Siifour Studios

I just figured that I should formally link everyone to my new blogspot.

http://siifour.blogspot.com/

Current Projects

Dolphin Squadron!

Voyage!

City Across the Sky: Finished (Sorta)

Download Here (If you want)

So, my first game was done awhile ago, but I decided to post the postmortem here instead of at this site. Most of my updates regarding what I do will be present there from now on, but eventually, I may come back and blog about City Across the Sky: Redux, once I feel that my skills are good enough to really make CAS the way I wanted it to be made.

Expect Greatness.
Ryan Huggins~

City Across the Sky: Update 2

Weather! Haha

I've been pretty hard working on the final stages of CAS (though, at this point, it's more of a grind to the finish than anything). All of the cutscenes have been implemented and for the most part, I can't seem to find and reproduce any serious bugs that I don't already know about, so that's good. At this point in development, I'm working on doing the last 10% or so of the game: adding music and sound effects, adding NPCs and NPOs, adding extra chests (though not yet filling them with items), making sure that the weather and times of day change at the right intervals, creating and placing enemies around the maps, etc (the full list will is viewable at the bottom of the post).

These final stages are definitely the most important parts, because I was somewhat unhappy with what I had prior to these points; now I'm beginning to enjoy walking around my own game, and the first time I hear music in-game is a great feeling. What's great is I've already heard these songs out of game hundreds of times, so I can't wait to see what people think of the atmosphere and maybe even to a certain extent some of the other things when they see and hear it all for the first time. CAS was always supposed to be a game based on the atmosphere and to an extent, the exploration. My original goal was to work on three or four different games focusing on different aspects of a bigger game I hope to make in the future. CAS took...a little* too long to make and I ran into A LOT of problems, both with design, organization, and my ability as a programmer. It is my first game however, so I didn't expect anything spectacular, just a finished work to prove to myself that I could finish; I'm nearing that goal now.
*Much too long.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is that I'm happy that I'm nearing the completion of CAS and I'm happy with what the game has become despite all of the problems it has and that I've run into, but I'm more ecstatic about my games to come and what I'll be able to create with the knowledge that I've gained from creating this game. So expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Here is a list of all the minor things left to do. This will be my last post before I release, so instead of updates, I'll remove and add things to this list as they are done or as problems arise.

• Adding Music and SE (35% done)
• Implementing Music and SE into SAVING and LOADING
• Making sure that all Cutscenes work correctly and a full playthrough is possible.
• Making sure that Weather/Time of Day change correctly (40% done)
• Creating and adding enemies to the maps
• Adding NPCs
• Adding NPC dialogue
• Adding NPOs (critters like butterflies and stuff)
• Rewriting dialogue of cutscenes 
• Rewriting STATUS updates 
• Rewriting and adding new STORY updates
• Implementing CHESTS and ITEMS to be found by player
• Implementing more interaction objects (for atmosphere and exploration)

City Across the Sky: Update

Yay for the HUD

Jeez, I haven't updated this blog in so long. It's pretty ridiculous, honestly. Regardless, I don't have a lot to say. I've been working, rather slowly, but progress is being made. Sadly, I'm hoping to move on to another project soon, so I'm working on getting this last (two or three) cutscenes finished and then adding sound to the game. So far, the game is great for my first attempt at a game, but I'll be writing a pretty lengthy post-mortem soon; there were a LOT of things I'd do differently. Expect a larger update sometime tomorrow, but at the moment, the game has around 45 minutes of gameplay. It's definitely going to be short, though it took way too long to make.

Stuff Left

• Last 2 or 3 cutscenes
• Implementation of enemies (mostly to impede progress and offer more motility challenges)
• Addition of music and atmospheric sound effects
• Addition of more interactive objects and various NPCs for atmospheric purposes.
• Testing

Expect greatness, Ryan Huggins~

City Across the Sky 2.0: Week 9

SNOW

I'm working on some pretty serious stuff now. I've gotten more coded in the last 3 months than all of last year...and it's more efficient. Optimizing the game for these weather effects is going to take some SERIOUS effort, but I've managed to boost the maximum amount of precipitation objects on the screen from like 15 to 35  on lower-end systems. My i7 2.2 Ghz laptop with 8 gig ram can manage about 300 weather instances at one time before it begins to lag.

SUN RAIN (before the darker clouds were established)

Currently, I'm working on establishing quite a few things...

• Weather effects (I have, rain, snow, hail, thunder storm, and some atmospheric stuff, I want leaves and such as well).
• I'm also working on a very simple day/night/in-between system where the BGs and tint changes based on a timer variable. The switch would take place during map transfers and not in real time, though the tint MAY change a bit if I can get it working right to hint at the changing times.
• Optimization (I hope to reduce the total number of objects at any time by around 30 to 50%) The map in these videos was reduced from 1562 objects to 724. :D 
• Writing a basic cutscene engine (For images and preventing movement during NPC important talks).
• Fixing damage recoil
• Adding enemies (last...combat is unimportant)
• Mapping final locations (3 left to map...so about 2 weeks of continuous mapping)
• Whatever else I figure I'll need to add...I'm nearing completion, so lots of story writing is left after this, but that's it...

Expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

City Across the Sky 2.0 - Week 1

Happy New Year,

This is a heads-up post. The main domain for City Across the Sky and Siifour Studios related works will be moving to http://siifour.tumblr.com/ in the coming weeks. All of the main posts for Project CAS will remain here however.

As for news, make note of the City Across the Sky 2.0 label. It's less of an upgrade and more of a size reduction since the hardships of IB life and trans-Atlantic collaboration have made it very difficult to make significant progress on CAS over the the last few months. The game has been reduced to about 4 major locations:

1. Grasslands/Grass Ruins/Dark Forest
2. ???? Secret Location
3. Village/City/Factory
4. Mountains/Cavernous Ruins

The project's gameplay will remain intact, but the overall size and pacing of the game will be significantly smaller and quicker. As our first game, Jack and I have decided that the size would prove too difficult for our busy lifestyles to maintain, so instead, we're going to focus on a smaller, more condensed experience. As for tile variation, each location, despite there only being 4 now, will have significant variation. The Grassland/Forest Biome will be the largest and have the least tile variation, but I hope to rectify the issue of repetition with changing backgrounds, music, sound effects, and also, a simple day/night system exclusive to that biome and the City biome. Weather is also poised to be implemented, but it's not necessary to the gameplay.

I will be returning to a weekly update schedule. And all progress will be documented in a fairly easy to understand manner. Hopefully, time permitting, I will release a trailer of the art and expressing a bit of the story within the next 2 weeks.

Expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Dev - Update 7.1

The New Logo. :D

...and short list of new ideas to be implemented over the next 3 weeks (will be updated with progress):

Aesthetic/Design

• Lily will be gaining the ability to crawl! [Complete, but not animated]
• Fewer enemies, more environmental hazards
• Enemies will drop items and some will respawn while you are away
• Weather (Rain, Lightning Storms, Snow)
• Typewriter/Auto-formatting message system :D

Behind the Scenes

• Redoing system for enemy and map item placement (prior system involved remembering pixel locations...not fun). Now it will be more visual.

Dev - Update 7

Well, if there's one thing I can say, it's that Senior year of High School definitely hasn't been as easy as I was hoping it to be! Regardless, after a full 2.5 month break of development on Project CAS, I'm honestly prepared to get back into business.

Back in business!

I'm not going to lie when I say I'm almost out of time to complete this game though, so there are some pretty substantial changes that I've decided to make to the game to make development go more quickly. None of these things will fundamentally change the way the game is played, but it will definitely be a little different from the original plans of action.

I'll detail the new ideas soon, and feedback will definitely be helpful and welcome, but I'm somewhat late into what will be my first video game project, so I think things will mostly remain as they've been designed! I wouldn't expect a demo anymore; I'll probably just complete the game and release the completed version within the next few months. We'll see how it goes.

A couple of aesthetic changes that I'm working on designing include the Start-Menu HUD and the Message System. I hope to incorporate faces into the message system and to use the pictures to show emotions of key characters, Lily specifically! Other than that, most of the things will remain as they are and just expanded. Expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

P.S -- http://blueskybleu.tumblr.com/post/11108929005/city-across-the-sky-early-music-ideas-cas (CAS MUSIC WIP)

Dev - Update 6.5

Conceptual for the new HUD

Jesus, I haven't updated in a long time. It's been almost a month and I really don't have much to show for it. I'm honestly not sure how much I've gotten done since my last update (I don't know where I was back then), but the demo is coming a long decently, though not precisely as I would like it to be. Making video games is rather difficult, more difficult than I maybe anticipated; though I plan to complete this game even if it doesn't turn out exactly as I intended.

Some things I'm working on right now.

• Redoing HUD
• Redoing Message System for "typewriter" style text and small emotion portraits
• Finishing up the first "dungeon" for the demo -- it's rather short (BUT INFINITELY ANNOYING TO MAKE #newcoder)
• Fixing up Enemy AI (one of the AI's is so broken right now. Lool)
• I've actually decided against the original style of AI I had before, where every AI was made of just attributes and specific walk patterns. :| I'm just going to code AI for each enemy individually because I really messed up compartmentalizing the parts. Haha, I'm not incredible at coding yet I guess.
• Preparing to complete details on a few maps.
• Town, Forest, Ruins, and actually completely map a few in-between maps
• [Jack] Finishing up some sprites
• [Jack] Preparing the music

Not much to say other than I plan to have the game done by January and that it's becoming more art-game-esque than I would like simply because of a lack of time to finish. The game itself actually needs to be done by December if I want time to actually promote it correctly, but we'll see what goes on. Expect greatness (and a completed game sometime), Ryan Huggins~

Dev - Update 6

Just a change in environment

So, I've been working with my Co-Artist (I'm pretty much the Co-Artist now actually), Jack Yeates to get the art done so I can focus on mapping and cutscenes. It didn't initially go too well (laziness and time off for vacation), but not we are hopefully back on track and looking at a private release demo by mid September (if you are on the private release list, expect a few bugs that I'm still working out). All in all though, development is going very, very smoothly. The game is looking great, running smooth at 30 FPS, with no major hiccups and the gameplay is remaining simple as I had hoped. The core of the game is its exploration and story, so the combat is very simple. Literal run and gun, with a few tricks thrown in here and there. Some of the AI patterns are pretty difficult to avoid, though, there are only about 3 or 4 variations of enemy AI spread through about 20 designed enemies. You can expect at least 1 boss and about 2 hours of gameplay if you rush through the plot, maybe more if you explore everywhere. 

I'm glad that this blog is finally getting a few views and people are actually commenting now that I've shown screenshots and progress. The game will ultimately be released on a pay-what-you-want basis, though to prevent people getting annoyed at credit card problems (like I tend to, being a teenager), it will essentially be donate if you want, or download if you don't want, to system. :P ALL PROCEEDS WILL EITHER GO TO JACK YEATES AS PAYMENT FOR HIS SERVICES OR TO A CHARITY FOR A DEGENERATIVE DISEASE THAT MOST RESEMBLES LILY'S. I'm quite honestly not interested in money with Project CAS. I hope that, despite the simplicity of the story, that the prose will raise awareness of degenerative diseases and essentially, the struggles that people, specifically (in the case of CAS) parents, with these diseases go through. Of course, the plot is exaggerated for effect, but I do believe that the premise will remain intact while the player plays. 

Trying to keep the good parts of the maps secret. :P There's MUCH more to explore than this.

Honestly, it's about time I stop pretending that the game isn't an art game. Project CAS is an art game, but less-so than many of the other art-games out there. CAS is an artistic game with a definite goal and direction. The story is focused, but there will be many, many secrets to be told for those who explore and continue to play games developed by myself and Jack, because ultimately, they will all tie together. 

I hope that you guys will enjoy and support our efforts with Project CAS and I'm really trying hard to craft something that people will like as my first game. Expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Dev - Update 5.9

Because I hadn't been updating anything for awhile (due to waiting on some art assets), here is another screenshot of one of the semi-animated enemies in the game.

I'm trying my best to take the worst possible screenshots actually. :P (Very serious)

Dev - Update 5

Alright, so while this won't be the largest update I've ever made, it's still pretty substantial. I've been working hard on a lot of mapping (and I just started coding enemy AI again) and now I think I have enough content to warrant releasing three screenshots of the new tiles.

I'm really proud of the new tiles honestly! These are the grasslands!

The black NPCs are placeholder! This is a dark forest.

These are just two of 16 different environments that you can explore! [Grasslands]

So far, we have done about 3 of the 16 different areas, though, the Grasslands and Dark Forest are very large, whereas a few of the other areas are a little smaller by comparison. The game itself (I'm hoping) will be very short; you can complete the main story in what I'll estimate to be about 2 hours, though exploration will probably multiply that by several times...there's a lot more than meets the eye with Project CAS.

It should also be told that these are raw screenshots, directly from the game (as it is right now), though, I plan to add some effects to the maps, like weather effects and other...artistic additions to make the maps prettier and more dynamic. The first and third screenshot are from the same section of map (ie: there are no transitions between them, just more mapping beauty. That particular section is around 4000x1000 in size...and there are tons of areas that large already mapped! I personally think that the game is coming along greatly, these maps aren't even my favorite ones!!

Anyway, I'll guestimate the amount of time spent on the game (by ONLY me) at around 60 - 70 days (complete days (so about 1560 hours)) of time spent in development spanned across about 8 months. Most of the time was spent learning to code and making art though, I'd say a good 600 hours was spent coding/learning and about 400 hours so far making art and making the maps. Imagine if you add in how much time Jack spent making music and doing tiles/concepts...it probably brings the total up into 2200 hours of development. YES, games take a long time to make! Especially if you are a NEWBIE like me. But it's satisfying to no end seeing everything coming together. Expect greatness (and a completed game in about 4 to 5 months). Ryan Huggins~

Dev - Update 4.9

Well, we are heavily into the development of CAS now; in fact, I've been spending almost the entirety of my days mapping the two islands of CAS out. Jack has been spending as much time as he can on making the tiles, so that I can continue mapping, but he goes on vacation on Monday. He will be gone for a little more than a week, during this time, I hope to finish mapping Lily's town (if I get the tiles :P) and finishing mapping the rest of the grasslands/forest locales.

This 4.9 update comes just to say that I'm still alive and working. In the 5.0 update (probably on Wednesday), I'll be releasing some screenshots and new story information. :D

EDIT - Decided to add two pieces of new concept art

This is one concept of the Mountains by Jack

This is a quick concept of night time by Jack.

Dev - Update 4.5

Yay for more concept art...and trains!

This is a midway update just to let you guys know what I'm up to. I'm actually done writing everything in the engine now except for some extra enemy AI (I've written two types of enemy AI). The game is coming along smoothly and I'm working on the introduction and tutorial right this very moment. I'll be working on some graphics stuff with Jack Yeates (Musician and Co-Artist/Spriter) and all the while, I'll be improving upon the cutscene engine I wrote for the game.

The game has taken on a simplistic approach to cutscenes and I'm trying to have gameplay follow suit. Everything left now is just designing levels and cutscenes/finishing up all the tiles and art assets. I bought a giant whiteboard for level designing and I plan to utilize it to the best of my ability. The game is coming along very smoothly and it's exciting to see your first game come together. Expect some great things in the next couple of Development Updates. :D

Dev - Update 4

Yay for concept art~ By Ryan Huggins

Let's start ONCE again, with what's gotten done in the last week.

• Completed Start-Menu HUD
• Shop-Menu HUD
• Weather system (either dynamic or static)
• Choices in the Message System
• Animated levels (Animated background, foregrounds, water, grass, etc)
• Animated anything really...(ART Stuff)
• Variable Wall Scaling (where the type of terrain affects if/how you can grab onto it)
• More or less Enemy AI is incomplete (stupid) <-- saving this for last
• And the most important facet... De-generative gameplay focus (will be completed when all enemy AI is done...TONS of balancing will be required. ugh) Everything but balancing is done
• [NEW] Cutscene control engine D:

This picture is probably more representative of what's gotten done this week.

This has been an relatively productive week, with me getting more or less everything I've wanted done, plus a little bit more. Drawing on the notion of updated art that I brought up last week, I don't have anything new to show you guys. Besides a few more concepts at least. These are the several level concepts we have done.

This was an idea for an interior of CAS. By Ryan Huggins.

Another interior concept (the first one actually). By Ryan Huggins

This is the concept to outside of a factory type place. By Ryan Huggins

This is the grasslands concept piece. By Jack Yeates

This is the same piece, just at a different time. By Jack Yeates

The next work just was an idea for the characters. Castiel (left) and Lily (right). Castiel is an "angel", or he claims to be; Lily doesn't believe him at all. The wing there is metaphorical and conceptual. :P The other concept piece is the very first picture on the blog post.  

This was a quick concept piece of Lily and Castiel. By Jack Yeates

Other than all of this art and coding and such, I haven't been doing much else. I haven't been sleeping much; struggling to finish the rest of the engine before July starts. :P I'm coming close, and with help from a bunch of great people (outside of Siifour) everything is coming together nicely. I really do hope that the work pays off in the end and that the game makes a small sum of money for the charities and all the people out there with some sort of degenerative disease!

I'm aiming for a large update in the next week or two. So, expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Dev - Update 3

So, let's begin with what has gotten done in the last week and a half.

• Completed Start-Menu HUD
• Shop-Menu HUD
• Weather system (either dynamic or static)
• Choices in the Message System
• Animated levels (Animated background, foregrounds, water, grass, etc)
• Animated anything really...(ART Stuff)
• Variable Wall Scaling (where the type of terrain affects if/how you can grab onto it)
• More or less Enemy AI is incomplete (stupid) <-- saving this for last
• A system to control what dialogue/items are assigned to specific objects (Proving to be difficult)
• And the most important facet... De-generative gameplay focus (will be completed when all enemy AI is done...TONS of balancing will be required. ugh)
• [NEW] Cutscene control engine D:

Yep. I've been doing tons and tons of work since I last updated. :| In all seriousness, Siifour Studios has been working pretty hard for the last couple of days. To attest for this, I will be linking to several things this week. In other news, I'm done with just about everything that needs to be done, except the stuff on that list, which, besides the newly added cutscene engine, aren't very important at this time.

Over the weekend, Nekomage (my composer and co-artist) and I have been doing a lot of art. CAS's art is going to be updated really soon now that the base engine has been laid out. It's been a productive two days and here are some pictures to prove it :D

This one is by Nekomage

This one is by me

There are two more currently at my deviantArt ( http://siifour.deviantart.com/ ) and about 20 more to come. I hope to get around 3 to 4 done every day or so after exams end. There's a lot more artistic stuff going on in the background, but you'll soon see the real update with the in-game graphics--which are beautiful. Sadly, I want to keep them on the down low for a few more weeks while we get everything done and looking nice. A possible teaser video is in the works.

Oh, and also--

Lily's body has been updated. :D 

An extremely loose and "revealing" teaser of the new graphics...if you can see her. She doesn't show up well against the old backgrounds. Anyway! Besides this stuff, not much has gone on. So, expect greatness. Ryan Huggins~

Time Spent --> Creative 12+ hours (Also, the time spent marker will be returning now)

Dev - Update 2.1

Enjoy this quick video teaser of Project CAS. :D

It's me depicting how basic non-combat works. :D Combat will be the next video. Haha.

It should now be noted that this video is essentially completely outdated. The mechanics do still work in a similar manner, but the graphics have been redone and gameplay refined somewhat.

Dev - Update 2

Current status of the message system.

Alright then, welcome to the closest thing to a major development update I can include here for the next few weeks or so. That picture at the heading is what I've got of the message system so far. The message boxes can be scaled up or down to accommodate the particular type of text being displayed (with important text (not correctly dictated in the above picture) being displayed in larger boxes. What is left to be done is incorporate a system where choices can actually be made, because right now, it can only display relatively static information.

Other than this, something very important has been added into the game; a new method of creative combat that may or may not take the place of traditional combat. A simple overview of this system is that Lily, the player character has control over what is now will be 4 deployable items (currently 3 of these are mostly coded, but not animated). These items all are deployed in an identical matter but have 4 specific effects on the enemy and the environment. In using these items in specific ways and combinations, the player can do things like slightly manipulate the environment or push enemies right off the map into oblivion. There will be several methods of utilizing these items, and in conjunction with the regular base weapon (4 different weapons that act similarly), there are many possibilities for avoiding or completely annihilating enemies.

What hasn't been done yet is located in the following list.

• Completed Start-Menu HUD
• Shop-Menu HUD
• Weather system (either dynamic or static)
• Choices in the Message System
• Animated levels (Animated background, foregrounds, water, grass, etc)
• Animated anything really...(ART Stuff)
• Variable Wall Scaling (where the type of terrain affects if/how you can grab onto it)
• More or less Enemy AI is incomplete (stupid) <-- saving this for last
• A system to control what dialogue/items are assigned to specific objects (Proving to be difficult)
• And the most important facet... De-generative gameplay focus (will be completed when all enemy AI is done...TONS of balancing will be required. ugh) 

What HAS been completed

• Movement/Basic Wall Scaling
• Collision checking
• Fall Damage and Stress Implementation
• Player-based combat (minus 1 weapon and 1 of weapon-type items)
• Cover System/Basic Stealth system
• About half of the Start-Menu HUD
• Title Screen HUD and system
• Portion of the Message System
• Moving platforms
• VERY basic enemy AI (1 of about 20 :P)
• Some other behind the scenes stuff :D

Dev - Update 1

Title Screen (MAP) :D

Alright, so guess what; pre-production is finally over for Project CAS and I am now moving on into that beautiful thing we game developers like to call, production, or the development period. With the entire story outlined, most of the weapons designed, all of the characters developed and the locations...located, I can enter the process of actually creating game content. Finally, right?

A couple of things will be changing due to this. Since production goes a lot slower than pre-production in small development teams (or is that just me?), I will begin updating as frequently as possible, but with no dedicated time schedule. I will continue to update at least once every two weeks to let you guys know that I'm still here and to detail the other projects that I am working on (usually involving Acrophilia). I should also probably state that my rants will probably be ending here as I have less and less time to actually come up with posts to make. The review thing will be starting up again (after failing miserably) and I will try to maintain as many content updates as I possibly can across every project I have. Until then, take a look at Project CAS's HUD (and some other WIP stuff) :D

HUD (Finalized version is in Title Screen)

Message Box - Mock Up (Working on font and size)

SPRING BREAK!!!

Monday; April 18th, 2011


Today is technically the beginning of my Spring Break. I'm not happy about that because it already feels like it's over... Weird. But in that regard, I don't have any updates for today. I hope to release some really nice stuff soon though! Have a great week!