On Monday Untitled version 1.0 was released, more than likely the final version of the game. If there are any major bugs or problems, or even if someone translates the game I will release a version 1.x to fix issues. For the most part, the Untitled chapter is closed.

On 8-21-2011 the prototype was released for the Ludum Dare 21 competition, for my second entry into Ludum Dare (and third construct game)  it did quite well, scoring as #38 for Innovation. Over the past 8 months I have taken the game from a prototype into what I feel is a solid game.

After I released the game for Ludum Dare the biggest critique was that the controls were cramped and not easy to use. 15 days later I released beta 1 that changed the controls to use the mouse, it made the game a lot easier to play, and more intuitive.

One of the cut features in the prototype was the the level generation, I wasn’t familiar with ini files and didn’t know a good way to keep track of the numbers (as well as only having 48 hours) But I did intend for the game to have the level generation options, so you could change the level from a crowded one, to a minimal one. Beta 1 had a shell of the level generation (had to edit the configuration file, and all objects got the same number) in Beta 2 I added the options to the menu and you could set the individual color generation.

Then on IndieDB a suggestion was made by Reqieumthefallen about unique effects for when you’re each color.  I liked the idea and quickly came up with and implemented Abilities and Traits for colors. Beta 2 had the Abilities and Traits along with Orange and Violet colors.

Beta 2 was when it became a game, and not just a toy. The Abilities and Traits allow you to move differently and approach the level with a different plan. After Beta 2 I shifted focus to polishing the game, and adding more options.

A Leaderboard was added in Beta 3 that could be viewed on the website, you had to push a  submit button for your score to show up. In Beta 4 I improved the integration of the Leaderboard into the game, and there is an option to automatically submit your score, or push a button.

Configurable controls is something that construct doesn’t do well itself, but a mod fixes this issue and makes configurable controls easy to implement and support a wide range of controls. Beta 3 was the first version that you could remap the controls in, so if you don’t like playing with WASD you can change it to use the arrow keys. The only thing I had wished I could have implemented was a way to change colors without using the mouse, but it was to big of a concept change at this point.

To finish the game up I just polished everything, redesigning all of the menus to be more appealing, and making the game easier to just pickup and play. Pickups were also given a color effect that fires when you pick them up. and the difficulty was made easier using presets.

I’m happy with the resulting game, and hope to see some more scores on the Leaderboard.

Just picture the tree colored blocks, you can left click on one, and the one above it will fall down. That is the basis of the gameplay for the new game I have been working on.

It a fairly standard physic puzzle game currently, but I hope it turns out to be more than a clone.

I will be taking concepts from Untitled (using the color wheel in a game) as well as a style inspired by minimalist artists.

When you first start the game, and select a level you will be prompted to choose a goal color (the blocks you need to save) You will have to choose the color before you can begin to solve the puzzle. Of course the color you select will modify the score.

I’m not really sure what colors will be used, I know red, green, blue, yellow, violet, and orange will be used, as well as black/gray. I’m not sure if I want to use even more colors.

In my last blog entry I showed a map editor that I had started working on. There are still a few thing I want to do, but for the most part the editor has been finished. I wanted to talk a bit today on the importance of having a map editor and supporting customization of your game.

First a little background on myself, for anyone who doesn’t already know. I started modding for Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, in like 2002 (nothing particularly good). I made a few maps for Star Wars Battlefront in 2005, then I started mapping for Star Wars Republic Commando (30 some odd maps I’ve released for it) The next game I did a map for was Killing Floor a year or so ago, and most recently has been Ace of Spades (I released a map last week) I also run the Sandcrawler Network (Unreal Modders Haven) website that offers mapping tutorials and downloads for Republic Commando, Killing Floor, and Ace of Spades. So yea, Modding and Mapping in particular are very important to me, even with niche games like Untitled that only a handful of players will try.

1. A Map editor can make your life easier, rather than creating the levels using code, you can make them using the editor.

2. They can clean up your layouts (in construct) or code. Just setup one page to load the level from the ini, and position objects. Rather than having one page for each level, you have 1 page + ini files for the levels.

3. They expand your game, when other players that enjoy your game get a hold of the map editor they may decide of create custom levels for it. That means more level for your players, without you having to do anymore work (assuming you make the level editor to build the game with)

The editor with a map loaded

My editor has changed a bit, now objects can be enlarged down, or to the right (or shrunk back down to one block) There is also support for saving a map to an ini file, as well as loading the map from an ini file. Overall I am happy with the editor (although some things will be tweaked as I develop the game. I plan to begin developing the game this weekend.

I have decided to hold off on working on Alone In Space, and instead work on a smaller game that I have had on my mind for some time now. The first part of this Smaller game, is a tile editor:

It is currently incomplete, and very basic, but you can draw the tiles on, and erase the tiles. I plan to save the levels as an ini, instead of a array saved to a text file. The objects will be resizable in the editor, so one object could be four or more tiles. There will also be more than three objects to place, but I want to keep this tile editor basic, so I can repurpose it later.

No work on the actual game has started yet, but I know exactly where and what I plan to have in it. It is a surprise for later 🙂

Untitled Beta 4 was released today, on http://untitled.allaroundgames.net Just click the download button.

The changelog:

– Redesinged Main Menu
– Main Menu uses Level Generation settings for the background
– Added Powerups to the menu background
– Added Orange and Violet colors to the menu background
– Added 10 Presets for World Generation options (configurable in config.ini)
– Added Option for Leaderboard Display (One of each Difficulty, or Matching difficulty (same difficulty as your level generation settings)
– Added Option for Leaderboard Submission (Automatically, Submit Button)
– Changed Graphical User Inetrface froma button, to a text toggle.
– Added a real time paged Leaderboard viewer to the Main Menu. Pick difficulty, then view all scores, 10 at a time.
– Added All Around Games logo to the Main Menu, click to go to the All around games website.
– Added Orange and Violet Powerups
– Updated graphics for all colored objects
– New backgrounds for Menus, and Text
– Better screen Resizing, menus move when you resize the window
– Added Play buttons to the end of level leaderboard, to play the same level as the score setter.
– Fixed a bug that allowed your multiplier above 10
– en.ini removed:
– [menu]:Level Generation
– en.ini Added:
– [menu]:Options, Leaderboard, Quit, Getting_Started, New Folder: lang/start/en.txt, gui_on, gui_off, Leaderboard_display, ldrbdis_One_Of_Each_Difficulty, ldrbdis_Matching_Difficulty, Leaderboard_Submission, ldrbsub_Automatically, ldrbsub_Submit_Button, Start_Level
-[gui]: Play

The Untitled website was also updated, the Main page has information about customizing the music, sound effects, and presets. The Leaderboard page was changed a bit, you can now click on a name, and view a page of just that persons scores. The about page was updated to reflect Beta 4.

I hope you enjoy the release. If there are no major problems then in about a month the game will be released officially.

Using the rest of my weekend I finished up the Leaderboard, and made sure everything was working correctly. I’m happy with the list of changes (some small things could still change)

Beta 4
—
– Redesigned Main Menu
– Main Menu uses Level Generation settings for the background
– Added Powerups to the menu background
– Added Orange and Violet colors to the menu background
– Added 10 Presets for World Generation options (configurable in config.ini)
– Added Option for Leaderboard Display (One of each Difficulty, or Matching difficulty (same difficulty as your level generation settings)
– Added Option for Leaderboard Submission (Automatically, Submit Button)
– Changed Graphical User Interface from a button, to a text toggle.
– Added a real time paged Leaderboard viewer to the Main Menu. Pick difficulty, then view all scores, 10 at a time.
– Added All Around Games logo to the Main Menu, click to go to the All around games website.
– Added Orange and Violet Powerups
– Updated graphics for all colored objects
– New backgrounds for Menus, and Text
– Better screen Resizing, menus move when you resize the window
– Added Play buttons to the end of level leaderboard, to play the same level as the score setter.
– Fixed a bug that allowed your multiplier above 10
– en.ini removed:
– [menu]:Level Generation
– en.ini Added:
– [menu]:Options, Leaderboard, Quit, Getting_Started, New Folder: lang/start/en.txt, gui_on, gui_off, Leaderboard_display, ldrbdis_One_Of_Each_Difficulty, ldrbdis_Matching_Difficulty, Leaderboard_Submission, ldrbsub_Automatically, ldrbsub_Submit_Button, Start_Level
-[gui]: Play

The Leaderboard on the Main Menu

The Leaderboard on the Main Menu I decided to do differently and separate from the end of level one. I wanted it to be able to view an unlimited number of pages, so rather than being locked to just viewing 10 results, you can see hundreds. The screenshot above shows difficulty 8, page 2. The drawback is I wasn’t able to come up with a way to know if there is another page or not, so you could keep hitting Next Page, and never see another result. (its easy to get back to page 1 though) I would like to figure out how to stop it from going to an empty page, and this will be one of my projects throughout the week.

Next weekend I plan to release Beta 4, unless I find something else I want to improve on. Right now I am quite happy with the changes and improvements. More than likely after Beta 4 is out, I will begin working on the new version of Alone In Space the next major project I want to focus on. I want to expand the game, and attempt to tell an interesting and captivating story. I also want to make the levels faster to complete. More on this later.

Then a month after Beta 4 releases, I plan to release the final (ish) 1.0 version of the game. Once 1.0 is release I will just do a bug fix when needed. Sometime in between the two I will be revisiting the Untitled website, and adding additional information. Did you know you can add your own sound effects to Untitled? Music? there are many customization bits in the config.ini that I have mentioned, but I would like to dedicate a page of the website to them, with mention on the front page.

I had most of today to work on Untitled, and work I did. I revised all of the menu boxes, the white backgrounds, to add a little more flare to them. I took corners out of some, and all of them are stroked with a solid white border.

I also worked on scaling and positioning of the menus. Before when you pushed the maximize button, the windows and text would stay at the same location. Now they move to the locations the should be in. The image below shows this, the How to play text is no positions at the center of the window regardless of the size. The GUI is also always in the bottom left corner.

I continued work on the new menu as well, and completed most of the work needed. Now when you download untitled there won’t be a username set, when you run the game there will be a welcome message/ getting started. The Graphical User Interface button has also been changed to a toggle text switch. Two new options have been added; Leaderboard Display (to change if you see just your difficulty, or one of each) and Leaderboard Submittion [Automatic, or Push to Submit] As you can see the logo for All Around Games is now present.

So what is left to do you wonder. The Leaderboard button is still empty, and the existing in game leaderboard has yet to be updated. I plan to work on leaderboards over the rest of the weekend. I am still not sure how to approach the leaderboard on the main page. An idea that occurred to me tonight is to make the main menu leaderboard separate from the other in game menu, and have it display just the username, score, and difficulty. I would use some kind of temporary file, so the client could download an infinite number of pages (10 at a time). I’m not sure of this message before it mean you will be downloading some of the same data twice. Once with just name, score, difficulty, and once with all of the world generation data. The question that I have to answer is does it matter.