Adventures in Programming 1

Heres a reupload of my first programming post. The lights dance using arrays!

Heres a look at the blueprints!

Adventures in programming 2

Heres another programming masterpiece, This time im making a face using an imported notepad file, and then changing the face using the same file. Neat-O!

Heres the blueprint for it!

Game Design: Racing Level Pitch

My racing level is set in the ruins of ancient mountain civilization. The high cliffs, unstable buildings, and dangerous defensive traps left by the previous inhabitants make this the perfect location for the death race that the players entered.

Below is some concept images to give an idea about the environment and a colorscheme.

I want the level to be defined by things like narrow roads where the wrong push could send you off the side of the cliff, jumping from old buildings thousands of feet in the air, driving through temples as collapsing pillars fall in your path, old traps left over from the previous inhabitants to stop invading forces. I want players to feel like this is a place where they shouldn't have been racing in the first place, and now have to pay the price.

Which leads to the concept statement: 

"These dying ruins may take you with it"

As for the mechanics of the level, I'd like the level to break down and fall apart more as the laps continue, leaving less room for the player to drive and more danger for them to face. 

Like the Grumble Volcano level of Mario Kart 8 

As the race goes on, parts of the level begin to shake and fall making it a much harder track as the players move to the final lap.

As for stunts and obsticles I had many in mind, things like raising spikes and collapsing pillars, and i'll probably include those someway or another, but for my detailed ones, I settled on these: 

On the left is a pretty basic one, large boulders roll side to side forcing the players to dodge them in order to pass through. I'd like to build off of this, maybe add an incentive to go on the side of the ramp where the boulders would be rolling faster to add some kind of risk/reward, but i've yet to figure it out without breaking the theme. (like a speed boost wouldnt make much sense in ancient ruins) On the right is a jump stunt, because theres no ramp, the player would have to accelerate enough to ride on the side of the cliff, practically horizontally, so that they can make it across to the other side safely.

I was inspired to do these traps based on this scene from The Fast and the Furious, the train part is an example of the same sort of pressure I'd want to put on a player while avoiding the boulders, and the way the car spins in the air after the crash is the same sort of horizontal movement I want the players to have to do in order to make the jump across the cliff

Below are some other sketched ideas

I've also included a map showing how i'd like the track to go. I marked where certain landmarks/points of interest would be. There would also be interior parts of the track, but i felt it would be too confusing to show isometrically. 

All in all, although is a sorta cliche idea, i'm really excited to try it. Ruins archetecture is fun to create and build with, and the traps and obstacles are simple and effective which can really work when you're limited by the time and system you have to build off of. 

Racing Level Analysis

I did a rundown of one of the later levels in Trackmania 2 Stadium

Check it out here

If you would rather just watch me run though it, there's a video too!

Game Design: Platformer Level

For Game Design we had to plan out the tutorial level of a platformer. For mine, I went with a game with a more rougelike feel too it that includes a time control mechanic. In order to get past the traps/obsticles of the level, you must slow down time with the right timing in order to pass through safely.

heres a drawn map, as well as a vector based one.

Now, the level must be completable in 4 minutes or less and be new player friendly along with that. For that reason, I have to limit the amount of challenges as well as how slow I go about introducing them. For example, i'd like to introduce the time control from the very beginning, however I must introduce the moving platforms and spikes before hand, otherwise i'll be showing too much at once or too many new things before a new player would be ready. The same idea goes for combining the challenges; Where as i'd like to take the fast moving platforms and combine it with projectiles and falling spikes, I can't do that because no player would be able to complete the challenge under 4 minutes while still being a new player.

Hopefully with this, i've found a nice balance between difficulty and time.

In terms of a story, imagine a man who simply wakes up in a testing chamber for a time control device (think portal). Obviously his goal is to simply escape, but the testing chamber's goal is to just use this test subject to his full potential. As of now, no one lives there. Think minimalistic archetexture in a prestine state.

Game Analysis: Tower of Heaven

For our Game Design class, we were asked to analyze the tutorial level (or levels) of a platformer game of our choice. For this, I chose Tower of Heaven , A small, rougelike, platformer made by an independent developer, Askiisoft. The game itself lacks any form of true tutorial level. Instead, the game is roughly split into 3 sections, the first of which being significantly easier than the other two in order to prepare you for when they come.

If you don't feel like reading the rest of the post, I've included a video of me playing through each of the 6 stages within the first section of the game.

The controls are basic (wsad/arrow keys) and the objective is simple: reach the door of each room, before the timer runs out. All of this is explained in the first room of the game.











As you reach the 2nd room, you're faced with a more difficult pathway to the door, requiring much more precise jumps to reach the exit, the hazard of spikes is also introduced.

In the 3rd room, the door can be seen on the otherside of a short hallway, however, the hallway is blocked by moving sawblades on the ceiling and floor, requiring precise and, more importantly, well timed jumps to pass through and reach the next exit.

These first 3 rooms give the player an idea of the skills that are going to be required in order to progress through and ultimatly win the game: speed, precision, and timing.







The 4th room is where Tower of Heaven becomes significantly more interesting. It reveales airlifts,
which simply push the player up in the air, and is probably the most dangerous aspect of the game, The Book of Laws. As the player picks it up, the narrorator (who is presumed to be "God") tells the player that they must obey the rules written in that book, or be killed. This is a unique addition to the game as it means that more and more conditions can be added to each level increasing the difficulty as each new rule is added ontop of the existing ones.




For now though, it starts with the basic rule of "Thou shal not touch golden blocks". If anything, this is almost insignificant to how the player must play in order to progress though the game, as it basically just adds another "spike" hazzard for them to avoid.








However, the 5th room gives the player a real taste of how dangerous the book can be. A new law is added, "Thou shal not touch walls or blocks from the side". Meaning that you have to land on the top of each block/platform perfectly, touching the sides = game over. The difficulty of this is proven almost immediately, as the player has to jump up blocks set up like stairs, which would be quite easy, but actually ends up being a decent challenge due the paitence and precision needed.






The 6th room (and final room of the first section) is where the Book truly reveals itself as the real obstacle of the game. The player is placed fairly close to right of the door in a hallway similar to the one seen in the 3rd room. To the right of the player, a sawblade is positioned close as well. Beating the level seems easy enough, just move to the door before the sawblade reaches you, a seemingly obvious task, until the next rule is added: "Thou shal not walk left".

Once the level begins the sawblade quickly moves towards the player, and odds are they quickly die from stepping to the left, or jump and die by landing on the blade










Without any explanation on how to deal with the removal of a mechanic that seems somewhat essential, it takes most players some time until figuring out that you must jump to the left in order to reach the exit rather than walk there. However doing that is much harder than one would think as the sawblade forces players to be quick about the process, which usually causes them to mess up and step to the left before jumping, killing them.






Room 6 is the last room of the first section of the game, which continues with more rules and much more difficult stages to complete in the 2nd and 3rd sections.

What makes this game so unique is that instead of just adding more obstacles to challenge the player as it goes on, it removes the freedoms the player once had, and probably took for granted, forcing the player to be conscious of the actions that they do have, creating a much more interesting slope of difficulty depending on how valuable that action was to the player when it is taken away.

I believe this "tutorial" section of the game is effective as it teaches players the core mechanic of the game: movement and the speed, precision, and timing needed to use it effectively, as well as introdcuing almost all the obsticles the player would encounter in each room. The tutorial also does a perfect job of introducing The Book of Laws and just how drastically the rules set by it change the gameplay for the player.

Everyone should play this game.

Below i've included a layout of the first 6 levels I went over earlier in the post. 

Final Board Game Commercial!

Special thanks to Teddy Mundy and Nick Marten.

(Heres a youtube link just in case!)