Day 6 : 2D game

So guys I haven't had time to do anything on the game this day because of other things. But I did manage to find an artist whom is keen to do some free art work for my game. This is great as it means the game will look a lot more professional by the end. But I am currently creating a game menu. Which will incorporate my first ever use of buttons in XNA and C#.

however I am thinking that I might start work on a second game. A city builder. This should be challenging, but I am going to try and plan it. It is going to be a tile based game but I am thinking about a way to do this. My main idea is to create so many buttons up and down the screen. Query the mouse position and whether it is clicking and when it clicks on one of the appropriate tiles then bring up a small UI so that you can choose what to build on it.

But I will start it tonight. As well as work more on my first game.

Anyway Cya later!

Day 5 : 2D Game

So I have been working on the menu feature as I mentioned in the last post but I am also looking into ways of creating buttons. I am going to go for a clicking interface to cast spells. For instance I will have a row of small buttons at the top of my UI which will have images corresponding to their spell. I will also have an in game menu.
With these in place I can then implement a new level system. This would be good as it would add a lot more to the game.

With this project just about finished I have been thinking about my next game. I am thinking about going for a city builder. It will be a 2D game similar to Civilization. But right now I don't have much time to tell you about it. But I will update you tonight.

day 4 : 2D game update

So guys I have started working on the main menu. I am going to get some placeholder graphics up and running and then hopefully get an artist to draw me up some cool things for my buttons and my backdrop for the menu. This is quite easy.

What I am doing is I am using an integer value named GameState. This is initially set to 1 which happens to be the main menu state. This right now shows up the basic blue screen. But when I then set the GameState to 2 it draws everything the game usually shows and takes input as normal. I can then take this further by having a GameState 3 which I could use as a pause state etc. This is a very simple solution to my main menu problem and it is one that I used in my First game of Pong. Although for the way I have coded this I do not like it. It means I have weird if statements everywhere whereas if I had everything set in appropriate public voids. Then it would be a lot better/cleaner.

For instance I would rather have

if ( GameState = 2 )
{

takeinput();
drawgame();
setlevel();
docombat();

}

whereas for the most part I have

if ( GameState = 2)
{

Then quite a lot of code.

}

So in my next game I am going to resolve this at the very outset. Then hopefully I can utilize this to a greater extent in my next games.

Anyway a quick screenshot to show you how the game is progressing. This contains placeholder graphics so try and use your imagination when looking at it. I will however have a download within the next 2 weeks so that you guys can have a shot at my game :D

More updates tomorrow!

Bye for now!

Day 4 : 2D game

For those that don't know I am currently in the process of creating a 2D game which I will add to my website GamerCity.co.uk for download when I am finished. This 2D game will be programmed in C# and XNA and shouldn't take longer than a week or two to finish.

Throughout the process of programming the game I will be giving daily updates as to how the game is coming along and what things I am going to add and other things like that!

So today I am working on adding placeholder sprites. "What?!" you say? Well I managed to find an artist that is willing to work for nothing in order to create decent looking art work for my game. This will hopefully come to fruition in the next couple of days and hopefully I will have some nice art to add to my game. I think the art will definitely add to the game as a whole but right now it isn't very fun to play. Although I have had some ideas.

Firstly I will make it a sort of boss type level found in games like devil may cry. For instance I will make it so that after the boss reaches 25% health I will have some sort of flying bat fly down and try to attack you. I will have it so that it is a sort of quick fire click fire. Then you have to click on the bats before they reach you. Hopefully this will bring a bit of fun to the game.

So today I have added a couple of things like

A sprite which travels across the screen to hit the enemy.  AKA a fireball
I have also added sprites which represent the player and the enemy
Also I added a timer function so that if you press the H button you can rejuvenate some health at the cost of some Magic Power.

More updates tomorrow

Day 3 : 2D game

So today I added quite a few things. For instance I set up a basic combat system. Which allows the player to fire  a spell at the enemy. This is all just numbers at the moment but I think I will steal the ball used in the 2D XNA tutorial and use that as my spell.

As for the sprites I need I have put up a thread in the help wanted section of GameDev.net and am currently waiting for a reply. Hopefully that will come soon.

Anyway I am still on the hunt for decent 2D sprites to fill the void. When I get them in it will look like a proper game!

I have also been thinking of a couple of new things to add to my game. Like for instance a floating health bar at the top of a character. This wont really be much use in the game its just that it will give me the knowledge of how to program one in.

So I thought I would give you a little screenshot to show you how the game is coming on!

As you can see I have added a few more stats to the game as well as put up the enemies stats in the top right corner. Currently I have added a few options:

Space to shoot a spell

P - makes you drink a Magic Power potion which allows you to fire more spells

thats all so far. But the combat system works. I am going to add a random number generator to see whether or not the spells hit the monster. And I am going to make it so that the monster attacks you right after you have attacked it. It will all be quite random. But I want to be able to add some sort of skill to the game. For instance. I could limit the number of potions you could drink to 1 per 3-4 turns. Which means you could try to finish the monster off with the magic power you have left or you could drink while the monster heals itself.

Another thing I need to add is the Magic Power regeneration feature. Which lets you rejuvenate so of the Magic Power used whenever you successfully hit the monster with a spell!

Anyway I need to go school time but more will come tonight!

Day 2 : 2D game

So guys this is my second day working on my latest game. I must say it will be complete fairly soon. Its not been that hard to do so far but this time I really want to spend a lot of time polishing it so that on the exterior it looks fairly professional. For instance I want to have decent artwork this will take me a while even if I do it myself. But it is more than likely that I will ask a newbie game artist to get it all done for me. This should be fairly easy as game artists are a dime a dozen for semi decent ones and also it gets me started networking. Which might help me get a job in the future. Anyway now I am looking at possible candidates for sprites.

I am simplifying the game so that I can get some practice on the more technical side of things. Like animation and  sound and things like main menus and in game menus. If i get all these in my game then I can then reuse them in my other games. This is me just building up my library. Then I can concentrate on other games to add to my website!

2D Side Scroller

Today I managed to get quite a few things up and running with little trouble. I thought I would give you a quick preview of what the game looks like after the first day in development.

As you can see programmer art leaves a lot to be desired. But I am happy as I have gotten the viewport set up as well as health. I am going to have the enemies stats in the top right of the UI. and all the rest at the bottom. The bottom right will play host to the backpack to which I have no idea as to how I will get that implemented.

I haven't got round to getting a decent sprite for my character, nor my enemy character. I will also need to get a couple of sprites for attacks such as fireballs and arrows. Close quarter combat will have to wait until I learn animation and how to use character sprite sheets.

Any way time to have my sleep so that I can continue to work on my latest game tomorrow.

Remember to become a follower so that you can track how my game is coming along!

XNA side scroller

Ok guys so I am going to try my hand at creating a RPG XNA side scroller. This will hopefully be good fun as I really want to try my hand at 2D games. I have a few Ideas in the pipeline but this game will be my number one priority.

My main ideas for the game will come from other 2D rpg's for instance I have had a wee look at the RPG that XNA creators website gives you. This is a complete game so if I get stuck I can easily just check out how they did it.

Anyway I am currently looking for a good sprite that will be used for testing. As well as a good background for my game.

I haven't quite decided whether I will try a pokemon-ish type top down scroller. Or just a classic side scroller. I think side scroller would be best at the moment as a full top down scroller would be a big drain on my resources.

Todays tasks:

Get a decent sprite
get a decent background
program in movement for sprite chosen
find enemy sprite
work on Human computer interface( get a main menu, in game menu)

Also I need to get the basic lay down for the game interface. This will have things like health and backpack information

Anyway I need to get working. Lots to do!

Im back

So recently a lot of things have been happening which has meant I have not had a lot of time and effort to put into game programming, But now that has changed. I still have to focus on my school work, but I can find time to program games again. I miss the feeling of joy when you realize that you have solved a problem and that when you complete your game you have achieved something.

Its gonna be different this time though. I am going to use purely C# and XNA and I will work on larger and larger 2D games to begin with. This will mean that I can easily put the finished product onto my website and I can move onto 3D quite easily when the time comes.

I just hope that I will be able to create the 2D games that I have in mind quickly so that people will come to my site and play these games because they enjoy them.

Nothing new

Well guys my mum has just had her liver transplant so I haven't been doing much over the last week or two. The operation was a success. Which is great! I can't wait to have her back. I was incredibly nervous today at school as it was so sudden. But programming will be put on hold for a while as I will be busy working on my site. Its new layout is in place and I am currently trying to get it up and running so that every page up has decent content on it. Read more about my new website at my entrepreneur blog which I will put a link for in my link section.

anyway need to get back to work.