Game Trailer

I made a trailer for The Wandering Wizard today

 

Developer Diary #7

BASICALLY DONE!!!

Tonight I have completed the first full version of the game. With all levels (now 56), all journals, and all extra scenes finished. New things include the following

• Tutorial
• Credits
• End Cut-scene
• Ads for monetization

The Ending

In the end I decided instead of making the last 5 levels I would make one super long and hard level. This level turned out to be pretty darn difficult and even I took many many tries to beat it. That being said it is very satisfying to complete.

After the last level comes the last journal which is actually a cut-scene. You go through some dialogue and then the player gets to choose between two endings. Basically one is the way of the hero and one the way of the villain. You will have to see for yourself for more details.

What needs to be done?

All in all this is pretty complete but there are a few things left I need to do

• general optimizations: This isn’t necessarily mandatory but I want the game to be playable on as many devices as possible
• proof-reading: This is for all of the journals and dialogue. I need to make sure that the spelling and grammar are correct because I typed it all in a text editor with no spell check
• small level changes: I need to test the levels and get other people to test them. Based on observations and feedback I will probably make small adjustments to levels to make them easier/more difficult depending on where they are in the game.

Trailer Incoming

When I get the chance I also want to make a killer awesome trailer for the game with epic music and taglines and basically the whole 9 yards.

Complete Build

From now on I will be putting a file called “The Wandering Wizard.apk” in the builds dropbox folder which will always be the most recent stable build. Download that for testing if you are interested.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gdrrkxjunea3lu/The%20Wandering%20Wizard.apk

 

Some New Visual Elements

This week I found myself needing to replace a few things in the game.

Background

The most inconvenient of these was the background for the forest levels. I realized that the license for the art I was using before will not work for me and I couldn’t get special permission to use it either, so I was forced to find an alternative. Luckily it didn’t take long to find this

 

I personally like the old one a bit better but this will work just fine. It also gave me an idea for some visual progression in the forest levels. As you get to the later levels the background is lowered so that it appears that you’re ascending into the mountains. This makes sense since the next world is in the caves.

Here’s another pic of what it looks like in game.

 

Font

I also decided to modify the main font used in the game for everything except the journal entries. The problem with the old font I was using is that it was kinda low res so it looked very pixel-ated when enlarged (The game uses Bitmap fonts so they don’t scale perfectly like the fonts you see in MS WORD). Anyway I generated a new Bitmap font as a much higher resolution so it looks a lot cleaner and clearer.

 

Wizard Animation Update

I updated the spell casting animations for the wizard! there are more details in the video description.

The build with this is labeled April 12th with animation update or something like that.

 

Levels 41-45 DONE!!!

Just a quick update, things are moving along nicely and I’ve completed the first 5 levels of “world 3”. You can download the latest build (April 12th at the time of this post) and check it out.

These levels are all about the new spell mechanic and learning how you can use it. Let me know what you think!!!

 

Room of Monsters in the Windows Store

My little side project has finally been successfully certified and is now available on the windows store. If you have windows 8 check it out @

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/room-of-monsters/798fc0c8-7ce3-4dde-97d1-417e05bebe3e

 

Demo of new world and new spell

I have coded in a brand new spell for “world 3” and I must say it is pretty sweet! I was very excited about it so I decided to record a quick and dirty video to share. This also might be nice for anyone reading who doesn’t have an android phone and hasn’t actually seen the game in action.

THE VIDEO:

 

Cave World Completed!!!

Challenges

This weekend I pushed hard and managed to finish “world 2” of The Wandering Wizard. This set posed a serious challenge to me mostly due to the art assets I was using. They were not square tiles so it took a lot of work to make different pieces match up nicely to make the shapes I wanted and it was just a general pain to make colors and collides and such to match up. In the end I’m glad I used these tiles because they look awesome but this experience has also taught me how lack of an efficient workflow can hamper progress and motivation greatly.

There was also of course the issue of coming up with new and original puzzles using the mechanics I had in place. I think it was a bit easier in the forest levels because there is a lot of room for creativity when you have general mechanics such as levers and other “push-able” things. This opened up to a lot of different physics related puzzles. With the cave levels it was a challenge to come up with good ideas that didn’t have easy workarounds.

Testing Needed

Although all the levels are completed and I’ve tested them a bit it would be unrealistic to expect I’ve seen the last of them. I will probably be playing through the levels on my phone looking for any glitches I missed. For anyone reading this I would love if you downloaded the April 7th build and tested it yourself!

Next Up

I’ve already began laying some of the groundwork for “world 3” which as I’ve mentioned will be in the spirit world/underworld. I think I’m going to shoot for the starts and do a full 20 levels for the 3rd world. I’ve already thought up some pretty cool mechanics for it and have pieced together some pretty cool art assets for it. All in all I’m not looking forward to coding new mechanics but I’m very excited for the results!!!

Here’s a little sample of things to come

 

Build Link Back Up

When I moved the blog I didn’t set up the menus properly so there was no link for the builds of the game. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!

You will now find a link on the main navigation bar called “download builds” that will take you to the dropbox folder. Just find the one with the most recent date 😀

P.S. if you try out the game and have something to say then let me know, I appreciate any feedback.

 

 

Developer Diary #7

It’s been a while

 

As  you may have noticed it’s been a while since I’ve written about my progress in The Wandering Wizard. The laziness that accompanies Spring Break as well as the distraction of side-projects has conspired to slow my progress a bit. Despite this however I’m happy to say that I’m back on the wagon and have come to somewhat of a milestone tonight.

 

Progress

As of right now I have officially finished 35 levels which includes 20 in the first world and 15 in the second. That means in 5 more levels I will be on to the 3rd and final world!!! Additionally I have written all of the journals for worlds 1 & 2 making a total of 9.

The Story

Since I will be including more levels than originally planned I will also have to include more journals than I originally anticipated. As a result I have gone back and made a few minor revisions to older journals in order to make room for future expansion.

This has forced me to think harder about how I want the story to develop beyond the basic chain of events. My original plan for the story was almost entirely focused on the protagonist’s increasing awareness of his situation and his fate. Little by little he, as well as the player, figures out the nature of the “curse” and what is going on. Now in order to provide potential for more content I am focusing in more on character development.

As the wizard’s awareness of his situation grows so does the spirit’s hold on him. At a certain point you start to see a change in his attitude through the way he describes his situation as well as how he writes about the spirit. Slowly but surely the corruption of the spirit overtakes him and he begins to think less of escape and more of power and revenge.

My plan is for this to all culminate in the final moments of the game where the wizard will come to a point of decision. Will his lust for power and vengeance overcome his morality, or will his true will overcome the darkness and prevail over evil? You will have to wait and see 😉

Plans for the rest of the game

I fully intend to include a third world in The Wandering Wizard. When the wizard reaches the end of the cave he will descend into the underworld which will be the setting of the third and final world.

What I am still unsure of is if this world will have a full 20 levels as it’s predecessors. When it comes to it it may depend on the time that I have as well as what ideas for new mechanics and puzzles I come up with. I basically am considering 2 options

a) I do a full 20 levels

b) I do a shorter amount (i.e. 5) and make them much longer and more difficult levels. This would make it sort of like a “boss world”. I think this solution would be appropriate and would not damage the pace of the game. My only concern is that there will not be enough to adequately introduce and expand on the new spell and new puzzles that I will add.