by edo on January 9, 2012
This is not a game dev related, but I found this interesting so I I thought I'd post a blurb on it.
On Friday, I went out to clean out and refill the birds' water dish, when I noticed that it had frozen over. At this time of year, that in itself wasn't very surprising. However, there was an odd feature on top of the ice that was ... puzzling. It kind of looked like an upside down Hershey Kiss, but made of ice. Besides being kind of weird looking, I just could not figure out how this might have formed. Maybe water welled up from a little crack or hole as the water froze, but how did it form such a perfect shape?
by edo on January 7, 2012
Kindle Fire
I just received a new Kindle Fire. I already have the original Kindle, which I like very much for reading at night, on the go, and at the gym. However, since I'm going full-time at game dev and game dev related work, I decided to treat myself to an inexpensive Android based tablet-ish target. I am enticed by idea of dabbling in the Amazon App market. The Fire will allow me to do general game testing as well as prep work for Amazon Apps. Enough said for now. Here is the obligatory photo:
About The Game
As previously promised, I am posting some details on the 'game' I submitted to the Unity Compo. If you have had a chance to look at it, you may not be too impressed, and that's OK. It is the barest of prototypes, containing only a few of the features I initially planned.
The final game was to be a mash-up of these game types:
- Puzzler - Solve mechanical, time, and movement puzzles using core mechanics.
- Scrolling-Shooter - Fight your way through some game segments with acquired technology.
The core mechanics were to include:
- Scan enemies ships and add them to a catalog.
- Morph player ship into known enemy ships for a short duration. (Uses Energy)
- Scan enemy technology (weapons, traps, etc.) and add them to a catalog.
- Generate learned technologies. (Uses Energy)
- Cloak for short periods. (Uses Energy)
- Transform enemy ships into any known ship type, including player ship.
There were to be other features to, but lastly all interactions were to be one-button (mouse click) based.
I had wanted to create and submit a game based on the above mechanics with the following features:
- Main Menu
- Credits Screen
- Options Interface
- Tutorial
- 2 or 3 Levels
I got very few of these things done. In fact, only the bold items are finished. However, as I said before I'm pleased to have finished even this much in so few days. I got just enough done to start getting a feel for it. I suspect there may be something good in this idea and I will continue to work on it.
Credits
I used the following free or paid assets and tools to build the prototype:
