Some Early Concepts

Iv been busy putting the finishing touches to my proposal document over the last few days and have done up some early stuff regarding the games character and setting. These are very rough but shud give you an idea of how they will look when finished.

There will be only one playable character in Magma Surge. The main characters name is Mendel Strone, a powerfully built volcanologist entrusted by MIT to deliver and collect their most expensive and important experiments on Kaua'ahu. Mendel is a skilled mountaineer and survival expert completely at home within the blistering depths of active volcanoes. He is motivated by his passion for science and understanding and will fearlessly take up any challenge where he feels the scientific merit is worthy. 

Some quick concepts for Mendel

Kaua'ahu is a new island that has just broken the surface of the ocean in the last few years. Far to soon for any large plants or animals to have colonised its surface. The island is a black lunar landscape of boiling vents, creeping lava, unstable cliffs and of course, several growing volcanoes explosively and loudly announcing their births to the world. Human presence on Kaua'ahu has been established for a few months now on the most stable part of the island. This small scientific community was established to study the newly forming island. The settlement has been named Tvastar, after the Hindu god of blacksmiths. From here people send out regular scientific expeditions that visit the different volcanoes dotted about of the island. 

Creeping of the Feature

Having spent a few hours mincing through the game doc, iv noticed that the amount of content within my game is beginning to mount. While its still a relatively simple affair, it goes to show just how much work actually goes into a relatively simple game! I will have to learn most of the coding myself so I'm not looking forward to that aspect of the project. Right now however, the game is starting to form nicely within my skull. I think iv worked out the level structure as well as a rudimentary plot involving muscular scientists and a megatonnes of molten rock. If it all goes well it should be a colourful and cool little game for you everyone to have a go!

Me never having owned a smart phone also makes the port to smartphones idea quite hard to imagine for me. I'm one of those people who want to keep their phone a phone as opposed to a €700 media centre. I'm aware that smartphones will eventually become cheap enough that they become the hardy piece of shit I have in my pocket right now, but Magma Surge will be certainly done and dusted by then.

Annyyyyway, right now I will concentrate on visualising the game rather than the code. I'm just hoping that by the end of the game dev document I wont have added so much more stuff that I have to dumb down my project. Everything I've added today is important. I just gona make sure I dont get bogged down creating too much for my one self to manage. Maybe then the daunting task will merely become a scary one.

Magma Surge Outline

Magma surge is an upcoming browser / smartphone game being developed by yours truly for my major project. The game is a simple fast paced platform game where the player must escape from a volcano with a rising plume of burning liquid rock hot on his heels. Pun completely intended. The volcano will nicely enough contain a series of platforms that allow the player to leap out the way of the lava. This simple concept lends itself well to creating lots of interesting levels and iv already got several ideas to work on.

I intend to create a simple casual game that people will play quickly on their phones or laptops while killing time like waiting on a bus or download to complete. When complete it will be akin to the likes of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope insofar as being a game with numerous short levels that are fun and satisfying to complete. I want to look at implementing a simple leader board system and to incorporate some social network websites in some way shape or form.

The game is gonna be built in Flash using Action Script 3. This being a solo project for the most part, the decision to use AS3 was based heavily on the large amount of support available both online and from colleagues. I will be teaching myself most of the coding so it will be a challenge, but one I'm very much looking forward to taking. The biggest part i look forward to is doing all the artwork and level designs. With games like this having large amounts of short levels, it will be fun to come up with different ideas and scenarios for the player to overcome.

Right now I'm getting all of the paperwork done in terms of proposals and documents to keep my masters in DIT happy, but once all of that is done and dusted I can jump into this project with no distractions. Watch this space for further updates and probably lots of moaning about the difficulties of game design :)