Hey y’all! Joshua here. Would you look at that not only did I do a regular blog post but here I am showing off what’s new too! I should also explain what happened between updates.
Continue reading “Untitled Platformer Dev Blog 3”Category: Alien Outkast Studios
Untitled Platformer Post #2
Blog post #2 is a pretty short one. I’ve spent the time redoing the sprites in the game and making them more of my own. I even added a little gun shooting animation. It was pretty hard to figure out how I wanted to pose and key frame it. I hope y’all like the way it looks.
Continue reading “Untitled Platformer Post #2”Untitled Platformer Dev Blog 1
Hello there! I am not sure when this blog post will go up but I have decided to start writing dev blogs for my currently in the works 2D platformer that will be a donationware game. It currently doesn’t have a title. It’s interesting getting back into programming an actual game. My last game was a text based adventure and before that I was just working on a Breakout clone following an online lesson too much. Speaking of which, this too started out as an online lesson. However, I didn’t like how the instructor was making the game. This caused me to forge my own path throughout most of the class.
Continue reading “Untitled Platformer Dev Blog 1”Alien Outkast Update
What’s going on my friends? I am working on a new prototype for Alien Outkast Studios. However, this prototype has already advanced past its prototype. I can design a few levels and pump out a HTML, Android, and Windows demo in no time, actually.
What is it? It is a tower defense game! I made this tower defense game forever ago. The game was a project for a okay online lesson I did two years ago. The code is pretty poorly written so I am trying to fix it up.
With that said I was able to fix up some bugs from the old version, add levels, and fix the UI up. However, I am having problems getting the delete button to work, ammo to disappear if the enemy dies before the attack hits them due to a second tower, turning off sound, and there is this weird build site glitch I’ve mostly fixed but sometimes it triggers like 1% of the time or less. I can’t track down what is triggering it in these weird circumstances. Yet the delete button fixes this only. The delete button can’t delete towers but it frees up the space. Which, is not good.
A fun thing about this tower defense game is it was supposed to be the return of Elvenmonk Studios. In fact, I spent a few months trying to get it to the progress it is at now to get it ready. This took me 2 days. I was really sloppy before. Right now I am trying to fix up the code, add in those features, and publish it under the Alien Outkast name now. Obviously it’ll be a free demo. The assets used I do not own and got them on a limited usage license. Maybe in the future I will be able to fix it up and release it as a full game for like $3.
I gotta add new enemies too and make it so they don’t spawn the same as each level. Try to make it harder and all that jazz.
Toodles everyone!
Save My Dears APK
Hello!
The APK is officially out! Click here to download it!
That’s the update. MacOS and Linux still in testing.
New blog post coming later.
Save My Dears update! Version 1.2
Hello! I am excited to announce version 1.2 of Save my Dears!
What is new:
- Buttons! – Yes, the game has buttons now! So it works with mouse and mobile devices! Due to this I am working on getting an APK ready. I will not be able to release an iOS version until I can get an Mac and iPhone/pad to try it out on. The APK will be downloadable here because I do not care to pay Google to upload a tech demo when it is released.
- A Alien Outkast Studios logo! – I am not a graphics designer.
- An icon I made for the PC, Max, Linux, and Android build. – Working on getting it up for the web version. Yes, Mac and Linux builds are being tested right now!
Links to play:
More than likely once I get the Mac, Linux, and Android builds up and running they’ll be the last update to Save My Dears.
Post Mortem: Save My Dears
Here is the post mortem of Save My Dears. It’s not well structured, but neither was Save My Dears! It’s just a reflection on ways I messed up, things I did right, things I wanted, and such. It was kind of hard to write because Save My Dears had more time spent in Libre Office then Unity or Visual Studios. Also! A downloadable PC build is out now!
The goal of Save My Dears:
To make a game in 3 days, get back into programming, and understanding Unity.
Goals met:
Get back into programming and understanding Unity.
Goals failed:
To make a game in 3 Days
Why?:
I was supposed to make the game in 3 days. I made a lot of progress in 2 days. However, I got distracted by my then weekly D&D campaign and was burnt out on writing. So, I would stay up till 5 AM working on the writing and then spend the next night fixing what I wrote the night before.
Ultimately this was a shit way to work on a game. To make actual progress I just wrote mindlessly and ignored grammar, spelling, and only cared about basic continuity. This led to me being able to write the 4 paths in a week. This took a week because again I was writing from 2 AM – 5 AM.
Finally came the editing. The editing was done in 3 days and maybe a total of 5 hours.
What I would do different: Not write at 2 AM – 5 AM. Jesus did that ruin me. Being able to think clearly and writing not insane gibberish that I had to decode later would be way better. Editing a sane thought is much easier.
I would’ve made a schedule to mark my progress.
Give Heather a personality. Half of the time I’d write a section she was supposed to be alive in and then forget,because I was writing at night. So when editing I hastily added her.
A flow chart to help organize events. This forced me to write very linear. I would come up with ideas, write them down somewhere, and then wait until I got to that scene to write them. Writing linearly is pretty terrible.
Write a clear project scope so I do not expand outside of my time restraints.
Things I did right to help me with my goals:
I cut the daughter from the game. I hadn’t named her. However, I did give her the personality of the dismissive teen. Had she lived she would’ve been more grateful for her family and if Ethan died demand revenge. The funny thing about cutting her is she was the only person to have a personality. The reason I think cutting her helped is because adding her added another section to all other paths, a path of her and Heather, a path of her and Ethan, and a path of her and John only. So, this cut a lot of writing.
I created numerous documents to manage the story splitting paths. This helped me focus solely on a path at a time. So when I was writing path B I could only focus on path B.
I wrote the path where everyone lived first. I then branched off and wrote new paths based on this path. Writing the true ending first gave me a better idea of how to continue the other paths.
Features I wanted to add but didn’t:
Mouse and touch controls. This might happen later.
Randomized story to where the order Ethan, Heather, and daughter appeared was different on each play through. This was cut because while it would’ve been cool I feel it would’ve ruined the flow of the story.
To play like Zork instead of 1-3 keyboard choices. With Zork you move North, South, East, West and do actions. Like Climb tree, cut rope, etc…. This would’ve made it more of a game. In the future I plan to make a text based game like this.
Features I liked:
Going back to the screen you died on despite it not working at launch. I liked this because it was just a time saver. You could choose to go back or you could start over. It saved only 10 seconds but that’s 10 seconds!
Inspiration:
This was a online class assignment. That is why I made it. Originally the story was about confessing your love to someone. It would’ve ended with you getting a date, rejected, or arrested. I couldn’t think of much to write about with this version. So one night I was looking at a pack of batteries and I see two deer leaping. I thought they were leaping to kill. So, that’s how Save My Dears came to be.
Originally Save My Deers was supposed to be like a total of 8 scenes. I expanded to 26 in the true ending path with the lowest amount being 8 in a path. This is without counting the death scenes. It grew and I thought I could contain it. Whoops.
Technical mishaps:
I forgot to include going back to the scene before you died because I did all of that at 4 AM.
Finances:
I dunno…. My electric bill? So like… $13?
Return Investment:
$0- Free tech demo. I just hope someone liked it. If one person enjoyed it then I’ve met my return investment.
Save My Dears Version 1.1
Hello! Post mortem incoming but wanted to post an update.
Fixed an issue which none of the death screens returned you to your previous scene. Should be working now.
An Old Tale For a Fresh Start
Hello all! Sorry I didn’t update at all in June! I was busy working on this and my D&D campaign. I would like to show off my first public project in over a decade. If you would like to just play the game click here! (Will not work on mobile and needs a physical keyboard) If you would like to read about an old tale and why I am starting Alien Outkast Studios continue on!
First off, why am I abandoning Elvenmonk Studios? As I outlined in my first blog post here I have been having issues working under that name. I had also been toying with abandoning the name as my game company for a while. This is because I have gone by Elvenmonk online for a long while. So, I feel it is very self-centered of me to name my studio Elvenmonk Studios.
Why did I use the name in the first place? Lack of resources. See, I bought Elvenmonk.net a long time ago. I was using it as a portfolio site and more. When Kim and I first got the idea to start up a studio we figured we’d need hosting, a domain name, and all that jazz. As a joke I suggested Elvenmonk Studios and somehow it stuck. It could’ve been all the Elvenmonk.tk shirts I had. I never really gave it much thought until years later. It felt weird when Kim would turn in art works with “Property of Elvenmonk” on it. Which, someone did take those journals labeled as such. Journals which also had my writings and characters in them too.
As you can see there, and was mentioned in my first blog post, there is some bad blood attached to the name. When re-branding this as a blog most of the goal was to get me excited to use the name again, to do something active with the site, and just talk about things. Which brings us to Alien Outkast Studios.
Where did the name come from? My friend Kareem, who I haven’t talked to in forever sadly. For those who don’t know I love to skateboard. I am not good at it, I just love to do it. In high school I met a dude named Kareem. He helped me a lot by talking to me and introducing me to my friend Frankie and some guy named Jose. Kareem and I actually didn’t get off to a good start. He actually borrowed my skateboard without me knowing because he told my mom it was okay shortly after we met. We had a short angry discussion over this. As time went on and we kept skating together him, Frankie, I, and sometimes Jose or others our friendship group. Later Frankie introduced us to his friend Terrence. As a group we went out skating and trying to film stuff to get our local skate shops to try and sponsor them. I knew I wasn’t good enough.
During this time I would walk around my home city a lot by myself. It was a nice calming thing to do. I found many hidden skate spots this way. By using these spots Jose got in with Murder Boys, the local big skate group. A lot of people wanted to get into Murder Boys because they pretty much had the lock down on local sponsors and it meant you were a local legend. Jose was by far leagues ahead of any of us. One day we all head over to a Chinese restaurant’s parking lot to skate when Jose tells us he won’t be skating with us anymore and he has joined Murder Boys. To be honest we all felt like shit. We sat on our skateboards and just talked. Kareem pitched the idea of forming our own team. One that was about friends and helping each other. The idea wasn’t well received until it became a “fuck you” to Murder Boys and conversely Jose.
We were all hyped up! We started to talk about our lives. Where we were born, what growing up was like, why we skated, and why we wanted to stick together.
Kareem was from Iraq, I can’t remember if he was born there, and after the attacks on September 11th he was basically and out cast in society. He was the enemy of the US simply because he was from Iraq. He told us what it was like growing up in the Iraqi fear days. This opened my own eyes up to shit I did during then too.
Frankie was born in Germany on a US base. He moved around the US a lot and had problems fitting in. Frankie is black but he didn’t really fit in with a lot of black culture. We actually used to joke a lot about him being a “non threatening black guy”. A joke he started himself. Hanging out with him really opened my eyes up to a lot of bullshit that happens to black people in the US I just never noticed.
Terrence, like me, was born in the US and grew up a social out cast over our hobbies. However, Terrence was black too and mentioned some issues of prejudice against him. He laughed it all off trying to maintain that happy composure. I’ve always regretted not becoming better friends with him. He seemed like such a great and cheerful dude.
Then there was me. Born in the US. I looked white but am half Mexican. I grew up a social out cast. Not many friends, bullied a lot at school and home, and spent most of my times just playing games.
So there we are four out casts trying to come up with a team about banding out casts together. I had no idea on team names. I don’t remember Frankie’s suggestions. I remember Terrence suggesting “Chicken and Waffles”; which we laughed at for a good while. Then out of the blue Kareem had an idea. Alien Outkast. His reasoning? We’re all out casts, we’re all aliens in our own society, and half of us were aliens. Him being from Iraq and Frankie being born in Germany. They tried to rope me in on being Mexican but I ain’t that Mexican. We then skated more then ever as a team. We were Alien Outkast and after that our friendship grew a lot stronger. You know, until time and life withered it away.
Unfortunately we never produced any demos as Alient Outkast. Getting a camera was hard and by the time we got one reliably Kareem had graduated high school and was working in his dad’s auto shop. Frankie transferred schools, but we hung out regularly, and I have no clue what happened to Terrence. A few people would join Alien Outkast here and there like Junior and Aaron but ultimately when Frankie and I graduated high school that was the end of it. However, the name has always stuck with me. Every time I stand on a board I think of Alien Outkast. How much it meant to us. What it meant. I never felt right using the name. I never felt I was good enough for it, despite being one of the founders. Simply because I was never Alien.
I may have been a shit skater, still am, but I will always be loyal to our team. Since I have moved across the globe I finally fully understand Alien Outkast. Not only am I an alien in a foreign country but I realize how moving here has alienated myself from my former life. I have lost many friends moving here. I have people who I used to talk to daily wishing me to die, calling me a traitor, or just not responding. They don’t openly admit they want nothing to do with me but it’s obvious I am nothing to them. Simply because when I moved here I started to debunk a lot of fucking lies people were spreading.
For some reason when I moved here people expected me to expose everything they’ve ever heard of China to be true. When 90% of things I heard turned out to be false. As I started to correct people I was getting added to “Chinese double agent” lists on twitter “Chinese boot licker” and all sorts of negative and horribly racists lists. Why? Because I was sending pictures of Winnie the Pooh merchandise being sold here. Everyone’s main gotcha at China “You can’t even buy Pooh!” turned out to be a lie. Rather then admit it and move on I was all of a sudden a double agent. Get the fuck out of here with that shit.
Now I am not only an alien in my new home but in my old home too. I am also an out cast more so then I was in my old home. I finally understand Alien Outkast. To remember the friends who helped me see things differently and question what I know to be true I have decided to dawn the name as my new studio. It is just me working here and I am working a way at demos to get out there, but it is already more productive then Elvenmonk Studios ever was.
Will it get its own site? Yes, eventually I will make an Alien Outkast Studios website. However, I will use my blog for a while to help ease into it. Plus it’ll save on costs not having to get a new domain name. I will be adding at the top a section for Alien Outkast Studios. This will have a direct link to all games released. I’m also adding a category for Alien Outkast Studios.
With all that said I do try to update and post more about developing software. I will also do post mortems of software I’ve released or failed to. I feel a public post mortem is a good idea and it lets people understand the issues they are having may not be so different then the ones I am having. You can learn from my mistakes and if I can find your dev blog I can learn from yours.
Thank you for reading this far. Click here (Will not work on mobile and needs a physical keyboard) to play the game. Just so you don’t have to scroll back up.
– Eager and Inspired Joshua