....It's been a long time but the new iteration of the RPG System is done :). The main reason for this delay is that I've been busy with my thesis and my second game...anyway

Since I've never done something like a dialog system and I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. I had to research quite a bit about the "best" way to do a dialog system..I learned a lot from Zelda Ocarina of time and from The Elder Scrolls. But the main lesson from this iteration is that in a RPG, dialog systems are....very complex.  I think what I'll end making for this RPG System will be (maybe even less) about 30% of what a full RPG dialog system must have.

Ok enough talking, lets just make a feature list, the current dialog system has:

1. The origiginal Pokemon fire red bitmat font
2. Gradual message dispaly (also like pokemon)
3. If you press the spacebar while a message is displaying the message will display faster
4. After a message has displayed, the dialog system waits for user imput
5. The dialog system can display more than one message in a row

I've been blogging for over a year now...that's great :D let's review my accomplishments:

1. I launched my first game, Save a Mole
2. After a major rewrite. The RPG System it's finally a reality, it isn't done yet...but it's getting there :D.
3. I launched an experimental flash portal, Doki Games.
4. I started the development of my second game.

I hope to accomplish great things in this "new year".

I just sad a video and I want to share it with you. It's about the original creator of steambirds and some of his concerns regarding game development...I'm really...shocked....that even successful developers like him have most of the same doubts and worries as a no-name like myself...anyway...he wonders about  him being a "one-hit wonder".

I don't usually worry about being what he would call "zero-hit wonder", but the main question here is...CAN I DO THIS ON TIME?

I have been working A LOT on my second game :D. I just reached the first "milestone" so I'll take a little rest to write something about the development on this game. I've found out that I'm really secretive with my projects...but I'll try to talk a little bit more on this one ^-^U

The Development Strategy

The quality of the games I make is directly related to my abilities as a programmer...so I'm always trying to improve myself in the programming department. For this project I'm going to start using some new techniques and concepts that I hope will improve the quality of the software. (some of these techniques can be found in the Game Programming  Gems series)

But game programming isn't all about programming >_<....I can honestly say that the biggest mistake that I made with Save a Mole was to focus more on the technical part than the fun part. Now  I'm also  spending a  lot of time thinking and designing the game as a whole. For this I'm using a really GREAT book that I read some years ago but never used...that is "The Art of Game Design"...so I'm using all of the 100 lenses to design the best game I can.

I'm also changing my launching strategy. Inspired by danc's flash love letter, I'll try to get  "real world" feedback as soon as possible. For that I'll launch an "open alpha" next month (I'm hoping next month but my thesis may not agree with me... T_T).

The Story Behind It

I started to work on a shooter with a designer I met over Newgrounds...right now that project is in "stand by"..but one of the ideas that came with the initial braintorming is behind this game :)..by the way, I don't know why all my games seems to start with me looking for an artist....>_<.

The current game idea is very different from the original one...but the original concept is still there :).

On a side note...I still want to make a shooter...if the current shooter project remains "on hold" for too much time I'll have to start making the damn shooter on my own...

The Game

The original was something like this game...(but the end result is pretty far from this... n_O)

First I made a small prototype of the gameplay. It just consisted on 9 circles that slowly disappeared and you had to press the correct number in order to prevent that. It was something like this:

I just made this in inkscape...so don't hang be for the missaligned circles

I just toyed with the code about a day or two...trying to find out if it was fun or not....in the end I thought that it was fun enough...I mean...I wasn't looking for the most fun and innovative concept in the world :S I was trying to just finish a game!!!.

I showed the prototype to some of my close friends and they said that it was "fun"...anyway...I decided to move on...

I basically had most of the game done in "prototype form"  and it was very easy to do....really easy...the problems started the second I began working on the "real game".

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hahaha I think that if you are one of the two readers of this blog...reading this is kind of interesting...you never know which project I'll post about :D that's nice right :D?. Today it's Doki Games turn!. I finally made the first iteration of the website :D it doesn't include lots of features....but it's something :D.

Pagination

My main concern regarding Doki Games is that usually a flash portal has lots and lots of games and  finding or discovering games it's really difficult. Unless of course the games are either new ones or best rated ones.

Even though I don't have many games right now (hardly 80) most of my updates to the site will be geared towards managing the games. The first step...is...pagination! (hey I have to start somewhere >_<...I launched Doki Games with almost nothing!). You must know what pagination is...you see it everyday:

In some categories (2 btw) I was starting to get more games than one page can handle...and that's bad T_T. To solve that I included pagination :D, also I made my pagination without using visible url parameters so instead of an url with action?page=5 I have something like action/5, it's simpler for the user to type the url in that way :D.

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I know I have been a little...slow...with almost 10 days without posts and all that...so It's time to write a little status update :D.  Right now I'm not "working" on my second game...I decided to take some time between my first and second game to work on some pretty neat projects (BTW I'm also researching and playing a lot in preparation for my second game n_O)

Navi

While Developing Save a Mole I noticed some repetitive tasks...actually a lot of them...and I decided to make myself a program to automatize those things :D. Navi could be easily described as a "Snippet Manager" and I'm making it with C#/Visual Studio. Today I just finished the first version:

Navi 1.0 -- Just terminal interface right now....also I'm making Navi on WINDOWS O__O WTF!

Even though right now it's just has terminal interface I have big plans for Navi....Now that I think about it I have big plans for almost everything... I'm going to test drive Navi 1.0 while working on my second game and after my second game I'll decide which new features to implement.

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