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Just a quick update, yes, we are moving and shaking. Making a nice nice 3D game, it's still very early, but you can get a taste of how we're progressing. I've coded this engine up from scratch, and you can see how the movement, camera, and collision are all working quite well with the little demo video here. We'll be sharing more developments along the way, but things are shaping up quite nice. The current model, lighting, level, etc. they're all test placeholders not representative of the final game, but everything is very nice code-wise. The video is a bit choppier than the real thing, because of the screen recorder hogs up some resources quite well, but rest assured the real thing runs at a silky smooth framerate. Tweet
Today is the final post-mortem, my Iron Pony Challenge game. This game is one of my favorites, and has the best graphics of any game that I've made thus far, save for the current one I have in development.  That sweet sweet title screen. Work then began on the game. I had a few ideas for events based on the show, like the long jump, which was the first event that I tackled. I began hacking up the School Maze engine, so I wouldn't have to start from scratch and this really helped as I could easily re-use a lot of code and structures from School Maze, though I did have to change a good bit too as the game was setup differently. Though what I could re-use really helped as I didn't have to start from 0 completely. The "maps" in Iron Pony aren't tilemaps like they were in School Maze, they're basically just bitmaps that I scroll, 'Flintstones style'. By Flintstones style I mean like how in old cartoons the same background is just scrolled and reused like nobody will ever notice. This made things a lot easier with the level design as I could re-use the same backgrounds and make minor tweaks with a graphics editor, like paint if I needed to. Most of the changes to the level though were just overlaying sprites on top of the level and scrolling them along so changes to the background weren't really necessary. Several more events were added and after three were in there, the Hoofball Punt, Long Jump, and Rainball bounce, a demo was released. This was thrown up on my Deviantart account and it was popularly played quite a bit while I heard bug reports and added/fixed things. There were some quite humerous bugs that I needed to fix that would really allow you to get some insane scores. Like in the Hoofball Punt and Long jump you could keep tapping 'Z' to stay in the air. Along with these, the Rainball Bounce you could just sit and let the ball keep bouncing on your head. Humerous, but these needed fixed. After a few rounds of testing things seemed to be getting Ironed out. I had my friends Richie and Nik test some of the more final builds out for me in lieu of public testing to keep things secret for the final events. The final event, Tug of War, was decided by the testers and myself that it should be a bit harder than the rest, like the final event of World Games, to really make your victory sweet when you win. Which it does as it really feels like a struggle even when you get in the groove.  Bounce a ball on Dashie's head for the ball bouncing record! There wasn't really too much cut content this time around. The only thing that was really 'cut' per se was the barrel weave. This was later changed to the barrel hurdle. The barrel weave was going to be an event where you would have to mash 'z' to make your pony run, and then weave through barrels collecting apples. If you missed an apple you'd either have to finish and get points deducted or go back and try and get it. Either way missing an apple was no good. It was deemed a bit too hard so it was changed to the barrel hurdle instead. One stylistic choice that I changed per fan request was the bouncing of the hoofball. It bounces after it lands, but after the first bounce you don't get any more distance accumulated. Some people have a problem with this, but in a regulation American Football, Punt, Pass, and Kick contest these same rules apply so I used them. The sprites are another bit of love or hate with the game, I decided early on that I would use all my own art assets much to the chagrin of some ponies. I drew them all by hand and I think personally, they look quite nice as I tried to match the show as closely as possible in the low resolution. Desktop Ponies were often suggested, but as great as they look, I didn't want to seem like I was riding the tail of some other ponies. So I decided to go with my own style ponies. Desktop ponies do look great though.  If you can win this, you are a true Iron Pony. Tip! Only tap the button once for each arrow prompt, and hit it just as it comes up! Overall I think the game is pretty good, it's got around a 3.5/5.0 on Newgrounds and I think people really looking for that oldschool kind of challenge will enjoy it, but I think for more mass appeal I could have gone with something like a traditional sidescroller or something. It was an ambitious game and came out quite well for rushing like crazy to get it finished. It was essentially 7 games in one so it was a bit of a nightmare in testing as so many things could be different or broken potentially, thankfully it wasn't that bad and it call came together pretty well. If you'd like to check it out, follow this link. I hope you've enjoyed reading about the making of one of my favorite games. I know I enjoyed writing it. Have a great day! -JinrohCategory: Games Tweet Click to View All Posts |
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