Some short updates on the tiny projects that flood the gaps of my free time.

Probably most weeks will be focused on one or two projects at a time.

 

ShamanGame

That’s my working title system- [theme]game. It’s the working title for the strategy game my girlfriend and I are working on a little bit on the weekends. Describing a game with metaphors to other games is a common-enough shorthand: Thematically ShamanGame takes a hint from Populous. Mechanically, from Fire Emblem and DotA.

The object of the game is to destroy the enemy’s obelisks before they destroy yours. Every unit gets a turn every round to do as many actions as their energy limit allows: to move, to attack, or to perform a special action. The most important unit is the Shaman, of which both teams gets only one. The shaman can perform offensive magic, can heal or buff units, and can convert wild nature units into playable units. All other units are based on the brave, a fundamental unit that can upgrade into specialist units.

Current progress: I built a turn-based system an a test unit. I have a few walking and attack sprites. The weekend we’ll get some other fundamental elements together and maybe we’ll draw up some HUD stuff.

 

A Series on Game Studies 

Last week we built a prospective curriculum and contacted some folks who are more qualified “experts” to consult on this project opportunity (a podcast on Game Studies). A lot of reading is necessary to work our way through this curriculum. We’ll probably build a wiki and start an organized trek through that stuff. I fully expect those readings to leak heavily into the Fogbanking main blog. The first reading I’m going to reacquaint myself with is Rules of Play by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen. Even before we work our way ahead of the topics we’d cover, we’re also working on a production plan to see if the actual output we plan is feasible. Only way to know is to test it.

The upside here is the developed (and hopefully demonstrated) expertise that I’d like to carry into some other projects on the backburner.

 

Digital Magazine

I launched a private Facebook group this week to bring together some writers I wanted to try this digital magazine project with. At worst, it’ll be a juvenile rag with a short shelf-life that I spent a small sum on building, and at best it’ll be an interesting exercise in dealing with a much larger project group than I’m used to for a longer amount of time than I’m used to. More details later as things materialize (or don’t- we’ll see).

 

Employer Project

There’s a competition within the organization that I hope to create a game for as an entry- depending on the amount of time I have. That depends a lot on the other groups I’m working with and how much pushing I have to do to move things forward, or if they have enough momentum that I can devote a few hours a week to this one. I can’t speak to it much at this time.