This is my last post in this run of “Incomplete Works” but I foresee that I will add more in the future when the following happens:
1) I inevitably start and subsequently run out of steam on a new project.
2) I want to talk about myself again without actually directly talking about myself.
Ego - A pixelated author self insertion character.
Today’s incomplete work is therefore highly relevant as we’re on the theme of talking about myself. Today is Ego.
Ego is a game that I have been building with the help of Game Maker , a fantastic easy-to-learn deeper-than-you-think game development environment that utilises its own very easy to pick up language and is loved by many many startup indie game developers. I consider myself to now be a hobbiest indie game developer having made the horrendously difficult and un-enjoyable Pavlov’s Keyboard (I dare you to have fun) and now this little project.
The game is about creativity and how we often create copies of ourselves in our work. It’s largely a reaction to a lot of my comic work where I have a tendency to draw myself as main characters, or an abstraction of my personality as the main character and it’s a trait that I know others possess as well. Needless to say, the playable character in Ego is a pixelated version of myself just to drive the point home.
Ego is in an alpha state at present. The basic gameplay is there, although there are a few occasional glitches that I can’t quite figure out with the sound and occasionally controls, but it’s largely just graphical and doesn’t actually break the game.
In the tradition of some of my favourite indie studios, I thought I’d offer my initial playable build for feedback and potential enjoyment. One recent victim player got very stuck on one of the levels and started trying to solve it in a rather unusual way and I’d be interested to see if anyone else does the same.
Download Ego – Windows only – .rar file that extracts a single playable .exe
Oh, and just as a quick warning: It’s very short at the moment. The equivalent of a comic that has hit the ten-page mark.
Additional Notes:
Indie studio that is taking the novel concept of a completely open alpha phase: Wolfire Games. These are the guys behind Lugaru, and more recently the Humble Bundles, which have been an incredibly fresh, interesting and overwhelmingly well received idea. Their open alpha involves distributing the current alpha build to everyone that has pre-ordered the game, allowing them to see exactly how the game is progressing and offers a remarkably deep insight into how these things are made. Their site is worth a look and their blog is worth subscribing to, even if the open alpha doesn’t interest you.
I know not everyone uses windows, but really, industry standard and all. If Steam have only just started offering things on Mac and the only other companies producing for Mac are quirky ones like Blizzard or Maxis, then I feel justified in the excuse of “I am not those stuidos”. I can barely grasp what’s going on in the programming here and it’s insultingly simple.
Also, I’m not sure I fully comprehend what Linux is. It sounds like some kind of cat. Maybe an open source cat.
One element of the design process that routinely throws roadblocks up in my path is the graphical development. When you start making your game, it is inevitably not going to look like a polished game unless you’re making text only interactive fiction, and even then you might end up changing the font. This is unavoidable and is something that you shouldn’t be worried about, but there’s a balancing act here whereby you need to get it looking like something you’re at least partially happy with, otherwise you’re not going to work on the game at all.
