(Nearly) End of Semester Updates

Thought I'd change up the theme here, since Blogger's added a lot of new features since last I played with the blog's appearance.

I should also mention that this club is going to be working with the Software Engineering Club at Shippensburg University, who intends to build an RPG-esque educational game/simulation. The Software Engineering Club has already produced a couple basic games, based on pre-existing concepts; the Video Game Development Club intends to throw some fresh ideas at them, and help where-ever we can in the development process, whereas the Software Engineering Club will teach us proper project management techniques. Hopefully this project will mark the beginning of a long, healthy, and productive partnership.

Finally, the semester is nearing its end, and with any luck, I'll be graduating this year, so in the upcoming weeks we'll be electing a new cabinet, and shortly after that this blog will have a new maintainer. It will be sad for me to finally walk away from this, having been in charge since founding it in 2008, but I feel the club has reached a point where it can function without me, and for that, I'm proud. With any luck, VGDC will become one of the more prominent academic clubs on campus, and a draw for potential students. Thanks for helping me make this a reality, everybody.

Now, let's crank out some more stuff in time for Too Many Games! It'd be a shame to fall short after our first year of real, visible progress. I'm counting on you guys!

Summary of 2011-2012

I apologize to any interested in our club for not having updated this since November 2010. A good bit has been done in that time, bureaucratically speaking.

1) We are now an official student organization, registered as the Video Game Development Club at Shippensburg University. We also updated our Facebook group (though it's still relatively inactive)

2) In becoming an official student organization, we needed to draft a constitution. One part of the constitution establishes a self-organized team system; teams can be created and dissolved, and can work on whatever they want. This should allow members the opportunity to help and learn from eachother, along with the freedom to work on what they want, while keeping things structured, and providing internal competition.

3) The platformer that some were working on last year is now a separate team within the club, since the whole club is no longer geared towards working on a single project. It's also kind of in hibernation, especially with some members currently dealing with Senior Research, and others preparing to graduate.

4) As president, I am encouraging teams to create and maintain development blogs for their teams. Those who actually follow through and send their link to the club email will have their blog linked to through this page. From now on, this blog is to act as a hub to access the other teams' blogs, and as a general news page for the club as a whole.

5) We might, might, be going to Too Many Games this year. This is a small indie gaming convention in Philadelphia; if we go, we'll be acquiring a display table, and show off some of our work. Unlike previous years, we've had some ambitious teams this year, so having some games and mods to show off is not unlikely.

That should be all for now. Hopefully, I'll keep this blog updated in the future, or at least remember to hand it off to someone else.

Platformer Plot/Character Motivation

Here's a provisional plot; I relayed it during club, but here it is in written form for reference. Not to deep, and it's vague enough to be able to squeeze in a variety of bosses and abilities. Enjoy!

Character Motivation text file


EDIT: Written on Linux, so it lacks Windows carriage returns. Open it in Wordpad or an internet browser for correct formatting.

Game Development Kits

For the sake of efficiency, we are currently sidelining the development of our own Java-based game engine, and will instead select a game development kit/application for the creation of our platformer. Below is a list of potential kits, and we will be spending the next week or two testing them, and selecting one that best suits our group.

Game Maker 8
001 Game Maker
JumpCraft
Golden T Game Engine
Scrolling Game Development Kit 2
Reality Factory
VERGE 3
Sphere
Lightweight Java Game Library


Comments and grades will be applied as we test the applications.

UML diagram

It's a little shoddy, and was stitched together in GIMP, and my handwriting is atrocious, but here is the pseudo-UML diagram for the Graphics Engine of the platformer.



If you feel like you can implement a class yourself, go for it. Keep in mind, that the inputs and outputs of a method should be consistent across the engine, and we're using Java, with Swing as the base system. If you don't know how to use Swing, go through some of the tutorials on Oracle's web site.

New Semester, New Plan

We lost a lot of members this semester (graduation, etc), so we gotta deal with less until some new members pop up.

Additionally, as a result of getting essentially nowhere last semester, we're going to be changing the game we'll be working on. It's an extension of the plot of the game we were working on last semester, but it's a prequel and a platformer; we already have a basic plot, so most of the bickering can be skipped this time. On top of that, a basic platformer is fairly easy in comparison to the ambitious RPG we were planning last year.

We're going to be splitting development into a variety of stages, starting with a basic, sprite-based 2D graphics engine, and later moving onto a pseudo-physics engine, and a user/AI control system. if we have time, we'll add sound/music and an event system, but for now, we're trying to keep it simple.

Change in Platform: CrystalSpace

Ok, it appears that the development group is displeased with Python, due to unfamiliarity (and a variety of other reasons). Therefore, we will be switching to C++, with CrystalSpace as our graphics/input/audio/etc. manager, instead of Python with PyGame. While few of us are familiar with CrystalSpace, all of us are familiar with at least one language related to C++ (if not C++ itself) and the fundamental concepts of Object Oriented Programming.

The end of the semester is fast approaching, and I honestly don't expect us to finish anything significant. I do expect this project to be carried over into next semester, as it seems many are loath to abandon it.

Update: New Semester

I probably should have posted this during semester break, but I figured, since I didn't, what better time to post it than the first meeting of the new semester.

This is an update to the design document posted earlier (which is probably no longer online).

game concepts.txt

Also, until further notice, club meetings will be held in MCT165 on Fridays at 2-5pm, just like last semester.

Design Document

*The linked file at the end of this post is the current design document, detailing things like game-play mechanics, structure and story of the in-game world, character interaction, etc. It is very much liable to change.

It's amazing is how fast this much was generated, in only two hyperactive/manic meetings. Anyone who frequently attends GameDev can attest to the fact that we normally spend our time goofing off, so when we sat down and started hammering out details for the game, at the end of the day, we found ourselves fairly surprised.

Now there's barely any distinction between the Primary and Secondary Story designers, with the exception that the Primaries simply try to sort through the endless mountain of suggestions supplied by the Secondaries, and keep the game from sounding overly cliched. Everyone has contributed at least a little bit to the story, as well as to how the game should play out.

It's obvious that we as a club will not be reaching my initially proposed goal of four mini-games, nor will we finish this one game by the end of the semester, but as long as everyone has fun, and learns how to grow and organize ideas that can later be transformed into a game, then I'm happy. The purpose of the club, by the way, is not strictly the programming of games, but learning how they go from planning to implementation.


The file: game concepts.txt

DarkBASIC

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who frequently browses the links at the right, but DarkBASIC Professional is now free for personal use (not commercial or educational though). For anyone who wants to take a more code-based approach to game design, but is too intimidated by the C-type languages and libraries that are widely available, this is a nice alternative to ease you into the methods of manipulating and managing game objects with code.


NOTE: The language used in DarkBASIC is, obviously, very similar to Basic, so if you're one of those people who firmly believe that learning Basic will inhibit your capacity to learn other programming languages, then maybe this isn't for you...

Project Roles

I'm just going to use this space to establish the official roles of the members of the group.

Lead Manager
Matthew Hydock

Lead Story/Conceptual Designers
Andrew Herring
Ben Cook

Secondary Story/Conceptual Designers
Allan Simmons
Garin Dangler
Matthew Hydock
Sean Fitzgerald
William Fisher

Lead Artist
Sean Fitzgerald

Secondary Artists
Andrew Herring

Lead Programmer
Matthew Hydock

Secondary Programmers
Garin Dangler
Matthew Miller
William Fisher

Music/SE
Ben Moser
Derek Robertson

This post will be edited as members decide what they can contribute to.

Getting to Work

Ok, it's taken a while, for various reasons (one being the diminutive size of the club at this point), but we finally have an idea for a group project. Our current goal is to create parts of a Role Playing Game (RPG), in Python, because the computers in our room are Macs and because Python is fairly easy to learn.

At first this sounds like a rather foolish idea. Many game development groups at first think "let's make an rpg" or worse "let's make an mmorpg." These are both VERY difficult tasks, due to the complexity of the underlying systems and the span of an overarching story. We recognize this, and so as not to drive ourselves mad, it was specifically stated that we are doing PARTS of an RPG, namely the battle system, and a basic overworld exploration system.

It has been decided that the battle system will be worked on first, and many of the roles have already been designated, with the art team in control of the style and themes, and the programming team ready to bring it to life. We have yet to acquire anyone devoted to music or sound effects, so both teams will contribute when they can.

Information and screen shots will be posted when available.

New Semester

The fall semester has begun, and ShipGameDev is back in business! Meetings will be held Fridays in MCT 165 again, from 2-5PM, though some members have already claimed a later time may be better. If enough agree, the time will be moved up an hour, but the day and room will remain the same.

Last fall, I attempted to steer the entire group into working on a single project. Unfortunately, we were incapable of coordinating, some of us had different ideas, and others couldn't get a hang of the software. Come spring, I decided to break us up into many groups, and work on several projects, which seemed to work a whole lot better.

And so, this year we will be working on independent projects. Those who are semi-knowledgeable with game design shall form their own groups, while those who are new will go through a couple "lessons" with me, then join whatever group piques their interest, or form their own if they are confident enough.

By the end of the semester, I hope to have 4 mini-games finished or near-complete. This isn't that hard of a task, so let's try our best!