Prototype

The fact I'm making this post means something interesting happened. I mean, this post is 36 years early.

I made a new, complete and finished game. I've had it tested just as JQ was.
However, I've hit a new sort of snag.

I've been advised to not upload the game, due to it so bare bones that its considered now a 'Prototype'. I was told the concept is quite interesting, and with luck and a bit of skill could actually be ROC's breakout game.
However, that's a lot of pressure and a lot of hope riding on one experimental game.
The tweaks it requires also are at or above my knowledge at this point, and based on some touch ups I've tried before, I'm more likely to break the entire game than fix it. This means I may have to make a new version and just carry over what I can get working and mix it with new things and see how far I get without everything getting messy.
Basically, this game stays on the drawing board, for more experimenting.

I'd like to get more creative projects whipped out and have more finished projects under my belt, but it seems the more I do stuff the more it seems either I need to spend longer on something better or I do what I've already done and just plateau like a one trick pony.

Damn this hobby.

Running down a dream

I'm not dead!! (Or have I always been saying "we"? ROC is a one man operation really...)

Since December I've hit wall after wall. Whatever magic momentum I had for making JQ and the prior flashes I've never been able to find again. I dunno if it's my pacing or if I just have a problem of picking too big projects to work on. (Or if I just daunt myself into not even wanting to try to finish em...)
I've tried smaller ones too and I always find myself thinking the small stuff isn't worthwhile.

So I hit a crossroad. The obvious answer is to go bigger than small and smaller than big. But I also have figured out that I need to take things more slowly. I tend to JUMP into whatever new project, trying to get as much organized as possible as fast as I can.
That hasn't been working.

I've started just doing schoolesque "Proof of concept" and trying to get different codes and things down. I was able to finally get 'Unlockable Levels' as seen here:

I'm at the point where anything I can produce is miracle. I won't stop, but I will probably get caught up and beaten down and post in like half a year from now saying I'm making progress of some regard.

If anything interesting happens or I actually make something before 2050 I'll post it.

also if the flash doesn't work link is here: http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1404771584

Battle against raging issues

For one reason or another, things have constantly stood in the way of game and movie production.
For animations, the biggest issue is what to animate. I've constantly come up with ideas but they always include females which I've had zero luck in securing a female VA and have long abandoned trying.
So unless I'm ready to make the next BP (which I never plan to..), animation is off the table.

That leaves games. Games are easier in that they don't require voices to carry the story. (You could argue you don't need voices to carry an animation but trial and error has proved to me that it's kind of necessary.) Just a few codes, a good idea, a bit of animation, and you get Jenny's Quiz.
The biggest mistake with games I have made is being too ambitious. Project ADOH was actually more within my realm of doing, but it was meant to be massive like JQ. Another "secret" game I was working on ended up also being too ambitious due to its 8 chapter long concept.
Another issue is the coding itself. My knowledge of coding is still extremely limited so it does not take much for a concept to become something too difficult for me to implement. I can't seem to wrap my head around save files, for example.
A third problem has been organization itself. Ideas are hard because they get changed and warped throughout production. (For example, JQ's "stage completion" and "Defeat of characters to advance" were made on the spot.) Project ADOH was halted due to an error with stage and enemies, the stage made placing enemies absurdly difficult.

Another inevitable issue is time management itself. Wether its battling the latest sickness, trying to plan for the future, or trying to stay connected with family and friends, there always seems to be one thing or another that distracts me from working. That said, work itself also eats ~30 hours of my week, and with exhaustion after work, its hard to convince myself to start frustrating myself on making a game.
Mix all this together with an infamous procrastination personality, and you get why I have seemingly stopped working on games. I've managed to pop a few songs out here and there, but making anything larger has proved daunting.

With all this said, that is why this blog has rarely gotten posts. These are the reasons behind projects flopping and dissappearing. I'm trying to learn how to make smaller games, easier codes, and battle all my distractions and slowdowns. I doubt I'll have anything out anytime ever. But I'll continue trying.

Until next time!

Development Hell

As a one-man amateur game dev, one constant problem that plagues me and the "Ric Olzow Company" is development hell.

It's hard to figure out what tasks to do, which parts to develop and which to skimp (perfection is impossible, centuries could be spent on these games). Thus no matter the project, It seems I always fall into development hell.

Now, it could have to do with the projects I decide on. Overly ambitious projects of monstrous size (for one person) seems to be what I keep going with. It will be my continuous downfall, but I dont want to develop just-another-little-puzzle-flash-game.

All I can say is, perhaps a blessing in disguise that Ric-Olzow isn't a real, profitable company. I'd probably work whoever was with me into the ground without realizing it.

I really need to learn to take smaller bites. And relax more.

All that said still projects on the way. But you can guess where they reside.

Dancing Cheese Engine

It's taken months of coming back over and over again to the same issue: the platform codes I worked with would always malfunction somehow. One kept causing a gravity error so that while leaving a platform, the character would be under 0 gravity until an undefined point which then his normal jump would take off.
I tried fixing the code numerous times and nothing prevailed. I eventually turned to searching online for how exactly solid platform code works.
Which is when I stumbled upon a piece of code, a tutorial from a guy explaining how to have gravity that interacts with platforms. I built off the code, combining what I knew worked from the one I was working with and combining it with this new one, and thus: The "Dancing Cheese Engine."

With this 'Engine', (wherein I refer to it as an engine because its the combination of codes working as a base formula for creating my game, its not what a video game engine truly is but it takes a similar idea) I can begin working on a platforming game which I know will function correctly and be stable. (as in, not have some crazy ground glitch. Theoretically.)

I'm not going to jump the hype and say "Zomg new game coming out", I'm just saying that I've made progress. I've been toying with ideas since JQ, but I'm actually finding it hard to top JQ, both idea-wise and concept-wise.
I'm not trying to say JQ was exceptionally good, but it's the best I've done, and to try to top it might be unattainable.
We'll see what happens though.

The confusion that is Ric-Olzow

It's been a solid while since I've had time to sit down and look at all my old work.

And the first thing I'll say is, wow, its actually all kinda non-nonsensical and random. And interlaced with perversity.
All classic me, but one thing I do notice is the 3 Jenny games (Show, Game, Quiz) did actually show signs of improvement over time. I also notice that I really don't have much content out.

In terms of project ADOH, despite all the amount of hyping and researching and planning and everything that that project had going for it, it's actually been now 'shelved', in that I really have no drive to work on it anymore since coding issues have left it too buggy to make proper. I could go through all the pain of trying to learn all the coding to make it not buggy, but I'd rather toy with other ideas in the meantime.

One of many ideas is the fact that all the games I've made thus far have centered around Jenny, which is making me think that my next game project, if I do end up doing one, should not center around Riccy, like ADOH planned to, but rather center around Jenny somehow. Titles like 'Jenny's Quest' and 'Jenny's Quiz 2' have been ideas I've toyed with, I can't say what the next project is going to be because I have no idea myself. Nor am I even sure I'll be able to find the time.

But to put a long story short, Ric-Olzow is a mess of an idea, which is why I've been having trouble producing and publishing content. That and the lack of free time thing.

I shall shift my focus to Jenny.

Testing ADOH

A tiny test level testing the mechanics of ADOH floated around a few weeks ago, and of the bugs found so far, the biggest seems to be the fact you die while enemies fade away.

I've been looking into this bug, and I'm unsure if it can really be classified as a bug due to the behavior of the game. When the frame that causes that effect to occur is removed, the enemies have zero chance of destroying the MC due to the massive hit-boxes surrounding  the main character. Due to that, then the game is not challenging at all, which proves to be zero fun.

I managed to get the level parameters working right though, and the functionality of most things is what I want them/imagined them to be. The game is touchy due to the way I code, meaning touching the wrong spot is very unforgiving. However I'm designing it so that if you do hit something you'll have obviously hit it, it won't be some 1-pixel type thing, it'd be more "You seriously just ran straight into that wall" sort of thing.

Once I decide/figure out how to either iron out this 'bug' or stick with it, I'll likely finally be moving on to designing the actual game.

As a teaser and/or gift to help give you the idea that this blog is not all a bunch of hype, here's a link to the TEST LEVEL (Click here). Controls being arrow keys to move. To replay if you die, right click and press play. Also note this is a version with the enemy 'bug' intact.