Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Blog Post on new project

I just posted about our new game project. Be sure to check it out here.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Reevaluating Development

A lot has happened in regards to PPK this last week. First we decided that it would be better to continue development using C++ instead of XNA and then we made an even bigger change of plans. Before saying what it is, I will give you the context of the story.

PPK started as a game project with two focal points; finishing a game and making a good game. Our original hopes was to release the game in time for DreamBuildPlay, an XNA contest which ended earlier this month. As we began designing more, we came up with more and more ideas. Now PPK is a large project that instead of finishing in 3 months is going to take easily 2 years. In some regards this is extremely unfortunate, especially when considering that this is exactly what we were trying to avoid; however, I really believe that this game concept was never meant to be a small project. We reached a crossroad earlier this week with the realization that this project is much grandeur than we thought/hoped.

So I bring you news with both glee and sorrow that PPK is going to be pushed onto the back burner to make way for another, much smaller, project. Before running to your mommy crying over this news, know that we still have hopes to finish PPK in the future once we get more development experience. Also Aaron is going to continue to design the game trying to flesh it out completely so that when we are ready to move back to it we can do so at full speed. So do not fear, PPK's end is far from here.

Now I am sure you are wondering what this alternate project is that is taking precedence over PPK. A number of you already have heard of the project from when I was working on it last year - Deus ad Bellum (final name pending). As I wrote last year...

Deus ad Bellum is an original battle card game. It is a completely unique card game most similar to Magic the Gathering with several RPG elements mixed into it for good measures. It is competitive one-on-one online play with a matchmaking system implemented to set you with players of your skill level.

I am most definitely excited to be working on this project again. It has some solid gameplay elements and is something that wont take years to develop with a small team of developers. I will most likely start a development blog for Deus ad Bellum and when I do I will post a link to it here. My hopes are that we will make more continual progress on Deus ad Bellum than we have been on PPK.

I hope everyone here continues to support us as we move forward. Thank you for all of the support thus far!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Recent News

It has been nearly two weeks since the last update. Unfortunately not too much is new. However, in the past few days I have laid out more of the code and am going to try to focus on PPK more. Work and PPK is what I am going to live in breath for awhile. So expect some more updates a little more frequently.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Server Up - Time for Progress

Alright! Got the server up (kind of). The basics are there and hopefully in a month or two we can get a Linux server up with the ideal setup. At least now we can begin to make more progress on the game's development.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Server Excitement!

I will do my best to spare you of most of the details; however, I do want to keep everyone up-to-date with the project's progress. Recently, we have been attempting to get a server up and running that will run Subversion (SVN) and Trac. Both of these software will greatly help with the development of PPK. However, some unknown force is attempting to stop us...

Our first attempt was with an old computer that we revived - or so we thought. After one day and several trips to Fry's Electronics, we got the computer up and running with Ubuntu on it; SVN and Trac would come later. Two days later the motherboard and/or CPU became "crispy". Attempt #1 = death.

Currently, my desktop is attempt #2. Things are a little tricky considering that my network experience sums up to about... nothing. Needless to say, it has been painful and frustrating. Even though attempt #2 is still alive, I have considered giving it a similar fate to attempt #1. I am hoping that soon I will get some amazing much needed help and finally get everything up and running correctly. Once this is done real progress can once again commence.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Detachments!

For some reason I had completely forgotten about one of the components of a company. Here is what I wrote about them in our GDD. :)

One additional component of a company is the detachment, which will provide the company with a passive trait/attribute. Such as Scavenger Punees will recover some resources from the battlefield if the company wins or having a Water Puni detachment might recover some of the company's HP after battle.

I hope you like the idea of detachments - I know I do!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Battle System Details

If you haven't read the previous post about the gameplay flow, then I recommend you do that here.

First we'll get all of the vocabulary out of the way. The unit used for fighting is a company. A company is made up of 2+ squads and a Puni Captain. A squad is made up of many punees but is limited to one puni class (Water Puni, Ore Puni, ...ect). A Puni Captain is a special type of puni that leads the company. It will have a level, some other stats and even skills. The company as a whole will have only a congregate of stats, most of which will probably be hidden from the player.

As mentioned earlier companies are the unit used for fighting and so they are the unit you move around on the map via nodes. When it is a companies action turn and they attempt to move to a node occupied by an enemy company then they attack. When attacking an enemy you will be able to choose which enemy company to attack if there are multiple of them. Then you select an tactic to take. There are many different tactics and their availability depends on a few variables; the company make-up, the weather and some are learned by leveling up. Different tactics will have different outcomes so choosing the correct tactic is important.

Once a tactic is chosen, your company attacks and damage is done to the enemy company. After the attack you can choose a defense maneuver for an additional stamina cost.

This is basically how the battle system works. In some ways the gameflow and battle system are a mixture between a tactical game like Final Fantasy Tactics (amazing game) and a strategy game like Civilization. I am really excited about this. It is going to be a very unique game and have much to offer!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Brainstorming and more Gameplay

Yet another day of some great brainstorming. Us three developers got together again last night and got some more ideas out. We attempted a prototype some but instead called it a night.

The major discussion of the night was the gameplay flow and the battle system, which had actually been a major topic of the previous night as well. Yesterday I had an idea for a battle system and presented that to the other two. With much consideration and some constructive input we came up with a very interesting battle system that actually solved our gameplay issue. Here is what we got for the gameplay...

The camera for the game sits above the ground far enough so you can see several towns, forests, and mountains. The towns and paths in between the towns are represented by nodes. These nodes are the only places your units can move (That was mostly recap).

For the gameplay flow we originally had a real time system but it is now changed. Instead each unit and town for all players receive a turn. Whenever it is their turn, the unit or town is able to make some type of action such as moving to another node or constructing a building. The order of turn is decided upon by two things, the unit's/town's speed and the previous action the unit/town took. Each action has a time cost, like moving to a node might cost 50 units of time while attacking an enemy would cost 75 units of time. The larger the cost the longer until the unit's/town's next turn. The speed attribute comes in by simply lessening the cost of the action and consequently lessening the time until its next turn.

That was all gameplay...Soon I will write a post about the actual battle system and how it works.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Prototyping

One thing Robbie suggested that we do is some prototyping, which I had considered before but wasn't convinced it was necessary. After some convincing, we decided to start with a paper prototype, which basically means to play through a game session with pen and paper. The goal of this would be to see how well the gameplay mechanics work and be able to quickly get an overview of what needs to be altered/removed.

We decided to go with the paper prototype because it seemed to be the easiest way for us to prototype Puni Puni Kingdom. We discussed Flash as an option but decided it would be possibly too much work.

Last night, Aaron, Robbie and I had a 4 hour session attempting to do the paper prototype. This brought up several questions about how actual gameplay will work...and it seemed like each question branched out to another five questions. By the end of the night we had come to the conclusion that we have lots of wonderful gameplay concepts but they need to be molded into not only playable but enjoyable gameplay elements that would all fit together to form a fun and coherent game.

We did begin some of that molding but there is still much more to do. I believe tonight we will have another molding party (not to be confused with a Tupperware party). So we will see how things go!

Programmer Introduction

Well, I think it is only fair that since our composer got an adequate introduction that our other, more recent, addition to the team gets one as well. His name is Robbie Iannucci. He is technically a programmer but he is already contributing more than just that. Even with this is his first game project, he has brought invaluable experience to the team that is certainly going to take Puni Puni Kingdom to the next level. So expect to here much more about him and possibly even from him!

Robbie and met through mutual friends (our wives) and have become friends since. So he is a local addition to the team, which has lead to him being able to join and contribute to the brainstorming sessions.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Composer Introduction

I have been talking to a very talented composer for awhile now and he agreed to work on Puni Puni Kingdom. This all happened earlier on but I would like to introduce him now. His name is Kevin Penkin. He has some composing experience in the indie community and hopes to break into the game industry one day.

I first came in contact with Kevin through his wonderful music. I saw a post on the XNA Creators Club forums where he was offering his services. As soon as I began listening to his music I knew that he was the right composer for PPK. His work is wonderful and I know that it is only going to get better. Check out his sites, listen to his music and support him!

http://web.mac.com/happyramenstudios/Happy_Ramen_Studios/Main_Page.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/happyramenstudios

I cannot wait to hear what he comes up with for Puni Puni Kingdom.

Monday, June 29, 2009

First Rendering!

Alright! Got something to show up on the xbox 360.

This is the splash screen. It is very basic and may possibly change in the future. For now the screen starts with just the "play" visible. The little red dot scrolls across the screen from the right and once in place "SAGA" fades in. Then the entire screen fades out and will go to the title screen. The splash screen lasts for about a total of 7 seconds, but the player can press a button to skip it.

This is actually taken from my project last year. But still, it proves that things are working. I had to do some debugging to actually get it to work though haha...

Needless to say, I have gotten a lot done today. I spent a good 12-14 hours on PPK today. Nothing like a good work day! :D

Manager Project Intro

This blog has unfortunately been lacking updates so here is one!

Not more than an hour ago I finished programming what I am calling the 'manager project'. This project is a base game project and will work for nearly any 2D XNA game. This project, manages the game's audio, graphics (2D), input, storage, gamers (for xbox360), and scenes (like the title screen).

I use the term 'finished' lightly because I have yet to test it. However, much of this code was previously written a year ago for another project so it was a matter of porting it over to this new project and cleaning it up (mostly documenting). Fortunately, all of that code had been tested a decent amount.

Here is a class diagram of it (not all that pretty).


At the moment this project stands at about 3000 lines of code. Not too bad to start off with. I am sure that as Puni Puni Kingdom grows so will this project. My hopes for this project is that It becomes a strong foundation project for XNA games that I can use in my future games. There is also the possibility of this project receiving a public release if things go well.

Now I can get to programming the game specific code!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Free 12 month Creator Club Trail Membership

I thought that this information may prove to be useful if you want to deploy any XNA games to your Xbox360 (like Puni Puni Kingdom). Of course you must own an Xbox360 for this to be worthwhile, so if you don't then you can stop reading now. Even though the release of PPK is far away, doing this will enable you to play it before the release (beta).

Here are details on getting a free 12 month creator club trail membership.

  • First off go to Creators Club Membership and follow the first 3 steps.
  • Once you get to step 4 go to Dream Build Play and register to the contest
  • After registering go to your My Account and on that page you will see the code for your trail membership.
  • Now go back to the membership page and follow step 4.

I recommend you do this. It only takes a few minutes and may save you up to $100. It would have saved me $50 last summer. One thing to note is that this offer ends July 6.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Year of the Squirrel

The squirrels have returned! After a long discussion session with Aaron, we came to the conclusion that squirrels will be in Puni Puni Kingdom after all. I am sure you are now wondering what role these cute little creatures will have in PPK. Will they be ninja squirrels? jesters? contortionists? None of those...however, the first is fairly tempting.

Squirrels (or squirrel like creatures) will act as a transportation means. They will be used to quickly move from one town to another especially for transporting resources (punees). Their part may be small but it is still very important. Thank you Doug for the suggestion! Maybe we will name one of them Doug...

In other news, the Game Design Document is very close to being done. So things are really starting to come together and hopefully there will be many updates here soon.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Laying The Code Foundation

I have begun to plan out the code for Puni Puni Kingdom. I have known that having a well laid out blueprint for the code makes development tremendously smoother, but I always seem to get too excited about writing the code. Usually, once I have a rough idea of what I am going to do I rush into it. This is bad because most of the time I end up with inefficient and poorly designed code.

So this time I am finally going to stick to it and invest some real time into building up the code's blueprint. Programming is not just about writing the code after all. I am finding that having this Game Design Document is proving to be invaluable in this endeavor. With it I am able to grasp everything that will make up the game and correctly translate the concepts into this blueprint.

One interesting part about doing this is that in order to completely layout some of the systems I have to do research about them first. This includes doing research for the AI, the weather (particle system), and just some good code design practices. I do enjoy reading about the good design practices, but I find the AI to be the most interesting. Fortunately for me, I took a course in AI and also had a little bit of reinforcement in a game programming course. There are several different avenues I can take for the AI and right now I am trying to plan that out. I am really interested in seeing what comes out on the other side since this is the first real AI system I will write.

A side note: I may post the UML diagram of the code once I finish it. I have a feeling it is going to be very large. Another feeling I have is that it will take awhile to actually complete it.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Challenge Mode

Today I had an idea for an additional gameplay mode. Right now I am just calling it Challenge mode. This mode will be a crossbreed between the Story and Custom game modes. Story follows a story and each level has certain objectives the player must meet to win. Custom has no story and only has one objective - become Puni King first. In Challenge there will be a number of levels, challenges, that the player can choose from. Each challenge will place the player in a scenario and will have to complete different objectives in order to win.

Example:
Noah's Ark
The flood is coming and where is the boat? Get enough Wood Punees in order to ensure the safety of all of the animals.

I am thinking of having multiple difficulty levels for each challenge. The difficulty level would change the computer AI and maybe even the objectives. This is all still in brainstorming stage but I think it is going to end up being in Puni Puni Kingdom.

A side note is that a great attribute of this mode is that the only work required is coming up with the challenges and quickly putting them together (which I hope to make easy). So this wont be adding much more work but we would be getting in return much more quality gameplay (hopefully).

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Game Flowchart + GDD

This Game Design Document Template is already proving to be more useful than I had originally anticipated. As I mentioned in my previous post, it is giving us direction and a goal. Up until this point we had only been working on the different gameplay elements and consequently had not really considered the more technical aspects of the game. With me being put in charge of the technical section of the GDD, I decided I should flesh things out as soon as possible. That is exactly what I did today.

One of the things I worked on was making the "Suggested Gameflow Diagram", which is basically an abstraction of the player's experience from turning on the game to turning it off. This is what I came up with.


This is most likely not the final version. Some things are still up in the air and I may have missed something; however, for the most part I think this is correct and represents the gameflow. I may post more GDD content later. We will see.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Game Design Document Plans

A few days ago, while making my rounds at Gamasutra, I came across an interesting and rather useful blog post. In this post, Jason Bakker writes about GDDs (Game Design Document) for indie games and gives a little template of what he finds to be most effective.

Aaron and I have been wanting to write a document like this. So we plan to take this template and will use most of it for our own GDD. A major benifit for using this template is that it gives us direction. With this we will be able to fully document the game design and in a sensible fasion.

So in order to get things moving along Aaron and I meet today. We discussed the GDD and how we will go about writing it out. We did what came naturally - what you always do in school group projects. We split up the work evenly. Aaron will fill out the story part and the gameplay concepts while I will fill out the more technical sections. I have already started on my part and will post some of it very soon.

I hope that we get this done relatively soon so that we can continue to move forward with the game. Things are going to slow for me - I want to really get things rolling!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

More Brainstorming

Gameplay Overview: Part 3 is being delayed because some things are still up in the air and that is what we have been working on. One of the things we brainstormed about was actually fueled by a friend and a reader. He jokingly asked if squirrels were going to be in the game. Well, we gave it a great amount of thought and almost went with it. We considered having some additional creatures in the world, and may eventually end up doing so, but our goal is to finish PPK. Adding too much content is not going to help with that.

It is unfortunate that we cant have everything that we want in PPK, but we definitely will make sure that PPK does not suffer from it. If things go well then the features that we are holding back on will be released in either a sequel or expansion packs or something. That is of course far down the road, so we are not putting much thought on it for now. Time will tell.

I will get Gameplay Overview: Part 3 out as soon as possible!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Gamplay Overview: Part 2

TOWNS:
As expected, a town is composed of several buildings. There are many different types of buildings that all uniquely enhance the town and in some cases the entire kingdom. Details on the individual buildings are still being worked on and will be released in the future.

PUNEES:
There will be a few different types of punees. The most used puni, the common puni, is the type that collects resources and will change to another type corresponding the the resource assimilated. Much like the different buildings, the puni types will be developed in full in a later blog.

RESOURCES:
Currently there are three planned resources: wood, water and ore. All three of these are exhaustible resources as well as self replinishing and consequently there must be a balance in harvesting resources from a given location (node).
As mentioned previously, resources are assimiliated by punees. After assimilation is done, a puni acquires some of the resource's characteristics. When a puni does assimilate a resource it will still count toward the population as well as a resource; however, once the resource, the puni, is used, it no longer will count toward the population. This may seem a little confusing now but once you play it, everything will make sense. Unfortunately I haven't played it yet... ;)

That is it for part 2 and there will be a part 3 coming most likely later this week. See you then!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Gameplay Overview: Part 1

GENRE:
Strategy with some RPG elements

OBJECTIVE:
The overall objective of the game is to lead a Lord Puni to become King. First a kindgom must be built up, which is done by collecting resources and of course creating new cities as well as expending them.

GAMEPLAY MODES:
There are two different modes currently planned: Campaign and Skirmish (these names are merely tentative). In both gameplay modes the player controls a special Puni who's trying to become King. In campaign there will be a story the player is taken through and the winning conditions for each level will vary. In skirmish there is no story and the player is put up against enemy CPUs. The goal of skirmish is to have your Lord Puni become the first king. You can take a path of peacefulness or one filled with war - the choice is yours.

WORLD MAP:
The world the player interacts with is a 2D map that has 3 different types of nodes placed around on the map. The different types are...
  1. Towns or possible towns
  2. Resources (there are several resources)
  3. Normal nodes or "Strategic" nodes (name pending)
The normal nodes connect the town and resource nodes to each other and it is through that the player can move about his Punees.

That is it for part 1 and part 2 will be here soon! Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

School: Completed + Brainstorming

I am done with school! The final rush is over and now PPK is going to come to the foreground. Progress will begin to really being made soon. Learning from past projects, I am making sure that everything in the game is completely detailed before any code is written. I already have a bunch of basic engines written such as input handling, 2D graphics, scene management ..ect.
So Aaron has been brainstorming gameplay elements nonstop and sometimes we meet and brainstorm for a few hours and discuss what Aaron has come up with. He has a very big imagination and it is my job to make sure that he doesn't expand the game beyond something completable. Almost all of the large gameplay elements have been sketched out and soon detailing will begin.
I am hoping posts will be fairly frequent - every few days at the least. So check back often! The next post will contain some real meat.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Q&A (Introduction)

This blog is going to be solely devoted to the development of Puni Puni Kingdom. I will do a little Q&A to introduce the project.

Q: What is Puni Puni Kingdom?
A: Puni Puni Kingdom is a unique simulation video game that revolves around building up a Kingdom.

Q: So...what is a Puni?
A Puni is a small, cute, AND assimilative creature. That's right! They are all about physically assimilating things into its body.

Q: Where can I get a Puni?
A: Puni Puni Kingdom is being developed for the Xbox 360 Community Games using the XNA framework.

Q: Who's behind this?
A: Currently, the team is composed of two people, Jasson McMorris (myself) and Aaron Kemp. We are bothers (full ...disregard the last names) and both have a passion for video games and bringing unique and refreshing ideas to video games.

I will conclude the Q&A now. I hope you enjoyed and please stay tuned because there are many more updates to come!