I’m still kinda sad that I wasn’t able to finish my entry on Gamejolt’s Axiom competition. But oh well, we gotta keep moving!

Right now I’m love with Inform7, “design system” for Interactive Fiction creation. Back in 2004 I started some IF sketching using TADS, but I found the programming language a bit difficult (or at least unintuitive), so it didn’t evolve into anything… But last monh I wrote a short story about a man trying to find a birthday present for his daughter, and I thought it would fit perfectly on an Interactive Fiction, so I started to look for the current languages and so I found Inform7…

The cool thing about it is that you write mostly in english! In order to program it, little to none experience in coding is required because things are very intuitive – yet the language is extremely flexible and powerful! For instance, if I write…

The bedroom is a room. “This is a regular bedroom!”.
The bathroom is a room. It is north of the bedoom. “The bathroom is very clean and tidy.”.
The shower is in the bathroom. It is fixed in place. “The shower doesn’t have hot water…”.
The sink is in the bathroom. It is fixed in place. “Sadly, the sink isn’t working.”.

…and run the application, the game will already be working, with two rooms and two items in the bathroom… Pretty simple example, I know, but I think you can understand how easy it can be to design an interactive story with this. Instead of wasting time trying to make even the simple things work, the author (game designer?) can focus on writing good stories instead of coding!

If you want information about Inform7, their website is very resourceful: www.inform7.com
The software documentation is great, and within minutes I was already designing my first tests. “The Fair”, my now-interactive-story is coming up great: So far I’m designing the whole world and actions, and only after this is over I start porting the story to an interactive narrative!

The process of moving in with my girlfriend was a lot my tiring than expected… but I guess things are stable now!

Therefore, I think I might be able to work on something before the deadline (about 4 days from now). The good news is I won’t do it alone! My girl is anxious to work with me, and we fleshed out a good idea to begin… I post more information about it later! And I promise, the next post will be more interesting!

UPDATE:

Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to finish it… But we’ll continue it anyway!

About a month ago, the new independent games hoster Gamejolt has created a competition with the theme Shocking. The results were very good (I created a silly game for it too, which I’ll post about later), and the website got a nice start!

Now they intend to release a second competition, starting August 1st, with one month of deadline. The theme is still a mystery, but I had a good time making my game, and I noticed competitions are a good way of forcing me finish something!

I really like how the Gamejolt Team has put up some thought on the website’s concept as a whole. Creating game-based, small blogs for development news, adding soundtracks… The website feels very complete, and I intend to use it like it should for this next game!

So this is it, I’m waiting for the competition to begin!

Hey, about my game, you can check it at:
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/other/the-literal-fall-of-men/370/
Keep in mind that this is a very stupid game I made in two days :P

For all those years as a game designer wannabe, I managed to come up with some pretty ideas for games. But it’s very easy to get carried away by the excitement of a new idea, and it’s not hard to see a simple project become something I’ll never be able to finish by myself, or that will take so much time I’ll probably get bored after a while and give up on it.

I’m very disappointed with this. There were dozens of games I wanted to create, but they got so big I never thought I would be experienced enough to do it, so I just ended up dropping it.

For this new phase in my life, with the Gammabeam blog, The Bachelor Pad and everything, I decided to tidy up my creative process. Apart from creating a (kind of) Wiki for myself – which was one of the best things I could have done – and installing a repository, I came up with a cool method that has helped me organize my thoughts, while also keeping it simple and doable. I like to call it the “One-page game design”. ;)

It’s very simple! You take one white paper, and you try to explain all aspects of the game as detailed as you can, with the smallest amount of words possible! Believe, this simple feat might reveal you a lot of things about your project!

One of the biggest problem I’m always facing is the quantity of art / UIs the game will need so the player can be able to play it and, well, have fun with it! With the one-page game design, I’m able to quickly sketch a game workflow  – not considering main menus, options and stuff, but what the main interface needs.

Also, I tend to use a pen when making this page – no pencil, no eraser! So, to make a nice one-page design, you’ll probably have to rethink the whole structure of the game on your mind before putting it on paper, which once again lets you notice lots of faulty areas.

Will this really help me on my future games? I don’t know… I’m still trying to develop the ones I made before using this method, but I think now my ideas are very organized and on a simple/doable state. I hope I have some more game designs to show you soon!

Me and a bunch of friends have started a blog called The Bachelor Pad, where we post our projects and talk about game design.

It’s still starting, but there’s already some good stuff coming out, like Yamada’s Sensitive Golf, Them Exquisite Cockroaches and Don’t Break the Vase. I posted a small note on my Mini-Wars, a game that’s currently on hold while I wait for a more stable version of Construct…

Check The Bachelor Pad out ;-) We are still starting this (just like this blog), but everybody is very talented and anxious to show some good work! So tell us what you think, we’d be more than happy to hear from you!

I came up with this game yesterday, and now I can’t get it out of my head. I have a feeling this is one of the projects that I’ll idealize it so much, I’ll never be able to finish… But what the hell, let’s talk about it!

But first, to understand why this project might take me some time, I wanted to talk about a movie I recently saw, and that has stuck with me since then. It’s a movie that has made me regain my interest in cinema, as I was tired of watching the same stories and recycled characters over and over. It’s a 2008 swedish movie called “Låt den rätte komma in” (Let the Right One In). I sincerely believe this is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen.

Link to the movie @ IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/

But why am I so excited about it? Well, for starters, I found the technical aspects were perfect. Music is touching, the photography is gorgeous (even though I haven’t watched it in cinemascope projection) and the casting dida fine job choosing the actors. But what really got me hooked – and that’s what I intend to talk about here – was the way the story is told!

From now on, I’ll have to talk about the movie, so there may will be spoilers… If you haven’t watched it, I suggest you do not read the following, as it may change the way you understand it (and that’s the whole point of this post). :-P

(Read More)

There ya go… ahem…

Welcome to my new blog! :-D

In Gammabeam, I intend to post some of my work. I have great interest in game design – and not just videogames: board games are one of my addictions -, so the main focus here is games, of course. However, I can’t restrict myself if I want to post some interesting stuff about movies, music, design and art, so don’t curse me if I seem to stray from the blog’s main theme. :-P

The blog is mainly a way to show everyone my games and projects (finished stuff and WIPs). I’ll try to keep everything organized in the categories, so if you want to see the whole progress of a game, it will be easy!

And as a final note, I must add that english is not my home language (I’m from Brazil!), so excuse me if I made some english mistakes, ok?

Thanks for visiting, I hope I can make something useful out of this blog! Let the games begin!

It is done! This blog’s layout is complete. You may still find some problems, but I guess we reached a showable level. Next post will feature a warm welcome notice! ;-)