MonoGame | Gamedev Brain

Our Game Project – Top down, survival, Action, Shooter with vehicles, crafting, and an AI overlord.

Posted on July 24, 2015 by magicrat_larry

We are so close to explaining our title and unleashing it on the world. We have been painstakingly putting together the feature list and starting to commit to what we will develop for the title. It is fun, but it is a process I cannot wait to be done with.

I wanna tell you that our game vehicles are amazing physics modeled action joys to drive, and our character runs around and shoots laser guns at enemies. I want to tell you that We will have an AI overlord that will continually keep your game interesting. I want to tell you that you will be able to do all of this with your friends. There is so much I want to tell you, but can’t.

Well, the truth is all of this is speculation and rumor, but it would be cool if I could tell you. What if I could tell you tht you could craft weapons, cars, and possibly even planes? What if I could tell you about the game and start to get you fired up? That would be awesome wouldn’t it?

I wish I could tell you something about it, but I hope you will stay tuned to hear more from me about it in the future. I wish I could say building too.

Take care.

Here Kitty Kitty, Let Me Grab You

Posted on July 6, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So we added a pet element to our game. Who doesn’t want a little kitty in a survival, action, top-down, simulation? You can have a pet, and if it is small enough you can pick it up. So I have been making animations of every combination for our demo to demonstrate this. So I have a shooting, standing, and walking animation. That is a lot of tweaking animations to get get it with a cat and without a cat.

So in the actual game design we need to figure out a better way to add equipment and such to a player so that we do not have to animate every combination of stuff on a player. For a game-play demo that is 1 step above a Proof Of Concept it is fine though. I cannot wait to get back to designed code though.

Game Developer SMASH!!!!

Posted on July 4, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Let me explain this in three phases and I am sure all you game developers will understand.

Phase 1: The Plan

Today, my wife and daughter were leaving for about 4 hours and leaving me home to work on the game. Awesome!!! So the plan is to crank through the remaining physics task to get the car to not be completely jacked up by a collision with a human sized bug. So Seems easy, I can crank that out and maybe have some time to play a game or two afterwards. I’m excited.

Phase 2: Let’s Do This

I sit down after they leave and crack down on this physics thing. Turns out, this is not easy, go figure. I bust my butt on it for hours getting nowhere. No matter what I do I cannot get a good outcome. I have my car driving and the wheels literally flying off for no reason. I get frustrated, the doomed feeling sets in. I did nothing, I think to myself. Then I hear it, my wife and kid are home, 4 hours are gone, nothing to show for it besides the pure joy of pounding on code that was pointless. At this point my brain is jumping into the computer and killing all the bad things in violent, terrible, imaginative glory.

Phase 3: Just One More Go

I sit down, right after my wife and daughter go to bed. I open the laptop, look at the code and see a variable being set in some obscure location in our jacked up proof of concept code. I start playing with that variable. It turns out that is the most important thing in my life, I just didn’t know it. So now I am happy. What a strange way to be happy huh?

Why Am I a Game Developer?

Posted on June 27, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Why am I a game developer? I am not sure if I’ve ever asked myself that question. Why is anyone a game developer? Let me take a stab at it. Why did we fly to the moon? Why do people climb a mountain? Why would people cross the ocean to find a new land? I think we are game developers for the same reason people do all those things.

It’s not easy, it’s a road less traveled, and it is dang cool to do. Very few truly get a game done and attempt to bring it to the world, just like very few have ever stood on the Moon. There are some people who just want to go to places very few have made it to. Some people just like a challenge. Some people, like us, are just enough of a mess that we think we can entertain the masses with our coding, story, creativity, and passion.

No matter why we are game developers, the true great thing is, there are game developers, but very few people prove it.