Day 6: Game Development and Free Disneyland Tickets

And here's another blog update! Last week was Foundation week and we've been awfully busy. We did some play that took forever and I was assistant director and technical director. I am so glad that the audio editing went nicely or I would've went insane ;w;

And now it's Midterm week and we've been awfully busy. So much work needs to be done and we can't do much about it I guess haha. First I lost my Hard Drive and now my Tablet is broken...and so I have to save money again and...since I don't have enough money, I have to loan from parents *shivers* Well, that's life I guess!

It's kinda funny how you react like, shell shocked and the situation slowly sinking down and making you go, oooh...Nonetheless, here's an updated for our game, Anagram! I'm still determined to finish it by March 15, I won't let this bad luck hinder me!!! ;_______;

 

Some music samples from Vlad and my bf :D

And I think, here's some visual fests, the portraits are drawn by marimobun:

And the sprites. There's more but I think this is good enough!

The sprites are coming off the table, lol!

I feel your pain man!

And finally some lineart stuff.

 

And now off  to some personal plus gamedev inspiration stuff, my mom got this letter about a leadership seminar in the United States of America (Washington D.C.) this August. I was invited over, but, there's one problem: my biggest bane, the dreaded...COLLEGE. I knew I won't be able to go even though if I want to, and my mom said something about Disneyland.

Wait...hold on, DISNEYLAND? In all honesty, I have never, ever, EVER been into one so I don't know the hype or how GREAT it is. I only know that there's a lot of cool rides and Goofy is in there...and Micky Mouse. Then I remembered that in my visual novel, which was obviously based on New York City, had an amusement park in it. And so we cue in a talk about, "Hey mom, drop by Disneyland for me, I want some pictures of every ride and the entire place if you don't mind." and then she was like, "What for? I'm going to work!" and I was like, "But but but..."

Funny enough, my mother anyway decided to check it out. So she was looking over discounted tickets, I was told that it's expensive(?), that it's less time consuming and we can save more money that way. Since I'm loaning her some money for a new tablet anyway, oops TDT);;  So there's three websites that you can check out. One is Discount Disneyland tickets, Cheap Disneyland Tickets and finally, Disneyland coupons. 

Okay I have no freaking idea what's wrong with blogger right now, but cele told me the links are leading to the same site over and over. But my blogger tells me the links are correct, so just in case but here's the screenshots of the sites and click on them to go to their sites!

http://www.disneylandsecrets.com/

http://www.cheapdisneylandtickets.net/

http://www.disneylandpromocoupons.com/

I have zero experience with these stuff but they seem legit so if anyone is interested in getting discounted tickets, there you go. The only amusement park I ever went to was Star City in the Philippines. I remember raiding the yoyo ride, crazy stuff. Then I like the water roller coaster thingy that I can't remember the name of. But I guess in comparison to other theme parks, ours is kinda inferior :c I did remember a huuuugee Coca-cola coaster ride though, but I think that was in some Christmas-only amusement park, (that's now torn down :().

Now about that visual novel, if you think this is one of those, "OMG ANOTHER LOVE VISUAL NOVEL WITH THEME PARKS WHEEE!!!" then you're totally wrong. I have something in mind for it for the longest time, video game style muahahaha! It can range from a minigame to a cutscene, who knows, I'm not spoiling! I'll have to practice drawing backgrounds first before that though.

And someday...someday...I'll totally go to USA and hang out with the Cloudreach gang and Marimobun and we'll raid game stores and places and and and ...have a pizza party!

...I can dream can't I?!

And so here ends my blog entry, before I go I want to say Happy Birthday again to Skie Fortress! (This was 3 days ago but I was so busy to update this journal with my gift) and so Enjoy!

A Gunnar appears! Command?

~~~ヾ(＾∇＾) 农历新年 (Kung Hei Fat Choi!)

□＿ヾ(･_･ )カタカタ 

Tribute to China, Homeland: Happy Chinese New Year!
By Mlcamaro

Hello everyone! I would like to say Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the Rabbit and hopefully lots of good luck will happen to everyone! ＼（＾∀＾）メ（＾∀＾）ノ 

We had a family reunion and there were lots of fireworks. I saw a small golden dragon, a red dragon and a green dragon. The small golden dragon was sooo cute I was able to touch its nose. The green dragon was making pretty eyes on me and stayed for long. I hope it'll bring us good luck! They were so cute wwwwww (o￣∇￣o)

They brought some Tikoy and I was so happy since I haven't had those in like forever. It's so cooool and awesommme ~

And now, since officially our new year is over, it's time to share some New Years Resolution~ 

My goal is to finish at least 2-3 Games this year: Anagram, ????, and Schoolzulea. That way I'm slowly reaching to my goal and get enough experience! I hope that we would work out as a team and overcome our shortcomings to bring some high quality games for you guys~


The 2nd New Years Resolution is to get better at art and be faster. I want to be better and greater than I am now so I can keep up with everyone. I think that I'm severely lacking in many departments. I want to fix that.


And finally, my goal for this year is to master the programming language, Ruby. That way I can move on to Python and other languages so I can make games for other engines and on Ipad, Iphone or, Android. It's very hard to be limited in just one engine such as RPGMaker, specially since Enterbrain messes up a lot and removes very vital features (map editor) away from every new engine. As much as I'm an RPGMaker Loyalist, I prefer to be not very limited to what the engine could just offer.


Now on terms with game design!

Point A: Communication 
Perhaps the most underrated and easily missed vital factor of Team Projects. 


I noticed that most, if not all, projects that I started failed because of miscommunication. Far many times that our games failed because of one of these reasons:

1. Misunderstanding
2. Not enough work given
3. Lack of Feedback and Interest from the group
4. Lack of Motivation

Because members are outed/outcast, a lot of them leads to these. Sometimes if you don't ask for their help, specially since they're a team member, it leaves them to assume things. These assumed things are often, if not all, very negative and bad for the team morale--at this rate misunderstandings occurs.

The other one is that because of timezones or crappy internet, there's very limited conversation between the members of the team. This leads to sometimes not giving members the work they need to do or even some misunderstand they can't clear up fast because you weren't there.


Then because of this, there's a lack of feedback and interest from the group. Most of the time, the group don't interact with each other and some tend to be disapproving of the final result or end up being disappointed when there are expectations not achieved.


And this will fall to the worst enemy that any of us can have, Lack of Motivation.


An example of bad communication in our side is with Sacred Earth Memory by Skie Fortress. I had a miscommunication with Skie that resulted to a falling out in the dev team, reduced to a Token Slacker than the main artist. While this is unfortunate, I think it serves as a lesson in a hard way sort of thing when it comes to team projects. I decided that no matter what, I should have constant communication with my team so that our friendship won't be broken and there would always be that feeling that we are getting somewhere.

My brother, Helrouis, finished a game called "Shake, Rattle and Roll" for the Ipad. There was this event what we call Game Jam. From Friday to Saturday, teams of people gather overnight and finish a game for 3 days. My brother's team members can't last for the night because for possible family issues. Instead, to make it by the deadline and still control the game quality, they made use of Skype, which is real time talking. He told me that by typing alone isn't enough and that talking is far faster and easier to manage your team as it is almost the same in real life. Oh boy, was he so right~! 

I work together with HNeko and we work faster together than we are when talking to MSN. The difference is that huge. It was just different than phrasing things in word and typing them than just outright say it. You can fix stuff before they even input the entire thoughts and you can communicate better. It's just better that way. 


Unfortunately, unlike the other countries, our internet here in the Philippines is really slow. I'll take this opportunity to show how awesome having your own Wireless Modem/3G with you just in case you're out of the home base or in, for the horror, using SCHOOL INTERNET with ridiculous weight phrase limits and Dan Access Guardian warning signs plastered all over the place.


I use Globe Tattoo Superstick. My mother got this one time and for some reason it was passed onto me since I'm also a busy body like my mother. Except the areas she goes to has awesome free wi-fi so she doesn't really need it. And what's so cool about it? The design:

Though to be honest, I wish they kept the awesome TRIBAL design on the wifi. It would've looked so much cooollleer. Most of the time in our area, we have HSPDA which is 1-3 Mbps per second, so muuchh better than my 88 kbps home internet. 

The only bad thing is that it costs around 20 php an hr and for it to last for the day I need to have at least 100 php left in my internet load, if not more. BUT, at least every FRIDAY the internet is FREE OF CHARGE （（（（ヽ(｀０´）ノ））））


The other best thing about it? NO BLOCKS OR DISTRACTIONS! NO SILLY SCHOOL INTERNET BLOCKAGE!!! But before I go off-topic and before you ask why am I saying this...


It's because of this God given blessing and I can contact my team members even though when I'm in the middle of the class or during break time to talk about our work. I noticed that our speed and pace is faster than usual, which I believe is very evident with our newest creation, Anagram! Having your own handheld wireless helps you fight against timezones just in case and helps you keep tabs on what things went wrong and what things are needed ASAP. At least our problem in living from the other side of the globe is lessened with portable technology.


In conclusion, I think it's very important to have Communication so that we can keep the morale of our team members, make them feel that they're really part of the project, fix the cons that might come in the way, provide materials that in case you missed and finally, keeps that certain of closeness and friendliness to one another.


To end this very lengthy blogpost, allow me to submit a few progress shots!

  

I hope you had some nice reading despite it being very lengthy!