Treasure Adventure World

This is one of the first games that I came across when I was looking for indie games made on the same engine and that shared similar characteristics to what I want to make. Treasure Adventure World (TAW) is a remake of Treasure Adventure Game (TAG) by Robit Studios, a team that is for by 3 guys based in NewYork. This remake carries on with an open-world side-scrolling platform adventure game (Metroidvania) which has as the aim to sail the world, search for ancient artefacts and fight an evil demon. It also has sail-boat upgrades and enhancing gear mechanics.
The looks of the game went from a pixel version to a pretty and clean line that looks full of live and hand-drawn.

I've tried the demo and you can spot the parts that they need to work on, yet it looks like a decent project for the size and time the group have spend on it.
Some of the features that they implemented on the remake that I found quite interesting was making the main character a silent one. This character looks gender-less and I think it helps the player to make his/her own interpretation, helping to the immersion of the story. I thought about taking that route, but at the end I opted for making the main character a girl and push the narrative.

Left- Main Character (TAW)  Right- Evolution of graphics from TAG to TAW

In relation to what I want to do, it has been a role model in some aspects, specifically when it comes to the interaction with the NPC. The conversations presented react in different ways depending on whether you've done a certain task or not. It also has some hidden objects or text that slightly complement the story.
At this point I've been struggling to make that NPC interaction to work, and even thought it's not essential for the submission, I'd love to get some narrative into it, specially because it will only have a very simple game play.

Sanctuary - test 1

Well after reading loads and loads of tutorials I decided to start testing and dropping stuff together as I develop the concept art. Over all I can say that the characters, NPC and some of the backgrounds are pretty much finished idea wise, so soon I'll start introducing them. I have a thing about 'branding' my own work, just because I seem to get more attached to it and it's easier to discuss about it. 
The name of the game is 'Sanctuary' so from now on, you'll hear a lot about it. 

If you go to this LINK it should show a very rough version of the game: 
(Hopefully it works, as one of the things I'm testing is exporting the game itself) [you play with the arrow of the keyboard] 
Some of the characters in there are inspiration examples of what I want to achieve, they helped me to get sizes right. The average size of characters is 150 pixels high... 
Things I've done on this test as an achievement are:
-Mobility of the character: walk, jump, climb
-Camera following the character
-'Animation' sprites for the main character (it technically works, yet I'm only using a test image) 
-Invisible collisions and jump though platforms
-Positioning of objects and background in different planes, at the same time adquiring a sense of depth through implementing some parallax motion

There is A LOT to do yet. My next challenge at this point is add the text and 'interaction' with the NPC as for what I can see in tutorials is quite an extensive process that requires a lot of planning. Crossing fingers other people can play it. Bare in mind: 1) this is my first attempt to make games myself 2) graphics wont be this ugly [hopefully] and 3) the movement and collisions won't be rough.

User Interface (UI) experience - out of the comfort zone

Since I joined Nellyvision as a game artist, I was put to work on two small side projects; one was the remake of the game we made for last's year Game Hack called Envy and another school pixel project. I was pretty happy coming out with concepts for it, but then they asked me to help them with a more urgent project they had in hand. Part of the Football ManagerZone website wanted to have the game on an mobile app. When I joined they already had some work done, but pretty much it required a completely make over as the icons looked outdated. I thought I was just going to be working on it temporally, yet I ended up staying with it. 

I must confess, I hate football... sports is not my thing and football is one of the worst ones, I know nothing! 

Either way, I had to do it. User Interface is something I've always wanted to try; it involves a lot of graphic design knowledge as they entire project has to look unified. Fonts are something we couldnt get involved with it as the app will have multiple language translations so we were quite restricted in that sense, which at the end it worked better for my benefit. 

Getting me out of my comfort zone has been more positive than what I expected, as I've learn to work with topics that I'm not familiar/interested with. Had to do some research to understand what I'm doing and get involved with sport trends for colours and shapes.  The app is still in process but I'll put some screenshots from the testing app we share within the company. 

One of the biggest challenges is learning to work in a non destructive way in photoshop, keep everything properly named and organized. Working along with programmers involves a matter of them testing and telling you 'reduce the size of ___button by 2 pixels high' for example, so you have to be ready with all the files and make quick changes without affecting the over all look. So far I've done over 100 icons and buttons and more to come. Certainly is something you have to do quick.

Certainly been a challenge and has put me on interest to keep updating designing trends. (definitely still don't like football...) 

Construct 2

So the game level I have planned has been approved, and it's time to look at the engine. From the multiple "code-free" engines that I looked at, I ended up going for Scirra's Construct 2, mainly because it seems to have a very good manual, excellent community support and ...well...it's free.
I also saw some awesome examples of other one-man-team that managed to achieve some really nice games, which really inspired me to go for it.
The download and installation was dead easy, and after messing about along with some basic tutorials I have to say that I fell in love with it. From not being able to code at all to suddenly having a block character moving around and jumping over platforms was a pretty good feeling.

The amount of tutorials that people have made on the community website is not necessarily well organised and with the amount of submissions, it can take quite a while to select the ones that could be useful. So far I've done only random silly tests, and once I figure out how upload them online, I'll start posting some of my testing to get some feedback.

At this point, I've targeted the stuff that I can do, such as the parallax effect on the background, while still haven't figured out how to make fights happen or even text trigger scenes. This is making part of the potential game play like battle with the guards and cutscenes as an plus on the end product.

So far I can happily recommend this engine for anyone who wants to try making games without knowing much about coding. All is required is having logic...loads of logic and organisation.

(this is The Iconoclast, a game made by Joakim Sandberg done in construct 2 with using pixel art) 

HEART FORTH, ALICIA

One of my biggest inspirations for this project was the kickstarter of "Heart Forth, Alicia".
The game is absolutely beautiful and the story seems promising.
The dynamism of is is what makes it so attractive. All the animations seem pretty well done, and everything just looks perfect.

I remember following the blog on early stages and it certainly has added a lot of extra content, better shading and special effects.

Happy to know that other Mexicans are working on gaming projects of such a high quality. Looking forward to have a go at it, and certainly Alonso Martin has done an excellent job.

Level Design - Playing with the player

So far I've been focusing on the conceptualisation and creation of characters and assets for games. Now that I've set myself to create a game I started thinking on so many more aspects that I haven't consider before.
Some of the books I've read about Storytelling and Game level design bring up some point on which game developers have to engage to 'play' with the players' mind and make the game more enjoyable. More than tricks, these are mental motivations for the brain to find the game attractive and encourage the user to keep playing it.

1- Progress Measure; Experience bars or a way to record the progress is a way to evoke the notion of always be evolving. Reward the player for achievements and always get 1xp for every action.
2- Multiple tasks; Add short objectives that require a variety of actions to achieve and that the sum of these will achieve a long term one. Any complex quest must be split into important pieces so that people can feel encouraged to win.
3- Rewarding efforts; Always reward efforts (money, exp, power, skills,etc) and not only by completing, but also for trying. Avoid punishing faults.
4- Feedback the player; Always notify the user of the relation between actions and consequences, and make sure it's clear, quick and clean, this way they can understand, learn and change in a fast way.
5- Add the element of uncertainty; the magical reward of the brain. Any known effort delights people, but an effort with variable possibilities creates the sparkle in the brain.
6- Social Network; Having people comparing their efforts by commenting, participating and working together is an exciting part for the player. Creating items, expansions, patches or a user network to collaborate and keep the 'competitive' sense balanced with the comparison will be the key for a social success.

Now all of these points sounded slightly cruel at first, yet I think the correct use of these can be a small captivating option that will only compliment the story and game play of the game.
Just as I'm writing this, I've started my test of the engine and so far I love the logical approach it has. I'm surprise of how different the creation of the game itself is in relation to the character creation only.