Metamorphic Games

My mushroom buddy which has been featured in my previous two posts was added into the game and has been rather happily running around. The game itself, Attack of the Killer Mushrooms, is actually complete and has been made available. The link to the game shall be posted directly below this paragraph. I was also tasked with creating the texture variations and the music. I had a lot of fun making it and will most likely be making the music for some of our future games until we find someone who specializes in music for our team.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metamorphicgames.AOKM

Metamorphic Games is run by a friend of mine who attended Milwaukee Area Technical College with me. He majored in programming and has been working on learning the ins and outs of management. His name is Ryan Behnke and he's been leading the small team that makes up the Metamorphic team very well. We have begun to run short development times of 3 to 4 weeks.

Out next game, the one that we are currently developing, is based on Missile Command. Some of my assets for the game are pictured here. All of these are low poly and relatively low res for their diffuse maps.

Human Command Center

Human Outpost

Alien Missile

Human Missile

Once the game is complete I'll be posting again and will include the link.

Mushroom Buddy

He's just so happy to see you. He wants to play!

Updates and More Games

So I said I would get a post 'tomorrow.' It has been a very long time since that tomorrow. With that stated here is a link to the Facebook page from Cinder's Challenge. https://www.facebook.com/CindersChallenge
And here is a link to the submitted game for the jam. http://globalgamejam.org/2014/games/cinders-challenge

On to the more games portion. The Dungeon Crawl now has all of the current Items and Abilities in a nice little spread sheet. I lie. It''s not little. I currently have 22 different abilities and 35 different items. I'm currently going through and adding in various things such as names, types and whether something deals magical or physical damage. I still haven't spent much time creating the various rooms that I want to use.

Other games:

I've built another card game from the ground up based on Tank combat. I've spent a total amount of time equating to a little over a week designing the game and have already managed to test it successfully. Combat is based on a 'Seconds' timer and the reload speed of the tank determines how frequently it fires in a given round. The resource used to build the various tanks is called scrap. Scrap can be acquired from discarding something from your hand or destroying enemy tanks. Some things that still need work are mechanics involving tank armor and accuracy. I began using a 6-sided die to determine the success or failure of shots but have since moved over to a 10-sided die due to the added flexibility it gives. Armor is used each combat round to reduce initial damage. It gives the tank a second health bar to use which is refreshed each turn. Players also take actions at the same time.

In addition I'm working with a few people on creating some very small mobile games. This guy being created for one such game.

Lastly one of my friends came to me a few weeks ago with the basic layout for a card game he wanted to create. I'm still not sure what's going on with that, but it does look fun.

Non-Game Things:
For the past few months I've been acting at Sunset Playhouse out in Elm Grove. We've been putting on a wonderful performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It's the first theater piece I've been involved with for some time and it's a been a blast. I also seem to have landed a job, though it's nowhere near my field.

Observation:
I should get more pictures...

Global Game Jam 2014

MATC is participating again this year and I've found myself part of a very small team. We have been creating a board game and my job has been consisted of art as well as design. One of the bonus criteria for this year is that we only use found assets. This means that we use images or code found easily online. Google's image search has been my best friend. I will link the Facebook page tomorrow as well as our submitted game, but for now here are a few of the boards that I've worked on. I'll post up rules and other bits tomorrow.

As for the Dungeon Crawl I'm still typing up the abilities and getting the rest of the boss information sorted. Traps and items are also being written up. So many bits and pieces go into a game like this that I had never seen before.

The Tavern

The Mountain

The Witch's Forest

The Castle

The Dragons Lair

Creation of Enemies and some Abilities

Today I'll be going over a few of the abilities. After that I'll be talking about the various enemies and a few reasons why I choose the types that I did. I'll also talk about two of the bosses and their personal rooms. It was pointed out that a single player could go through this entire game themselves. Since all of the enemies follow the a specific set of rules for how they move and attack and anyone can control them.

A few things about attacking before we got to that.
-Accuracy is the players' chance to hit something. If something gives a player +1 Accuracy they add 1 to the result of dice rolls.
-Damage is the amount of damage that a character deals on physical attacks. Weapons modify the damage dealt on certain rolls.

Abilities - Here are 6 of the abilities that I have out of the 23 so far. Some abilities have a second rank to them which can only be accessed by forgoing the acquisition of another ability.

Second Chances
- If an attack you make misses you may re-roll the attack once.
Bleeding Wounds
- At the end of your turn any enemies you dealt damage to take 1 damage. 
Tough Skin
- The first time each turn you would take damage reduce that damage by 1.
Too Stubborn to Die
- If you would die, instead restore your Hero to full health, then lose this Ability. You may not receive an Ability to replace this one.
Vendetta
- Gain +1 Accuracy on all attacks against Bosses. 
Cutting Winds
- (Magic) You may attack all units in a line covering 4 spaces from your Hero. This attack can hit allies and cannot pass through walls. 
Accuracy - 1/2: Miss, 3/5: 2 Damage, 6: 4 Damage

Mobs - The list of Mobs and a short description of their role in opposition to the player.

Goblin (3), Goblin Archer (2), Goblin Mage (2)
-Goblins are the go to fodder units, but are also very versatile. They are standard enemies in most games and I like them. Using them here means that one enemy can serve multiple roles so art for them becomes easier. One design, wearing different gear fills out a total of 7 enemies in the Mob deck.
Orc (2), Bugbear (2)
-Another pair of enemies that show up in many games, I view orcs and bugbears as the goblins' burly brothers. Their stats will be much heavier on health and damage, though their speed might end up being a bit lower than that of the goblins.
Bat Swarm (2), Large Bat (1), Rat Swarm (2), Large Rat (1), Large Spider (1), Giant Spider (1)
-Beasts. Very useful in a dungeon like the one I'm building. Since it's mostly in a cave beasts give a nice range of powers to use. Bats get high speed, Rats get high accuracy, and Spiders will get some special movement and damage over time abilities. Swarm types will have weak attacks, but they will also be able to make multiple attacks in a turn. Swarms will also be able to ignore unit collision, moving through allied and opposing units.
Shambling Skeleton (2), Armored Skeleton (2)
-The undead get bonuses to defense. Incoming damage is reduced, as is their speed. There is a chance that this enemy will drop loot.
Shadow (1)
-Shadows ignore walls and units when moving. They are also fast, moving at high speeds and attacking multiple times in a turn. They and one other Mob are the ones to fear the most. There is a chance that this enemy will drop loot.
Falling Hand (1)
-The Falling Hands are giant hands that are extremely difficult to kill. On a roll of 6 while attacking the Hand will transport the player to another room. Still not sure how that's going to be determined. There is a chance that this enemy will drop loot.

Bosses - The big guys. After the players have explored the full dungeon that they set out to navigate (small, medium, large) the final room that they enter is the boss room.

Blue Troll
-The Blue Troll has extremely high health. On top of that he regenerates health each turn. Fighting him at higher levels means he hits like a truck... or a boulder. Boulder is more accurate since there are no trucks in this game. There might be wagons at some point, but not right now.

Drake
-Young cousin of the Dragon the Drake is a massive lizard. He has the family trait of breathing fire and can also make large sweeping attacks against units in front of him. The Drake will probably be the hardest Boss to kill out of the six.

Dungeon Crawl: Thoughts

Some thoughts that I've been having this week and a point that my brother, Joe, brought up.

I still have no idea what to call this game, but the overall design is coming along smoothly. I have over 20 of the abilities written up and got a little stalled for ideas to round out the set. Since I didn't know immediately what to add to them I began working on the items. As I got started on them I talked to Joe about the abilities I had so far and asked if he had an idea or two to add. His suggestion was to make negative abilities.

This was something that I hadn't considered and found that I liked the idea of it. I still haven't written any of them up, but I'm sure that's what the remaining abilities will be. Something that alters the way that the player plays the game to some extent while remaining interesting and fun.

I did, however, begin to apply the thought that not everything has to be good to the item rewards. I've written up a few items like the one above and then began to make a few traps. If a player draws one of these from the Loot Pile they will still receive another card, the item that was actually in the chest, but there will be some negative effect that takes place. One trap Freezes the player in place, ending their turn and skipping their next, while another deals a point of damage to all units in that room, regardless of allegiance.

The rooms themselves are beginning to come together. Again this is just me running around and grabbing an image here or there from the internet. Currently I have 3 icons that I'll be using. Walls will be coming later, or I'll simply make them black lines like the outer edge.

Chest: The first player that steps on this icon draws one card from the Loot Pile. If the card is a trap the effect of the trap occurs and then the player may draw another card from the pile. A player may only have 4 items at the end of their turn. They may discard items at anytime during their turn. 

Red Summon Sign: When a room is revealed a Mob card is drawn from each of these icons. 

Black Skull: This icon indicates the summon location a Boss unit. Lots of things happen when a Boss is spawned, but I'm not sure all of what just yet. 

I'm still working on the Player Cards right now, and I'm trying to figure out what exactly I need to have on it. Player stats I will certainly need, as well as a way to track level progress. Do I need to include slots of the player abilities or items? I want to, but that seems to just make the card needlessly large. The rules will say that a player can only have 3 abilities and 4 items, so do I need to actually include a location on the card? I'm starting to think not after doing a few mock-ups. I also want to include a portrait of that Hero to give the player a face in the game. 

Bachelors Degree incoming. Now to find work.

As of this past month I've finished all of classes for my Bachelors degree. At this point it's just a lot of applications to various places. Since my two main focuses are as a Game Designer and a Level Designer I figured I'd take a bit of time to try and build a game from scratch that makes use of both.

So let's begin. This is the first post for this game. My plan is to post for the next few weeks and build the game here from the ground up. I'm not sure how much art I'll be making for it, but I will get the structure to each type of card designed. I came up with the base idea for the game last night and hashed a bit more of it out with my brother to make sure it was solid as a starting point.
This game is designed as for play as a board game as opposed to a computer game.

The game concept is based around a group of players making their way through a dungeon. Players will gain levels, loot, and abilities as they progress. The dungeon itself will be created as the players move through different rooms and, after a set number of rooms has been passed through, a boss room will appear as the next room to be entered. After players defeat the boss they can immediately set out for another dungeon, but they will not encounter the same boss again. The game officially ends when all 6 bosses have been defeated. If a player dies at anytime during the crawl their character card is wiped clean and they re-enter the dungeon with nothing.

Box Contents (If this were to be made)
Player Cards (6)
-These are the basic layout for the player characters. Each of them is identical. The player will place their abilities and items on these cards to keep track of them. They will also receive a coin each time they kill a mob. They can trade in a number of coins equal to their current level to increase their level by 1 and gain a stat point to improve their character.

Ability Cards (25)
-Depending on how the players want to play the game they will be able to choose or be randomly receive a total of 3 of these cards throughout the game. Each player will get one at the beginning of the game and again at when they reach levels 6 and 10. Some abilities have a second stage which can only be activated by forgoing the ability that they would gain at another time. Players that strengthen one of their abilities will end the game with less abilities that those who don't, but their abilities will be much stronger.

Loot Cards (25)
-These are the rewards that players will gain from defeating mobs, opening chests, and defeating bosses. Each player can have a total of 4 Loot Cards at any time. They can trade loot between each other as long as they are in the same room and there are no enemies in the room with them.

Mob Cards (30)
-The enemies that spawn in the rooms. Most rooms have some number of red stars on the floor. These indicate the number of enemies that spawn in that room. Each enemy has unique stats, but all follow the same set of behavior rules. An enemy will move to the closest player and attack only that player until it or the player dies. If a player moves away from the mob and another player is now closer the mob will target that player instead. Some of these mobs also drop loot.

The Mobs will look something like this. I'm just throwing things together from random images on the internet.

Boss Cards (6)
-Each boss comes paired with its own special room. Boss rooms are 10x10 and also contain mobs. Each boss has their own set of behaviors.

Room Set (25)
-There are a total of 25 rooms that the players might travel through. These are broken into 5 different stacks that the players will end up pulling from to build the dungeon. The room sizes are 5x5 or 5x10 depending on roll numbers. When a player reaches a door way from one room to another they will roll a d6. The number that they roll will determine which stack they pick up the next room from. The stacks are face-down so the room that they pick will be random. Once revealed the rolling player can orient the room any way that they wish. Each stack has some unique effect related to them. All stacks contain monsters.
Stack 1: Primarily Loot Rooms. These rooms are most likely to have a loot chest in them containing one, two or three loot items for the players.
Stack 2: This stack is made up of corridors and branching hallways.
Stack 3: These rooms always contain mobs.
Stack 4: Stack 4 consists of rooms that are a mix of the previous 3 stacks.
Stack 5: These are the 5x10 rooms. They may contain loot, but are more often found overrun with mobs.

Next post I'll see about Loot cards, the start of the player mat, and a room or two.