is crazy.

Waker Update - Introducing Poggles! What's a Poggle, you ask? Read on!

     It usually happens after 6-12 months of working on a game that I lost interest in it, cease to work zealously on it, scrap it, and move on. Emotionally, I had reached that stage with Waker a few months ago., but wasn't willing to give up on it. I've had strangers on the internet (such as yourself!) tell me that they think the game looks great and that they're looking forward to it, so scrapping the project isn't really much of an option. Besides, I think the game looks great, and it has a lot of potential.

     Problem is, I enjoy designing games and imagining characters and stories a little bit more than I do actually creating them. There's this sweet spot in game creation where I'm still fleshing out characters, figuring out mechanics, and determining where I want the story to go AFTER I've begun actual development. I am most obsessive and dedicated to game development during this period. For a while, though, I've been outside of that sweet spot. I know who my characters are, I know where the story's going, and so the thrill of committing those characters to pixels and code hasn't been with me.

     Not only that, but the story and world that I've created are fairly melancholic. In my list of supporting characters, I have: a depressed office drone, a potter who's lost her family and is seeking revenge, a loner whose girlfriend is probably dead, a soldier who's seen his husband ripped to pieces, and a psychopathic vigilante. Lots of room for character development and heartbreak, but not much room for humor and upliftment. There's no contrast, no point of comparison for the heartbreak. What I want to be an emotionally deep, but enjoyable story was instead just masochistic fantasy that's hard to stomach.

     So, I came up with a solution to both of these problems, and now making Waker is fun again.

(More, including screenshots, below the break)

Waker Update

     Waker now has a working inventory! It didn't need it before, but the as the game grows and I find that I need to add more and more ways to reward exploration, I'm finding that the game is becoming more and more cluttered with items. Not totally happy with how it all looks, but I can worry about that further down the road.

Waker - It's Back On, and a Quick Question

     So, I'm done with school for the year, but I'm stuck in the town without anything to do for a week. You know what this means?

     A week of full-time game development in coffeeshops. I hope to have something interesting to show you all by the end of it!

     Also, quick question - I'm not sure how I feel about titling the game Waker. It's sort of awkward to say by itself, sounds a lot like wanker, and leads to people asking me what a "waker" is, which leads to having to discuss some of the game's original fantasy lore, which leads to me feeling super goofy. So I'm thinking of renaming it Wakers and Dreamers. Any thoughts? Seriously, though, I just need one person to comment with the word "yes" to confirm that this is in fact a good decision. I want this to be the last time I rename it. Do me a favor and be that person.

     In terms of Waker's development, this summer should be interesting. One week in a college town with nothing else to do, followed by three weeks in Baltimore with nothing else to do, followed by working for three months in Baltimore with nothing else to do in the evening. If I really, really push myself and find the motivation, I hope to be done with the damn game by the end of the summer so I can move onto the next big thing. I've been wanting to make this game about a girl who goes to high school in a walled-in dystopian corporate city. You see, life sucks for this girl, because she's in a dystopian sci-fi setting and  she's in high school (insult to injury, amarite?), when, one night, she stumbles across this creature from another world trapped in the city, and they become super good friends. Problem is, the corporate police state isn't okay with this, and they want the monster dead, because that's just want villainous corporate police states do - they hate fun. So, basically, it'd be a mix of 1984, high-school commedy/drama indie film, and Pokemon. I'm probably going to ditch the idea by the time I actually start my next project, but it excites me nonetheless.