First entry!

So... first entry... awesome!
I'll start by saying that some time ago i started making a game using XNA and C#.... well by that time it was more of an experiment, to gain knowledge about stuff such as collision detection and things like that. So what i decided was that if i wanted to learn how to make games i should be able to make one by myself, at least just one (2D obviously, better start with small stuff).

Side Note: This is not my first encounter with games tho, i made my first game at the Global Game Jam 2011, here's the link if you want to take a look.

So, after some time (and after i learned a bunch of things at one of my signatures) i decided i would totally do it, so i started making (well, we could say "finishing" because there was just a tiny bit of the engine itself made, but since i changed it so much lets say i just made a new one, ok?) the engine that my new little game would use. I read a lot of stuff on the internet about what were the best methods to manage collisions and i ended up using a "grid" to store and update every object that would collide because i liked the idea of having the whole screen split into little "areas" so that not every object is checking for a collision with every object, maybe i did something a bit too complicated for the level of experience i had making games but... i've always liked crazy programming stuff so why not?!

Just so you know this was not so long ago, in fact i "finished" the engine this summer (im saying "finished" because there are some bugs that should be corrected at some point... like... soon) and it works quite well for me, maybe it's not one of those popular 2D engines that are used everywhere, but it's something i made by myself which is what i wanted.

So i finished the engine! now what? i had to make the actual game!.... finally! and to be honest i was kind of confused at first, i didn't really know what i wanted to do! (that was completely my fault, originally i wanted to make a platformer game but i was having so much trouble with the engine stuff that i decided to change it to a top-down, i didn't like this, but since im such a perfectionist i would have taken A LOT of time making something that shouldn't have taken me so long) Then i decided to make it a top-down game, i like those, they are fun and kind of old school which is something i like, and i had to start with the sprites because i wanted to give my game a bit of life and because eventually i would have done it anyways.

Sprites! i had absolutely no idea about how to make them! i mean... i knew how to make them but what i wanted was sprites with pixel art style (remember? old school == i like). I started following this tutorial Pixel Art Tutorial (its awesome i just loved it, both the info and the way it was written, i seriously recommend it if you need to know about pixel art) and then i learned how to do pixel art! well.... a bit of it, not that i'm super good or anything, but i can draw a couple of understandable things.

So i drew and drew and drew! i was drawing (surprised?) things that actually looked like what they should look like! I ran quickly (metaphorically speaking obviously) and started placing the sprites everywhere to make it look like an actual dungeon (i was working with simple bricks and floor tiles so i could do something playable with simple stuff) but then i had this problem... i was using this plain text format to store the map, and it was starting to be a pain to modify it by hand when a little voice whispered in my head "make a map editor for your gaameeee~"... so.... why not? I gotta say i love programming and i love knowing the crazy stuff i usually write! because i did made a map editor! awesome right?! well maybe it's not that awesome but i do think it is! SO!!!! with the map editor done i managed to make a decent dungeon, at least for testing.

What problem comes now? umm... i kind of based my walls and stuff on the perspective used on Tibia (it's an MMORPG game, if you don't know it you should google it, it's awesome) and i realized.... with my drawing skills it was going to be so freaking hard to make a character with the same perspective, move it, make it turn to all 4 sides, attack.... you get the point, i wasn't going to spend that time and possible frustration on that when i could just use an easier perspective to keep things simple, which is a MUST when making games (at least i think it is). So i started using a top-down perspective for my sprites which is what i should have done from the beginning (but you learn from the mistakes right? i did!).

New sprites! finally a character to use! (after the second try that is, i tried to make a wizard at first and ended up with a fat farmhand with a blue shirt, but then i tried a second time and got a much much better result) and here it is! (finally a picture!)

Kind of cute don't you think?... well i do!

So finally we are in the present, remember those little bugs on my engine that i would deal with later? well now is "later", i seriously have to fix them because its a pain not being able to walk vertically touching a wall without stopping every few tiles because of some sort of invisible fence of the death. Leaving the fence of the death aside, this is the last screenshot i've taken of the progress of the game which i called LittleWizard, first of all i don't think i'm a pro or anything, right now i consider myself pretty newbie at this, but i like the idea of sharing my experiences even if they are just the beginning of game development or a game developer, i don't care how you see it... hope you enjoyed reading this ;) (i would've liked to put some other pictures but strangely i can't find the ones i took before this one, sorry =/)