Exclusive look at the opening scenes of Legends of Adrigal

I have something special to share with readers of my personal gaming blog this weekend! Last evening I spent more than six hours fine-tuning the timing, dialogue, and scenario of the opening scenes of Legends of Adrigal, my upcoming turn-based RPG with some Zelda-like item usage in dungeons and fields. I shall now share some screenshots of the opening with you. Warning: There are a lot of them, so I'm going to post them after the break.

Juicing up my maps in Legends of Adrigal

Development of my RPG, Legends of Adrigal, is underway in RPG Maker VX Ace. The primary aspect of the game in development is the various maps at the beginning of the game. Check out this first explorable area of the game, Mabel Road.

Do you see anything wrong with it? How about looking at the stream dividing the map up? It's unnatural in its design. There are way too many straight sections that in nature wouldn't happen at all. Compare that to the finalized design:

The stream has a lot more jaggedness to it, offering a more natural design. Props like flowers and weeds have been placed in what seems like a random pattern, but this randomness was actually planned by me to again, recreate something that looks natural and made by nature. The paths are weathered to make it look rugged and natural as well. This "juicing" of the map makes it more settling to the eye, thus making it more fun to explore all at the same time.

Let's look at a different example now, the first town in Legends of Adrigal, Mabel. This is around the area where our hero wakes up after entering into the world of the game. Looking at it from this picture, it doesn't seem too bad currently:

But what if we add "juice" this map by adding more to the outer boundaries of the town? Sort of like this:

Now Mabel looks much more interesting to the eye, and it feels more like a town that isn't just plopped in the middle of nowhere. It has some more added life to it, which is just another example of how juicing a map can add more detail, more to see, and more to enjoy.

Those two examples show a little bit about how juicing, or expanding the capabilities of one's design, can make for a more interesting map. If you're making a setting in nature, try to make it as natural as possible. If you're making a town, something man-made, then perhaps being natural isn't as big of a deal. With this quick tip, you can start out with making some really cool designs with little problem!

A look at the Stortzum games collection-- August 2015

Playing and making games is a big part of who I am. Collecting games is a bit of a game all on its own. The thrill of the hunt, the making of a great trade with another person for a game you want, and asking your mommy if you can put a new game on her Best Buy credit card are all fun ways to get new additions to one's collection. It helps that both my older brother and I are huge gaming fans.

Of course, a lot of the games our family used to own were purchased at MSRP. They later went on to sell for much more, allowing us to purchase more games in the process. However, selling or trading away games is something we don't like to do unless I don't foresee myself enjoying a certain game ever again.

With this special post on StortzumSoft, you can take a nice look at our family's current collection, from the PlayStation 2 and GameCube generation to the current generation, albeit just Wii U and 3DS.

The GameCube collection, part one

The GameCube collection, part two

The PlayStation 2 collection

The PlayStation 2 Collection with the games on the right moved over
so you can see what was hidden behind

The Nintendo DS collection 

The PlayStation Portable (PSP) collection

The Nintendo Wii collection, part one

The Nintendo Wii collection, part two

The PlayStation 3 collection

Our current Nintendo 3DS collection as of the end of August 2015

Our next Wii U game to join this collection will be Super Mario Maker.

All of our Nintendo-related strategy guides

Our amiibo armada

A special gift from Club Nintendo

Soon, Princess Peach will be joining the Mushroom Kingdom figure ranks.

Miniature World of Nintendo figures

Mario Kart vehicles

McDonald's Happy Meal Mario Kart toys

We love Mega Man in our household, so we HAD to get these figures
way back when they originally released around 2004, 2005.

Plushie power!

A tale of two Sonics ends our tour of our collection.

To go along with yesterday's post about maps...

I said yesterday that I did maps as a kid of games that I played such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Mega Man X. That's not all I've done over the years. In fact, I'd like to share with all of you something special from my high school years-- maps of levels for a 3D platformer inspired by games like Banjo-Kazooie, Tooie, and Donkey Kong 64. Thankfully I still have the original drawings left over from over ten years ago. 

The general idea for this platformer was to have it star a character I created in second grade, SuperPhillip, as the hero. Although it doesn't really make sense for him to be in these kind of levels because the SuperPhillip stories and TV episodes (yes, you read that right) took place in a modern city setting and not cartoon-like locations. I digress.

This first world was called Triceradon Plateau. It had a huge mountain in the center where the leader of the Triceradons ruled over the land. I imagine there would have been a boss fight of some sort there against said leader. Around the base of the mountain was the starting point, where a tribal village stood, surrounding areas with a watering hole for other dinosaurs to drink from, palm trees, caverns, and much more.

This world, the second of the game, was called Freshwind Forest. It had areas where you platformed from tree limb to tree limb as seen in the top right-- particularly dangerous as it was done over a bottomless pit, multiple large tree stumps that needed to be scaled, a huge lake where lily pads moved on set paths in the water, a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time-like Lost Woods area called Which Way Woods, and small trees that could be climbed. 

Aqua Bubble Aquarium was the name of this one. Players started at the top left, navigating a series of tubes that flowed water in them, sometimes resulting in the player being forced in one direction or another. A labyrinth of rooms are to the right of the starting point. This is much more closed-in area that the others so far. There was even a boat ride in the middle of the world that led to one of the Power Star-like collectibles in the game. All areas eventually lead to the bottom lagoon where stomping on the five stones in the bottom left corner would make the pirate ship in the bottom right set sail once again.

Red Hot Mountain stood as the fourth world of my game starring SuperPhillip. This one was a platformer's obstacle course with a lot of platforms hanging in midair instead of natural feeling worlds that preceded it. From platforms that spun around a central pillar that emitted fire from it to platforms that shifted side to side, to lava geysers and a huge lava waterfall and lake, Red Hot Mountain certainly lived up to its "hot" moniker. 

This fifth world was called Flower Power Garden. You can definitely tell I had inspiration from Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie with these world names and ideas, can't you? This world had bright sunshine coating its many flowers, plants, and fields. The structure in the middle was a domed greenhouse that had multiple entrances. I would assume a boss fight with a P.O.'d ravenous flower took place in it, perhaps at the very top. Alongside harmless plants and flowers that assisted players, allowing them to use them as platforms, there were hazardous thorned vines to worry about.

This is an unfinished world from my drawings. It was supposed to be a tower devised of wooden playing blocks. I guess that's why I called it Toy Box Tower. The name came from the central structure that served as a fortress for all sorts of enemy types-- marching toy soldiers with bayonets, jack-in-the-boxes, and many more toy-centric enemies. Hmm. Looking back and assessing all of these old drawings of mine is making me want to finish this collection of worlds! Too bad the semester just started!

That was a look at some of my past video game-related maps. You'd think that with all of this interest I had regarding games in school that my first field of study choice would have been game design! Perhaps I didn't think it was a viable career for me at the time, but I'm glad things have turned out how they have-- even if it took ten years for me to get to this point!

How to (attempt to) get a proper difficulty curve and sense of progression going in Super Push Adventure

Level design has always been a fascination of mine. Even as a third grader, I drew little road maps of cities, drawing in supermarkets, gas stations, intersections, highways, interstates, back roads, side roads, and so much more on the backs of giant sheets of blueprint paper that my mom brought home for me since she knew how much I loved drawing maps. I even got so excited after playing games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Mega Man X that I drew dungeons and world maps of my interpretation of Hyrule from my inspiration from Zelda, and side scrolling levels a la Mega Man X.

Now I'm a point where I can make what was a diversion into a lucrative career. Okay. Well, make that a hopefully lucrative career. My first official release came out on March 27th of this year, Super Push Adventure. It's a game where players move through over 80 different levels of obstacle-laden, push puzzle-filled challenges to advance the story and make progress.

There are eight main areas of Super Push Adventure. Think of these like worlds in Super Mario Bros. 3. In that game, there's a grass world that serves as a means to ease players into the game, a giant world with large enemies as the central focus, an ice world with appropriately slippery surfaces, and many more. Super Push Adventure follows the same premise-- having worlds (or in this case areas) that each introduce a central gameplay mechanic or series of mechanics that are the focus of that world.

For instance, much like Grass Land in Super Mario Bros. 3, the first world of Super Push Adventure, Training Grounds, lets players get used and accustomed to the idea of pushing boulders, learning the difference between light and dark boulders, how to fill holes by using boulders, how to restart a level if the current level becomes impossible to solve, and pushing keys into doors to unlock them. No two mechanics are taught in the same level. Thus, I needed to have enough levels per world to teach each mechanic, let the player ease into it and become comfortable with it, all the while keeping a steady progress of introducing new mechanics while giving players time to catch up. Thus, in order to have enough levels to implement new gameplay concepts and mechanics while not having the player get bored with playing in the same area, I chose to have ten levels per world.

Each world in Super Mario Bros. 3 has its own central theme.
Giant Land, appropriately enough, has giant enemies.

Let's look at the second world of Super Push Adventure, Groovy Jungle. Like every area in the game besides the final, which is merely a summation of every other world's mechanics, Groovy Jungle has ten levels in it. What I'd like to do is go through each of the ten levels, explaining how the difficulty curve and sense of progress are built up throughout this world. Let's begin with Groovy Jungle Floor One.

This level's mechanic is borrowed from Training Grounds. Each boulder can only be pushed once. The player has to find the proper path through this maze of dark boulders in order to reach the goal, the green bird you see in the top right.

Keys were introduced in Training Grounds. This level introduces the concept of moving an object out of the way so the player can fill the holes, thus pushing the key into the locked  door to open it, reaching the goal.

This is the first Groovy Jungle exclusive level mechanic. These bananas were left over by some very hungry monkeys. Stepping on one of these sends the player careening in the direction they stepped on the banana. They won't stop until they hit a solid surface, such as these walls. This miniature maze requires the player to find the right path to the goal. 

This next level continues the lesson from the preceding level. It's another maze of bananas where working backwards is key. 

Ah-ha! Now we've found the culprits behind all of those discarded banana peels! The monkeys themselves are harmless to touch, but they can mess up the player by pushing boulders out of their desired place. Through pushing the boulder into the hole to fill it, the player can then push the key into the locked door, hopefully not allowing the monkeys to push the key out of position.

This level turns the premise of the last one upside-down. Whereas the player didn't want the monkeys to push anything, this time it's necessary in order to clear this level. 

This level is a combination of having monkeys avoid pushing boulders and allowing monkeys to push boulders. Which is which? I won't tell!

For these final three levels, I'm only showing a screenshot. The full levels aren't shown. Anyway, this level is a race against time. Can the player outrace the monkey? If he or she doesn't, the monkey will push the boulder the player needs out of position, forcing the player to restart the level. To help beat the monkey in the race are well positioned banana peels to get some extra speed boosts.

This a larger maze of banana peels, requiring the player to use a dark boulder as a means to stop their progress from sliding on a banana peel. It takes some trial and error, but all mazes do, don't they?

This final level of Groovy Jungle is another maze of bananas and this time, monkeys. The way to go is much more obvious, however, but there is still some trial and error to be found here. I couldn't make the final level of the area easier than the others!

So that's just a quick overview of how a general world in Super Push Adventure works. It's important to create a sense of proper pacing so players don't feel too overwhelmed by too many new concepts too quickly, or so bored because you're not introducing enough freshness and ideas at a fast enough pace.

By no means is Super Push Adventure's pacing, difficulty curve, and such perfect. Far from it. But I did try to be cognizant of whether or not each level in a particular world was harder than the last, and whether or not I was doing due diligence in placing new mechanics and gameplay concepts in the game smartly enough.

My process for composing music

So, how does someone with a very small background in music theory and someone who played clarinet in middle school end up being able to compose competent sounding music for his games? Is that a question you've asked yourself before? Did you even know that I've composed the music for my own games? Well, you do now! Hee-hee.

The process takes longer for me than it does for someone more well versed in music composition and theory, but it allows me to add another personal touch to my games. I like my influence to be known in the games I create, and if I can somehow show a side of myself that the world doesn't often get to see, that's even better.

To start things off, I bought this digital voice recorder, the not the DVR you're probably used to seeing. Anyway, it's a device used by journalists to record interviews with subjects and folks giving press conferences. I originally used mine to record a monologue that I needed to remember for an acting class in my early college career. I would replay the monologue over and over again before sleeping in order to attempt to memorize the entire passage.

What I do with it now is when I get a good melody in my head that works for the type of setting I'm thinking of, I hum it into the device and it records my voice. I then replay it to get a general idea on how I want to build it in my music composition software. I use Cakewalk Music Creator 2, a program that is a bit long in the tooth, but it does its job well for me.

Hovering a note over the staff plays the note so I
can hear the pitch, and placing it then confirms the pick.

This is what the interface looks like. I add MIDI tracks and assign instruments to each track. The staff roll is where the action takes place. By selecting note lengths and placing them on the staff, I rebuild the melodies that I hummed into the digital voice recording device, creating accompaniment to go along with the melodies.

The menu where MIDI and audio tracks are added and removed.
This is also where choosing the type of MIDI instrument, channel,
and much more are located.

After the melody and accompaniment have been created and the entire song is finalized, I give it the twice over, listening for an irregularities in rhythm, pitch, chords, or whatever else, and if it all sounds good, I do a final save of all of the MIDI tracks together. For preparation for the next program I use, one that does more realistic VST sounds as opposed to the tinny MIDI, I save each MIDI track as a separate file. The hard part (composing and correctly doing notation) is pretty much over now.

This allows me to use REAPER, the next program in question, to put each MIDI track into a separate track, assigning a VST instrument to them. My friend from Fat Bard, a local music studio, Patrick Crecelius nicely gave me a whole slew of instruments to utilize, so many so that it'd likely be impossible to find a use for all of them in my lifetime.

A look at the REAPER interface

Selecting what instruments sound right, not just the instrument but the instrument type (for example, not just a violin but maybe a legato violin from the vast number of violin types available to me), is quite important to make the finished product sound somewhat professional. The end result is what you hear here:



That's the theme that was notated in the Cakewalk Music Creator screenshot. It's "The Countryside Village of Mabel", played during the opening town of Legends of Adrigal.

I hope you enjoyed the little look at the process of a neophyte video game music composer with this blog post!

The world of Legends of Adrigal

Legends of Adrigal is an RPG I am in the process of building in RPG Maker VX Ace. The game follows the story of three teenagers who enter into a video game and must not only regroup but survive in the harsh monster and enemy filled kingdom of Adrigal.

To show the scope of Adrigal, I created an overhead, faraway map of Adrigal in-engine. This map will never be seen in the game in any way, and it's hardly a professional concept. It's just something I futzed around with to get a general idea of what kind of locations I want to have in the game and where they're located. This gives me a better grasp on how long Legends of Adrigal will be and where I can lead the story in an intelligent way.

Check out the map and let me know if you have any questions.

Super Push Adventure - Official Trailer

As seen on the game's Game Jolt page, Super Push Adventure has its very own first official trailer courtesy of Rob Santos of PixelPress fame. This thirty second spot shows off the basics of the gameplay and loads of the game's 80+ levels.

The many looks of Chickadee

Chickadee is my second major gaming project. It's a Breakout-style game with somewhat nonlinear design in the way that you can choose which worlds you'd like to tackle in the order that you wish. At the end of each world is a battle against a challenging boss with the same Breakout rules. Not only is Breakout an inspiration for Chickadee, but so is Kirby's Block Ball on the Game Boy. Check those two games out if you haven't already.

In Chickadee, the eponymous baby bird can collect coins in levels. These coins can then be used in the shop, selected from the world map, to purchase new costumes that can be worn in-game. There are currently 15 designed costumes to choose from, some of which won't be available for purchase until certain in-game conditions have been met. There's everything from a beach bum Chickadee to a queen-defending knight. Which costumes are your current favorites?

NOTE: Not all designs are final. Many are concept.

Standard Chickadee

Workout Chickadee

Poolside Chickadee

Bugs Chickadee

Cheerin' Chickadee

Clown Chickadee

Policebird Chickadee

Ghost Chickadee

Big Beats Chickadee

His Majesty King Chickadee

Kitty Chickadee

Knight Chickadee

Life of Crime Chickadee

Super Chickadee

Dapper Chickadee

??? Chickadee