The Production Blog of Sword 'N' Board
 
Holy cow... talk about a week of Holidays, family and artwork.
It was really great seeing my family for Christmas and being able to see my little brother, but even that didn't seem to keep me from working.

It was really nice to actually show some of my family what I've accomplished with the game so far, and how it's coming along. It's a strange balancing act when it comes to this production blog, as while I want to keep things interesting for anyone that happens to stop by and take the time to read this, I also have to keep some details somewhat secret. I don't want to give everything away before the game is finished!

So far the support that I've gotten from my friends and family is absolutely amazing! My cousin Ryan has almost made a mode to share every post on Sword 'N' Board's Facebook page, which is absolutely amazing as well (thank you Ryan!).

I've definitely felt that I needed to get a bit more artwork up on here, aside from little screenshots of the UI or game Icons, just to make things a bit more interesting. The downside to that of course being that since I'm the only person working on the game, that while artwork is coming out, no programming is being down.

However, that doesn't mean that I haven't been programming at all! In fact I've managed to program one of the main mechanics/abilities that I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to use. I was a bit afraid of it at first, as it's one of the main technically complicated mechanics of the game, and will probably end up being one of the most difficult ones to program out of all the other abilities that you'll acquire throughout the game. But, I was able to get it working, and finished, so that's yet another thing to mark off the list!

Another road block that I recently ran into, is sound effects! I'm not a sound guy, and I literally have 0 sound recording equipment, but I'm obviously going to need sounds and music for the game right?

Luckily, a wonderful site called opengameart.org has a large library of different sound effects that I can use for free for the game. It's just a matter of going through each of the sound effects, and finding the perfect sounds for each of the actions and abilities that they relate to!

Now, it's off to programming some Enemy A.I.!
 
Well, we're a day early, but who cares right? Consider this me trying to make up for being a day late a couple weeks ago.

I was really trying think of what would actually be interesting to read here the other day. While the point of a production blog is obviously to let people know how far along you are in production, the mile stones you're reaching and things like that, it should also be interesting to read right? So I thought I would give everyone a bit more insight into what to expect from the game when it's finished.

A large number of items and weapons, and item customization:

I wanted there to be a large amount of items in this game, for players to find and use, but I also didn't want to do it exactly like previous games have done. While this game is meant to be a sort of tongue in cheek parody of the original Legend of Zelda, I still really wanted to focus on the importance of the theme, and the importance of really playing the game the way that the player wanted to play it. Doing an exact duplicate of The legend of Zelda in my opinion really isn't fun, not only for myself while developing it, but for the player as well I feel.
So, when you've collected a few different items, you'll be able to decide exactly what weapons you want to assign to either of your two attack keys, either O or P. (Get it? That's so OP.... muahaha.... alright I'll stop)

Not only will you be able to decide what weapon you'll be using, with what key press, but using 2 items in different combinations will yield different results as well. But I'll go more in detail about that later... can't spoil everything right off the bat.

Many, large dungeons:

There will be many things to explore in the overworld, and many secrets hidden along the way. If you're going to find them all, you'll want to explore, and explore... and explore. The more you explorer, the greater the rewards! Also, not all of the items you'll be finding in order to survive are going to be found in a Dungeon, so be sure to keep an eye out...

In terms of the size of the Dungeons, they are going to be massive. In terms of layout they are about twice the size of the Legend of Zeldas depending on which dungeon you're in. So while the first dungeon you encounter may still be good in size, it won't be nearly as large as the 2nd, 3rd or so on. And the last dungeon in the mix is going to take a while to explore! Hopefully you've explored enough of the world to find the items you need to survive...

The Dungeons will also be themed I think, no simple color swaps here. We'll save that thing for

So how far along am I?

I have my own production schedule for the game, filled with Milestones that need to be completed in order to move on to the next task, and I'm already about 3 months ahead of the timeline that I gave myself.

The first major task, was to finalize the artwork and program the User Interface (UI) for the game. The User Interface is one of the biggest undertakings for this game, as it controls almost everything that you can do with your character. It controls all of your item selection, your button assignments as well as shows you the items that you've collected so far, as well as the items that you've yet to find.
Not only that, it also displays exactly how much you have of a certain items - for the items that have limited uses - how many keys you have in your possession, and where your health is currently at.

Of course, all of this can't fit on the screen, that would be absolutely terrible, and so it all drops down whenever you press the space bar, or disappears should you press the space bar again. So far, all of this is programmed.

Now, it's all about designing environment elements, some of which will be reused depending on the scene, or color swapped to give it old school feel, while others will be more elaborate to break things up a bit.






 
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Well well well, what do we have here? Is it a snow globe? A Crystal Ball? A paper weight? All of the above? Who knows... (hint: I do).

Like I've mentioned before, I really wanted to make a game that brought back the magic of the original Legend of Zelda, while still bringing something new to the table. While I loved the exploration and simplicity that the Legend of Zelda had, I always came back to things that I would have LOVED to see back then that I think would have made the experience all the more amazing to a 6 year old me, playing the game for the very first time.

What this object does, I won't really say for now. I would like those of you that actually take the time to play this game when it's finished to discover that on your own, but I can assure you that it's going to be a item that is very important in later parts of the game, and should add a new dynamic to the game as well! One that I think will be a hell of a lot of fun.

Unlike the other versions of The Legend of Zelda, you will be able to equip different items at a time, and use them in different combinations, which will then yield different results. You may even find that you'll favor different combinations of weapons and items based on your own play style, which will help add some diversity to the game, as your friend may not necessarily play the game the same way as you! Maybe you like items with a lot more force and strength, while your friend likes to play things a bit more passive and defensive? Who knows! The choice is entirely up to you.
While this game is highly themed around what it was like to be a kid and using your imagination to create an amazing world, I also definitely wanted it to be a parody of a game that I know is very dear to a lot of gamers hearts. With that said, I definitely don't want it to be a exact retelling of what people have come to expected from Legend of Zelda style games, so there will be plenty of familiar things, as well as brand new and exciting things!

 
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So this is coming a day late, but I wanted to make sure I had something worth talking about before posting!

It's funny designing this game, and coming up with different mechanics for it. Obviously it being a game that is heavily influenced by the original Legend of Zelda, I wanted to keep that feeling, while also remaining true to the theme that I have in place for the game. Not only that but I didn't see a purpose of doing a game that is exactly like the Legend of Zelda, so I wanted to add things to it that I would have liked to have seen before when I was 5 years old and playing it for the first time.
At first, I was thinking of the Items the players will be collecting as they make their way through the game and I was entirely too focused on making sure they were entirely different from the ones you'd find the Legend of Zelda, which then created another issue in figuring out what exactly I wanted these items to be able to do, or what their purpose was.

I quickly realized that the item itself didn't matter, if the things it did were completely different from what people could do with them.

And then, I started asking myself a lot of "What if?" Questions. As in "What if I could shield myself, and then use an item that had some sort of Area of effect stun around the player? What if they could use multiple different items in different combinations?"

Now, none of these questions were really ground breaking in any way, in fact they've been done in other games, but what will make them interesting is the different things they will allow you to do, and how you'll somewhat be able to customize the way your character plays to your play style, which I think will add another level of fun to the game.

Of course with new mechanics, and new abilities, must come new enemies and different bosses to make things a bit more challenging for everyone that will play the game, which I can't wait to get into very soon!

Currently, the focus of the production is on the UI, as that's going to be large part of the game and how the player interacts with the game.
UI is one of those things you really don't want to neglect, as you don't want to feel like you're having to fight a game while you're playing it. It should feel intuitive and get you back in and playing as quickly as possible. No one wants to fight with a control scheme for even a minute or two, or else it gets frustrating, and the person playing will just turn it off!

Once the UI is in place, and all is working as it should, it's really just a matter of designing the characters and the enemies, and getting them all in place!

Until next Friday! (Or sooner... we'll see)

 
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Prototyping has gone well so far for Sword 'N' Board so I decided to take a break from that since I'm also working on the programming of another project to really start getting the UI for the game up to bar and working properly.

The game finally has a drop down menu that slides down when you pause the game!

This will be of course your main item selection screen as well as show other important things for your character, such as upgrades, money, and other things you're going to need on your adventure.

All of the mechanics for each of the items have pretty much already been decided and now it's just a matter of designing the items for you to find!
I honestly didn't really anticipate designing the mechanics behind the items to be as complicated as it was, but it's definitely been an interesting time to say the least.

Aside from the main Drop down menu having the main Item selection screen it will also contain your map for the area that you're in to keep you from getting lost as well as other items that you may not be able to readily equip but affect your character in other ways!

I also started work on the main top UI, for your Health and overall controls as well as other game controls like Sound volume and things like that.
While things may not be moving along nearly as fast as I would like them to, I can't be too man, because progress is still progress!

Now, I still have no idea what I'm going to name this kid, so I should probably try and figure that out. Though, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to message me, or leave a comment. Maybe I'll use it!

 
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To say it's been a productive few days is an understatement to say the least! Within the past 3 days I've managed to accomplish a number of different things for Sword 'N' Board in terms of prototyping the game.

So far I've got a life system set up (which will change from what is on the image now to something a bit less Zelda in nature, and a little more humorous because Adult humor is a hell of a lot more funny!) which will allow you to take a few hits before you die, and even add to your health should you find health to pick up after killing enemies.

That also brings us to the other thing that I was able to get working, which is random chances of money/weapons/health being generated when an enemy is killed. for the most part that was pretty easy to get working, the hardest part of it seems to be balancing between the enemies not dropping enough money/health so it becomes frustrating and not rewarding enough, to the enemies dropping them entirely too often and making things a bit too easy. So that's kind of interesting how something small can change the feel of the game entirely, but I'm definitely learning a lot!

Enemy AI is pretty simple right now, but I hope to add things to complicate it a bit. Right now it's very original Legend of Zelda, which isn't a bad thing but it definitely needs to be a little more sophisticated. So I'm sure a lot of my time will be spent there.

There's also an "Enemies Killed" display which will eventually be removed from the final game. It really was only put there to test a display for things like Money, Keys and other items with multiple different real time displays.

So far the basic functionality is there, and is coming along really quickly. I'm really looking forward to finally putting some final artwork into the game. I'm getting really tired of looking at moving blocks.

 
It's official now, we have a production blog for Sword 'N' Board finally up and running!

How did the game come about? And what is it's premise?

When I was 3 years old I received my first Nintendo, with Super Mario Bros. I eventually got the Legend of Zelda. I remember loving that game from the very beginning and playing that game entirely longer that I probably should have (sometimes lying about finishing my homework so I could play it) .
Shortly after that my parents separated and I ended up going off to live with my mother. Eventually because of my mother financial situation we ended up having our power turned off and I was forced to live that way for close to 3 years (this was before there were laws in place to keep your power from being turned off if there were children in the household).
To say it was a difficult transition for a kid of about 9 years old is an absolute understatement. I went from playing video games like every other kid to playing with whatever toys I had during the day until it got too dark to see what I was doing. When it was night time, I would then either read or draw by candle light the best I could until bed time.

The problem was, I still REALLY wanted to play video games, especially the Legend of Zelda, and so I found a way to still play Zelda in my own way.

The one thing I had entirely too much of was toys, and toy swords and shields specifically.

And so, I would pretend that I was Link and would set up my huge living room with a chair and blanket fort with pillows as terrain and I would fight imaginary monsters in Hyrule in my own living room. Sometimes going as far as to hide toy weapons under certain parts of the "terrain" in the living room and pretend to find what to me was a "Mystical sword of power" under a rock which was actually a pillow or something else I could use for my Hyrulian "overworld".

You could call it me making the best out of a bad situation, but regardless of whatever was going on, or what had caused the situation we were in I still managed to use my imagination to have a hell of a lot of fun!

And that really is where Sword 'N' Board started.

Sword 'N' Board is about a kid pretending to fight monsters around his families huge house. It will take you from different rooms in his house, to the outside back yard and all over as he crawls imaginary dungeons and fights imaginary monsters.

It will be a top down 2D game very much like the first Legend of Zelda and will borrow a lot from that game in terms of Game play, but there will definitely be added mechanics to add a new level of game play that the first Legend of Zelda was lacking, and I hope to make it just as large in scope. The main theme of this game is going to be Nostalgia.

I can't be the only kid that dressed up like Link, and pretended to battle imaginary monsters, and that's exactly what I intend to make people do, but in a digital format while giving people something they will already feel familiar playing.

How much money will the game cost when it's finished?

The point of the game isn't to make money, so when the game is finished and released it will be free to play for everyone! It will probably be released in HTML5 so you can play it from your browser online, and I may try and take it to other platforms later on depending if that's something I want to pursue. Currently I'm the only person working on this, and this is a completely independent game project so moving it to another platform that may cost money to publish to would really depend on the games popularity and my own willingness to pay the money to do that. So we'll have to see!

So if the game is totally free, why am I doing it?

To be completely honest with everyone that decides to read this lengthy novella, it's not entirely without it's selfish motivations. The first reason I want to do it, is because it just seems like something that's really fun to do. When I think about designing in, and working on "programming" it, it really excites me. Just the idea of putting this game together is really something that I look forward to each day.

The other side of the coin is, is I really do want to eventually work on another game idea that I've been working on, that may be something I could sell in the future. However, I have no idea how to program and so I'm going to be using a 2D game engine called "Gamesalad" to put Sword 'N' Board together which is also the game engine that I plan on using when I put my other game together which I may plan on selling eventually. So essentially Sword 'N' board is going to be the place where I'm going to cut my teeth on Gamesalad and hopefully I will learn enough through the Sword 'N' Board to really bring my main game Idea to life.

Edmund McMillen of Team Meat (who's blog you can find here: http://edmundm.com/ ) has really been a source of inspiration for me for a while and after watching several interviews he's done has really caused me to look at things a certain way and I realized before I try and make some long and involved game I'm really passionate about I really need to get some practice making other more simple games first. I'm not going to learn game development by reading things online or watching Interviews of other game developers, I need to do it. And he's absolutely right about that.

Another thing, is having a really fun game that is accessible to everyone that I can put on a resume is never a bad thing when I'm trying to break into the game industry, so there's also that. Who knows, maybe I'll just stay Indy...

So what's going on with the game currently?

I have a very ADHD workflow (probably because I'm ADHD) and so I really go back and forth with prototyping the game, and conceptual artwork for our main character, terrain and various enemies.
Currently I'm prototyping the controls for the character, as well as Enemy AI since that's really the main things that I'm going to need. Once all of those are in place, I can start working on the Puzzles since that's really going to be a core part of what makes the game fun, on top of the combat. currently there's really no artwork implemented but it's definitely coming a long way!

I will be updating this blog as often as I think I should, based on how things are coming, but regardless of progress it will be updated at least every Friday so be sure to check back often!