All posts by Patrick

I'm a game developer who's been in the business since 1993. I'm currently a Lead Designer at Hidden Path Entertainment.
Auto Fire, Game Jams, Side Projects

Auto RL – 7DRL Day 1

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This year is my second 7DRL, and this time I wanted to push some systems I’ve been tossing around in my head for years.  The plan is to get the player driving an armored car through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, battling bandits and 7DRL2016_Day1salvaging gear while hunting down bounty contracts.  I chose to strip down last year’s entry Huge and use it as a starting point, focusing on significant core mechanical improvements that will hopefully set it apart from that entry.

Day 1 was a busy one, ripping out the fantasy graphics and putting in sci-fi themed ones from Oryx and other sources.  I added facing and vehicle functionality to my entity system, with a variable turn-length based on speed.  I also roughed in an ugly HUD with the various systems I wanted to track. Unity makes a lot of the early stuff fairly simple, but now I actually have to make this stuff work and hopefully fun!

Side Projects

7DRL 2016: Impending!

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7drlThe 2016 7-Day Roguelike Challenge starts this weekend!  Here’s the deal:

  • Participants will labor to make a Roguelike start to finish during a 168-hour period between March 5 and March 13 (that is, you can work Saturday to Saturday, or Sunday to Sunday, or whatever you can schedule).
  • You can use some existing base code as a starting point, as long as you are up-front about it (in my case, I’m going to use some of the stuff I wrote for the 2015 Roguelike Challenge to kick it off)
  • A “Roguelike” is a pretty flexible definition, but typically means procedural or randomized content, turn-based game flow, and permadeath.  Some folks go full-on old-school text-based complete with an @ player, while others have created things as awesome and varied as turn-based bullet hell shooters and dice-based FTL-style adventures.
  • You register your project on the 7DRL website and at the end, you get reviewed.  The reviews take into account things like innovation, aesthetics, fun and faithfulness to the Roguelike theme.

My plan is to move beyond my fairly bare-bones (but relatively pretty now that I go back to it) Roguelike HUGE from last year and turn it into a vehicular combat adventure.  Lots to do!  Gonna be a fun week!

Game Jams, Side Projects

Ludum Dare 34: Complete… ish?

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Over the past 48 hours I’ve been whipping up a silly game for Ludum Dare #34.  Whew, I’m beat!37354-shot0-1450062206The theme was “Growth” (there were two to choose from).  I was kicking around a weird idea about growing your magical influence by traversing ley lines around a map of a real metropolitan area.  You control a fanatic Cthulhu cult who wishes to bring the elder gods into the world.  A classic set of “adventurers” are set against you.

It was created in Unity 5.3.  All art and sound had to be generated in the 48-hour span by the single entrant (me).

You can play the game on a webpage following this link (sorry if Chrome loads more slowly than Firefox):

ClickToPlay

You can also download the standalone PC player by clicking the adventurer: Adventurer

Game Development, Side Projects, VR

Oculus Rift: Weekend Puttering Part 2

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I borrrowed the Oculus from work again this weekend and put just a few hours in…  This time I experimented with setting up targets and creating a mechanic where the player can move slowly to new locations by pointing and right-clicking.  Overall it seemed like a worthwhile experiment…  Actually the motion was some of the best part.  I think perhaps just a constantly orbiting viewpoint could work all right, with maybe a few choices as to where to move next.

The goal is to create motion and control that won’t make my wife sick…  Have yet to put her in it, but it might just work.

Game Development, Side Projects, VR

Oculus Rift: Weekend Puttering Part 1

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My company (Hidden Path) was kind enough to let me borrow one of their Oculus Rift DK2s over the weekend to do some experimentation.

I got it working in Unity pretty quickly, and proceeded to experiment with a stationary camera position with a mouse-aim cursor.  After a couple of experiments, I ended up with a model where the cursor points at a single point in 3D space, manipulated by the mouse.  If the player’s view moves away from the cursor, the cursor gets “dragged” with it.  It felt pretty good and snappy in the end.

I also did a simple dumb character using WASD controls, with motion relative to the viewer (ala Mario). That part was easy and I can see the appeal (although with my test sprite character it’s a bit lacking of course).  It was fun to mess around with!

Side Projects

7DRL Epilogue: Herp Derp

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Huge High QualSo it turns out that the Web Build I’ve had out for the last couple weeks of Huge was actually set to Unity’s default low quality, which meant that none of the bump-mapped sprites I labored on over the 7DRL week were lighting the way I saw them in the editor…  This bugged me enough that I put out a new build.  I also upgraded from Unity 4.6 to Unity 5 (although there isn’t a difference between the results) and I wrapped a quick five-cent title screen around the experience (using an oh-so-simple stub scene in Unity) so that the player can die and respawn gracefully rather than the ghetto reload I required before.

The extra work was an hour or two, but just in case it bothers the 7DRL people, I’ll leave the original version playable as well.

Side Projects

7DRL: Success!

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HugeComplete2
Click here to play HUGE

I wasn’t sure I was going to make it when I went to bed last night without a functioning  boss fight, but this morning I got a ton of work done and managed to get it all together at the wire!  My only regret is not having a reload loop at the end…  you gotta do what you can in the time you’ve got.

7 days of frantic craft…  Click the image to check it out!

Side Projects

7DRL Day 6-7: The Soundening

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In a marathon session last night, my friend and comrade Mark Shoemaker did me a solid by whipping up some badass audio that I’m working on hooking up in a way that will do it justice.   He even got me music for my fledgling title screen.

I got the boss wandering around properly, and am finally using sound to build his presence when he is near.  Sound hookup is ongoing, but it’s already quite a difference.  I also got the maps populating a bit better to boot.

The home stretch is here, so I’ve got to do the boss attacks and give the player the ability to turn crystals into bombs…  oh, and a win state would be nice.  Wish me luck!