GameDevStash - Game design and development -

GameDevStash - Game design and development

February 5, 2019

Making my first game – Part 2: Systems

Apart from randomly generated backgrounds the game needed to have some other mechanics to get it going. For me one of the most fun aspects of modern games is physics. This is why I decided to base the game systems on physics traps and simple puzzles, as well as basic combat. In the end two main ideas drove the development:– physical interactions (traps, combat),– relevance of game systems Design philosophy All game systems had to fulfill some role: Chests and gold. Apart from measuring “score”, gold is a currency for reviving. I do not like the idea of score without...

2D art / Blog / Design analysis / Learning / My designs

February 5, 2019

Making my first game – Part 1: Conceptualizing

After a year of diligent self-learning I felt more confident around Unity and became relaxed when writing my own code. I always tried to perform coding challenges in tutorials. Very often I managed to write working code which matched the specifications set by the tutors. At the same time the code was quite different from what the tutors wrote themselves. Not to say it was better, but it was fun to compare my solutions to those of more experienced coders. Conceptualizing my game I have just finished a tutorial for a simple 2D tower defense game (parts of which I have...

Blog / Design analysis

January 31, 2019

My favourite game mechanics, features and philosophies

Gaming, as any hobby, seems to be governed by the same rules as other forms of human behavior. We form habits based on the patterns we enjoy and we push away aspects that we perceive as annoying. As a child of the 80’s and a teen during the 90’s I was exposed to games and activities that were less casual. Any success required certain level of dedication from the player. While today everyone seems to be enjoying games in their many diverse forms, back then pretty much every game was on the hardcore side. By the mid 90’s most people...

This is why game development is my hobby in a nutshell.

Blog / Learning / My designs

January 31, 2019

Why game development

My passion for game development started quite early on. I was 5 when my father brougth an Atari 800 XL from one of his trips and I played forever after. The answer to the question “Why game development” does not lie in games that I could play however. I like making games, because I did not have the games I wanted. 8-bit era My parents sold our first computer, the Atari 800 XL, when I was six years old. Now, that I have my own kids, I think I understand their decision. Kids that fall in love with computers and...

Blog / Design analysis / Game review / Learning

October 19, 2018

Games that made me

I am a firm believer in incidental learning, which in simple terms means learning new things in an unplanned manner. This is a topic experts debate in the educational community. However, I believe it also has some bearing on other aspects of life. The way we develop our habits and hobbies may also be quite incidental. It is based not only on our conscious choices, but also on different circumstances and key experiences. Even though my current taste in games is determined by the games and experiences I enjoyed in the past, I cannot say that I have, for the...

Blog / Learning / My designs

October 18, 2018

The road to my first game

In a recent post I discussed how I got into game development. All things considered, it took me 35 years to finally get myself to learn to code and embark on a road to my first game. The project I have been working on before I started my adventure with programming and Unity 3D was a tabletop miniature wargame. I was in my sixth year of development for the game and it was taking a bit too long. It was a very ambitious project and I had many other obligations (family, running a business). And yes, mistakes were made that...

A short history of gaming. Me meme'ing myself as JC.

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September 29, 2018

A short history

Me and games go a long way back… I will try to make this long story into a short history. I was born in the 80’s behind the Iron Curtain, a time and place when computer games were still in their infancy and the economic reality of my home country did not really promote gaming in any form. Yet, my father managed to bring a computer from one of his trips abroad when I was five. A genuine Atari 800 XL with games like River Raid, Zorro, Bruce Lee, Joust, Boulder Dash to name just a few. I became hooked...