Post-AMAZE daze

Hello!

So I've been away for quite some time now. Not only online but for many of you in real life too! Here's what happened:

Jan-March 2014: Finally back on my feet! Use all spare time working on 6X Mass Production, with a full work day this was essentially a crunch mode for me time-wise

April 2014: Exhausted but finally feel confident to demo to the local community, get some great feedback and am buzzed by the whole experience! Get contacted about freelance work I could do on the side, sounds like a great opportunity!

**I would like to invite the reader to fire up this video of sad violin music while you read the next few paragraphs**

April - July 2014: Day-job work goes balls to the wall. Two major projects' deadlines collided at the same time and already pretty tired from my personal project we go into a month long crunch, which set us back on the next deadline and put us into another month long crunch, we made it through alright but this was followed by another deadline push, which given our energy levels was effectively another crunch (... and I wish I was joking)

August 2014: End up more exhausted and drained than I could ever imagine. That side contract went through a lot of initial planning but had to pull out just before I signed anything (fortunately. Going through with it would have been a big mistake, but it was still an uncomfortable situation I found myself in :/ ). Work finally eases up to a mild panic, back to 8 hour days at least! Even so, my health and many personal relationships had taken a massive strain, and I suppose it's a testament to how strong those bonds are that they didn't break during that time (I'm truly sorry about that, hope that I'll be able to make it up to you all <3 ).

September 2014: Slightly recovered, I go to the A MAZE festival...


And that's sort of were the story ends. Or rather, a new one begins. I have so many words to say about my experience at A MAZE I don't know where to start. A MAZE is a festival of games and playful media and some truly wonderful people were there, all just loving games and play in general.

Before this trip, I wasn't entirely sure making games was for me anymore, in my exhaustion that passion in me had been suffocated somewhere and I felt like I was weaving my craft with the weakest of threads, the most misshapen of needles, and a brain too numb to realise that I didn't even need those things to start with. I over-express it a touch, but it was pretty ugly thought to have hovering in my head. And I know that I probably haven't had it even that bad, I'm a very lucky person to be where I am. But that's what it's like being in a rut, you feel hard done by, which only makes things worse...

**if you decided to play the violin music, you may pause it now**

That's thankfully changed now. I got to meet my idols, and idols I didn't know I had. The sheer passion of people around me shook me out of my rut and I'm excited to make games again. I want to see people smile and laugh and be a part of creating those experiences.

It's been a tough year for me but I'm glad I'm seeing the back of it now. Thinking now it's not been such a bad year game-wise, I made these after all!

I'm excited to make games again. So to cap off this blog, here are an couple that I'm making now or want to make as a result of A MAZE:

I saw my people

A game about cultural exchange, think Eufloria for the aeshtetics and the difficulty of cultural interactions and integration for the theme. Central experiences just how draining and difficult it can be when integrating into a new culture, overcoming that challenge and the new challenges that arise when you return to the people you left, who you may not get on with anymore! We have NO idea what to do for mechanics besides but we are figuring this out as we prototype along and as we learn more about the topic. The idea belongs to @damousey and I tried to do it justice with a prototype... not that either of us really know how to pull this off, but this was a first stab

Try it out here, it's not much but any ideas are welcome!

Kick In The Door - The Actual Edition

Kick in the door was originally designed as a 3 player game (with @CoolYourJets_SA), each player having one button to 'kick'. We had foot pedals for buttons but this edition will basically add an actual physical door with 3 large buttons which the player needs to actually physically kick to “press”. Kick in the door was already quite fun with foot pedals for buttons, but I’m keen to see people destroy a real life door playing this game… so yeah I expect I’ll be building more than one of these controllers...

Tried to get a webplayer build working, I failed... miserably, so check out the showreel vid of it (at 2:33s)

Grabbas

This game I actually made at AMAZE with two awesome Fins (@KissaKolme and @jukiokallio) We made it in about 3 hours it had a game breaking jam bug so we couldn't show it at the festival. The game is a 2 player competitive pole climbing simulator.

Check it out here. Needs two XBOX controllers (controls are left/right bumpers to grab, analog sticks to move hands) ... also I've not actually been able to play test this since getting back from AMAZE so lemme know what you think (and if it works properly)

Burning Alien VR

A game we made in 3 hours for the Oculus workshop at A MAZE (with @CoolYourJets_SA) that we couldn’t actually test because the Oculus just wouldn’t work on my laptop *sadface* You ride on an alien dinosaur and wonder around looking at various random crystals, pillars and whatever else our modeler had time to make. The Oculus interaction is different from usual because it takes the head direction to be the direction of travel, rather than the controller direction (similar to XTODIE: Rangnerok - an awesome game that was shown at AMAZE - check it out!) the difference being that turning your head turns your dino's direction slowly, which *should* feel like a natural experience but I don’t know since we never got time to actually test it. Anyway thought the idea was fun ^_^

Bite-based game

I don't know what, and I don't know how, but I want to make a game that involves a controller you have to bite on to win. Besides the obvious hygiene issues with sharing such a controller between people I think it would be an interesting thing to try out. Seems natural to make it a zombie game where you play the zombie.

6X Mass Production

Ok this game has existed way before AMAZE, but being there has given me the push I needed to actually get this on the road again, I started this project almost 18 months ago on and off in my spare time, about 6 months ago I decided to take it beyond a prototype and show it to my local community. They loved it (or at least liked it) and I got a hell of a lot of good feedback and a very clear picture of where to take it mechanically. You read my sob story above about loosing my passion a bit but it is back and I’m keen to sink some proper time into this (but without killing myself this time). I’m making plans so if you like puzzle games like I do, keep an eye out ‘cause this is gonna be fucking awesome and I’m gonna do what I can to make it a reality.

... err the current version is undergoing a massive rewrite and is not playable at the moment, really wanting to get that running asap, but in the meantime check the showreel video for an idea of the game (at 1:05s)

Past, Present, and Future of raxterworks

Hello everyone!

It's been, wow, 4 months since I last posted! Heeeeeavy. Lots have gone down since then. Did a MASSIVE overhaul of the artwork in 6x Mass Production, mainly with the goal of applying for government funding to get to GDC '14. It seemed a bit odd to me, "what am I doing? sprucing up the graphics just to impress someone into giving me money". Well, it seems that way but with the game in its previous form, there is no way anyone would take raxterworks seriously... I wouldn't. And with the possibility of going to GDC I wasn't about to take any chances. I had a solid mechanic that was fun (or at least engaging), it just needed something to bring it to life.

Thus began a 2 week drive of utter madness and work to 1) find someone who could do art for this, 2) concept it up and 3) complete all the content needed (even just a trimmed down list for demo purposes). Not to mention that it desperately needed sound ad music.

Concepts from Gabe - we ended up going for painterly

Enter Gabriele Gabba and Joe Bolton, the true heros of this story! So I worked with these two lovely people to get a demo off the ground. I'll leave out the minutes of it all, everything went quite smoothly and 2 weeks later I had a "working" demo. Ok well, it worked for me, not a chance that I was releasing it to the anyone else, you look at it odd and it bugs out. But i was sufficient to make a few vids, get a few screengrabs and give a good impression of where things were going.

That was 4 months ago. About a month ago (and for your notebooks, GDC just ended) and the funding didn't come through. Not for me, nor anyone actually... turns out that the government has limited funds for these sorts of 'trade missions' and that it gets used up as soon as the applications open... and they open in March/April each year. Meaning GDC would never have gotten through. And all that time was wasted...

Baaha of course not, I loved working on it. Not to mention that the work I did then has been instrumental to the progress that is happening now. Ok, I was really hoping on GDC for exposure for 6x Mass Production, and for... well going to GDC at all! But getting 6-fold to the state it was in, I could see the potential in the game. I'd been working on the back end mechanics so much that I kinda lost sight of making it a good experience and putting the art and music in brought it to life and I could see it as more than just a prototype.

Although I loved my little Hexel artworks, this was not going to convince anyone that this was a marketable game

It still needs a lot of work, but it's feeling a lot better now. I think anyway

Sure I should be able to see that a game will be good from raw mechanics alone without the need for swish graphics and melodies, but I'm not that good and in the end that is how it went down in my mind. Next time I'll be more astute, more observant and wiser I hope, for now I took that opportunity and decided to run with it.

That was about a month ago, I'm now sitting on a Phase 1 Alpha build of 6x Mass Production that I'm quite proud of, actually not scared to show to the world, and has a hand plan for Phase 2, 3 and beta releases. It's difficult, lovely, odd, and scary all at the same time. Difficult since I'm doing this in my spare time. My work for Renderheads is essentially my day job, working on 6-fold is like going into crunch mode since it occupies nearly all my spare time. It's odd because I've not taken a game I've built from scratch this seriously before. It's new ground for me.

It's scary because I want it to be a success, which intrinsically means I'm opening my self up for failure. Financially I'm doing alright from the Renderheads work, even recovered from a rather difficult year last year. I'm more scared of the "am I good enough" thought. It's a genuine worry, I watch these incredibly talented game devs from around the world (and some next door) and wonder if I'm missing a trick.

I always remember though, I'm making a game I like, I love puzzle games, I love games in general. I'm making a game I want to see exist, I'm assuming that there will be others that will like it too (I'm not all that unusual, you see :p). It's not so much a financial thing, I'd love it to sustain me so I can make more games full time, although I'm not expecting 6-fold to be a runaway success or anything. But part of the reason I make games is for people to enjoy them. That is the end goal I'm keeping in mind. I'm lucky that failure of this particular project won't leave me on the streets. This is why it is lovely.

As for the future. The Renderheads work is keeping me on my toes, it's hard work but super challenging and fun (except for the odd nonsensical client request) I've learned an incalculable amount working on various projects or prototypes there! Digging it to the core! I might have an exciting 'side' project on hand (a client project, technically but it's shaping up to be a very very fun idea). If that happens then 6-fold will have to take a back seat for a bit as this would be another paying job. In either case I'm going to write up a detailed plan of where 6 fold will go, so that when I return to it I can pick up on it with minimal warm up time. Mainly what phases mean what features and in what state of completion, that sort of thing. All in all, very exciting times ahead!

 Stay cool and groovy, dudes!
-raxter

6x Mass Production - Early WIP, reskin and rewrite

Here is some work in progress of the next (2nd) iteration of 6-fold Mass Production. The art style is completely not decided on and the pixelart is just stuff I put in because I needed to have a not crap looking game (if you think this looks rough, you should have seen the first version!)

For those unacquainted, 6x Mass Production is a puzzle game about moving and connecting parts with ingenious mixes of mechanical arms, welders and splitters. You start with some base parts (or one big base part), move them, weld them (or split them) to form some other desired construction.

So anyway, here is what I've gotten so far. Looks-wise there's not much going on, but the GUI system is in the process of a complete and utter overhaul, like 5% of the original GUI code survived... and I doubt that 5% will be too safe for long. Fortunately I was able to keep a lot of the core mechanical stuff in place (which is good because it was a bitch to write and I'm fearing the day that I might have to rewrite it). Also a playable alpha is on the way (no promises when just yet :p I have a pretty cool full time job so this is strictly on my spare time), I've only spent about 5-6 evenings on the rewrite and already I'm racing ahead. So for now here is a link to the old prototype

The basic game so far - no parts to grab yet, the code is there, it's just not hooked up yet... also I've only just recoded up the part which allows me to make compound parts (trust me, it needed recoding). Also you'll notice context buttons on the grabber and on the instruction list. This is experimental but I think it's going to work out

Also more Hexels fun! I don't have an artist, so my little placeholder stuff will do for now :D

One of the arms on the grabber, it dawned on my far too late that the arms only move up and down, no swiveling on the edges... rookie error but this is just placeholder. Also glow effect for win!

I wanted something slightly more interesting than a simple clamp. This spider looking design just kinda happened when I was trying out different orientations and such

The arms and clamps are loosely based off this picture:

Again, I was a bit hasty and realised that copying the swivel hinges on this sort of mechanical arm was not actually what the grabbers in the game should have since they only extend and retract (for now)

Chronoland - Trading time

I made a game!

So this was for the monthly Make Games South Africa Competition (the 'E'th edition) where the constraint was to make a game that lasts less than 5 minutes. Since time was precious I thought it would be a fun idea to try make a resource. I incidentally also always have wanted to make a Crimsonland clone so the two were put together and bam!

A majority of the initial work was done over one weekend with about good 6 hour stint extra to finish up what I could. I would like to continue work on this but I'm keen to get back to my other projects.

>>> Here is the link to the webplayer to give it a shot! <<<
For my Linux friends, here's a version that'll work in Ubuntu

Hexel Fun

So, I mentioned in my first post I'm making an input manager for Unity3D. I want to release this as an open-beta but I wanted a good platform to do it with. Nothing major just something presented nicely. So I made this blog, but I needed a logo (you gotta have a logo).

I wanted the logo to be hexagonal in nature, since my first planned game (6x Mass Production) is based on a hex grid (plus, I just like hexagons). So hexagonal, clean, and since I'm not really an artist at all, not too complicated so I might actually do a good job of it.

I first tried to use Inkscape to do this, since it was SVG and I could get the clean precision I wanted and it was able to have triangular grids to snap to! First hurdle was that the triangle grids could not be rotated 90 degrees (which I wanted).

Left: Point is up (Inkscape), Right: Point is to the side (what I wanted)

So I tried to pain sideways and although I got something, it wasn't really what I wanted, was plain, and very cumbersome to paint sideways using outline.

Creating hex art with Inkscape, really not what this was designed for... or I was just doing it wrong

I next tried photoshop which was alright, I could get a hex grid as a backdrop and work from there, but unlike Inkscape, it just didn't have the precision I needed, you can set up a snap to grid but only a square setup. It was going alright, but was far too much work to make sure it as precise as I needed it to be.

Enter Hexels!

Hexels Logo http://hexraystudios.com/hexels/

So hex drawing in software not designed for hex drawing is just a simple mission. So I thought I could write a simple hex drawer that would do the job. Seemed like a lot of work, but fortunately someone has done it already! And they've done it pretty damn well! Hexels by HexRay Studios made basically the app I was looking for. It really easy to use if you have basic photoshop/similar experience and their glow aftereffect feature may seem like a gimmick but it really adds a level of vibrance to the images that non-artists, like me, appreciate (since it make us look better than we actually are). After a bit of trail and error, my logo was made. I kn0w the text is a bit wonky so I might revisit it as some stage, but I'm quite happy with it.

This is just the same as the title logo

With this very significant and noteworthy success (lol). I moved on with my real project, making that gamepad input manager. I'm almost done but I needed to write the documentation. But there was a major and all-encompasing, huge, blocky-like problem... ok there wasn't I just need to write up the docs but I wanted some sort of logo or graphic to represent the system! Pictures often speak very well in conjunction with documentation that people will probably mostly ignore anyway (until there's a problem, of course). So I thought I could copy paste a bunch of controllers into photoshop, draw some lines, show whats up, but I though the pictures might be crap, it'll most likely look cheap if I do it... sooooo

HEXELS... yeah so instead of doing important stuff I drew these. Hexels has a nice feature in which you can backdrop an existing image and paint over it. Here are the results of my efforts (with the pics they were based on - I don't own the real pictures, I found them on Google):

XBOX

Playstation

Logitech

So I must disclaim, I am not a trained artist, nor even a practicing one. I think these are OK at least, not fantastic though, but any criticism or advice will help me tremendously if you have. Otherwise I just have to say that Hexels is super easy and fun to jump into! Go to their site and try out the demo!

Welcome to raxterworks

Greetings all,

So this, I am hoping, will be the home of my company to be. I say company, it's really just me making games and things that I like and hope you like too. If it gets big enough I'll make it an official company and such, but even that thought is getting too far ahead of myself. In short, I make games, or tools for people who make games, raxterworks is the housing in which I shall do this in.

My primary skill is programming though I'm slowly picking up the atheistic and design side of things. Although I've spend (way too much) time learning how to code as well as I can in all sorts of languages and environments, I've settled on the Unity3D engine to do most of my work. It's just the easiest way to get idea to actual thing: efficient and minimal frustration!

For now I have two projects I'm working on.

1) A do it all, minimal hassle Gamepad Controller Input Manager Plugin that'll set up all your Unity axes and detect what controller you are using and automatically route the right axes to the right commands. Hoping to release this as an open beta very soon.

2) 6x Mass Production, a puzzle game whereby you must build machinery out of smaller parts using ingenious arrangements of moving hydraulic grabbers, welding rigs and other construction mechanisms! It's based on a mix of SpaceChem and The Codex of Alchemical Engineering both by Zacatronics Industries and I'm hoping for it to be a good first 'official' game.

You can play it using the Unity webplayer:
WebPlayer (18MB): Unity3D Webplayer

Or download it:
Windows  MacOS  Linux (Ubuntu 11.04)

Here are some screenshots from very early development

As you can see, the artwork is very basic... 

Despite it not looking so great, the core gameplay seemed fun, and people likes the idea

Got lots of great feedback, and the next iteration will see improvements to the UI flow and gameplay mechanics. The 'grabbers' were a little complicated to introduce, so I'm planning on introducing sub-versions of these to make the learning curve easier

My initial discussions were on the MakeGamesSA forums, it has far more details than here. But future iterations I'll be posting on this blog as well as on the forums. If you have any feedback, post on the forum or comment here (can I do that here? I'm new to blogging I think the comments bit is public...). Always appreciate criticism. 

I rely a lot on my local game dev community Make Games South Africa for help and guidance. If you are a South African and interested in making games in any capacity (hobbiest, professional, artist, writer, programmer, whatever), definitely check them out! The community is very welcoming to all in my experience.

Thanks for reading!