October 22, 2012
10/22/2012
Today I’ve started coding on a new game project. Actually, it’s not a “new” game project as it’s one that I’ve had laying around for years. I started it once a long time ago using GameMaker, then I started to rewrite it in Visual Basic. For various reasons such as virus attacks, system crashes, and various operating system reinstallations all files associated with those projects have been lost forever. Now, I am going to tackle this project yet again, with some better tools and a lot more experience. I not only expect to start this project, but I fully expect to complete it as well. I imagine your first question will be, “What is Short Circuit?” Well, before I answer that, let’s take a brief walk down memory lane. Way back when I was a child, a company called Tiger Electronics produced this: <a href="http://files.cupcodegamers.com/TigerLightsOut.png"><img src="http://files.cupcodegamers.com/TigerLightsOut.png" alt="" width="200" /></a> This little handheld marvel was called Lights Out. As you can see, it’s a 5 x 5 grid of buttons. Those button light up, and when you press one of those buttons it toggles it’s light state and the state of the four buttons next to it not on a diagonal. The object of the game was to turn all the lights out, hence the name. Sounds simple, right? For the most part, it was. It offered a bit of a challenge to many players, and some did find the game to be a little on the difficult side. Most players however quickly caught on to certain patterns that could be used to easily beat virtually any level of the game. This is where Short Circuit comes in. Short Circuit is based upon the original Lights Out game by Tiger Electronics with some new features that are intended to increase the game's difficulty and offer a bit more variety in gameplay. Now, your second question is probably something along the lines of, “What new features do you have planned?” There are several new features that I’ve planned to add into the game. Once the core engine of the game is developed, I will be adding tri-phase buttons. Normally buttons only have two states, on and off. This new button type will have three states, on, off, and mid. These will be represented by the colors green, yellow, and red. Red signifying completely off, and green signifying completely on. The three phase button will operate similar to a stop light, cycling from green to yellow, to red, and back to green. Along with the multi-state buttons, I’ll be adding varying grid sizes. This will allow the game to scale the grid from 3x3 to 10x10. The second new feature to be added is directional indicators and blocks. This means that there will be a visual cue as to which other buttons will be affected when you press a button. This means that just because the button is in the middle of the board doesn’t mean it will affect all four buttons around it, it might not affect any other buttons at all. Then I’ll add in covered buttons. These will be buttons that are covered by a protective barrier that will prevent the player from pressing the button. Since these buttons cannot be pressed, they can only be changed using the lights around them. Next, I’ll add in the ability for buttons to affect other buttons on a diagonal from them. Combined with the other features this should make the level variations nearly endless. Once all these features are done, I’ll consider the game to be complete enough enlist alpha testers. If the game passes alpha testing then it will be released for general purchase. This doesn’t mean that I will stop development of the game like so many professional game development companies do. No, as long as I see there is an active public interest in the game, the game will continue to be developed. New levels will continue to be added, and new features will continue to be programmed into it. Unlike professional development companies, I cannot devote 40+ hours per week towards development of this game. Because of this, I cannot, and will not give any estimation on when the game will be completed nor when it will be ready for testing. I can say that this is a project years in the making, and as such I will not allow it to remain an unfinished work. Short Circuit is being developed for the PC, however it will be released for the XBox 360 if enough copies sell on the PC.