Category Archives: Journal

EB Expo 2014 done

By | Journal, Super Mega Mega, VR | No Comments

I’ve been inspired to write something here after just finishing a long weekend of standing and chatting to a wide variety of people about lots of things but mainly VR and SuperMegaMega.

It never ceases to amaze me how much energy can be drawn from showing a game publicly. I think it’s pretty much the sole reason I’ve been showing at a couple of expos recently. It’s also great to get any kind of media coverage and meet some awesome people.

Finding the motivation to make a big push on long term, part-time project has been a fine balancing act. It’s really easy to lose weeks of time when real life stuff gets extra busy. Stability is pretty crucial. Unfortunately I’ve moved house twice this year and it’s had a big effect on my productivity.

Showing SuperMegaMega at AVCon and just now at EBExpo has really gotten the rocket pointed back at my arse. I’m ready to smash out some more work and head to PAX Australia with something cool! One potential spanner tho: I get a new puppy next week! Oh noes!

-Ryan

Hey where’d you go?

By | Journal, Super Mega Mega, VR | No Comments

Nowhere, I’m right here. ..

So updates have been slow recently. Mainly because I’ve been too busy moving house but also because I haven’t had much to say!

However I can now announce that I’ll be showing SuperMegaMega at PAX Australia and EBExpo this year!

Also tagging along will be the latest build of We Of The Woods.

It’s coming very close to time to release more details about Super Mega Mega. I’ve been working on it again recently and once im happy with the state of the DK2 integration I will release a new demo publicly.

With the consumer Rift model looming on the horizon,  the goal is to have the game ready for its release. So far it looks to be on track but showing it at PAX/eb will be a real test!

Soon.

Spiders

By | Journal, Videos, We Of The Woods | No Comments

The goal is to have a bunch of different playable animals in We Of The Woods.

Each will have different goals and survival mechanics.  Can’t get much more different than a giant spider 🙂

 

 

WOTW DevLog: AI movement

By | GameJam, Journal, Videos, We Of The Woods | No Comments

It’s quite fun to work on two games at once. It can provide some relief to switch projects when things are a bit busy. A palette cleanser, so to speak. Especially when switching from a VR game like SuperMegaMega.

So I’ve spent some more time working on another team project called We Of The Woods recently. It’s quite a fun project to play with. Procedural generation is one of my favourite things these days and the entire world is generated fresh each time it’s played.

One of the things the game has been lacking is any form of decent AI for the animals populating the world. The main reason being there was no knowledge of the collisions or paths available.

So it’s obvious what had to be done first:

The nav grid is being re-generated whenever the player moves a specified distance. This should let the animals navigate through the colliders easier, giving the appearance of intelligence.  Hunting should also feel better if the animals react properly to encountering a wall. Currently they just turn around and run the other direction but don’t consider where the player is coming from.

Now the navigation works it should just be a matter of tweaking some reaction behaviours for each of the animal types. The goal is to make them react convincingly when being chased by a wolf or bear…. 🙂

fun fun!

-Ryan

VR DevLog 18: Gameplay Loop

By | Journal, Super Mega Mega, Videos, VR | No Comments

So once again it’s been far too long since I wrote a devlog… mainly because I haven’t had anything to say! But also because I’ve been very busy on other projects and going to GDC and moving house/office.

Now things have settled down, development can kick back into gear. Super Mega Mega is coming up to a cool point in development. The core of the coding is done and the majority of work now lies in content generation.

I’m currently working on getting a more complete, playable version of the game ready to demo and get feedback on. I might even release this one publicly.

The game has evolved to be an interesting blend of games like MegaMan, Zelda and The Binding of Isaac. I want a highly replay-able, short session experience that works both with and without VR.

Now comes the point where the real game design stuff needs to be sorted… I’m hoping to have a version working well for the upcoming Beer & Pixels event… but I’m not sure I’ll have the time. I really need to get some feedback on this soon! Game design is not my strong suit…..yet! I’m going to have to focus and knuckle down to pull something cool out here.  A challenge!

Cheers!

-Ryan

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