Let the sunshine in!

Work on Elements of Magic continues, and I don’t mind saying, it is starting to feel kind of cool at this point.  While I want to do a real writeup later for one of the new weapons, (similar to the homing attacks, although the final result is a little more interesting.)  Meanwhile though, I figured I’d post a few quick screenshots of a new boss I coded up over Thanksgiving.

Winter is Coming!

Long-time fans of my work (that’s right, both of you!) may recognize this fellow from a previous game or two.  I didn’t really set out to put the happy-go-lucky “Cloud 9″ in every game I made, but I needed a good mid-boss with a good wind-based theme other than “extreme speed” (since that’s taken by the stage boss) and there he was, all weathery and everything.  So I guess he gets to stay.  And now that he’s been in THREE games, I’m probably stuck with him.  So it goes, I guess.  I think he came out pretty well this iteration though, if I do say so myself!

The secrets of how it was made.

Recently got around to [finally] writing the starter gun for Elements of Magic.  The friendly, nice gun that the player starts out with, to introduce them to the game.  It had some design challenges, and since the whole process was kind of interesting, I figure I’ll document it, and see if I can’t provide some insight into exactly what sorts of things I think about when putting together a shmup weapon.

So, here we go!

First off, let’s talk a little about what needs to go into any shmup weapon.  In general, a shmup weapon should:

• Be distinct from other weapons in some interesting, gameplay-related way.  Preferably through some unique property or advantage.
• Involve some tradeoff.  Work well in some situations, while less well in others.  Should have at least one easily identifiable situation where it shines.
• Conversely, have at least one general  situation where it is actually a sub-optimal choice.
• Never be completely useless, even in sub-optional situations.  (I like to go with the metric “it should never be at worse than 50% efficiency.)  The player should never feel “stuck” because they hit a situation that the gun is just bad for.
• Have some form of risk/reward built into the weapon, where there is a constant, interesting choice for the player to make, where they can consciously assume  some form of risk, in exchange for some form of payoff.

Attempt one:  Basic vanilla homing.

First try: Basic nonstop homing.

So I knew off the bat that this was going to be a homing gun.  This is intended as the “starter gun” that you have when you start the game.  It needs to therefore be both newbie friendly and effective, while still not being so overpowering that you never switch to other guns when you earn them.  Homing is a good match for this, since it is a concept most people are very familiar with, and can understand quickly.  (And as a bonus, it is effective even if they don’t do anything to make use of it – it just happens.)

• Shots tend to blur together into a solid stream.  (This is purely aesthetic, but I think I’d like it to be more distinct.  I want it to be more of homing shots, not one long homing laser.)
• Homing greatly reduces the importance of player positioning.  Shots go after the nearest enemy, so it occasionally matters where you are, but for the most part, it doesn’t matter where you are on screen.
• There is no risk/reward anywhere.  Nothing you do can make the gun perform better or worse.

Attempt two:  Slowing things down, splitting things up.

Attempt #2: Now there are non-homing shots as well as homing shots!

So thoughts at this point about how to fix these things:  The first one is easier.  Make fewer, higher damage bullets, and maybe give them more distinct trajectories.  The second one is harder.

For making player positioning, my first thought is to make the bullets do more damage at the beginning, and then have their damage fall off the longer they take to find a target.  This would reward people for being up-close to their enemies.  But there are a few things that concern me about this solution.  For one thing, I’m worried about conveying this to the user.  I can make the bullets start big and shrink, but I’m not sure that will be enough to make it obvious, and this is supposed to be a super-simple gun.

More worryingly though – if this is supposed to be a very newbie-friendly gun, it feels wrong to make it only work well if they are edging up close to the enemies and putting themselves into extreme danger.  While that could be a fun mechanic, and I may use it later for a different gun, I think I’ll pass on it for now.  It just feels too much at cross-purposes with the homing gun concept.   Part of the advantage of the homing gun in general is that it is a good long-range weapon.  So forcing people to get in close to make use of it just feels too much like muddled design.

So I think on it some more, and come up with plan B:  I think I can make it work if I split the gun into two components.  Instead of a constant stream of homing bullets, I’m going to try splitting the gun into two parts.  A basic vulcan-style shot that fires straight ahead at high speeds, and homing bullets spewing out from the sides.   This gives me a few benefits:

• First and foremost, position matters again!  Since half the damage comes from the direct shots, you can can do better by actually positioning under the thing you are aiming at.
• There is a risk/reward tradeoff now.  You can do better by staying directly under your target, but it is not required.
• Unlike the first idea, it still works fine at long range.   Position matters, but not to the extent that it forces you to get up close and personal with dangerous enemies.
• You have more control over your shots.  One problem before was that sometimes the shots would lock onto things you didn’t want, and you would have to wait for them to get to the thing you actually wanted to destroy.  With this change you can guarantee that at least half of your damage will go towards the target of your choosing.

Things are looking pretty good now!  It just needs a little polish.  It doesn’t have as many interesting choices as I’d like yet, but it is already quite a serviceable gun.

Attempt three:  The importance of concentration

Concentration! Fewer homing, but a lot of damage straight ahead.

I’ve been glossing over at least one issue so far.  While I’ve been talking about it as if I were designing a gun, what I actually need are effectively two guns.  One normal, and one when the user is “concentrating their fire”.  (i. e. holding down the shift key and moving slowly.)  Normally guns change their properties slightly when the player is concentrating their shots.

I've been making a game!

Well, it’s that time of year again.  IGF has rolled around.  And with it, a new game announcement!  From me! So while I’m sure in the coming days we’ll see an incredible deluge of amazing games by talented people on the IGF site, I figure I’ll take a moment and talk about my own humble contribution to the festival. A little something I like to call “The Elements of Magic”.

It’s true.  I’ve been working on a new game, and while it’s not done yet, it is at least far enough along that I don’t feel quite so embarrassed showing it.  In what should be no real surprise to anyone who has followed my games, it is another SHMUP.  And it doesn’t even have the strange mechanics of Negative SpaceCraft, or the weird role reversal from Boss Rush!  So what DOES it have?  Well, a few neat things.  Read on to find out more!

So this is a game I started writing a bit over half a year ago, in response to a very specific problem:  I like SHMUPS.  And I know a few other people who also like SHMUPS.  But I have an awful lot of friends who like to watch SHMUPS in action, but who don’t really feel comfortable playing them.  They look too hard.  They die too fast, and even if I try to play co-op with them, they end up dying a lot, stealing all of my continues, and then feeling bad about it later.

This is a game for them.

This is a game for everyone who has a friend who is good at SHMUPS, who wants to participate, without feeling like they are dragging the person down.  This is a game for everyone who likes the pretty patterns, but is too intimidated to try playing themselves.  This is a game with a stated design goal of “I want a SHMUP I can play with my Mom.”

I’ll save the details of how I’m trying to go about this for another post.  But meanwhile, here is a teaser video of the game in action!  (Which, sadly, shows off none of the multiplayer fun, since it was made on the day of the IGF deadline, when no one was around to help me multiplay it.  So it goes!)

Remember Boss Rush?  The game about being a boss, that seemed like it wasn’t ever going to actually come out?  Well guess what.  Boss Rush is done.  Released.  And playable.  Finally!

BossRushGame.com

So what are you still doing here?  Play it already!  Go!  Go!

Artist's Conception of Justin

[Justin Mullens, the man behind the fine, fine music in Boss Rush, has graciously offered write down some of the thoughts he had while he was composing.  For anyone interested in how the music came to be, it's a fun read, and offers a fascinating glimpse into what his creative process looks like.  He clearly knows what he is talking about, since he specifically calls out the Moon Level music from Duck Tales.   -Montoli]

First of all, a little personal background: I loved shooters when I was growing up. I was addicted ever since I first laid my hands on Defender in the arcades, I got really into them with Gradius and R-Type on the NES & SNES, and was completely hooked when Square released Einheinder on the Playstation. There was a ton of shmups I didn’t play, but the ones I did play left an indelible impression. It was around this time that I first started making electronic music using Impulse Tracker in DOS, which is basically the origin of my career as a sound designer in the video games industry. Even though shooters and tracker music were two of my loves growing up I’ve never had a chance to work on a “classic style” 2D shooter before now, and I was really excited by the opportunity to work with Chris (Paper Dino) when he asked me to do the music and sound effects on Boss Rush.

That being said, I didn’t really do any research before starting to write the music for Boss Rush, I just pretty much let it flow out of me based on the feelings I remember having as a kid when I played these kinds of games. I started off by writing 2 or 3 songs as “sketches” to get my bearings, and once I finished those I knew where I wanted, and more importantly, didn’t want to go with the final tracks.

The main thing I realized was that I didn’t want to make “chip-tune” music. Been there, done that. Plus the fact that it’s so en-vogue right now makes me really want to stay away from that side of things. Instead, what I realized that I really loved and wanted to capture about those old songs was the grittiness and energy that they exude. I mean, even Ducktales on the NES was RAW! (Moon level!!!) My goal became to achieve that same gritty feeling while using an instrument palette that combined distorted synths with distorted traditional instruments. This led me to some unexpected instrumentation for main parts like a church organ & pan flute (used in Upward Spin) or a glockenspiel (used in Colossal Terend).

The other thing I loved about those old songs was the ultra obvious melody line, and underneath that, harmonies and rhythms that created the perfect atmosphere. The music in these games was NOT background/ambient music, but it did a great job of giving a mood to the experience that put me into the right space (literally).

Step 1: Grittiness – check. Step 2: Obvious melody, maintain ambiance – check.

Anytime I write music that accompanies visuals my main concern is to tie the feeling of the songs so strongly to the imagery that the player feels like it is all one contiguous thing that was forged from the same fire. If it doesn’t feel like that, then I have failed. The next step after sketching some ideas and determining the direction I want to go in is to sit down in front of the game and let it tell me what the music should sound like. As soon as I get a playable version of the game I will run through each level 20-50 times and just see what ideas come to me. I normally like to start off with just a portable recorder and my voice. I’ll hum some melodies and rhythms completely free-form as I play through the game. I use these snippets later on if I need to, but sometimes I don’t use them at all – I really just like the process of getting some music happening in my head first before I sit down in front of my keyboard (plus I’m playing the game, which makes it pretty hard to play my midi keyboard at the same time).

Next, I’ll capture some videos of the most inspiring and important parts of the game, loop those up, and start hammering away on my keyboard while I watch them. Almost everything is written really quickly while I watch these videos. I tend to spend less than an hour writing each peace of music initially, and then I’ll spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks tweaking them and getting them just how I want them. I design the music to help make the visuals pop, and I spend most of my time adjusting instruments and song arrangements to get that happening. The music should reach a state where it is emphasizing all aspects of the game, which will in turn make the music stronger as well. Also, it’s very important to make the music NOT ANNOYING.

As for my tools, I used Logic 8 to write everything in Boss Rush. The ES1 was my main instrument, followed by the ES2 and Sculpture. All drums were done in the EXS24. For plug-ins I used Dist II, Bit Crusher, Guitar Amp, and a ton of Tape Delay and reverb to add spaciousness.

All in all, I had a really awesome time creating the audio for Boss Rush. This was my very first attempt at this genre, and I loved it. I can’t wait to work on more shooters in the future!

Check out the mp3‘s that are available on PaperDino.com, all comments and feedback are appreciated. Please, let me know what you think

Justin Mullens – Sound Designer

November 2009

jmullens@gmail.com
www.jmullens.com

Not a whole lot to say here, but progress on Boss Rush continues well.  At this point, the game is basically nailed down and probably a good 90% complete.  Most of the work at this point is down to playtesting and polish, and occasionally adding a new level or two if I think of one that seems like it would be fast, easy, and safe to add.

In addition to the occasional friend or family member that I can rope into playing my game, I have enlisted the aid of some forumgoers over at TIGSource.  I have to say.  They have been wonderful fonts of information, suggestions and excellent feedback.  (Frankly wishing I had gotten around to adding more playtesters quite a bit earlier.  One more data point for the postmortem I guess…)

It’s getting close though!  I finally realized just how close when I watched a friend play on Sunday.  I think he spent a good hour playing through levels, and still didn’t get through all of them.  (And he didn’t even touch multiple difficulty levels.)  It was an interesting perspective moment, where I realized just how much I had completed, and started to feel, really feel, like “huh, it’s starting to feel like a full game now.”

It was a good feeling!   I’m feeling kind of proud of my game at this point.  Now to just finish it!

An audience.

Since people already read TIGSource’s dev logs, I had people reading and commenting pretty much from the get-go.  And of course, I answered back, because it’s fun to participate in a conversation, when people want to have that conversation about something you’re working hard on.  Especially when they’re nice and say nice things like “that thing you are working on looks like it might be fun!”

The kind of high quality content you've been missing!

Also, the informal nature of the dev log helped a lot.  I mean, it was just a forum!  Not some stuffy website where maintain the fiction that I am to be taken seriously!  I posted things to the TIGSource Dev log that I wouldn’t bother posting here.  Random crap, like what’s on my whiteboard, or what Unicorn Mode looks like.

Which of course is a far more accurate depiction of what the game’s development actually looks like than anything I’ve put on here.  So far, I’ve mostly just posted screenshots and media.  The results of the creative process.  But on that dev log, I’ve actually posted a lot of the process itself.

So.  What to do now.  The TIGSource Dev Log has far more information than my official page.  Anyone reading this page would actually get less information.  I could try to start migrating it over.  Or promise to myself that I’d be better about posting random crap on this webpage.

Or I could just be lazy and throw out a link, add a link to the official page, and say “Go there for up-to-the minute info on the state of the project!”

Boss Rush’s Dev Log Page on TIGSource!

Laziness wins!

For example!  Behold!  MenuMusic!

There is a magic part of development, where it starts to change from “fun little diversion” into “holy crap, that’s an actual game, there!”   Real, non-placeholder sound effects are (for me at least) a big part of that.

It’s getting very close to done!  Almost ready to start the final round of playtests!

I had convinced myself it was done before.  But really, all it was was just the regular game except with a custom AI for the ship that listened to keystrokes instead of performing its own evaluations.  This had the downside that the games always played out the same way as survival mode.  (Namely that the boss always died, and the only real variations was how long it lasted and how many spaceships it took down in the process)

So while you could still make your own rules, (“let’s see if you can kill me in less than 3 minutes this time!  And no dying more than twice this time either!”) it occurred to me that it wasn’t much of a versus mode if the same side won every time.  Really, if I’m expecting this sort of play pattern, then shouldn’t I be doing more to support it?  At the very least, the victor should get some little graphical flourish announcing their triumph at the end of the game, right?

An Unexiting Screenshot

Also set up a way to swap which player got which side of the keyboard, since my left-handed friends were starting to grumble.

Unfortunately, UI work does not generate the most exciting screenshots.  Oh well.  Have a boring screenshot of the versus mode UI then.