Anyways, I’ve got a bit of an update on the Super Ghosts ‘n Ghosts game (now called “Super Ghosts ‘n … Ghosts?: The Game”)! The game’s engine, tentatively called “Marshmallow”, is almost complete. A ton of systems have been put in place, from input to rendering, to asset management/loading, and game states. So hopefully that means the gameplay will following pretty soon, as long as I don’t have to get too caught up in my Final Game Project which starts next month.

Also, I will be working on another super secret game with fellow oMo-er Joel (a.k.a. Aethen) and some of our classmates using the same engine. After spending so much time working on the engine and getting ready to tackle a huge project like SGnG I felt like it’d be a nice change of pace to try and make a simple game. By using the engine we already have, we can quickly prototype new gameplay mechanics and, in the process, figure out what needs to be changed/added to the engine to help strengthen the engine and make it easier to work with on future projects. We’ve already got core game concept ready to go, so you may be seeing some gameplay footage releasing in only a few short weeks!

Oh yeah, and I’ll try to get off my ass and update the blog a little more often.

Also, you can now send out Title Updates for Indie Games much like XBLA and Retail games can do. And last, but not least, developers now get 50 free tokens for their game. This means that 50 people can get a free copy of the game. This is great for sending games to news blogs and such for review, and I’m sure there will be a few contests popping up here and there for these Indie Games.

Looks like Microsoft is getting serious about the indie games channel. Better prices, auto updates, free tokens, and the addition of the rating system that’s coming with the new dashboard update. Can’t wait to get our game finished and on there!

Developer Diary #2: The Enemy of My Enemy is A Giant Octopus Wearing A Rainbow Afro
by Joey Rodriguez

Because most games tend to take place in a relatively current or realistic environment they are sometimes limited to enemy choices. Game such as Call of Duty or Medal of Honor take place in specific eras, decades, or years limiting to them to, if taking place in 1943 for instance, German, Japanese, and maybe Italian enemies. And even at that, every other enemy is really just another human with a different look. You’re not fighting Germans and then Molemen, for instance. Their intent is realism.

Role-Playing Games are granted a wider range of varied enemies mostly because they are set in fictional times, areas, universes, whatever. A lot of times though the enemy really doesn’t matter, the design does. You may be fighting a dragon one instance and a giant tank the next, but because a lot of these games depend on turn-based attacks or gameplay it could really be any enemy staring you back in the face. Most of their attacks tend to be large physical attacks or magical attacks with, sometimes, no rhyme or reason for a particular skill or attribute. Why can a giant toad attack you using robots without any reason? Well, it’s fantasy, deal with it. If the game explained to me that maybe the toad was a robot himself or he had robot masters then I’d play along. But because the game might take things a little too seriously sometimes in ends up just confusing us (by “us” I mean myself and Danny. This article is in no way meant to represent what anyone but us thinks).

From the beginning we knew that because we were over-exaggerating the style and story of our game, that we could pretty much do whatever we wanted and get away with it. From the outset it is no mystery what the content of the game will be. As our last Developer Diary stated, fun and ridiculousness outweigh realism and attention to detail.

Our biggest challenge was creating enemies that were justified, yet still wacky. So we made a list of enemies that are classic not only to games, but film as well.

- Zombies
- Ninjas
- Pirates
- Robots
- Aliens

Then we came up with some enemies that were, though well known, not exactly the best or coolest to have as enemies in a game:

- Giant Bugs
- Werewolves
- Vampires
- Mummies
- Skeletons

We had a hard time deciding if the game should involve just ghosts, I mean the movie is about ghost hunting, or if we should completely nose dive. We could go the Call of Duty (for argument’s sake) route and center on a specific enemy and make the objectives and gameplay overshadow the enemy. But in a 2D side-scrolling game there is very little to do in terms of objectives, especially when your main combat is blowing up everything on screen as fast as possible.

We could go the Role-Playing Game route and just throw everything but the kitchen sink in there and then just not justify it. But we had 12 different levels that varied greatly. Could we stick in the giant toad spitting out robots inside of a haunted house and have it be funny and cool at the same time?

So we decided to combine both ideas. Because each level takes place in a specific location (Sorrel-Weed House, Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, The Bone Church) we could put different enemies into each level (Call of Duty) and before it got old you’re already on to a new one. It was just a matter of matching the enemies up with a location. Well, The Bone Church could have skeletons and the Fishing Docks could have the Pirates and so on.

However, after about level five we realized that things weren’t matching up so good. We were kind of stretching things out. Alabama’s Sloss Furnace could have werewolves because…there’s a full moon…and steel…did they have silver there? No…

We realized that, at least in our minds, we were granted a little leeway with making the game a little more out there because of our ridiculous, barely strung together plot. So we came to a compromise. We’ll put all the enemies into the level they most closely fit first and then randomly throw in the rest and we could rewrite the script to accommodate the changes. Because we had not started the coding aspect of the game, changes like this were easy to make and more appropriate in the game development timeline.

Borrowing from both genres of games, First Person Shooters and Role-Playing Games, allowed us to better craft justification for certain enemies as well as writing the story to convince the player that the already ridiculous nature of the game COULD lead to robo, monkey butlers named Jeeves.

Ranks

We now had all 12 different enemy types assigned to each of our 12 levels. But would the player enjoy shooting the same generic zombies or werewolves for over an hour on a particular level? We had to expand, there had to be variations, but what kind? We debated how many different styles of one enemy there could be on a level. Finally settling on three ranks for each enemy we could now have 36 different enemy types plus 12 different bosses, so 48 variations in all. Certainly a lot of variation but not so much that the player would only see one kind of enemy once.

How could we differentiate inside of one class of enemies? Each enemy was different, with a unique set of attacks. For this example I will be using the Pirate enemy class.

Rank 1: Fat Pirate with Sword

From watching a lot of cartoons about pirates we noticed that there is always that token fat pirate who is rather lazy or hilarious as he waddles toward battle. We decided he would be Rank 1, or the easiest of the pirate class. There would be variations, artistically, to his outer image such as shirt color, presence of beard, skin tone, pirate hat, peg leg etc. In all there could be tons of variations, and at most there will be around 7 or 8 different looking pirates in Rank 1. His attacks could range from a belly hit to his rusty sword, simple yet hard to block or avoid.

Rank 2: Giant, Human-Sized Parrot with a little pirate that sits on his shoulder holding a tiny rocket launcher

Really the next step up from a fat pirate is either a thin or muscular pirate. So we thought what if it’s the captain? Well the captain still has the same moves as the fat pirate, he swings his sword around. Well what about a captain with a parrot that does something? Well, the parrot is pretty lame as it is, what could it do? Poop on you? So we thought what if we switch roles? What if the parrot is huge and can hit you with its wing or flap them to create wind to push you back? Perfect. But what about the pirate? Well, shrink him down and sit him on the parrot’s shoulder as if HE was the parrot. What does he do? Rocket Launcher? Perfect. Visual variations could include accessories on the parrot, number of pirates on his shoulder or even the color of the parrot itself.

Rank 3: Pirate with two peg legs and a jet pack.

After the giant parrot we were pretty stumped. What could be funny, still stay in the realm of pirate but add that last little bit that puts him over the top as the hardest enemy variation? Jet pack, of course. After burner attacks, picking the player up and slamming him down and the potential to blow up the jet pack into a radial explosion were just too awesome to pass up. Put a sword in his hands or some grenades and he was ready to become a pest and a hilarious enemy.

We were able to differentiate within each class (First Person Shooters) by going outside the norm (Role-Playing Games) and bounding each to the already wide universe we had created.

There you have it, easy huh? Not really, it took us three weeks to come up with our 48 enemy list, but it was fun because each idea topped the last. We’d like to think that nothing is set in stone when making a game and welcome the idea that creativity can easily overshadow realism, and vice versa.

When we started working on the game we decided that we didn’t want to have to keep anything secret and figured it’d be best to share with the community some of the inner workings.  So, for all of the fan (get it?) out there, you can check out very our first Developer Diary below! We’re hoping that these can be a semi-regular occurrence so make sure to keep an eye out for the next one!

Developer Diary #1: “…and the Octopus had a race car…” – From Idea To…Well…
by Joey Rodriguez

Since Danny started attending Full Sail for videogame programming it has always been a dream of his to finally start making his own game. We had jokingly suggested turning our movie into an over-the-top action game just for kicks. But as we started “pitching” funny ideas to ourselves we started to think that maybe making the game wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Danny could use it as his resume for getting a good job after finishing school, and maybe we could make some money in the meantime. Thus Super Ghosts ‘n … Ghosts?: The Movie Colon The Game! was born.

And we’ve decided to share the making of the game with anyone interested. These diaries are meant to serve as a glimpse into an independent developer’s inner-workings. This particular diary is how we came up with the crazy idea to turn our movie into a game and what we wanted the end product to feature. Enjoy.

For those of you who have watched our movie Super Ghosts ‘n … Ghosts? (and if you haven’t, watch it NOW!: www.superghostsnghosts.com) you know that Danny and I are grounded, somewhat, in reality. The movie is just a documentation of our “wild and crazy” adventures in ghost hunting. It’s not fiction, none of it is rehearsed, it’s all just spontaneous. So, naturally if we were to make a game that was a straight adaptation it would simply be a Text Adventure in which you had to say witty things and were never, EVER rewarded. Sounds great, right? We did too, but sadly the days of Text Adventures have died a horrible, bloody death. So we had to ask ourselves: What are the kids playin’ these days? Huh? Are they gettin’ riled up over their Hoola-Hoops and their Pac-Man videogames?

Being children of the early 90s, Danny and I were exposed to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) early in our lives, letting us partake in such great classics as Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, Super Castlevania IV, Contra 3: The Alien Wars, Turtles in Time, and yes, even Bayou Billy. It was sort of the “glory days” of gaming where just beating a particular game was enough to have you become a legend among your friends. Where difficulty was ratcheted up to 11 and saving your place was a pipe dream. Where two-player games were really about teamwork and not falling behind and being killed the edge of the screen (and whether or not the “0″ counted as an extra life or not). Even though we have a PlayStation 3, XBOX 360, Wii, and two beefed up computers between the two of us, Danny and I still constantly go back to playing our SNES, NES, or even Dreamcast. We knew what we had to do.

Features:

We knew from the beginning we wanted to tap into what made those games from our youth so damn fun.

We took the game Contra III: The Alien Wars and broke it down:

• 1 or 2 Player Modes
• Frenetic, non-stop, action
• Tons of unique, interchangeable weapons
• Each level was differently stylized
• Enemies and bosses were more creative and COOL! with each level
• Scripted events: riding on motorcycles, hanging on missiles
• Intense difficulty that made you want to replay
• Does not take long to beat
• FUN!

Then we took Super Castlevania IV (as well as the DS version of Castlevania) and broke it down:

• 1 Player Mode
• Calculated, slower action
• One main weapon with a small set of throwable items
• Has a very cool back story
• Each level was differently stylized and used a darker approach
• Enemies and bosses were straight from monster movies, also highly stylized
• Interacting with the environment to swing on objects and avoid pitfalls
• Difficulty was fairly easy, but multiple bosses at the end made it hard to finish
• DS Versions: Exploration and rewards for going off the path
• Does not take long to beat
• FUN!

We had never been blessed with owning a Neo-Geo in our lifetime, but we had known the Metal Slug series to be a brutal and beautiful display of action. Having been able to play them through Emulators we broke the series down:

• Brutal, over the top action
• Insane amounts of firepower and destructibility
• Gorgeous graphics
• Vehicles!
• Exciting boss battles with explosive finishes
• Large body count
• Intense difficulty
• Does not take long to beat
• FUN!

We had our basic design. We knew that we wanted our game to have:

• 1 or 2 Player Mode
• Intense action with tons of enemies on screen
• Exploration
• Characters that were high-def pixel art (throwbacks, but updated)
• Detailed backgrounds done in a more hand painted style that really stood out
• More than 6 levels
• A huge variety of enemies: 40 or more
• Brutal arsenal of weapons from pistols to rocket launchers
• Over the top boss fights
• Environment interaction and intense vehicle or scripted events
• Punishing difficulty that keeps you coming back for more
• FUN!

Basically we took what we thought worked from these games and crushed them into one SUPER GAME. On the surface it seems easy, implementing them effectively is the real problem. Now, these of course are just generic features. We were coming up with these as we were hucking it across the U.S. filming the movie and basically we were just excited to even be coming up with ideas. The only problem was that we were naturally not serious enough to make the game “serious”. We had to add humor, after all the movie is a comedy. Plus it was the only way we could actually make the game about us and still have people interested in it rather than blowing it off ’cause we were a couple of egotistical douchebags who were so full of themselves they had to make a game glorifying themselves.

Story:

So first we had to come up with a story before we could move ahead. Without a good, or interesting, story most games are just aesthetic, you’re there just for what you can blow up, not why you’re blowing it up. But we didn’t want to be philosophical and say, “Why are these characters acting like this?” We decided that since the game is being based, and I use that term loosely, on the movie, that it should be making fun of the movie as well as other games, especially games that are made to tie-in with theatrically released movies. Most of these games tend to take the plot of the movie and add more to the beginning or middle in order to have it actually be playable, or even cohesive.

The plot of the movie is that my brother and I drop what we’re doing and become amateur ghost hunters, so the game starts out with us getting ready to go on our first ghost hunt. But this is a movie tie-in game, we have to make it more exciting. Prickley Pete, our ghost mascot (who is plastered everywhere), suddenly became our third roommate. We gave him a voice and a distinct Homer Simpson-type intelligence. Then, in our minds at least, we would go on a shooting rampage across the U.S. hunting ghosts. But that was too simple. There wasn’t enough to string along each of the six locations we had in mind. There had to be something that triggers our somewhat murderous rampage.

So we took a look at our competition: Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Most Haunted…, and Paranormal State. What did they all have in common? Well, for one thing we hated all of them, that’s why we did the movie in the first place. So we had out enemies. But who would be the Supreme Leader? Well, Ghost Hunters was the most popular of the four so we made their hosts, Jason and Grant, the head honchos. So now we had:

• Joey, Danny, and Prickley Pete go on an adventure
• Jason and Grant are the Bad Guys
• The End

Pretty good, huh? Yeah, we thought so too. But since we were going to only six locations that would only make for six levels, which was way too few. We had to expand. When we had first started planning our movie back in March we had a list of over 100 different locations we could ghost hunt in. Sadly the ones used in the movie were the only ones they would allow us in. So we picked six others that we had truly wanted to visit, six that were also visually striking such as the Bone Church in the Czech Republic and the USS North Carolina Battleship. We had all our locations now.

Although ghosts was the main focus of the movie, we just couldn’t see a player blasting ghosts for twelve levels. Again we started to deviate from the movie. We started to throw out clacsic enemies such as zombies, vampires, werewolves, ninjas, robots, pirates, etc. Enemies that gamers will list as being AWESOME and a great addition to any game.

We knew that some games tend to have a powerful weapon, item, or artifact that must be obtained or put together in order to do something. We decided on two objects: a magical amulet and a powerful sword called The Sword of Mystical Ninjas. With these two our character would be able to defeat Ghost Hunters (which is changed to Spirit Stalkers for copyright infringement purposes). Enemies, important item, levels. We were getting close. Of course we had to string all of this nonsense together.

Stringin’ It All Together:

It was more important for us to string the plot along rather than string each location along. All the locations were so unrelated it became comical, so we ran with it. There is really no reason to go from the Stanley Hotel in Colorado to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, it was just funny when we added vampires and aliens in between. And basically that’s what we did, we took this idea from Ninja Gaiden on the NES. There was a particular mountain level that had football players charging after you. Who even approved that?

“Football players you say? Well that doesn’t belong. Well, I get a paycheck either way. How about an eagle that keeps appearing and can knock you off the ledge in an annoying fashion? Oh, we’ve already got that? Hmm. It’s the greatest game ever.”

Whatever we thought was ridiculous went in. Eventually we shaved it all down so that it would sort of make sense.

We don’t want to give away too much of the plot of the game, because that would ruin the fun of it but I will say that the dialogue script alone is 48 pages of pure comedy gold. And when you see the finished product in motion you will not be disappointed.

With the script done, we were able to take all of our locations, enemies, ideas, jokes and create even more features and gameplay ideas than just mish-mashing previous ones from other games. The script was defintely as great tool because it was a manual of sorts, that, if we wanted, could be tweaked to fulfill any hilarious idea that we had.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little slice of the making of Super Ghosts ‘n … Ghosts?: The Movie Colon The Game!. Our second diary on the programming process is coming soon, so be on the look out!

But wait, there’s more!  According to a comment Hamza made on the post, tomorrow there will be a post specifically featuring Up and Atom along with 2 other games made in the Destructoid community!

You can check out today’s post right…  HERE.

Update : Hamza’s post is now live on Destructoid!  Go check it out, and make sure you play the other two games (if you haven’t already).  They’re pretty sweet too.

Up and Atom is a collaboration between me (Dan) and three other students from my class.  At the beginning, we were given the topic of “Physics.”  Now, our first idea wasn’t quite what our game became.  Originally it was going to be an action platformer with physics elements, like: a gun that would shoot black holes, or switches that could change the direction of gravity, but we quickly realized that what we had in mind was pretty much just a standard platformer. 

We didn’t want to just make another platformer (I should probably say “platformer” one more time), we wanted to try something different.  Most of the ideas we tried coming up with failed, until someone suggested to us that we look into molecular physics, and that’s when it all started coming together.

Up and Atom is a molecular puzzle game.  At its core the game is about bonding atoms together to form molecules.  Molecules have to be made in an alternating fashion, meaning the color of the first atom must match every odd numbered atom, the even numbered atoms in between can be whatever color you want though (including the color of the starting atom).  To help mix things up, there are also “special” atoms peppered throughout the board.  These specials include radioactive atoms that will blow up the finished chain, or the solid atom (yeah it doesn’t make much sense…  but whatever) which can’t be used in a combo and must be destroyed by the other special atoms.

<Download Up and Atom

Kickstarter page and donate to our cause.

That’s right folks, we’ve gone and overhauled (most of) the old site to make things a lot easier on us. This means we will be updating more often thanks to the easy to use blog. Don’t worry though, you can still download our maps and games. Check out our upcoming games and comment on our Forums, we want to hear what you have to say!

Hooray new site!