Not too much to report

I'm still not 100% on where I want to go with my next game. In the interest of getting something done I have started coding the generic stuff anyway. So far I've got a neat game state manager in and ready to go. I'm also going to start writing the base class for my animated sprites. Regardless of what game I am going to pick, I will have animated sprites.

I will definitely have a direction picked and a meatier update next week. Soz mates.

New Game!

The time has come to pick a new game to start developing. The question is, what game?

As I see it I have three choices based on a combination of factors, mostly what I want to make and what I think that I actually can make. I can go with:

1. A humorous Point 'N Click Adventure ala Monkey Island.


2. An RPG cutesy Dating Sim (Don't laugh).


3. A simple but fun remake of arcade classic Gladiator.

The Point 'N Click Adventure is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. If I did it, it would star Jack from Our Boy Jack and have a supporting cast of naive Victorian Londoners that I think would lend themselves easily to humorous situations. The pros would be that the game logic seems pretty straight forward and easy. The big con is that these types of games are asset heavy, and I could be in a bind if I went that route.

As for the Date Sim, well... What can I say? I've always been a fan of the simple, yet addictive puzzle gameplay that they offer. The best part of doing this would be that at its heart it would be an RPG, which I've done before with Verily. The negatives would be a whole lot of new game dynamics that I don't have a lot of experience in. Stuff like finite state machines for somewhat complex schedule and task oriented AI. Sounds scary.

For the Gladiator remake, my biggest draw to it is that it seems to be a nice middle ground between going all out and making a unique fun game, and making another prototype. If I choose to go this route I will have the benefit of learning quite a bit more about developing, as well as being able to be fairly confident of a release within the semester. I'd still have to learn a bit about AI, sounds, game state managers, and so on. But none of seems too far out of my depth at the moment.



Can you tell what I am leaning towards? Yes, although it isn't official I do believe that the Gladiator remake is going to win the day. My apologies if you were rooting for something else. On top of all the other things going for the Gladiator remake, I've also been on an Errol Flynn kick lately so I've been watching a lot of rapier sword fighting, which kind of lends itself well to a Gladiator type game. Plus, who doesn't want to be a musketeer? I haven't decided on a proper motif yet. My dream art design would be something cartoony like Captain Claw (super great platformer that went under the radar, by the way), but that might be too hard for me to pull off.



We'll see shortly.

For those of you who have never played Gladiator and don't know what I am talking about: Basically it is a melee fighting game in which you and your opponents can strike in High, Middle, or Low. In order to not be killed you have to make sure your shield is blocking the area that your opponent is striking. It is simple, but it feels believable and satisfying.