iluvfuz

2010-09-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

A new project is in the works, going by the title of Low Profile.

Low Profile is a stealth platformer that places the player in a neo-retro New York City. As an exclusive member of a gang nicknamed by its victims as the Trenchcoats, roving thieves and assassins undertake clients' jobs, as long as they have money. With the New York Police Department's shooting on sight, even a failed mugging will not go under. You are not a common criminal, you are an elite gang member. Keep a low profile.

This is a project in its earliest works. The design is solid as of now and the engine being used is completely new but at its beginning stages of graphical and programming. I am going for very smooth animation (which the player's walking is already at) and gameplay.

As shown by the logo and screenshot, the game's graphics are a mix of textured noir and vectored noir with color splashes of yellow or red. Hopefully the finished deal looks as how I imagined it.

Thanks for reading, and have a good day!

2010-07-30T18:00:00.001-07:00

Around the World in 33 Days is officially released here:
http://gmc.yoyogames...howtopic=482242

Be sure to watch the release trailer as well!
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ZkxoryDdP_Y

Thanks for the support many of you have shown towards me and my game. Also, I would like to thank all testers and players that have helped out with the polishing of this game. Finally, thanks to my musical artist, sir Xemic, for providing the beautiful music in the game!

2010-07-27T11:54:00.001-07:00

-EDIT-
The Epilogue (cutscene-like segment) is also finished. This game is now at version 0.8.0 with everything but 3 pieces of music done.

I originally planned to have a Final Errand as a small unbeatable joke, but I decided against it. It didn't feel very appropriate (not age inappropriate though!) for the game and it's probably not that funny anyways.

The end of this game's work seems so close. Now it's all on my musical artist :P

2010-07-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

Day 33, the endgame level has been completed.

[Spoiler alert...that is if you can call what I have a story XD]
After enjoying a witty pun, you get to jump down a fun rabbit hole where you travel for half a minute through little underground tunnels to finally reach the Core. The Core is the Tribe Skin's tower's power source which provides it immunity. The whole of the story is based on the rivalry of the two tribes, Tribe Fuz and Tribe Skin. When both of them create towers, Tribe Skin's being dominant due to its satanic power, the player needs to destroy the Core to defeat Tribe Skin.
[/spoiler]

Anyways, there are now 2 things left to finish. The Epilogue of the story (the story is broken into 3 sections, the Prologue, Part 2, and the Epilogue) and the Final Errand. Here's a picture of the player watching the Core explode:

On another good note, my musical artist, sir Xemic, has finished 3 of the 6 pieces of music being used in this game. For now, the other half are just placeholders.

2010-07-24T07:56:00.001-07:00

Day 32 is finished. As the last minigame in this game, I made it as flashy as possible. It's a basic SHMUP with 3 types of enemies:
- homing, shooting enemy that takes two shots to kill (spawns every 3 seconds)
- static, 360 degree shooting enemy that takes five shots to kill (spawns every 6 seconds after 45 seconds in the game has passed)
- bouncing enemy that takes one shot to kill (spawns every second after 75 seconds in the game has passed)

There's a health powerup that spawns quite often (every 3 seconds) that adds 2 to your health. You'll need it, though, in the last 45 seconds or so when everything's pure chaos.

As always, I love making the colors change :P

2010-07-23T14:58:00.001-07:00

I'm done with Day 31, the Aether Escape mission. I thought it'd be kind of fun this time around to just make this level filled with random gameplay gimmicks. I think it's a bit easier than other levels, but it was fun making and I think it'll be fun to play (to those who can bear with the game long enough to reach this level XD). This mission is based on a Skinny Dam, which is just a hydroelectric generating dam-like...dam.

Fun fun.

2010-07-22T17:20:00.001-07:00

Day 30 is finisherminocamitisaroficious.

It's a basic Collect mission that utilizes almost everything accumulated from other Biomes--flying platforms, timed walls, timed spikes, spinning walls, spinning spikes, hidden spikes, doors, fake walls, etc.

Game is 88% done now :)

2010-07-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

I've now got six days to finish each of the remaining levels to make the deadline. In fact, I have six point six days. Point six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six six...

2010-07-20T14:23:00.001-07:00

I did more polishing today, which was going to be done sooner or later, so I'm going it sooner. Notably, I smoothed out the transitions between menus and levels, and just smoother in general. This includes fading in and out between the two and also this intro pause to each level:

This creates an intermediate between when you select a level and when you start it. You can also use this time to read the instructions to Errands (if the level you choose is a minigame). It's very smooth in the way that it fades in, the level name (in this case, "Imperial: Day 28") scrolls, fades in after you begin, etc. Details are probably pretty boring for you to hear.

Anyways, a somewhat high priority is going to try to fade out music:
- after selecting a mission from the main menu
- finishing a mission (when the Completed or Failed screen comes up)

GM's function for fading in and fading out is pretty confusing in that I can't get it to work anywhere I put the function.

Small update, I'll be chipping away at finishing levels, but I really want to make this game smooth and not awkward at all. To the extent of my skill, that is.

2010-07-19T14:43:00.001-07:00

I realized yesterday that I'm pretty much finished with my game. A couple of more level designing sessions, a simple endgame level, and an epilogue, and it's all done. That is why I'm going to be lazy and not do anything for a while.

Instead, today, I polished quite a bit. I updated the game so it looks like in both PC and PSP mode (chosen through Options), fixed many bugs, optimized the code, cleaned up some code, and made some of the Errands more efficient and better-looking. It was about two hours' worth of work but most of it was looking through code and playing through to test. It's a nice break.

By my calculations, I have 7.0 days to work on each level to meet the deadline. Ah...

What I mean by PC and PSP:

I had some sound advice to separate the two control schemes as to not confuse the player. Rather than showing Press [Cross Button]/[X Button] to select or [Circle Button]/[C Button] to continue, it'll just show one. I do agree when I see Comp05/Comp06 entries show both the PC and PSP setup, it miffs me. If that makes sense.

2010-07-17T14:58:00.001-07:00

I didn't really work on any new missions, but I did a lot of work on three new features introduced in the Aether Biome (the cloud world). There's the Helix, which is essentially a turret which shoots spinning bullets at you. There's the Smoker, which shoot a homing rocket at the player (which actually is kind of annoying with its somewhat accurate following and loud proximity beeping). And then there's the Flasher, which is pretty much just a turret that shoots lasers at you.

The Flasher is in the style of N/N+, where the laser creates a crosshair which homes onto the player. After it's aimed at the player, the laser will be fired. There's somewhat of a chance to avoid lasers as long as you continue moving in one direction.

Helix

Smoker

Flasher

Yes, the names are pretty stupid. And, yes, I realize that a laser doesn't really make sense. BUT LET ME DO IT.

As I said in the previous post's comment, if anybody wants to play the current progress of the game, contact me wherever you see fit (if you know me from the GMC, YYG, 64D, etc.) or just post in one of my blog...things. If you want to test, and have your name added in the list of Testers in the credits, tell me also. G'day.

2010-07-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

Day 26, the Core Escape mission is complete. Though the player can escape the wall of doom, I can't escape making levels for this game. Heheheheh...

Also, Day 27 is the second part of the story, which deals mostly with the discovery part of the game. Yes...the game is superficial enough to use a superficial story as its theme.

No screenshots, but you can imagine Tribe Skin's (antagonists in this game) evil tower compared to Tribe Fuz's stout little tower. In fact, Tribe Skin managed to sell their souls so they can power their tower on the power of Hell.

I hate Blogspot. I think I'll delete this blog soon and try again. Even if I wanted to add screenshots, the picture button is gone. Along with the title form and half the buttons that are supposed to be above me.

2010-07-15T13:46:00.001-07:00

I've redone the Prologue part of the game, which is a non-controllable (aside that you can control if you pause it or not :P) cutscene. Before, it was a scrolling background with the player and text fading on the screen. NOW, it's a scrolling background with the player, Skins, flames, Fuz Tower, and text fading on the screen. Big improvement, huh?

I think it's actually better now. Here's the picture of the Fuz Tower I made just now :3 It's towertastic...as far as towers go at least.

2010-07-14T18:52:00.001-07:00

Day 29 is done, the first Errand mission in the Aether Biome. I know I skipped Days 26-28, but I just wanted to make the Errand before. This Errand is essentially Papijump, where you bounce on clouds up 5000ft., boosting up on springs and avoiding mines. I originally wanted to make the opposite, where you fall down while moving side to side dodging spikes and collecting powerups but I didn't like that idea much.

I've been working on Day 26 a little bit, so it should be done soon as well.

2010-07-13T18:14:00.001-07:00

Day 25 is completerilific.

It's getting to be kind of a chore making standard levels (making a game made of 33 minigames would be more fun for me) but with the introduction of new features in each Biome, it's not that bad. I'm having fun thinking of ways to using spinning walls/spikes and disappearing walls.

10 more days left. Yes, there are 35 days in this game. It's pretty counter-intuitive, but I'll think of a way to make it make sense. So close...

2010-07-13T11:48:00.001-07:00

I've finished Day 23 and 23 :D Yes, I get lazy with blogging so I'm grouping days together. Day 23 is a standard Imperial mission in the new Core Biome. Three new objects are introduced here--the disappearing walls, spinning walls, and spinning spikes. They're pretty interesting to design levels with :)

Day 24 is a awesomely stylish Pong. Deal with it.

2010-07-10T11:55:00.001-07:00

Day 21 and 22 have been completed.

Day 21 is the Mountainous Escape mission and Day 22 is the last Mountainous mission. Day 22 is Marathon, which is an Errand where the player has to reach all 10 checkpoints in 60 seconds, with 5 seconds added for each checkpoint reached.

Day 22, Marathon

Now it's on to the Core Biome!

2010-07-05T15:09:00.001-07:00

Day 20, Mountainous Collect mission, is finished. Small update :o

2010-07-04T15:06:00.001-07:00

~~Happy~~ Merry Fourth of July!

I finished Day 18 and 19 in the Mountainous Biome! Day 19, Errand, is called Click Click Boom. In this Errand, you steer a missile avoiding walls while trying to hit an escaping Skinny Caravan.

Day 18

Day 19

I've already started a bit on the Mountainous Collect mission.

2010-07-01T16:48:00.001-07:00

Day 16 and 17 are complete. For the Day 17 Errand, I made Fuzzler, a fuzzy version of Frogger. For those of you who don't know what Frogger is, play it online for free (hundreds of Flash remakes). Basically you use the directional arrow keys to guide a Fuzzlian across a road filled with lethal cars and then hop over a river by jumping on planks. Jump onto a Tribe Fuz flag to rescue the Fuzzlian. 10 Fuzzlians in 2 minutes :)

Day 16 (Escape)

Day 17 (Fuzzler)

Now that I'm done with the Desert Biome, I'll start work on the Mountainous Biome :D

2010-06-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm done with Day 15 and I'm about a third finished with Day 16, the Desert Escape mission.

Day 15 (Collect)

Day 16 (Escape)

Progress is going by very speedily. I'm getting a mission done about 1-2 days, so I should have extra time at the end to polish and hammer out any bugs. By my calculations, I have about 3.3 days to finish each mission to meet the deadline.

2010-06-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Day 13 and 14 are finished, the first two levels for the Desert Biome. As for every new Biome, new dangers were introduced, the timed spikes and timed arrows. The timed spikes pop up at a set time and pop back down; timed arrows shoot out arrows rhythmically in the direction it's pointing. It's actually really fun to design a level with!

In the Beach Biome, the flying platform (horizontal and vertical) was introduced.

Day 13:

Day 14:

Day 14's Skin Squishing Errand is similar to groundhog bashing, except with Skin and Fuzzlian ninjas. Smash 45 Skin ninjas, but be sure not to hit your own Fuzzlians!

2010-06-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

Day 12 has been completed, the last Beach mission. This Errand was dubbed Catcher in the Fruit. I feel it was slightly lazily made, but I don't feel how it can be put together otherwise. I don't want the player buried underneath a hoarde of black blocks, after all.

In this Errand, as blocks fall from the sky, you avoid being crushed to collect 45 fruits in 2 minutes. As time goes along, the blocks will eventually form annoying towers over which there might be fruits.

I'm glad to have finally finished the Beach Biome. Now I can move onto the Desert environment!

2010-06-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Day 10 and Day 11 are finished; Collect and Escape. This means I'm almost finished with the Beach Biome! Wow, this has been going by quickly and smoothly.

I don't feel like posting any pictures, since it pretty much look similar to previous screenshots.

Here's a status update though:

v.0.0.3.2
June 27, 2010
_______________________________________
Overall completion: [====------] 40%
Level completion: [===-------] 36%
Game design progress: [=========-] 90%
Graphical progress: [=======---] 71%
Audio progress: [===-------] 33%

I also made a few changes to speed up the game by quite a bit. It was occasionally laggy prior to the changes.

2010-06-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

All of the backgrounds. Current build of the game and all resources are at 0.0.3.0

Jungle v2

Jungle v1

Beach

Desert v2

Desert v1

Mountainous

Core v2

Core v1

Aether

Hell

EDIT: 6-27-10 New Jungle v2 and edits for Hell

2010-06-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

What do you do when a fuzzy ball is bashing you over the head? You bash it back to where it came from. Ha..ha..ha?

Anyways, I decided on the minigame for Day 9's Errand, replacing the original plan for making it Free Fall (fall 120 seconds while dodging dangers and collecting fruit). The minigame is called Fuz Beach Volleyball...yes, it's a mouthful. I realized I could just name it Beach Fuzball or Fuz Beachball or just Fuz Volleyball, but too bad. Go away.

Fun fun. Still not finished, despite that it looks like it is. A few bugs in the collision of the ball and AI, but once that's worked out, it's complete!

2010-06-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

Day 7 revisited and Day 8 completed! Day 7 Errand: V.I.P. has been changed and fitted with a better destructible terrain engine and Day 8 Imperial is finished. Day 8 is the first Beach mission.

Day 7:

Day 8:

Floaty platforms!

Next on the list is Day 9 Errand. I'm not exactly sure what I should do for this errand--I currently have all 12 errands planned out, but I'm reconsidering a few due to how fun they would be and their replayability (both if the player has to retry if they fail or if the player wants to replay the minigame).

2010-06-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Jungle Biome is complete! I'm glad to say the jungle environment of the game is finished--all 7 missions.

I'm back from my short vacation and I've made a simple minigame. I may revisit it to make it a better destructible terrain, but for now, the engine works fine.

I've also realized I can make the backgrounds 100% size instead of the 50% blurry size that I used earlier. I think it will look fine and I never really wanted a blurry background to start with, so I'll see how this works out.

Now, I can work on the next Biome, the Beach. It'll be the second Imperial level =O

2010-06-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Day 6 is finished, mostly.

The first Escape mission is complete! I haven't been working as actively in the past few days, which is probably a mistake since I've been underestimating the date limit for the competition (still feels like 3 and half months). This is basically a horizontally oriented Imperial level except that the player will die more by spears and the rocks than the spikes in the level. For the whole level, a huge wall of rocks will come tumbling toward you and spears will constantly fall from above to kill you.

I think most players can expect dying at least 80 times in each level :P

The next level is an Errand mission. Want to know how the order works in each Biome?

1. Imperial

2. Errand

3. Collect

4. Escape

5. Errand

The next Errand mission will be called V.I.P. Bombs will fall from the sky for 2 minutes in a small arena as you dodge them. Terrain will be destructible, so this'll be interesting.

2010-06-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

First Collect level is complete (I guess)! Day 5 is down!

v0.0.0.2.5 means Day 5, a Collect mission, is finished. If none of you read the second post since the blog's creation, Collect is a game mode where you try and collect 50 or more fruits and reach the end before the timer ends! 4 minutes on the clock.

And I will now begin progress on Day 6, the first Escape level. Again, if nobody read said post, Escape is a game mode where you try to outrun a wall of rocks and dodge spears thrown by Tribe Skin, Tribe Fuz's rival tribe. This will be a doozy to develop (to me) but it will be fun. This whole game is fun to make--level designing is fun to test out, minigames are fun to design, and the game modes are fun to polish. I just hope the game is as fun for the players as it is for me.

Collect:

The yellow arrow designates the direction from the player to the finish. It shows up on all 3 standard game modes, Imperial (classic platforming), Collect, and Escape. It'll probably be pretty helpful in all of those modes.

2010-06-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

A Youtube video has been posted showing the active version on June 8, 2010 build 0.0.0.2.4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_O9DvZ2s4g

It has a few short high-quality clips of the tutorial, first Imperial level, and the first Errand (Fruit Hero)! As of June 11, 2010 though, the current build is 0.0.0.2.5.

Enjoy!

2010-06-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

Fruit Hero, Day 4, being worked on

Hey! I've worked on this minigame for 30 minutes or so now and I think it looks pretty good and might be fun to play after I polish it up and add sound effects to it.

Fruit Hero is pretty much Guitar Hero or Rock Band except that the fruits just rain down upon you like from the wrath of a spazzy god. 240 fruits in 2 minutes...can you do it?

That's all :)

2010-06-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

Day 3 (first Imperial mission is complete)

Work is going to start on Day 4, which is an Errand mission (a minigame) There are 12 minigames in Around the World in 33 Days, and 18 fun platforming action--the variety is meant to mix the gameplay up.

300...was a good-ish movie

I'm having loads of fun making these levels. I'm putting random jokes as it comes into my brain. I want to see how my first Errand mission goes. Every Errand mission is different, so it will require unique images and programming each time.

Gubye!

2010-06-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

Imperial, Errand, Collect, Escape. I'm now working on the first Imperial level (if the Tutorial one doesn't count :P)

Batman Begins was a good-ish movie.

Finished control menu:

Au revoir ;)

2010-06-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

Menu, story, and tutorial level are finished

Although the menu and the tutorial level is marked as finished for now, they are subject to changing as I continue working on the project. What this means so far is, though, is that I have finished a robust menu (aesthetics, level selecting, INI loading, options, credits, help, etc.) and 2 out of the total 33 days.

Since pictures are worth a thousands words, I wouldn't dare write an essay to explain what these images do:

Game controls

Biome (area) select screen

Story screenshot 1

Story screenshot 2

TUTORIAL LEVEL:

2010-05-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

Damn Blogspot/Blogger (are they the same thing..?) not allowing me to type a title for this post.

Anyways, I think A LOT of progress has been made in the days since I last posted. Main things are fleshing out the menu to contain the level select, Biome (area) select, etc. In-game, I've added elements for collecting fruits, opening doors, reading tutorial signs, and have a pause menu. Also, I've made 4 of the 7 Biomes' backgrounds which I think are pretty good. It's a shame I have to shrink them down to fit in Competition06's 8MB limit.

Nearly completed tutorial level:

2010-05-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well I've come to my senses and realized 80 (well, actually 81) levels is a bit too much. Instead of 10 Biomes X 8 levels each + 1 endgame, there will be 6 Biomes X 5 levels each + 2 tutorial levels + 1 endgame level. That makes a total of 33 levels--18 standard levels, 12 minigames, 2 tutorial levels, and one endgame level.

That way this game will still last a decent amount of time, not be repetitive, and still be fun.

I decided on the 6 Biomes. If you're confused about what Biomes in my game means, it's the equivalent of "world" or "area" in other games--different environments. The 6 environments will be:
- Jungle: Tribe Fuz and Tribe Skin HQ is located here (Collect Jujuberries and Strong Logs)
- Beach: an area filled with much water along with land (Collect Coconuts and Driftwood)
- Desert: vast, arid area that's pretty flat (Collect Aquifruit and Sandstone)
- Mountainous: a high-altitude setting with steep drops and heights (Collect Frostberries and Rough Stone)
- Core: underground magma-filled place with plenty of lethal lava (Collect Fireberries and Diamond)
- Aether: a peaceful environment set in the clouds (Collect Cloudpuffs and Adamantine)

First post and AtWi80D

2010-05-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

Got a decent looking blog up which I can use to post a lot of general things that will probably relate to Game Maker.

My newest project, Around the World in 80 Days, AW80D...or AtWi80D, is planned to enter in Competition06 of YoYo Games. I've started about 3 days ago and I have the main menu up along with the game engine. Take a look!

My shiny new splash screen logo

Second splash screen showing YYG Comp06

A slick-ish new menu infected with my obsession to make all of my menus dynamic and moving 100% of the time.

Shows off the terrain system and parallax background. Terrain system's mechanism is in courtesy of Tahnok--having the ability to generate nice-looking terrain without actually creating filesize-hungry sprites. And with Comp06's 8MB limit, that's pretty important.

Water! It's water! It's beautiful although it be gray to match the style of the game! Nothing special about water, but it sure looks nice.

As I keep progressing on the game, I'll post here. I hope I won't abandon this project halfway through, but my past experiences tell me otherwise.