renderSmith.net

Below, I’ve included the game in its current form — VERY RoUGh

When the game starts, use the arrow keys to move the paddle and the spacebar to add “balls” to the game. The top number on the right is the number of balls you have left to play with, the middle number is your score, and the bottom is your current score multiplier. This is mostly a test proving that the game plays, and examining the playability of the game. You will likely run out of bricks way before you run out of balls. If this occurs, launch the remaining balls, and let one ball past the paddle and to the bottom of the screen. This will end the game, and bring up a high score page. Closing this page will restart the game, and let you play again.

This is simply a play test, for the moment. Graphical updates will come shortly.

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Thus begins the first week of the game prototyping project.

This week’s project is a Breakout clone. The mechanic I’m experimenting with as my modification to it is the idea of multiball play, with the player controlling when balls are added, and how many they can juggle at any one time. Any ball hitting the floor results in the loss of all balls currently in play. The player is limited to using 25 balls total in a play session, be it through 25 single ball plays, 1 play with 25 balls, or any combination between. I’m currently debating a timer in place to force the decision to speed up play a bit. The score will increase along some increasing (exponential, fibonacci) path as more balls are added, incentivizing the player to play more aggressively and increasing the risk of failure as more balls are added. Continue reading

I’ve been reading up on some indie game development sites, and one thing that I noticed in several places was the idea of rapid prototyping for games. The idea is that many games could be executed to the stage of at least a successful, playable, prototype in a week or less. With some upcoming “less frantic” time, I feel I might have an opportunity to explore this concept myself, and see what comes out of it all. Ideally, I’d like to develop around 6 games, focusing on different ideas in each one, and find which one ends up being the most successful in ters of gameplay. The most successful idea would then be developed into a fully realized product to be released, hopefully onto the iPhone app store.

While developing these games, I plan to document them on this site, posting thoughts and ideas that come to mind as part of the experiment. Continue reading