besidethecybersea

[besidethecybersea]

Building Character

25-11-2020

One of the things you have to get right in a point and click adventure is the main character. When I say ‘get right’ I’m thinking more ‘you have to be happy with’. After all, this character is going to be with you throughout the game, from start to finish.

Dio - The main character for Beside the CYBERSEA

mu has spent a considerable time manipulating pixels to get the character we want. His face has changed, he has had multiple finger re-workings and here’s a rogue arm

Dio is 357 pixels tall by 79 pixels wide. The game engine will automatically handle the adjustment of size as he walks into the scene (smaller) and out toward the camera (larger). He was initially created at 104 pixels tall by 26 pixels wide and we loved the look of him. However, when you scale up, the pixels obviously scale up also and so he had to be reworked

As you see him in his ‘final’ state (see first image), we’re happy. We’re going to go with him. But in game development, nothing’s final until the game ships, right? We could reserve the right to change him but I have a sneaking suspicion he might just stay like this.

A stretch goal is to allow the player to chose the main character and swap between a male main character and a female main character. This means we (and by we, I mean mu) has to go through all this again!

rp - peace and gamedev

@mup1x3l

[besidethecybersea]

A Change of Name

So, this Tumblr has a change of name from Beside the Seaside to Beside the CYBERSEA

Beside the CYBERSEA - a pixel art point & click adventure for the PC

Progress made on

The main character - a re-draw has him almost ready

The first Background - needs further work but pulling it into the engine of choice for early prototyping

The plan - still developing

And the start of the Puzzle Dependency Chart - the first puzzle flow’s complete

rp - peace and gamedev

[besidethecybersea]

Speaking in Tongues

15-11-2020

A lot’s been happening since our evolution to Beside the CYBERSEA and a point & click adventure direction.

mu has been developing the main character and the first scene which will both feature in a Demo. There’s been a lot of work setting up this start to an adventure.

I’ve been developing the story significantly, from what it was and from the little spark of ‘what if...’ it’s come a long way. I’ve also been developing the Locations, Non Player Characters and gameplay. Each piece plays into what mu’s developing as it all starts from that first scene. It’s pivotal and sets up how you step out, into the world and try to solve the problems. If you get it wrong here, there’s a lot of back-tracking and re-working - a whole world of pain.

The key Locations are defined but each one has a wealth of places within them: shops offices, buildings. They each have their own style and feel. Some are fleshed out with logos and the goods they sell, some are just ideas on the drawing board.

The Main Character and Non Player Characters are starting to flesh out. But the thing I like the most is the dialogue. Getting into character and trying to feel how each one would think in a given situation and then how they would speak the dialogue that is going to appear on screen - it’s like speaking in tongues!

The gameplay is developing from the main story thread. However, along the way, further story lines are presenting themselves. Also, Locations and Characters are driving the gameplay, as they are developed. Both these things are a welcome surprise.

It would be premature to share some of the work at this very early stage but we’re both really excited and can’t wait to start showing off some of our ideas.

Cedric says “Be patient”

RP - Peace and Gamedev

[besidethecybersea]

[besidethecybersea]

Things Change, Mutate, Evolve

08-11-2020

Things change, things mutate, things evolve - that’s just the way of it. Our thoughts on what we want to do are not immune to this.

Beside the Seaside as a side-scroller is developing slowly but we have a more burning desire to bring a richer story about Dumpton-by-the-Sea.

By this, we mean an alternative future for Dumpton.

Picture this

Set in D-Space; a possible future of Dumpton-by-the-Sea, the once simple charms of this seaside town's sun, sea & sand, have now been replaced by cybernetics, sentient machines & smog. Upon discovering a threat whilst hacking into a corporate database for a client, Dio sets out to neutralise that threat - this is where you will come in…

Evolving from our thoughts on Beside the Seaside, Beside the CYBERSEA is currently under development - pixel by pixel.

There’s a detailed backstory developing, along with locations, characters and items. The technical approach is decided - it will be a point & click adventure. This will allow allow us to develop the rich story mentioned earlier.

This Devlog will continue but will rename in support of Beside the CYBERSEA. You can follow our thoughts, musings, dithering, frustrations, set backs and progress here.

Meanwhile, here’s a Cyber Crab to be going on with

rp - peace and gamedev

[besidethecybersea]

Crossed Spades

Evolution continues...

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Inside the Chip Shop - from an animation

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A cone of chips

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Game Over Man!

@mup1x3l

[besidethecybersea]

Writing the Game

15-10-2020

Documentation

So, I’ve been briefly evaluating products for documenting Beside the Seaside. I want something that is rich enough to be able to incorporate ALL the elements of a game.

I started out looking at the following

Chat Mapper

Arcweave

Inkle

Scapple

Scrivener

I am currently using OmmWriter as of the 8th October 2020, which is a great environment for distraction-free writing to get ideas down, quickly and uninterrupted. It’s basic because it needs to be.

The next step is to be able to capture all the Locations, which Characters visit those Locations, when they visit them, what Dialogue occurs there and what Objects are found there.

Chat Mapper is a professional tool for collaboratively documenting non-linear dialogue. It has full output capability. It’s free, so long as you’re not making any money from the game or project it’s used on.

I downloaded Arcweave for evaluation. Similar in approach to Chat Mapper, it is free for smaller projects (up to 100 objects can be added) but a monthly fee is required for larger, collaborative developments.

Inkle is billed as Middleware - it handles branching narrative and dialogue which can then be plugged into Unity. This maybe where we’ll go in the future so I’m interested in looking at this package in further detail. It can also output straight to the web.

I decided to use Scrivener (which I already own). It’s a rich product for the project documentation I want to achieve. Scrivener is produced by Literature and Latte, you purchase it as a reasonable one-off fee for either PC or Mac - it’s a great product.

Literature and Latte also produce an application called Scapple. I never took notice of it before now but after watching their video on it, it seems like the perfect thing for documenting the flow of a game, from scene to scene. It basically gives you a large, unlimited canvas to play on. I can bend it to my needs. Once again, it’s a small one-off, fee for either PC or Mac.

I downloaded it for 30-day evaluation but will most probably purchase it.

Chat Mapper and Arcweave are both excellent products which I may re-visit in the future but for now, they seem geared beyond what I am trying to achieve. Scapple will give me what I need, for now.

Shark!

Mu’s been working on a Shark animation. It’s coming together nicely.

Game Engine

The game engine we’re using for Beside the Seaside is Pixel Game Maker MV from  Gotcha Gotcha Games, KADOKAWA .

I got in contact with the Support Team re. a ‘black pixel’ issue I was experiencing. They were super supportive.

rp - peace and gamedev

@mup1x3l

[besidethecybersea]

Shark!

A little development - a fearless Fergull approaches the edge of land...

@mup1x3l

[besidethecybersea]

Fish & Chip Shop

Tuesday 29 September 2020

Beside the Seaside is a pixel art, seaside side-scroller under development. As has been mentioned previously, shops feature heavily in the game - location, setting the mood and influencing the gameplay.

Each shop will be ‘hand-crafted’ and we hope to build up a collection.

The first shop we want to share appears in every seaside town in the UK. It wouldn’t be the seaside without it.

It’s the Fish & Chip Shop

This will obviously be a key source of ‘collectables’ for our protagonist; Fergull in the game.

There will be many more shops but we just wanted to preview this one - hope you like it!

rp

Peace and gamedev

[besidethecybersea]

So Where Are We At?

Saturday 26 September 2020

WHERE ARE WE AT?

Well, it’s very, very early stages. When people talk about pre-Alpha, we’re pre-Alphabet!

Also, we are completely new to game development!

However, the core idea is down - we know what we want to do. Its storyline is developed (insofar as a side-scroller has a storyline) and some early design decisions have been taken - for example: when we say side-scroller, we mean side-scroller. The game will scroll from left to right and rather than levels per se, we will add more & more game to scroll into - we’re thinking ‘long and thin’.

We also have a clear idea on how we want it to look.

mu is busy working on pixel assets: objects in the game, buildings, characters, the platform. She’s also working on their animations. I keep nabbing them and putting them into mini posters, ‘cos I just want to share them

Buildings are an important asset, they will feature heavily in the game

Characters are also important for creating a rich game world

I’m working on pulling together a working ‘something’ that will show a controllable character in Dumpton-by-the-Sea (the game world). As soon as we have something, I’ll post the demo. Hopefully, a moving character in the game aesthetic will spur us on to greater things.

We’ll be sharing every step of the way as we bring Beside the Seaside - a pixel art, seaside side-scroller into existence.

OTHER THINGS

Well I’m playing a lot of games, both on Playstation and PC. My current favourites are

WORLD OF HORROR - on PC - the greatest aesthetic in a game today!

System Shock pre Alpha Demo - on PC - Wow! This is going to be the the coolest game! Atmospheric, great design, so well executed

Snowrunner - on Playstation - I was so hoping this was going to be as good as the release video showed it to be. And it is! It is soooo good! Driving a truck in mud is just the best fun...

Session Early Access - on PC - just bought this skate sim - it’s currently downloading...

rp

Peace and gamedev

[besidethecybersea]

Pixel life ring

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Life ring

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under development - crab

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Beside the Seaside Tumblr Header Image

I’ve updated the Tumblr header image for Beside the Seaside