The Kingdom City of Adrigal - Songs of Legends of Adrigal

A new song for my RPG Legends of Adrigal is here after a bit of a hiatus! If the title doesn't already clue you in, this theme plays in the kingdom city of Adrigal, the capital. It's a place that is situated right in the heart of the kingdom of Adrigal, and it is a place that players will return to often.

I wanted a catchy and upbeat theme for this city, and I think I achieved that with this song. As inspiration, I had this song from Ys Seven in my mind. What do you guys think?

The problematic development of Chickadee

If you haven't been in the know on Chickadee, my Breakout-inspired game, let me get you up to speed. My programmer, Jo, won't be able to work on the game for quite a while, so I essentially had to put development on hold for a currently unknown amount of time. The question that you might be asking yourself is why. That's not that tough of an answer, believe it or not.

Chickadee started as me following a Game Maker tutorial, a Breakout-styled game with octopuses and sea urchins. The only difference was that I added my own visual theme to the game. I then asked my programming friend from Europe who also worked a bit on Super Push Adventure if he'd be interested in helping. He said "yes", to my excitement.

The issue here is that my programmer has basically done all the work with the innards of how Chickadee is built. That includes the physics, how enemies interact with Chickadee, and how progression takes place. Everything was done with my direction. I'd basically go, "Is it possible to make this enemy do this or that?" and my programmer would say yes and implement it.

I have no idea what I'm looking at.
Is this Russian code? It's Russian code, right?

Game Maker Studio has its own programming language that it uses, and like any language, there are multiple, countless, interpretations used. This means that my programmer used his own coding structure and form for implementing what I wanted to happen with the game. This makes it so if a totally different programmer wanted to complete Jo's work, they would have to intensely comb through his code, trying to understand what Jo did and why. This is next to impossible since there are so many interpretations one could make out of Jo's code.

Chickadee is too promising to outright cancel,
so I'm going to rough it and wait for Jo to be free.

Thus, since I'm incredibly ignorant when it comes to coding, much less actually using Game Maker in general, I had no choice but to put the development of Chickadee on a semi-definite hiatus. It's a total disappointment, as I really liked how the game was shaping up, and I put a lot of thought into the characters, their designs, the art, the level concepts, the game structure, and a myriad of other things. To say that the hiatus of Chickadee left me depressed would be quite the understatement. Still, I can work on Legends of Adrigal in the meantime, but at the same token, it greatly soured me in thinking that I have a future in game development.

Super Mario Adventures: A StortzumSoft Project

Super Mario Maker released over two months ago, and since then, I have been feverishly working on my own creations with the intuitive and well done level maker.

It's with great pleasure that I announce the side project I'm working on related to Super Mario Maker. I'm making my own "game", if you will, devised up of eight basic worlds and one special world. The basic worlds consist of four levels each, and the special world consists of eight especially hard levels. The levels use all four tile sets: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U.

By no means is this an original idea, but it's something that I've enjoyed doing greatly, and I hope you will check out the levels that I've made. Note: Some pictures taken from my Super Mario Maker levels are out of date, as I've added checkpoints and other alterations to them. Also, all levels have new sixteen-digit codes, as I had to remake many of them. Finally, each level houses three hidden 1-ups that are essentially the equivalent of Star Coins.

Check out the levels after the break, as this article is very screenshot-intensive.

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!