Game playing and creation as a means of therapy

In an uncontrollable rage that started from something slightly aggravating and innocuous such as my DVD player scratching my first disc of Roseanne Season Three, I let out my frustration by biting into my arm. This is an example of a bad way to channel one's anger and depression into an action.

My psychiatrist attempts to help with allowing me to conquer my bipolar symptoms, particularly when I become manic, but the issue here is that there is no one way my manic symptoms are triggered. Thus, there is no one way to always solve or prevent such an episode.

My bipolar has affected me for the majority of my adult life, presenting symptoms when I was originally in college around age 23. I have had three unique jobs-- one at GameStop, where I ended up cussing out my boss and walking out, one at Six Flags, where I ended up cussing out an employee and marching off, and one at Best Buy... where this is a little different-- I ended up cussing out an employee and threw my headset at them. I'm borderline psychotic during a manic episode, but the latter one was especially scary as I had never lashed out at a person before. It was only an object like a wall I'd kick or punch or something handheld that I could smash and break by throwing it to the ground.

Regardless, I'm back in school now, and I'm finally on a prescription cocktail that works for me. That doesn't mean my symptoms are fully in control, as the opening paragraph clearly shows. However, it does mean that I don't suffer from the symptoms anywhere close to how often I did or as severe as when my bipolar originated.

Despite all this, I have found an avenue for calming down and feeling less alone when depression, a portion of my bipolar, hits. Like painting, drawing, or simply coloring, I find that playing games and even developing games help me in serving as art therapy. It's doing something creative or something that gets me distracted that allows me to turn from a bad mood to a good one-- or at least feel numb instead of full of sadness or rage.

I tend to play games with bright colors and peppy soundtracks-- things like Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man, and so forth. For some, they could say it's a means to escape. For others, it may be said that these games turn a sour mood into a happy one through the interaction I am having with the games I play. My brain is no longer thinking about how alone I am (and my depression clouds how I am actually not alone by any stretch of the imagination, as a simple Facebook post about how I'm feeling or what I'm doing is met with my friends chiming in), how I'm a loser for never having been in a relationship before (even though I know many people don't have the same problems I do, which again, my depression clouds), and how my self-esteem is quite horrid. Instead, I'm thinking about how to solve an environmental or platforming puzzle, how to get around to a cordoned off section of level, or what I should to complete an arduous challenge.

This goes into designing games as well. With Super Push Adventure, I found joy in creating new levels and writing dialogue. I was making my own world-- one that was free from all the horrors of the real world like my depression, my loneliness, my rage, etc. I found that making Super Push Adventure at times was highly therapeutic. It gave me such a high that no drug on the market could replicate, and unlike drugs, I wouldn't suffer a nasty side effect from my natural high.

Legends of Adrigal is allowing me to show off my creative storytelling side. In some ways, having depression when writing the scenario or composing music helps give the mood I want to have for the game at times. It's much easier for me to write a forlorn, somber piece of music when I'm in a similar type of mood.

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and several other places have brought up a link between creativity and mental illness. Perhaps this gift of creativity (however limited it may be for me) is a side effect of my bipolar. It certainly is linked to it, as doing creative things certainly helps me feel better about myself, lowers my chance for a manic mood swing, and feel well.

I believe that doing anything creative is great for the mind. You don't have to be depressed or have thoughts of isolation in order to start something.  It's not limited to just creating games or solving puzzles, either. You can draw, you can paint, you can color, and so on to help your mind out. For me, I feel good when I'm making progress in a game, allowing my artistic spirit to thrive with creating sprites for a game like Chickadee, writing scenario data for Legends of Adrigal, or composing music for Super Push Adventure. It doesn't work all the time, but more often than not, when I'm feeling down (but not in a manic frenzy), I can turn to games to make myself feel better.

Introducing the main villain of Chickadee!

I've been sharing a lot from Chickadee, my Breakout-inspired game, this past week. My sharing continues with this look at the main villain of Chickadee. Who is he? He's none other than Dr. Egghead. In Chickadee, he bird-naps the entirety of Birdseed Village outside of Chickadee and Old Redbird the Cardinal. The latter serves as the Chickadee's guide throughout the baby chick's adventure. But what did Chickadee's village ever do to Dr. Egghead? What is the reasoning behind the mass bird-napping of the village's denizens? Find out when you play Chickadee!

The design of Dr. Egghead is simple enough, a face shrouded by a giant eggshell with eyes poked out. He dresses to impress with his cape, dress shirt, bowtie, and vest. His big eyebrows, handlebar mustache and crooked grin are what identifies this mad doctor outside of his professional garb.

His personality is quite eccentric, dare I say, mad. I mean, what else can you say about a man who wears a giant eggshell on his head? He likes egg puns, cackling laughter, and designing devilish ways to eliminate his enemies. But again, what does he want with Chickadee's friends? And why did he leave Chickadee and Old Redbird behind?

All of this makes for one egg-citing villain if I do say so myself!

The Level Backgrounds of Chickadee

Chickadee continues to excite me, as we're all making some serious progress towards the game. Now, you already know Jo is doing the programming, and I'm doing the directing, concept ideas, level design, art, and music. However, there's another person helping out, my local friend, Natasha Matthews, who is doing the background art of levels. What is her secret to these awesome backgrounds? Let's hear it straight from Natasha's mouth! Well, technically it was Natasha's fingers, as this was a typed response!

"Really I am taking [Phil's] concepts and looking at nature to figure out color pallets and I use real life textures over my work so the sand on the beach has a sand texture or bark on the trees. I also look at games such as Little Big Planet and Nintendo games for more inspiration."

Let's take a look at the four current backgrounds Natasha has worked on. I drew up a quick concept for Natasha to follow, and she did the brunt of the work! Note: These might not be the final versions in Chickadee.

TUTORIAL WORLD BACKGROUND

FOREST WORLD BACKGROUND

BEACH WORLD BACKGROUND

WINTER WORLD BACKGROUND

FOREST WORLD CONCEPT

BEACH WORLD CONCEPT

WINTER WORLD CONCEPT

The Enemies and NPCs of Chickadee - Part Two

Chickadee continues its development with myself and my friend from across the Atlantic, Jo! The latter of our partnership has done all the programming and getting the kinks worked out, while I've been doing a director role, level designer role, and artist and musician role. I'd like to talk some more about the NPCs and enemies that Chickadee will encounter in his quest to save his fellow friends and family members! If you missed part one of this growing series of articles, check it out here. Now, onto the five next characters I have to share with you all!

CHILL WILL THE BLUEBIRD

Chill Will is the prisoner of the winter world. He has a very casual disposition about him and doesn't let too much get him bothered, not even being captured by Dr. Egghead! He keeps himself warm in the winter with his lovely scarf. Not only is it great for keeping warm, but it's also quite the fashion statement, too.

PRISCILLA THE BEAUTY BIRD

Here is a bird that is in love with herself and always has her makeup kit within wing's reach. She's a bit self-absorbed-- well, actually, that's an understatement, and she certainly won't mind shouting Chickadee's ears off for not rescuing her sooner. She is the prisoner of the casino world.

PEEKABOO THE HERMIT CRAB

He's not the angriest enemy around, nor is he very violent. He's Peekaboo the Hermit Crab, and he peeks out of his shell intermittently, more inside the shell than not. Hitting the shell will have Chickadee simply bounce off it, while hitting Peekaboo's body will defeat the foe and remove his shell from the playing field.

PEEPERS THE PELICAN

Another enemy from the beach world, Peepers the Pelican is a cool costumer (note the sunglasses hanging off the bridge of his beak) that flies in a set pattern around a given level, dropping eggs that will send Chickadee off kilter if he runs into them. Thankfully, Peepers can be defeated by one or two hits on any part of his body, even his wings. 

MEGAPEDE THE MIGHTY

Introducing the boss of the forest world, Megapede! He slips out of one of six holes, three on either side of the battlefield, ready to send Chickadee to his doom! Can you defeat each segment and send Megapede crying home? Only through doing so will you rescue the bird imprisoned by Dr. Egghead!

The Enemies and NPCs of Chickadee - Part One

Both Chickadee development and production have continued as of this week! Thank the lord for fall break! With this update to Chickadee on StortzumSoft, I'd like to talk about a handful of NPC and enemies that Chickadee will encounter on his Breakout-styled journey. Let's begin with two friendly faces, shall we?

OLD REDBIRD THE CARDINAL

This is Old Redbird, the wisest of Chickadee's treetop village. Foolishly, Dr. Egghead, the villain of our tale, did not bird-nap this bird along with Chickadee's friends, thinking he was too old to be of any use. Fortunately, there are plenty of uses for Old Redbird during Chickadee's journey, providing sage advice and wisdom to the baby bird on his adventure. Need to know what a certain contraption does? Old Redbird's your bird!

MR. INCHES THE INCHWORM

Don't mind Mr. Inches the Inchworm-- he's just laying about in his hole in the forest world of Chickadee. Well, that isn't entirely true. You WILL mind him if you end up crushed in between two Mr. Inches at once or be in between Mr. Inches and a solid object when he pokes his head out! Other than that, Mr. Inches is perfectly harmless and just wants to pop of his hole and say hi!

EIGHTLEGS THE SPIDER

Let's talk about the first enemy that Chickadee will encounter if you play through the forest world first. (Remember that you can play any of the six worlds at your leisure.) Eightlegs the Spider usually hangs out-- literally-- from ceilings, only dropping down to cause Chickadee trouble when the player bounces near him. Eightlegs cannot be attacked from the front, as he'll just smack Chickadee around, messing with the player. Instead, attacking from the sides or from the rear will take good care of our eight-legged pest.

CRABCAKE THE CRAB

As you'd imagine with a crab, Crabcake only moves side to side. It must make getting around such a pain if you can only move sideways. If you're moving east to west, you'll never experience the joy of moving north to south! What a terrible and tragic life Crabcake must lead! No wonder why he's so angry and an enemy to Chickadee, being able to only be attacked from the front or rear! I'd hate the world too if I could only move sideways!

BIGEYE THE SHIELDBOT

The final character to share tonight is Bigeye the Shieldbot. You can't see it with this image, but Bigeye has up to two shields that spin around his body. These shields will make Chickadee bounce off them as if he were nothing. Timing your shot correctly is the difference between hitting Bigeye's body and hitting his shield. Obviously the former is what you want to do!

The Content Creation panel at Pixelpop Festival

Over a month ago (man, time flies!) I participated in St. Louis' Pixelpop Festival, a celebration of all things gaming-related! I've posted previous blog entries such as this one and this one detailing some of the show highlights that I had the pleasure to be a part of. This video here, however, had eluded me! Not anymore!

One of my hobbies is blogging, and I've written for SuperPhillip Central, my site, for over seven years now. Here, as part of this Content Creation panel led by Ryan Dampf of Living the Nerd Life, I discuss why I became a blogger and all sorts of fun stuff. It's worth it way more to hear everyone else on this panel, though! Please enjoy!

The games that shaped my desire to go into game design

Hello all. Development work for Chickadee is at a standstill, but Legends of Adrigal is coming along just fine, as you saw with last week's item system post.

Today I thought I'd do something autobiographical for this blog today and talk to you about the games I grew up that got me interested in making games. Without question, one of my favorite parts of game design is creating maps and levels, as well as doing scriptwork and dialogue. The following games growing up gave me an eye for adequate level design and pushed me into thinking hard about doing games as a career. But not programming-- %#%# programming!

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)

My skills as a gamer hampered my enjoyment of the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, and if I was bad with that game, there was no doubt that I absolutely would blow at playing its 2D side-scroller sequel, Zelda II. No doubt indeed, as I did suck at playing that game, too. After Zelda II, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to go back to the top-down perspective that The Legend of Zelda had. After all, he was a bit disappointed with Zelda II.

Regardless, I'm glad he found Zelda II as something that could have used more work, despite it being a highly competent game (that I absolutely suck at). He and his team created one of most memorable and replay-able games for me. I was lost and enamored with the world of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

I remember bugging my mom to bring home blueprint paper from her work so I could draw dungeon maps and an overworld map for my own Zelda adventure. I thought up block puzzles, torch puzzles, where you had to light up all the torches in a row, and other obstacles. I emulated A Link to the Past as closely as possible, because as a kid, I really didn't have the skill set required to innovate in any special way. I wish I kept those maps, as they'd be an astonishing blast from the past... pun intended.

Mega Man X (SNES)

Here's another game that inspired me to draw maps of levels, except this time they were 2D affairs, mimicking the gameplay of Mega Man X to a "T". For those unaware of Mega Man X's gameplay, it's a much more intense Mega Man game when compared to the classic series. There was much more action, a slightly darker tone, the ability to wall jump, find upgrades for both health energy, weapon energy, and armor, and introduced a whole new series of characters to the Mega Man lore.

Anyway, I devised my own series of Mavericks and Maverick names with silly names like Shield Turtle, Rampaging Ram, Force Bronco, and so forth. I concocted simplistic 2D stages and would draw a line through the levels, so it was like I was playing them. Now, my memory of these exact levels is mighty fuzzy, so I imagine these levels were horribly designed. I mean, I might have been in gifted classes as a kid (and no, I don't know how the hell that happened either), but I wasn't a genius at level design by any stretch of the imagination. It was just something fun to do while my friends played street hockey.

Breath of Fire (SNES)

Breath of Fire, a joint effort between Squaresoft and Capcom before Capcom simply took the series as its own, was one of, if not the, first RPG I ever played. It was also one of the first games that ever made me cry. No, not because I sucked at it and thought the game was cheating. Instead, it was because of the fate of two supporting characters, Alan and Cerl.

Cerl was one of four generals to the dark army (I think they were the Dark Dragons or something thereabouts?), the main villains of the game. She fell in love with Alan, a denizen of a local countryside town. Cerl's memory towards Alan was all gone, and despite his words and actions, Cerl wasn't having any of it unfortunately. That is until one key moment after Ryu's (our hero's) party defeats her. Alan and Cerl's past relationship comes back to Cerl, but her time crystal goes off, teleporting the two and Cerl's tower in a bright flash of light.

When Ryu's party reaches the remains of Cerl's tower, they find two children, one boy and a girl. "Tag! You're it!" The one says to the other. These are obviously Alan and Cerl, and they now have their lifetimes to once again be with one another. That moment made me tear up like crazy as a young child myself. Of course, this song playing during that scene didn't help matters at all.

The point is that not only did Breath of Fire get me into RPGs, but it also taught me that gaming could be used as a powerful interactive agent for telling stories. There are plenty of games out there that tell stories in a way that only gaming can, such as 999 for the Nintendo DS. I want to do the same with my games, but I still have some learning to do. Then again, life is always a learning experience in some regard or another.

Banjo-Kazooie (N64)

Super Mario 64 indeed blew my mind, like many gamers back in 1996 when it launched here in the West. While other games have surpassed its controls and camera, few can claim to be better than the actual game itself. For me, that's except Banjo-Kazooie. The game was more humorous, the worlds were more cohesive (they also didn't kick you out of them after each Power Star-equivalent was nabbed), the music was phenomenal, the sense of progression was lovely, and the move set of Banjo and Kazooie just jived with me more.

One of my earliest posts to this blog was about the Banjo-Kazooie-inspired level maps I did in high school and early college. I don't recall the exact reason I made them, but I actually still have these. Thankfully, if I lose them, I still have digital copies. All hail the digital age! It was indeed Banjo-Kazooie that opened my mind to interesting level design in a 3D platformer context. One of my biggest dreams as a game designer is to have the opportunity to create such a game with a team. It might be a pipe dream, as the 3D platformer is by no means a popular genre like it was back in the PS1 and N64 generation, but it's something I really hope I can do one day.

Perfect Dark (N64)

Most Nintendo 64 kids, like this one, grew up with playing GoldenEye, an FPS that pioneered the genre on home consoles and came out a year after the film of the same name. For me, Perfect Dark was my jam early in high school. I loved the story, voice work, objective-based missions where areas were nonlinear, offering multiple paths to Ms. Dark's goals, and I especially adored the multiplayer. The maps were big, but not too big, delivering paths, chambers, and rooms that made for complex maps and enthralling firefights; the customization options towards what kinds of matches you could do were incredible; and the game had bots. BOTS! HALO doesn't even bots, for god's sake! Any FPS with bots is better than Halo locally.

Nonetheless, I'm not the biggest fan of first-person shooters, but Perfect Dark got me so fascinated with the genre. It opened my mind to the possibilities of creating my own FPS games, or if not even that, my own multiplayer arenas. I'm still waiting for another FPS that is just as good as Perfect Dark and offers just as many options as it.

RPG Maker (PS1)

Ah... my first go at creating an RPG! I remember bawling when my third-party memory card became corrupted, and I had to start work over again on the game I was making. Sure, it was but three hours of work, but it was a major disappointment for an 13 year-old. At least that's the age I'm going with, because I'm not doing the math at this moment.

I remember actually going through the steps of making a finished RPG. It starred SuperPhillip, a character that I made up in second grade. Superheroes were all the rage with me like they are now with Marvel and DC pumping out movies like an assembly line. I wanted to create my own, so I did. There really isn't a story to tell there. I just liked superheroes and dreamed of being one at the time in second grade.

Anyway, I had to split my RPG across two memory cards, as the game's length scenario-wise was too big to just fit on one. That's not including the third memory card for system data, such as maps, battlers, enemies, items, magic, etc. It turned out well, and I used the work I did there to create a project in RPG Maker 2003 later on. Regardless, I believe RPG Maker on the original PlayStation was one of the first RPG Makers officially localized and released in the West. Bless you, Agetec, you magnificent bastards.

Legends of Adrigal's Item System Revealed!

With the help from the RPG Maker VX Ace forums, Notsalony, Legends of Adrigal has a new item system for fields and dungeons. It all has to do with the program's scripting system.

The arrows are an early item within the game that can be used to knock out foes from afar and enter battle with them. It's safer to do it this way because if you lose the battle while a foe on the field map is dazed, you won't get a game over. Otherwise, a fully awake monster would give you a game over upon losing the battle. You can also hit faraway switches and targets with the arrows as well.

Meanwhile, the bombs (which has a current explosion radius that is too ridiculous, as the fourth screenshot shows) are great for destroying dilapidated and cracked walls to reveal entrances to secret caves and grottos.

Yeah... That might be TOO big of an explosion, Phil.

There are two other items to be revealed in the future, so I hope you will be excited to see them!

Rough draft of Dorter in Legends of Adrigal

A new area in Legends of Adrigal, my upcoming RPG, has been created. It's the town of Dorter on the western side of the kingdom of Adrigal. It's part trading town and part mining town. To better get a sense of the town, play this theme as you read this blog entry. Here's the overview of the town, first of all.

Here's the northern part of town with a factory in the northwest corner, and the entrance to the gem mine to the north. One of Dorter's citizens has a child that ran off into the mine. The mine just so happens to have increased monster activity, much like the entire kingdom itself. Thus, the hero will have to enter the mine to save the child. At least that's the background for the scenario I currently have in mind.

Also in the northern part of Dorter are the pub to the west, the inn in the central part of town, and the item shop.

In the southern part of Dorter are the weapon and armor shops, a spell shop, as well as a cafe to the southeast, and Dorter harbor on the western coast. The exit to the town on the right leads to West Adrigal Road, a road that intersects Mabel Road and leads to Adrigal City.