Project Echos - Midterm Report

As of this Thursday, my group will worked on this project for 5 week, leaving 3 weeks left until it is due. I have worked out most of the underlying systems, but have had to abandon some of them for the sake of finishing the game before the deadline. One such example was loading the maps as external files. This means that all the levels will be more or less hard coded into the games. All that is left is implementing as many levels as we can in the next 3 weeks, and debugging.

Some people in my group have stated their interest in continuing the game after the deadline as a portfolio item, and hopefully reach our original vision of the game. I also have this interest, so I may post more updates after the deadline. If we had more time we would be able to reach our original vision, but the extremely short time frame along with our relative inexperience with some specific aspects, like Lua and Corona, prevents us from reaching it.

As I said with my last post I will show some of the assets for the project, and here they are:

Comments On the 3DS Ambassador Program & News

Nintendo has finished the list of games that 3DS early adopters (3DS Ambassadors) will receive for free in response to the recent price drop on the system. The list includes both NES games and GBA games for the virtual console on the 3DS's eShop. While the NES games will eventually be released to the general public, the GBA games, which are the only GBA games being released so far for the 3DS, will only be released for the 3DS Ambassadors. This, in my opinion, is outrageous.

CGT 245 Project - Project Echos

I started a game development course this semester that deals with game development. As part of the class we have two main projects, which are a 2D mobile game, and a 3D mobile game. We were able to choose our own groups, as well as how many people were in our group, and essentially told to have at it with the teacher giving lectures and tutorials associated with the project and weekly status updates.

My group decided on making a game we have code named Project Echos. It is a puzzle/action platformer in the spirit of the classic SNES games, such as the Mario, Metroid, and Donkey Kong Country games, as well as similarly retro style games, such as the Golden Sun games. We have 8 weeks as of last Thursday, and we hope to have a prototype completed by the end of week 2. We will be using the Corona engine, and be releasing on the Android initially with the possibility of the iPhone.

The gameplay of the game will be centered around the elements, and using your powers to affect the environment to solve puzzles, beat bosses, and possibly some standard enemies. The perspective beyond 2D will be from the side, like most platformers. For the controls we will be using an onscreen dpad similar to the GamEvil games, Zenonia 1-3.

I would like to post again at a later date once we have something more to show. I have not had any comments on this blog yet, but if there are any questions feel free to comment, and I will try to get to them as soon as possible.