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Tech, Gaming, and Design
Platformer Game Example
Jul 18th
This weekend I built a new game to play around with – took a shot at creating a small platformer game. It’s nothing special really – I mostly tried to focus on map making and you’ll see on the second level I had some fun with a certain little homage.
The game is pretty basic. You run around collecting mushrooms and bonus stars while killing monsters and then finish the level. Don’t fall onto things like spikes or fall down pits or get hit by monsters or you’ll die. At the end of level 3 is a bonus boss that you don’t have to kill but you get bonus points for doing so.
Here’s the controls for the game:
Use [Left] and [Right] to move on the platforms.
Use [Up] to jump.
Use [Up] and [Down] when on vines.
Use [Space] to fire a bullet if you have a gun.
Use [Z] to give you a speed boost to the RIGHT. (no speed boost for other directions)
Finally you can download the full game here.
The Zombie Apocalypse is Coming Soon
Jul 15th
So last semester we needed to create a concept document and design document for a game idea we had. I came up with an Action-Oriented Roleplaying Game called WW3: Zombie Apocalypse. In this game you get to choose one of four characters – Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Nikola Tesla, or Robin Hood and fight hordes of zombies in a post apocalyptic future setting. Essentially what happens is Hitler rises up as a zombie and creates a zombie race to rule over and destroy humanity for what they did to him.
A special task force goes back in time and grabs these people and brings them to the future to help take care of the problem and destroy Hitler’s generals and eventually Hitler himself and save humanity. I know, it’s a really goofy concept actually but I thought it sounded like a lot of fun.
This semester we are being split into groups and making a game (really more of a concept of a game given the amount of time). As a team we present the design document we created last semester and then choose what game we’ll make. My group decided on creating my game 
So this week we’ve had various discussions on the game play, rules we’ll be creating, monsters and their stats and behaviors, what the differences of the player characters will be (strengths and weaknesses), and just a whole lot of talk about game balance.
Also this week we’ve start messing around with ideas for the User Interface Design – here’s my idea – not sure we’ll use it yet or not though:
I’ll make sure to keep this updated a bit as we go through our game design/production process. Needless to say this is really exciting to me and I can’t wait to see what we eventually come up with.
Mario Marathon!
Jun 28th
This weekend I have been obsessed with watching the Mario Marathon. Each year these guys have a marathon playing all the Super Mario games and raise money toward the Child’s Play Charity. They have certain levels you can unlock with your donations and they keep playing until they catch up to those donations. As of this writing they are up to 57 hours of play time, 667 of 809 levels unlocked, and have raised over $38,000.
Game Design Portfolio
Jun 14th
I’ve decided to go ahead and start using this site for my different portfolios of things I have created. Whether they’re web design, coding projects, or game design projects I plan on posting them here.
My first portfolio I’ve started to put together is my current projects I’ve been working on – Game Design. I’ve been working with a program called Game Maker Pro to learn the ins and outs of putting a game together and plan on moving soon to XNA with my C# knowledge. Right now my knowledge in this are mostly deals with design and programming more so than art and sound. I’ll also be posting my game design documents I have put together like proof of concept documents, concept design documents, and simple design documents for games I have thought about. These are games I have no intention of ever putting together and was merely put together solely for exercise purposes.
You can view my portfolio in it’s current state now – I will be adding more soon.