New Screenshots!

It's taken a little while, but there has been quite a bit of stuff done on the game. Weapons have been added (wavebeam, ice cannon, missiles and bombs), upgrades to each weapon too! Since it is a super-casual game, I wanted each experience to be new, so all background elements are randomly generated, as well as the spawning locations for the enemies and asteroids.

The next thing I'm going to tackle is the variety of enemies. There are currently only two coded, but am thinking of adding several more (and redoing the current ones) to give more variety. The plan is to have different species and variants of species spwan based on the difficulty level you choose.


Here are a couple screenshots to tide you over while I work away on the game...first one is a WIP, nearly done though. The second image shows a new HUD and a plethora of asteroids begging to be blasted!

Closing Out 2012

It was a pretty big year this time around! With the Mayan Mystery finally completed, I was fortunate enough to have it hosted on some websites, as well as have it part of a recent Indie Royale bundle, and (will also be) part of IndieGameStand and their excellent promotions! The game has also been entered in the 2013 Indie Game Festival. It might be a bit of a long shot to win anything, but you never know unless you try, right?

Of all the things I learned while creating the Mayan Mystery (and the list is very long!), probably the most important thing is to not shoot for the stars on your very first attempt. I wanted to go all out with the Mayan Mystery, and while being ambitious is fine, setting goals really high when you're just starting out can be murder! What I'm planning on doing in the next game, is to tone it back a little bit. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest is that I really want to keep making games, and starting a project that is too much above one's skills will generally end in disaster.

So, what's next?

If you've followed the blog, you'll see that in the beginning, the focus was on an illustrated story more than a video game. The story was intended to be a series that follows Mitch and Otis as they try and track down Horatio Hawk before he can steal any more priceless or magical items. I'm not going back to the storybook, but I am going to follow the same overall concept. That means that there will be a continuation to the Mayan Mystery...and am currently working on a little game that takes place during the Mayan Mystery.
If you recall, Mitch and Otis were called into Dr.A's study with urgent news, but Otis hit his head and was forced to recover, while Mitch went off on the Mayan Mystery. Otis' recovery didn't take too terribly long (mostly due to the fact that his brain is tiny, and head trauma doesn't affect him like it does the rest of us), and was soon sent on a mission of his own!

For this particular game, I've decided to change things up and use hand drawn graphics instead of the retro-pixelated graphics in the Mayan Mystery. I love drawing, and if I can incorporate more of it into my games, that's what I'll do:) Anyhow, here is a recent screenshot of the upcoming game...




I'm thinking of redoing the HUD to something a little easier to understand, as it is rather cryptic right now...