Moviz is complete

Moviz is finished. It features 4 weapons, 7 enemies, 100 waves, achievements and an enemy board. It will be published when voting starts for a competition. If you want early access, drop a comment. I will post articles about enemies and game mechanics in the following days.

Casper - The Unfriendly Ghost

I will scare the SHEET out of you

Just coded a few more enemies into the game. The fellow up there is a ghost, and only 20% of your bullets can hit him. 80% go to the dimension where Britney Spears is the supreme leader to help the resistance fight her. He is a ranged enemy. Also, when you kill him, he melts away, like any good bed sheet would.

Here's the list of enemies:

1. Ghost - art and coding done
2. Franko - The guy from the video in the previous post. Slow and tough. Art and coding done.
3. Zombie - Canon fodder. Art and coding done.
4. Mummy - A bit stronger than the zombie. Art and coding done.
5. Dracula - Flying enemy. Fires bats at you. Art and coding done.
6. Werewolf - Jumping enemy. Looks like MJ. Art done.
7. E. A. Poe - He will die nevermore. I'm thinking into making him a boss.. Art done.

Moviz Test Run

First test run of Moviz Survival level.

First time the charm

I have always wanted to make a video game. Although AAA 3D FPS Shooters sound like a cool thing to make, they will probably make your life miserable. It is better start off small. Here are a few reasons why.

 

I am hunting Dwakula and wewewolves...

1. Game must have unique art style. This means that every piece of art must look like it is meant just for that game. As a consequence, it must be custom made. And that takes time. If I was any good with Blender, I would have picked a 3D game to make. Blender even has its own game engine. But the easiest thing to do is to make a 2D game. You draw on paper, and just trace the image and color it. Unfortunately, I am no good at drawing (as you can see at the beginning of the text), so I used... gradients. If you are a professional artist, you will now try to find my home address and my daily routine. But, I have an excuse: prior to this I could draw only a straight line (straight is relative). Gradients are powerful tool. Don't abuse them. They can help you when starting out, but if you put nothing but gradients, Images will look perfectly round. Another good thing about 2D is that it simplifies coding. You programmer will love you. If you are both programmer and artist this will lead to Smeagol - Gollum personality tear, but that is No 2.
2. Simplicity. Think about your favorite game. Now think about your favorite enemy in that game. How much work was put into him. If you are thinking about a Combine soldier - His AI is more complex than the brain of most teens who watch MTV and listen to One Direction. Face it: You can't program that. If you are thinking about a ghost in Pac-Man, you can program that, and you have a good taste. Or you are very old.
3. Idea. Starting out small will let you focus on the idea. For example if I picked Far Cry 3 as a game to make, I would probably be so focused on the graphics that in 10 years, when I finish the main menu, I would have NO GAMEPLAY. If you start out small you will have more time to think about the idea. It doesn't have to be the best thing after sliced bread, but try to give it your own twist. Eg. My game is a shooter similar to Metal Slug, but based on cliche movies. First level will be based on old horrors. Great. That means I will have a werewolf. Lets make him scary... No, everyone else will make his werewolf scary. Lets make him silly. Wouldn't it be cool if he looked like MJ from Thriller. And lets make him spam random quotes above his head. Lets make EVERY character spam random quotes. Wouldn't it be cool if zombie would scream BURGERS!!! To most of you: NO, but to me: YES!

This was my first blog post about a game I am making for a contest. In the following days I will publish more posts. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

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