Update 7/19/2014 also Elemental Tetrahedral

Update!
So!

I've gotten a lot of progress done on Save The Animals! I talked to Dave and it seems to be what he needed. We've have two sessions where we sit down and get work done. to top that off, I have imported animations, and we are looking at sound effects for the animals.

Yay!

In other news! I have talked to my friend Dale about his project. It sounds cool but all together too far out for something I want to work on. I'm sure I'll end up working on it anyways cuz I love games but that's further down the road.(if at all) He's going to introduce me to a friend of his who is working on some sort of Occulus rift project. I won't say more as I am not signed on to either project so I can't really give anything away, but if I do get on one of the projects I will be sure to talk about the issues involved and any interesting revelations that I hear.

Now then I wanted to talk about something interesting I read from the book The art of Game Design: A book of lenses. This is about the elemental tetrahedral of game design. It says that there are four basic elements to just about any game and they are: Mechanics, Asthetics, Story and Technology. The latter one is the least obvious. It refers to the technology you use to interact with the game. For example, a controller or a joystick or a mouse or even a rollerball such as at an arcade machine.

These elements are crucial to any and every game. You can be very good at one and bomb another one. However, typically, on a team of developers, you don't need to be good at all of them, because it is likely that one of the other developers is good at one of the other ones. Unfortunately, as a indie game dev I kind of need to be good at all of them. Being one of the only two people on a team means I need my bases covered. Not complaining just saying that it requires a wide field of understanding to do indie game development.

more on the elements:

Mechanics: These refer to game mechanics. Such as currency systems, and character skills, or just general gameplay mechanics. These are crucial to a game that it has good game mechanics or the game will feel boring.

Aesthetics: These refer to visual aesthetics as well as audio. It also refers to aesthetics both in game and out of game (Think box art, or art on the side of the arcade machine). Aesthetics are important for a lot of reasons. It gives pleasing visual appeal. Some players will want to play through a level, even if its not so interesting, just to see a cinematic or because they like the look of their character. Think of the last time you had a choice between characters or gear and you made a decision because you liked the way some thing looked! Some people will even buy a crappy game because it looks nice!

Story: This should seem obvious, but its importance may not. Story is a great way to give meaning to pixels. It's also one of the best ways to give a game a sense of progression. Rather than just beating level after level, each level is actually a part of a story and you are going along through this story, one level at a time. This is a great element!

Technology: Technology can cause all sorts of restraints on processing speed, or definition of visuals, memory size, etc. It also can create a tactile sense of game interaction. A game where your a ball that rolls around on a level feels very different when you are playing that game with a rollerball. papers please is played on mouse and keyboard (mostly mouse) and moving the mouse around, gives you a sense of moving papers around on your desk. This tactile sense end of the technology element falls almost simultaneously into the Aesthetics element.

These elements are greatly useful for dividing your game design up mentally, and ensuring that each element feeds well into each other element, and to think about what parts of the game you have designed for each of the elements to ensure none are lacking!

Awesome. Keep gaming my peeps!

new Update 7/8/2014

Okay so it's been a while, but here is an update on the things I'm doing.

Save The Animals!
This is a project for a small iphone app. It's a casual game aimed at kids and it's all about saving endangered animals from the sea in a simple match 3 style game. I'm working on this game with a guy named Dave that I found on reddit. So far, he sent me the basic design document and I implemented it in unity using script. It's possible to play a basic level. I also did enough of the basics to understand how to create a start menu. However, the project is at a stand still. Dave has had a lot of stuff to do and I have not recieved anything from him in a while. We signed a form that sort of acknowledges that we are working on the project together, but Dave has sent me the design document and some cute looking 8bit style critters but since then it's been nothing. Every time I talk to him he's says he's been busy. Granted he's trying to get a new job for day to day life and it sounds like it's been a lot of work, but it has been demoralizing to have programmed the basic game and have the other person not contribute to the project. So far it's been about 3 weeks since I've gotten anything from him. There was also about two weeks where I heard nothing from him but I've been on Hiatus due to the progress on this project and...

Goblin Horde
Nothing. Zilch. Nada. I've programmed some very basic AI for some movement in the game, but the other dev I've been working with on this project (not Dave) just up and stopped contribution. It's been I think 2 months, probably more. About one month ago he sent me a sketch of a farmer. one that was incomplete btw. At first I was mad, but then I realized there wasn't any reason to be and that it is difficult to hold motivation on a project. I've resigned to the idea that I won't contribute anymore to Goblin Horde, until I see something from the other dev. I'm afraid that may never happen, but with this resignation at least I know I don't have to work on it now.

Hiatus
I went on hiatus for two weeks. After the incident with Goblin Horde and the whole spiel with Save the Animals, I felt like it was all too much to make myself work on anything. It was like I wanted to get better at games but I just couldn't get myself to sit down and do anything. Not sure if its just me being disappointed, or tired., (personally I'm scared that it might have something to do with me not actually being as crazy about game dev as I need to be), but I decided it was time for a hiatus. So I took a week off and then I took another week off as I went down to florida in the keys for vakay. I also, bought a book called The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. It's an interesting read as it addresses the many different points of view to look at game design with. Additionally, the many skills it mentions needing (psychology, art, programming, a bunch more) I've noticed are skills that I both posses and am interested in. The only omission being music which is not a skill I have and is not something I am interested enough into to practice, but the book mentions you don't need every skill anyways, as many times, other devs will have them covered. I've read through a bit of the book, and it's been recommended by a few places on the web, and it just feels like a book that was written for me so it's awesome. Anyways, hiatus aside I have some exciting news. Although its quite possible that things will crash and burn I'm still excited for these things.

Transmedia whosawatsit?
My brother's girlfriend ran into this guy that has done some sound design for video games, and he is looking for collaborators. As it turns out, I sent the guy a face book message and talked to him and it sounds like he might have an interesting project. I won't say much about, (honestly I don't know much about it yet, but I'm going to talk to the guy in a few days), but new projects, and project partners are always exciting!

Zombie survival
During my visit to the keys I was laying in my hotel room one night thinking about games. I started to think about how much rouge style games have been an emerging trend. The idea being that they all seem to involve two things: if you die you start all the way over, & they usually have proceduraly generated maps (that way you can't use your knowledge from your previous play through. everything is once again new, but you have gained some skills. for a great example, go check out rouge legacy, a game that is designed on these principles, except that in rouge legacy, you keep all your money and can use it to build up your next character for your next play through. You can also check out FTL which has some rouge style aspects to it) Suddenly in my pajamas, an idea struck! What if these rouge style elements where used for a zombie survival game!? well actually I had at some point gotten, in my head, onto remembering zombie-u, a game that the developers boasted had a mechanic where you die in one bite. In the end it didn't feel quite as cool as it sounded. Zombie rarely ever tried to bite you. Also, if you get bitten, you just continue as a different survivor, though there is a mode where it makes you start over. Lastly, at one point in the game, you get an item that lets you stab any zombie that tries to bite you in the head. You lose the item, but you can fine another one, fairly easily. I felt cheated out of the horror element I had envisioned in my head. This is when creativity struck! What if you made a rouge style game about zombie survival? The one life mechanic would certainly instill fear into the player, something that many zombie games have started to grow weak on. Following this rouge stlye idea, I thought what could I procedurally generate? And then I realized I could generate a city, just like with a zombie survival pnp games that I have played. The game could be about survival in the zombie Apocalypse. So you roam through a procedurally generated map. Following along with the pnp games I started to think about all the different mini plots and mini stories I would try to put in my D&D Zombie survival sandbox games, and that's when I realized the third piece. What if I sprinkled some little story events across the procedurally generated map. I can make all sorts of drama in a game where you have one life. If you see a random person, can you trust them? What if they are hiding a bite? What if they are going to turn on you? What if they can't keep it together? In a game where you have only one life and every thing is procedurally generated so you can never tell the outcome for sure, these elements are good for creating some very nice drama! Just like in a zombie movie!

So the idea is this: Rouge style zombie survival in a procedurally generated map with story elements.

I realized that this was missing a sense of closure (in other words, there is no way to "beat" the game.), so I came up with the idea that there is always this major plot that is occurring in the background, and you have the ability to find a good ending to it. This gives a sense of closure. Then I thought about a sense of progress, which is hard to do when you can die and have to start over, so I thought, what if, when you beat the story for the first game, it changed and gave you a different story. One that is longer/harder to beat. There is the obvious plot of finding a cure to zombieism. I can make that the final plot. There is also the plot of escaping the zombies. I have heard of many people's zombie survival plans. Alot of them want to boat to an island. Some people say finding a place with high walls, like a castle, would be great. Making all of these possiblities a possible solution to my game would be awesome, but rather than tackled every thing I want to keep my project small and, hopefully, to a prototype. So I have decided for a prototype I will try to do a plot that the city is surrounded by police (I might have to make it an island to make this work) or swat teams, and the government is planning to bomb the city. The player then, after discovering the plot themselves, must find a way to get out of the city before the time limit.

other ideas for this:
building will be procedurally generated, but the player will be forced to stick to the first floor, maaaaybe second floor included, just to keep people from wasting time in office buildings trying to slowly look for any and all possible loot and keep the game aimed more towards the survival and the story elements
Procedurally generated characters. You'll have a character who was generated with the map, so one game you might start off as a businessman/businesswoman and now have any weapons, but have some good social skills for working with other npcs, another game you'll start off as a police officer, with a gun and maybe a car or you might be a bum who has very little social skills, but has a crowbar for breaking in places and the ability to hot wire cars. (cars will be useful for getting around and driving through small groups of zombies, but I will intend to design them so you can't just car your problems away.) You also might be able to start off as a kid, who will be small and able to get into air ducts, but also very weak with melee weapons.
Starting plots. Starting plots can vary but they are essentially an objective that you start with, just to give the player a possible direction to head towards. The game will be designed so that you will likely run into some other plots along the way, with other possible objectives. That way by the time you finish you starting plot (such as "go to your family") you'll have plenty of other things to do. most objectives in the game, give some sort of reward, whether an item, a new party member (yes you can have some people follow you if you want) or possibly some sort of sentimental reward. (seeing two lovers reunited). Though plots can have multiple endings (the lover you tried to rescue gets bitten by a zombie) this kind of dynamic plots making allows me to capture some of the free storytelling that comes from playing Dungeons and Dragons while making it an interactive game.
Just as a note, I'm thinking of making it a top down shooter. It sounds easy to program and easy to do the art for. Possible doing some 2.5D(between 2D and 3D) art to give the game a sense of 3D. But I should probably stick to some simple 2D for the prototype.

Anyways, all kinds of excitement! I'm glad I have posted this. Also working with other game Devs is not all bad. I have worked with two other Modders on skyrim mods, that have both gone over well. I recently worked with another modder to release this mod : http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/54030/?
and that seems to have gone over well.
-Cheers!