New Home

I moved this blog to a new location. 

You can now access the blog on my website: blog.robitstudios.com

Thank you.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates.

Here's your TAG progress update:

Most of the dialog is finished. I still need to add some tutorial type dialog. Robbie (http://twitter.com/beta_red) gave me a very nice compliment and said that he laughed out loud in a couple of places. That's more than I could hope for as I don't think I'm a particularly funny writer. 

I've done a full play through of the game which revealed that there were a lot more bugs than I had realized. Based on everything I've read about finishing a video game, that shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. I've worked out almost all of them, luckily. But, I know there are more lurking under the surface ready to wrap their sticky tentacles all over TAG and pull it deep into the sea. Speaking of which:

I'm confident that I will have a finished version of the game available this fall. I'm going to have a beta version available for play-testing in a couple weeks. I'm going to set-up a forum so that anyone who tests the game can post their findings and get updated builds, etc. 

Tomorrow I'm heading to Florida for a week of sun, fishing and relaxing. As soon as I get back, I'll be ready to push TAG to completion. Thanks for everyone who's been following the development of TAG. You've all been very motivating. If any of you want to play-test the game, leave a comment here or hit me up on Twitter. 

It is the courage to continue that counts.

It's unbelievable how close TAG is to completion. The list of things left to do is shrinking everyday and the feeling is almost indescribable. I've never had a project that took this long and I remember so many moments along the way where I felt that there was an infinite amount of work left.

One section of the game I saved for last was the underwater diving scenes. My girlfriend reminded me the other day that when I was originally sketching out the ideas for TAG, the underwater treasure hunting was one of the first things I thought of. Over two years later I got around to putting it together. It was worth the wait. I had a lot of fun doing it and I think it's one of the best parts of the game. That really only leaves a few things left.

Here's what's left to do (off the top of my head):

• Final cut scenes
• Flashback cut scene
• Final boss
• Credits
• About half of the game dialog (currently a lot of place-holder dialog)
• Complete game play-through
• A few minor bug fixes (some of them could be considered busy-workish)
• Playtesting (which means someone besides me and Robbie will play the game *gasp*)

Speaking of Robbie (http://twitter.com/beta_red), he is still working on a couple more tracks. I'm currently listening to the new song for the pyramid/volcano levels and it's really beautiful. The soundtrack for the game has come together so nicely and you can expect to see digital download of it available on BandCamp and maybe even a CD run too. If I could get Robbie to create music for me for free for the rest of my life I'd always have a stupidly happy grin on my face. He seems to really get what I'm looking for. I can use a couple words to describe the feeling or mood I want and he just nails it every time. If you're a developer looking for a talented musician for a project, you can not do wrong by hooking up with him. 

I suppose that's all the news for now. I'm going to keep plugging away at that list and try to get this game into your hands sometime this fall! 

The past life of Robit Studios

Before I began working on TAG, a friend and I were using the Robit Studios name in an attempt to have a t-shirt empire. Although it was a lot of fun, and there was much success along the way, it was harder to break into that business than we were prepared for. You can still see our designs here: http://rumplo.com/people/person/RobitStudios. We were very much into geek culture and trying to design shirts that's made you think a little too. One of our most popular shirts was Joust, based on the classic arcade game.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Lonnie McDonald, who is a Joust champion. He can run the score of any Joust machine up to 9999999 (the max the machine can show on screen). He wanted to puachase a Joust shirt from me so he could wear them at competitions and events. Since I didn't have anymore in stock I sent him the original design files so he could get them printed up himself. 

And he did just that. He rocked the Robit Studios Joust shirt at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY over the weekend and sent me a couple photos. The fact that a video game champion (not unlike Steve Sanders and Billy Mitchell) would hunt me down for a t-shirt I created moved me so much. 

... but it does have happy endings.

After a full month of living at my parents house (while my dad recovered from pneumonia) I'm finally back home in Virginia! My dad made a great recovery and was released from the hospital just a couple of days ago. Thanks to everyone who sent me kind messages! It was definitely appreciated.

Living back home with my mom is something I've tried to avoid since I was old enough to leave home. But, I'm glad I spent that time there helping any way I could, while the family was in need. Plus, my 5-year old sister got a chance to play-test Treasure Adventure Game. She quickly became a big fan and would ask me to let her play it every day. She also told me she wants to make video games when she grows up -- Awesome!

Since I've been home I finally had some time to spend working on TAG. I jumped right into where I left off: the most complex boss fight I've done yet. Luckily I was able to pick it right back up and things are going pretty smoothly so far. Progress on TAG will now continue at a steady pace, and I hope to have the game finished this fall.

I've decided that I'm going to be using Unity for my next project. I'm absolutely in love with this dev-tool. It's been a little daunting for me in the past, because I have a limited amount of experience with scripting/programming. But, over the past month I took any free-time I had to watch tutorials and read everything I could find about Unity. The absolute best tutorial series I've ever seen on the subject is by Walker Boys Studio (link). It's as detailed as a full college course and I'm convinced that once I'm done with these videos and labs I'll be ready to create my next game in Unity.

Life is not a Game...

August will mark the 3rd year I've been developing TAG. My goal was to have a finished game available by the end of August. Even though the game is so close to being done, unfortunately, an August release is not going to happen now. When a project takes three years to complete chances are that some real-life event will occur that will delay progress, and that's exactly what has happened to me. Before I get into the details, I just want to assure you that TAG is still well on it's way to completion. It's just going to take a little longer than I had hoped for.

Two weeks ago my dad was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. I just moved away recently, and wasn't around at the time, but my understanding was that he waited to go until he could barely walk on his own. That, combined with a heavy smoking habit, has really done a number on his lungs and it's really adding to his recovery time. As I'm writing this he's currently recovering from a tracheotomy that was needed to help him ween off of the respirator that's been keeping him alive. 

Because of all this I've been back "home", helping out the rest of the family as much as I can. I've hardly had time to even think about TAG. Not to mention, I don't have my computer, notes and the rest of the resources I need to continue working on the game. TAG has been close to an obsession for me for these past three years. I hardly went a day, or maybe even an hour without thinking about it. It's amazing how all that can change so quickly when life demands your attention elsewhere. 

I believe that there are always positive things that come out of even horrible circumstances. For example, I'm learning a lot about what it means to be an adult, as well as a son. Also, since there is a lot of down time:  waiting around at the hospital and babysitting and what-not, I've been trying to take advantage by doing a lot of reading and researching about Unity 3D. I've been wanting to get into it for a long time but was forcing myself to wait until TAG was finished. Now that I've got to find ways to stay busy, and distracted I'm taking the time to learn and I'm really excited about the possibilities of using Unity for my next project. 

I know this post is pretty "rambly" and of a personal nature, but I wanted to let every one who is following the progress of TAG know why I haven't been active lately. Oh, and that reminds me, the "baddie naming" gimmick, from the last post, worked out great! I got so many great names so far. I want to thank Stefan "bitowl" Hanßen, William "Skywilly" Bertin, Patrick "Ezekiel" Ezechiele, Simon Kaizen and Peter Stock for their name suggestions. All of them will be included in the game's credits. There are still some baddies left to name. So if you want to give it a shot, refer to the last post for details on how to help out. 

Thanks again to everyone who has expressed an interest in my silly game. It will get done, I promise you all. It  will probably only be a couple more weeks before I can get back to a normal life. I think it's realistic to say that Treasure Adventure Game will be ready for you to play sometime this fall. 

You are no match for Baron von Blubba!

I've always been a huge fan of the super cheesy instruction booklets of old video games. Many times the only way you would even have a clue as to what the game's story was about was by reading the manual. And who can forget the ridiculously named baddies and the silly descriptions that would often accompany them.

Except from Super Mario Bros 2 Instruction Booklet

That's actually why I'm posting this blog entry today. I want to give silly (yet fitting) names to all the baddies in TAG. However, I don't want to do it on my own. Therefore I'm reaching out to the strangers of the internet (aka YOU!) to help me in this endeavor.

I'm looking for creative people who'd be willing to take a crack at naming the enemy characters from the game. If you come up with a name that I like, that baddie will be officially named by you and I'll give you a credit for it in the game as well.

If you want to help here's what you have to do:


Follow me on Twitter and send me a private message.
http://twitter.com/robit_studios

OR

Follow my TAG fan page on Facebook...
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Treasure-Adventure-Game/193541930697027\


... and send me a facebook message.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1192775331


I've put together a list of all the enemies of the game with pictures and simple descriptions. When I get your private message I'll send you a link to the list with instructions on what to do. *WARNING - If you don't want the game's many baddies to be spoiled for you, you might want to pass on this.

If you need some guidance: I'm looking for silly/cheesy/off-the-wall, but also somewhat descriptive. Hullaballoon for example. Doesn't that really say it all?

Excerpt from Bubble Bobble (NES) Instruction Booklet 

The World Loves TAG

Besides this blog, my YouTube channel, my dev-log at The Daily Click, and Twitter I haven't really done much marketing for TAG. Even so, many other blogs, and websites have been posting about the game. It's been very encouraging to see other people's interest in the game and it's also made me realize that as I get closer to release I will need to start ramping up my marketing efforts. My ultimate goal is to take any and all hype from TAG and spin it into a KickStarter (or other social fundraising site) campaign for my next project. Therefore I'm going to try hard to tie the two together somehow. Hopefully I'll have more information to share regarding the next project soon.

In the mean time, I am going to use this post to aggregate all the press TAG has been receiving from around the internet, and literally around the world. 

The Daily Click - This is the site where I started my dev-log. Besides all the help I've received on the forums, the admins have featured TAG on the front page news feed. 

8 Bit Horse - I've been a regular visitor of 8-bit Horse and was pleasantly surprised to see TAG made it on the list of noteworthy upcoming 2D games. TAG is featured near the end of the list.

GameSideStory (French) - GameSideStory let me know via Twitter that they have featured TAG on their website. Thanks to google-translate I could soak up all ego-boosting goodness.

GameSideStory - Update (French) - They also posted an update with some new screen shots recently.

Nivel Oculto (Spanish) - This is actually a little daunting - Title of the post? "GOTY INCOMING" That's a lot of pressure. 

Retro Maniac (Spanish) - This Spanish-language game magazine has excellent taste - and that's not just because they gave TAG a gushing write-up on their blog.

Nations of Videogames (Spanish) - Gave me a nice little write up early last year back when the game was still in it's infancy.
Nations of Videogames (Spanish) -Update 1 - Just alerted me via Twitter that they have updated the blog - Again, I had to translate using google, but it's a great write up from what I can read. 

Pixel Prospector - Pixel Prospector has been a believer in TAG from the early days. I can't thank Simon enough for the press and for keeping the site updated with my latest trailers. 

Pixel Prospector - Update 1

Pixel Prospector - Update 2

I love reading other people's impressions of TAG. If you have a blog or website and want to do a write-up on TAG, feel free to leave a comment here, hit me up on twitter or email me. I'm more than happy to chat with you and I will link your article or blog post right here!

Virginia is for Gamers.

I am now a resident of the beautiful City of Staunton, VA! Our move went about as smoothly as could be hoped for. My Volvo is making a slight whining noise which is concerning. But, on the positive side: people here are ridiculously friendly, and I haven't seen anyone picking through our garbage (how novel!).

My job situation is still uncertain. It looks like I may be doing remote-access work for my previous employer, but things are still up in the air.

Now, on to what really matters: Treasure Adventure Game. I started a long over-due spread sheet to track bugs.

The bug count started out at 161 but I've already dwindled it down to 72. (And to be honest, these are not all bugs, some were things I left intentionality unfinished due to laziness). There's not a single thing on the list that in unexplainable, which is also very reassuring.

In music news: I believe TAG is now up to around 20 original tracks, all from the talented Robbie Ellis (follow him on Twitter). He's currently working on a track for the factory - think 16-bit SNES music meets heavy metal guitar.

Until my job situation figures itself out I'm trying to use my extra free-time to get TAG as far along as I can. I'm still optimistic that a end of August release is possible. The game has been getting some positive internet hype lately (which I'll talk about in the next post), and I really don't want to disappoint by having to delay the release.

Nearing the end... but also new beginnings!

I spent today celebrating my girlfriend's success in the world of academia. She received her PhD after 7 years of dedication and hard work... and it paid off! She got a job at a prestigious university in Virginia. So... after spending the majority of my life in the Rochester, NY region I'm going to leave my full-time job, pack my belongings and relocate to the beautiful city of Staunton, VA. This could mean great things for my life as an indie game developer. While I will be job searching in VA, at least for the time being, I'm going to have a lot more time to dedicate my games. TAG is getting close to completion, and although it will still be released as freeware I have bold plans for a future commercial project. Of course, a lot of my plans are based upon how well TAG is received by the public. I hope you all love it as much as I do.

Here's to a fresh start in Virginia!

On another note. I discovered how to do some more interesting 2d dynamic lighting effects in MMF2 and decided to revamp the entire game with this new knowledge. It took me about a week of work but the results were worth it. Here are some before and after shots. What do you think?

New Trailer!

game design 101

Where does the time go?

TAG is still coming along nicely. So nicely, in fact, I think I finally know when this project is going to be finished. I therefore present you:



My intention is to have this game released by August 31, 2011 (yes I'm really pushing "summer" to the limit). All I have left at this point is adding the rest of the content (about 10% left), script the rest of the game events (about 30% left), tighten up and add more dialog, figure out how the game is going to end, re-do all the code for the music, some playtesting (I'll be inquiring about help on that on the forums) and probably more stuff I'm forgetting.

Here's some other random stuff I want to show you. So, because I have an in-game clock that changes game from day to night I realized that meant I also had to give all the NPCs in the game some sort of schedule as well. It would be odd if an NPC walked back and forth outside their house all day and night, wouldn't it? So.. I had to come up with an easy way to move NPCs around depending on what time a day it is. Instead of doing that, I found a really hard way:



This is a schedule for a bunch of the NPCs in the game. I used this as a guide for coding their movement. Some NPCs goto a job during the day, go home at night, or wander around outside.

monkeys!

Progress on TAG is still coming along nicely. This past week I've designed, laid-out and coded a good portion of the last big island in the game. It's a rain forest/ jungle themed island complete with monkeys and waterfalls.

My friend Rob has been pumping out more great tracks. It looks like a huge portion of the game's soundtrack will be original.

I made a couple key game design choices that I had been struggling with. Although I gave up one of the major elements that has inspired me to make the game in the first place, I realize that it is for the better. The game-play is slightly more linear but it's going to make it a much more enjoyable experience for the player.

I've also added weather (rain/snow) to the game. There is a random chance of a thunderstorm, and the wind affects the direction of the rain.

I'll try to post again soon. In the meantime, more screen shots:

Still digging...

Sorry for the huge lack of updates. I could blame it on laziness but I prefer to say that I want to spend every possible free minute working on the game instead of typing stuff on the interwebs.

The good news is that that is mostly true. Even with the new job and moving to a new apartment I've been putting a ton of time into Treasure Adventure Game. I'm raising the Project Progress percent to 65%, and that's being conservative.



I've been working on TAG for nearly two years but the end in sight. Best prediction is that the game will be finished in August 2011.

Here's an updated list of what the final game will have to offer:

• Huge non-linear world
• Real-time clock - day and night, calendar based on moon phases
• NPCs have schedules depending on time and day.
• Total overworld size: 45,000 x 12,320 pixels
• At least 18 islands to explore
• Ability to dive anywhere and explore the ocean depths.
• Use lock-picks to break into doors and open chests
• Real time weather - rain, wind, snow
• 12 artifact treasures to discover
• 18 maps to find and use to locate treasure
• 12 usable items to find - shovel, cannon, compass etc.
• 6 wearable hats
• 6 hearts to increase max-health
• 24 different baddies (so far)
• 63 NPCs (so far)
• Original music score
• Story line with many mysteries to discover

Original Music!

I met a great local musician, Robbie Ellis, who was looking for to work on some video game music and offered to work with me on TAG. So far the stuff he's pumped out has been exactly what I was looking for. He completley gets where I'm going with this game and his contributions are unimaginably appreciated. Not sure if he's going to be doing all the music for the game but at least a portion of the game's score will be original. Here's are two of the tracks he's done so far:

Overworld 3 Mix:


Temple:

New trailer and new name.

So the Untitled Treasure Adventure Game finally has a name.... Treasure Adventure Game!

It took so long to come up with that but I really think it's perfect for this game.

After 6 months unemployment, which afforded me a lot of time to work on TAG, I found a decent job.

This is great because it means I won't have to sell my computer for food, but bad because now I won't have nearly as much free time.

Progress is constantly being made on this game and one day it will be finished! I've never been so dedicated to one project before.

I also put this rough trailer together:

Thanks to the boards

About a month ago I came to the boards at The Daily Click looking for advice on some graphics for a few areas I knew I wanted to include in the game. Thanks to all their helpful suggestion I came up with some great mock-ups. Below I've included my original and revised graphics.

Original:

Revised:

Original:

Revised:

Saying goodbye to Karma

It's been awhile since I've updated here but much progress has been made on UTAG (untitled treasure adventure game).

Sadly, I've decided to end development of Karma. However, just about every part of Karma will be used in UTAG. Some of the game-design decisions I made for Karma made it difficult to progress with the game they way I ideally wanted it. However, I feel that I've resolved those issues with UTAG and I'm going to implement all the areas and puzzles in Karma so far, into the new game. Many of the game-play elements will be enhanced with the new engine.

These screen shots show some of the areas of Karma I've integrated into UTAG.

I want to thank everyone who helped with Karma, and assure you that none of that work went to waste. UTAG is going to be a much superior game to Karma as I've learned so much while developing it.

Introducing: Treasure Adventure Game

Here are some of the "mockups" of how I originally perceived the game to look:

Here is the first "real" in game screen shot:

I'm looking for advice, criticism and help. Seriously, if you have any ideas, advice or graphics let me know and I'll probably implement it.

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking

I can't believe I haven't updated this in 3 months. Well, even though you wouldn't know it, progress on Karma is still coming along nicely and I wanted to share a few screen shots with you.

In my non-Karma life, since my last post I lost my job, fought with unemployment and lost, got a part time job, graduated (I now have an MBA degree ... too bad I don't know what to do with), quit my part time job and moved to a new apartment.

Being unemployed has many benefits for the development of Karma, but unfortunatley only negative consequences for the rest of my life. And with the economy, sales have been really slow at my online t-shirt store (robitstudios.com). Boo.

But enough about me... I decided Karma will definitely be released in chapters. The first release will include a prologue and the first level. I don't know if I'll release each chapter as a separate executable or build one complete file that contains each chapter as they are completed. Either way, the game will read your save file to ensure that you completed the previous chapter in order to move on.

Also, I don't think the game is going to have 100% original or used-with permission graphics. Graphics are a weak point for me and even though I have a few artists helping out with stuff I am going to rip some from commercial games. For example, a couple of the screen shots I posted on this update have graphics from some 16-bit Disney games.

I implemented a dialog system in the game which works well for my needs. However, I can't find the right sound effect to go with the scrolling text. I wan't something to the effect of Cave Story but I can't seem to find a sound that gives the right tone. Can anyone help out with that?