I love MAGS. One month to make a full game, and I want to play again. So this month's MAGS theme is called 'Cross Country'. "Basically, create a game focused on a journey and a physical destination. Maybe it's a high-speed race, or maybe just a vacation. Pick a place to be and let your imagination fill in the details."
I'm trying to come up with an idea, and I don't like to spend too much time coming up with one. MAGS doesn't allow for taking too much time on anything. I found myself thinking of an old plot I had almost 12 years ago, when I was an undergrad. An adventure game where your character wakes up in a car, on the side of the road, in the middle of the desert, and he/she has no idea who they are. I never finished (or really started) this game, so maybe this is my chance. It would be part adventure, part mystery. So perhaps this time I'll focus more on storyline, than game play. We'll see! To be continued....
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It's been quite awhile since I've seriously written code to IDE. Certainly over the years I've had ideas, and I've tended to them, and often written them down in one of the many notebooks I leave lying around. I'd think on them fondly. And I'd design in my head, when driving or waiting in line at the grocery store.
But I didn't really code. Building a game from scratch, and have it be something I deemed presentable, seemed impossible. Then one day, I was 'surfin' the net.' You know, like we do. Hopping from one google term to the next. And at some point I thought... what's the deal with game engines? I mean, are they even around anymore? I really didn't have a clue. My idea of a game engine was apparently still stuck back in 1995 or something. And as I went from one site to another, I realized I was missing out on so many powerful engines. I always had this idea that using game engines was 'cheating' or just not powerful enough to do what you wanted. Well, okay, I'm kicking myself now. In the space of 2 hours, I downloaded about four engines and read/watched about two tutorials. The next day I read even more, and narrowed down what engines I most likely would want to use. Unity, AGS, and Wintermute. AGS (Adventure Game Studio) would allow me to make the adventure games I've always wanted to play. And the same for Wintermute. AGS is especially great because of their active forums and amazing collection of adventure game fans. I was hooked immediately. Unity has all the tools (and documentation) I need to create the non-adventure games I've been dying to make. So I'm excited to say that I have my dev hat on again. And I'm pulling my old notebooks of game designs out, so I can finally bring these ideas to life. This is going to be fun. |