Finally sent the Stage IV installer to Walker, so should be up on the GDIAC website sooner or later, but, since I’m using sendspace to give it to him, thought I might as well give the temp link for anybody who wants to grab it now (all quite-possibly-maybe-even 1 of you 
).
Archive for the Stage IV Category
Stage IV (Temp) Link
Posted in Stage IV on August 3, 2008 by sentimentalgamerStage IV Final Result (Fast)
Posted in Stage IV on May 11, 2008 by sentimentalgamerOk, so I don’t actually feel like talking about my final thoughts on Stage IV now. But I just thought I should put down my current feelings on it for future reference.
Showcase? Well… it went pretty badly. Not many people played it; no surprises there. The bigger issue for me was that I’d pulled an all-nighter just before it. That wasn’t what I was planning for. You gotta be well-rested for showcase, ready to extol the greatness of your game. Additionally, I had my CS 322 final soon after showcase, so… yeah sleep would be important. Ooo boy… I can’t imagine that test will give me anything higher than a C for the semester. Peachy. I was too tired to pull an all-nighter on Monday… so I needed to to it last Tuesday. And what can I say? You always want the game to be that much better… there’s always a little more work you could do for it.
So yeah… I was kinda already exhausted coming in, so by showcase, I was pretty on edge. I just wasn’t able to interact, or talk about the game, or face people playing it. I was just totally useless. So… yeah god that was awful…
Right now, I just feel like the game is total crap. Writing? Awful. Design? Misguided at best. Programming? Hacky. But whether I feel that way because I have a bad impression from showcase, or whether I’m just being honest with myself, I couldn’t say. I’m kinda leaning towards the latter.
Either way, I wanted to make the game, I did it… end of story. Was it as meaningful as I’d hoped? Not in the least; I’m just hoping the end result isn’t too comically awful now. But it’s time to close that part of my life. It’s always annoying to learn that you’re not as great as you wish you could be, but people deal. I guess I don’t try to worry too much about failing; I figure it’s only worth dwelling on it long enough to be motivated to do better next year. And that’s what I’m going to do.
Oh, and I’ve been at home from last Thursday until today. I won’t get a chance to go home before I go to CA for Spore internship after I finish on Friday, so it was wondrous to see my family these past few days. Now, onto work…
Stage IV is done
Posted in Stage IV on May 7, 2008 by sentimentalgamerAnd I’d rather like to forget I ever tried to make it in the first place.
Stage IV Tomorrow…
Posted in Random, Stage IV on May 6, 2008 by sentimentalgamerGames showcase is tomorrow. I’m mostly just fixing up bugs and editing the story. Wanna know how you can tell that you need editing? It’s when you see lines like this:
”Not now… I just time, ok?”
Wow… it’s like bona fide Engrish. I wish I could integrate some sort of grammar/spell check into the editor :).
Writing Stage IV
Posted in Game Design, Stage IV on April 27, 2008 by sentimentalgamerPlugging away on writing Stage IV… I’ve got til Wednesday to finish it… god I hope I make it…
Stage IV: 3 weeks (or so) and counting
Posted in Stage IV with tags Stage IV on April 13, 2008 by sentimentalgamerAlrighty then… so games showcase is in only a few weeks, so it’s time to recap how Stage IV is coming along.
Well, I guess it’s not where I’d hope it would be, but I can still make it 
. As we were required to give our game projects a “red/yellow/green” classification in class, I of course went for the yellow-green. I mean, that’s where I’d always hope to be. I think that’s the color equivalent of “cautious optimisim”; it’ll make it, but don’t slack now!
As far as the design is concerned, that’s all set in stone. It took me longer than I would have liked for it to happen, but I definitely learned a lot while I was forming it. Interactive, branching story = hard. Very. Hard. So, when it comes to design, I certainly got my share of surprises. But I think it’s helped me to better understand what’s possible now, what’s possible in the future, and how I can fit into it. More details on the final design details at a later time.
Now, implementation-wise… it’s almost there. The main code is completed, but it’s not polished yet, so still working that stuff out. Still a few presentational things to put in. With the bulk of coding done, I finally was able to help get actors lined up for the shoots. Two are down (for the Adam and Harper chars) and two to go (schedule this week… Christie and Dianna). Course, Sarah saved us by lining up two of those characters, so yeah I kinda let her down there, but… *shrugs*. Anyways, that’s moving along, and hopefully it’ll come together.
Which brings me to… the story. The textual meat of the game that’ll define whether it’s any good or not. Well, that… needs to go. Writing is hard. Writing about something that you feel strongly about is REALLY hard. I mean… let’s face it… I’m a programmer, not a lit major. I know that my writing won’t be anything to write home about (no pun intended). But I really hope that it functions well enough to get across the ideas that I want to show through. I don’t care if it’s awkward lines, inconsistent, etc… I mean I’ll try to make them good, but my real goal is communicating the ideas. If that requires making things a bit on the nose, well… that’s something I’ll just have to live with. Problem is that I just can’t get myself to write it… I’m so afraid I’ll goof it up that I can’t just DO IT. I’ve gotten some done, but not as much as I’d like. Last week, I sorta had a lazy stretch where I just sat there, couldn’t do it. That’s gotta change these coming two weeks. Either I get a nearly complete story by end of classes, or… I’ve failed this project.
Ok, end motivational self-speech. Onto actual work! Hope to update again when the game is near done!
Remembering what I’m after
Posted in Game Design, Stage IV on March 24, 2008 by sentimentalgamerBack at Cornell after Spring Break… had a great time at home.
We visited my grandfather on my Dad’s side. Weirdly enough, he has esophageal cancer as well and has been getting treated for it for awhile now (I just haven’t made note of it on here… or did I?). Anyways, so we apparently now have a history of cancer in my family. He was doing well, at least seemed so in the short time we were there; but, from what I’m told, it’s not looking great…
So, it again got me thinking. I’m finally thinking again for the first time in a little while… why am I making Stage IV? It’s something that you can really miss if you don’t watch it. When you get to work on a programming job… you can just totally lose sight of why you’re doing it in the first place. I’m making Stage IV because I want to share my family’s experience. I want to give other people the chance to be in our situation, and… well, I want to make people think about things that you might not think about otherwise. I mean… I dunno. I’ve said it before, but in 2006, when my dad was fighting, I certainly wasn’t that close to it. I was at Cornell. But I really feel that it brought me closer to… something… than I ever was before and have ever been since. What that something is, I really couldn’t pin down. But it was some… certainty, some truth. *shrugs*. Conversely, maybe that’s just the normal reaction to things like that… to think that there’s really something more than just a man dying. Still, I’m making Stage IV in the hopes of recapturing that feeling, that notion of something more. But now, I want to look at it from 4 perspectives… my dad, my mom, myself, and Macy’s. I think we’re 4 different people, but I think that all 4 of us had at least some sense of the thing I’m talking about.
And I’m rambling, so I’m just gonna stop now.
Another reminder of informing the player…
Posted in Game Design, Stage IV on February 16, 2008 by sentimentalgamerGood to see this reminder again, over on LostGarden.com:
“One problem that is common to AI-driven systems is that most of the behaviors go on underneath the cover, away from the player’s eyes. It is very easy to fall into the trap of creating an intricate AI that ‘plays itself’ but is completely incomprehensible to the player.
Instead of asking how you might make the most realistic AI system, I prefer to steal a page from Nintendo’s playbook. Instead ask “What is the simplest system that drives forward the player experience?”
Peas climb. Peas fall. Peas get scored. All of these activities are very apparent to the user. Instead of complex internal logic, the design focuses on explicit external behaviors. Any internal logic such as the path finding system exists only to the minimum degree necessary to support the external behavior. We won’t build SkyNet using these sort of AI techniques, but we can make more enjoyable games.”
Well said! I believed it when the EA rep who came to Cornell said it, and I believe it now. I just hope that I can integrate that belief well into Stage IV!
Stage IV: Parts coming together
Posted in Stage IV on February 11, 2008 by sentimentalgamerSo I figured a Stage IV update is in order…
The 4 stories of Stage IV
Posted in Stage IV on January 31, 2008 by sentimentalgamerSo, since I’ve been so buried in engine work, I’d nearly forgotten what it was that I wanted to address with Stage IV in the first place. I did a little exercise just now to help remind myself what I wanted to do. I just wrote a short, first-person statement for each character that gives a general sense of what their motivations are. Here they are… nothing brilliant, but essentially what I think the stories will expand around. Oh, and btw… since I’ve yet to give names to characters, I’ve taken up the practice of referring to characters as follows: D = Dad/husband with cancer, M = Mom/wife, B = Boy/son of cancer man, and G = Girlfriend of B.
D: I’m terrified at the idea of abandonding my children before they grow up, so I’m going to fight this cancer as best I can.
M: I fear the loneliness after D is gone, but I’m going to trust in God to provide for me.
B: I don’t see M’s God in any of this, but there’s got to be some reason for what’s happening. A man like D can’t just die and be no more, can he?
G: I know that I don’t fully understand how it feels to be B, M, and D, but I’m sad that B is pushing me away (and being a general jerk). But, since I’ve loved him, I’ll try my best to support him.
So there you have them… the roots of the 4 main stories. Essentially, those 4 motivations will collide and interact in what I hope is a meaningful way, but guess we’ll wait and see, ya?
