Josh Forde - Independent Game Developer

Enemy guards can see you!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:19:00 +0000

I'm still working on what I hope will become the next Stealth Prankster game (speaking of which, I'll probably be titling it Stealth Prankster 2, not Stealth Prankster, to avoid confusion with the original, although this is more of a remake than a sequel).

The update today is that enemy guards now have a field of vision in which they can see the player. In the screenshot above, the lines represent the guard's vision (of course, those lines won't be visible in the actual game-- they are only there for testing purposes).

Even more progress on potential Stealth Prankster 3D remake

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 09:48:00 +0000

Here's another new screenshot of the project I've been working on. If all goes well, it will eventually be the 3D remake of Stealth Prankster.

As you can see, 3D artwork is still in a "temporary placeholder" stage. In the screenshot above, the temporary Sephiroth (from Final Fantasy VII) model is the player, while the temporary girl model is a teacher (which, in this game's school setting, is a guard/enemy). All models will be replaced once I find a 3D artist (speaking of which, if that happens to be you, you are welcome to post a comment if you'd like to join the project).

I'm still waiting until it's more complete before I "officially" announce the game. In other words, there's still no guarantee that the project will go through, so I'm not yet sending out a press release about it.

Stealth Prankster full 3D remake is now very likely

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:21:00 +0000

My education of the 3D Irrlicht engine is continuing to progress. I've now managed to essentially complete the code for a player-controlled character (using a sample model) and a player-controlled camera.

I have a strong feeling that this will eventually become the 3D remake of my old 2002 game Stealth Prankster that I've always wanted to write. Indeed, I'm also looking for 3D modelers/artists to help with the production of this game.

And here's a bit of good news for you fans out there: I'm planning on releasing this as freeware. I was able to score a great job today (not related to game development), and so I will be able to afford to do this. :)

Progress in Irrlicht: a player-controlled character

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:28:00 +0000

Learning Irrlicht has proven itself a challenging journey in the past week or so (perhaps mostly because this is my first real venture into 3D game programming), but, at last, I have some sort of [small] progress: a tiny demo in which a player-controlled character runs around a room (note: the background is junk), as shown in the above screenshot. I managed to create an overhead view, something like that of Metal Gear Solid 1.

It also looks a fair bit like the camera view in Stealth Prankster...

3D programming is a pain

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:18:00 +0000

Irrlicht (a 3D engine) has become even more difficult to learn than I had anticipated.

The problem isn't necessarily with the engine itself-- the problem is finding 3D models to work with. There are two parts to this problem: 1. Freely available 3D models are much more rare on the web than 2D sprites, and 2. In my experience, only a tiny fraction of the models I've tried have actually worked with Irrlicht, for whatever reason. It's frustrating to say the least. I've tried loading .md2 files (Quake II character models), and those usually work, but I have had no luck with .3ds and .obj files. And .bps files (levels from one of the Quake games, Quake II I think) have loaded but have always had some sort of serious display issues.

Finding a 3D artist/modeler with whom to team up for a group project would be great at some point after I finish my Irrlicht education.

Starting 3D programming

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:19:00 +0000

I've recently taken it upon myself to learn the Irrlicht 3D engine.

This will be my first major journey into 3D game programming, after a few small attempts to learn DirectX and OpenGL. Seeing as how Irrlicht is fairly easy to learn in comparison to DirectX and OpenGL, I have decided it is best for me to gain some experience in Irrlicht before making a serious attempt toward DirectX/OpenGL.

No games are planned yet, of course, but I do hope to eventually do a completely three-dimensional remake of a game I created back in 2002 at the age of 13: Stealth Prankster. Although I've released several titles of much higher quality than it since 2002, and it's definitely not anywhere near the quality standards that I have today, it still holds a special place in my mind, and is still perhaps my favorite IP/series (with my only other major IP being the Seeds of Time series).

Stealth Prankster is basically the result of the fascination of pranks that my friends and I used to have in junior high. Granted, none of our "pranks" were anywhere near as daring as the pranks that take place in the Stealth Prankster world. Honestly, none of our "pranks" seemed to make it beyond simple ideas like flickering the lights in the hallway and attacking random students with Chinese yo-yos.. hahah. Perhaps we were watching too much Trigger Happy TV.

The game itself plays a bit like a hybrid of what a couple of my favorite games were back then: Grand Theft Auto III and Metal Gear Solid 2. You, as a high school freshman, take missions from senior pranksters, and then try to avoid the line-of-sight of teachers as you accomplish these tasks. Missions range from placing laxitives in school food to removing graffiti sprayed from rival prank gangs. Back then, I even threw in a bonus easter egg for players who completed the game: a level editor is unlocked after the credits scroll by.

Anyway, a 3D remake of Stealth Prankster would be great. Time will tell whether that actually comes to light.

Seeds of Time Online now has an automated PayPal donation system

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:32:00 +0000

At long last, an automated donation system exists within Seeds of Time Online, using PayPal. Players can now purchase Energy Potions with real cash; this allows them to enjoy some in-game benefits while supporting the development of the game.

Up until yesterday, the system was not automated and had no in-game benefits, but, much to my surprise, some players were still very generous in donating. I had the donation system up, without in-game benefits, for about a week and a half. Surprisingly, during this time, I received over $200 in donations from players eager to see the money reinvested into the game. One player in particular (and I'm not sure whether he wants his name mentioned here, so I'll err on the safe side) has donated $160 so far.. whoa!

The donations have opened up many doors in updating the game. The largest monetary expense in creating new content is hiring artists to draw professional-looking artwork for the game (drawing new monsters/maps/items/etc.), and since I now have a budget to work with, I've been able to hire artists to do these tasks. The results have been amazing, and Seeds of Time Online is starting to look like a brand new, highly-polished game.

Amazing new artwork on Seeds of Time Online

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:20:00 +0000

I hired a very talented artist to redraw the Birth Island map artwork in Seeds of Time Online. Thanks to players who donated generously to the game, I finally had a budget to work with again. Hopefully, more players continue to donate, and Seeds of Time Online will continue to transform into an artistically beautiful experience.

Interview: PokeCommunity.com

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:04:00 +0000

Here's an interview I took a couple of months ago, which was at last posted online about a week ago (only part of the thread is my interview, of course). You can learn a bit about me here-- why I became involved in video game development and more.

http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=160083

Design document for Bootworm Drop released!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:35:00 +0000

Have you heard of Bootworm Drop? It's a tiny Flash-based minigame I wrote today, over the course of two hours.

Here's a screenshot:

You can play it on Seeds of Time Online (if you have an account there), or on Kongregate (even if you don't have an account).

Having played it, you can also check out the entire design document here-- I strongly recommend you play the game first, or you may not understand the intricate details of this design document.

Starting to enjoy Flash game development

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:10:00 +0000

After originally being almost opposed to Flash game development, I've come to actually enjoy it.

You'll notice that Seeds of Time Online has several Flash minigames now, the most recent being a virtual pet sim called "Monster Resort," pictured above. In this minigame, your active monster from Seeds of Time Online is imported into a small field to run around and play. You take care of the monster through three buttons: feed, play, and bathe. Keeping your monster content in all three of those areas (without overdoing it) will increase its Happiness rating. At the end of the game, your monster receives real experience points (in Seeds of Time Online) according to two things: how well you took care of it, and how high your character's level is (the higher level you are, the faster your monster will level up).

There are four things I like about Flash game development:

Development is rapid (the above minigame took only two days to write)
Flash minigames can be integrated into larger browser-based games, like Seeds of Time Online
Browser-embeddable functionality makes it easier to reach an audience that wouldn't otherwise bother to download and install a game
Such games can also be uploaded to Kongregate and other Flash game portals, further increasing profits

Flash minigame development for Seeds of Time Online also gives me more variety in work, rather than simply coding PHP for Seeds of Time Online all day.

I'll be working on more minigames in the near future. I'm also speculating a complete Flash remake of Seeds of Time Online at some point within the next few years. We'll see...

Super Orbulite World pre-release demo available now

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:14:00 +0000

Click here to download a pre-release demo of Super Orbulite World (17.2mb), a game based on Seeds of Time Online. Read the information on that blog entry before proceeding.

Seeds of Time Online gets its head above water after financial difficulties

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:21:00 +0000

Expenses are down

It's no secret that Seeds of Time Online was recently undergoing an economic crisis (along with the rest of the nation and world, come to think of it).

The cause was simple: the player count steadily dropped from around 400 down to about 200 active members* (that is, 200 people playing on a daily basis), which barely wasn't generating enough ad revenue to cover a server that was much more expensive than it needed to be ($125.00/month).

* That doesn't necessarily mean people were quitting the game more frequently. Due to the current circumstances, I believe it was more because not as many new players were registering as before.

Now, there is new hope. The game is now on a new server which has cut the operating costs in about half. That's quite amazing. What's more, the new server is potentially faster than the old server -- compare 1.80 GHz to 2.4 GHz, and it has twice the RAM (though the game isn't very RAM-intensive, to be honest).

Donation system is on the way

This is something many players have suggested in the past: a donation system. Many players have expressed interest in supporting the game financially, with or without benefits. I will be adding benefits of some sort to reward the players who contribute financially to the success of the game. I'm leaning toward the often-suggested Energy Potions in exchange for donations (as long as limits are in place to protect against players joining one day and reaching the top of the charts on the next*), among other things like novelty items and minor conveniences.

* Then again, if that were to happen, that would also give a huge boost to the game budget, resulting in a large amount of new content quickly available for all to enjoy. Gotta weigh the good with the bad here.

Monster farm capacity to be increased?

I'm also considering eventually increasing the capacity of the monster farm by a large margin. As it currently stands, each of your accounts (one main plus two alternates) is allowed to hold 10 monsters. Seeing as how disk space is barely the issue I originally thought it might be, I'm considering increasing this limit to something like 50 or 100 monsters per account (and potentially an even larger number, like 500, for donators). Making this all possible will require a large rewrite of much code, so don't hold your breath just yet.

Ultimate Tower Defense is back in active development

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:57:00 +0000

As my last post may have indicated, Ultimate Tower Defense is now back in active development.

Previously, it had taken the back burner several times, so to speak. I actually started work on the game in January 2007-- yikes, considering we're now halfway through September 2008-- and it's still not yet finished. Programming has been in a state of virtual-completion for over a year; the design phase (along with artwork and sound/music) is what has really been slowing me down. Toward the end of 2007, I decided to take a break on Ultimate Tower Defense so that I could work on Seeds of Time Online instead. I started working on it again for a while in May 2008, but I ended up taking some more time off until now.

But the game is back in active development now. In my free time, I will be dividing work between all three of my current projects: Ultimate Tower Defense, Seeds of Time Online, and Super Orbulite World.

Today, my work consisted of drawing the Crab monster from start to finish. That may not seem like much, but drawing pixel artwork is actually a long, tedious task: breaks removed, I estimate that it took about two hours to draw and animate the monster. Additionally, several small changes were made to the design (mainly balancing) today. All this in preparation of the upcoming beta test..

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:47:00 +0000

The time is almost here for beta testing of Ultimate Tower Defense to begin.

This will only be the first round of beta testing. Testers will test a very short part of the game and offer feedback on balancing towers and monsters. If you're interested, check out the sign-up thread in the Seeds of Time Online forums.

For more information on Ultimate Tower Defense, see UltimateTowerDefense.com.

New game has been named: Super Orbulite World

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Super Orbulite World is now the official name for my newest title. This game is a freeware 2D platformer based on my world of Seeds of Time (made famous by my game Seeds of Time Online, the first game in the series).

This rendition of the world allows you to play as an Orbulite, a purple blob monster from Seeds of Time Online, as you run and jump through familiar locations adapted from the Seeds of Time world. In total, there will be three "zones" (segments of the game), each comprised of two levels (dubbed "acts") and a boss. So that's six levels and three bosses total-- a relatively short game, as it was always intended to be.

So far, four of the six levels are complete (aside from storyline and sound/music), and the second boss battle has been started. It's a fairly large percent complete.

Expected release: sometime this month (August 2008).

New blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Josh1billion) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:06:00 +0000

On this day, I have created this blog.

I'll be using this to post information on all of my games and on my career in general. In a sense, it'll be something like a consolidated development blog of every game I'm currently working on, with some news thrown in, and perhaps with occasional commentary of the industry outside my workspace.

I will tag (label) every post with the name of the game(s) discussed, so if you're a fan of a particular game of mine (Seeds of Time Online, Ultimate Tower Defense, etc.), you'll be able to click the tag and immediately see all posts about that particular game.