New games every week!
DS Progress Blog
26th August 2007
I decided to start a Dev diary here, for all my DS Developing. I figured people would eventually stumble across it, and start reading away at all the fun coding. Either that, or they'll completely ignore these bits, and just download the Experimental stuff like they usually do.
Either way, this is going to be a part dev-diary, part progress report, and part release schedule for all things DS.

I currently have 4 DS Projects on the go. They are Stringy Things, JNKPlat, An Alien Breed type clone, and a Green game collection.
Of those, Stringy Things will probably appear online first, then the Alien Breed thing.




Stringy Things - 75%

You probably played the version of this I released last year. This newer version contains a load of bugfixes, a whole new (much better) word list, and so far 2 new games. I'm hoping to build that number up a bit!
It's also got a new menu system, which allows for more variety in gameplay. As you can see in the screenshot, Strings now has an Endless mode, which means that new bubbles appear at the top, as you play.. Other playmodes are being integrated into the other games.
I've shifted "Dice" over to the "More Games" tab at the top of the screen. This lets me place in some extra types of games that I normally wouldn't be able to add, like new addition "Extract"
If you'd like to play a windows version of this game, head over to here, where Chris Davis' (aka Magicman) original version is playable.
I ported it over into Stringy Things, added a few DS friendly pickups, and with bubbles instead of squares it fits into the collection quite nicely.
The main issue I'm now having with Stringy Things is memory related. Or at least I think that's what's causing it. There are many curious bugs appearing where there previously were none.
I'm attempting to fix all these issues, and you can be sure they'll be gone by the time I release the new version.



Alien Breed - 10%

So far the engine looks like this.
It's not too bad, considering I'm only at 10%!
So far the player's onscreen, and the background's scrolling well. The interface works reasonably well, and even the control schemes are integrated nicely.
Four different control schemes are available.
1) Walk in the direction of the DPad, and fire by pointing. "Default style"
2) Walk/Strafe with the DPad, turn by pointing, fire by holding the trigger. "FPS style"
3) Walk in the direction of the DPad, and fire in the direction of the Face Buttons. "Robotron style"
4) Walk in the direction of the DPad. Hold A to shoot. Hold B to strafe+shoot. "Alien Breed style"
They're selectable via the menu system, so I know that's all working well!

Thus far I've not added any collision, or enemies, or pickups, or even a decent map. So I've got quite a bit to go, yet!



JNKPlat DS - Unsure!

Last year I released the first version of JNKPlat DS. People enjoyed it, which was nice
It was the first JNKPlat game to feature smooth animated graphics, and it gave the game a whole new feel, turning it more into an Action platform than just a puzzle game.
I've come to like that style more and more over the past year, and as such I'm not at the point where I'm considering redoing the whole game, as opposed to just re-releasing it with a level editor added.
See, if I redo it from scratch, I can redo all the graphics. I can rescale the whole game, and give it an even bigger, even better look.
It's not an easy decision, though. JNKPlat has essentially looked exactly the same for the past 10 years. Do I really want to change what it looks like!?

So, Either I restart the whole thing, or I just add in a level editor and rerelease the old one.
I'm not sure, yet!



Green's Collection - Unstarted


And lastly to the biggy!
The original collection, for windows, is available here. It's a set of small games, each with basic rules, and gameplay. They're fun, but small.
I've always thought a DS version of the collection would be fun, but so far I'm unsure of the graphical style I should go for.
As far as memory's concerned, the lesser the graphical style the better.. That way I can reuse plenty of the graphics, and fit in lots more games. But since I'll be using sprites for everything, I'll probably need chunkier graphics, so I can fill the screen, and not end up with only 128 8x8 pixel images on the screen! (128 is the DS's limit of sprites onscreen at once.)
I'm not sure if I'll go for the 8-bit style, try out a 16-bit style, do all line graphics, or maybe even go down a couple of steps and go for a super-retro Atari2600 style of graphics.
If I plan out a few games, maybe the graphics will find themselves. But I haven't even gotten that far, yet!
This game is mearly a sidethought in my mind, since I have plenty more things to be getting on with.

If you have any ideas for the collection, feel free to pop them into the comments below.
Views 65, Upvotes 14  
Daily Blog
New games every week!
Site credits : Jayenkai
(c) Jayenkai 2023 and onwards, RSS feed

Blog - DS Progress - AGameAWeek