Since I've never done something like a dialog system and I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. I had to research quite a bit about the "best" way to do a dialog system..I learned a lot from Zelda Ocarina of time and from The Elder Scrolls. But the main lesson from this iteration is that in a RPG, dialog systems are....very complex.  I think what I'll end making for this RPG System will be (maybe even less) about 30% of what a full RPG dialog system must have.

Ok enough talking, lets just make a feature list, the current dialog system has:

1. The origiginal Pokemon fire red bitmat font
2. Gradual message dispaly (also like pokemon)
3. If you press the spacebar while a message is displaying the message will display faster
4. After a message has displayed, the dialog system waits for user imput
5. The dialog system can display more than one message in a row

I've been blogging for over a year now...that's great :D let's review my accomplishments:

1. I launched my first game, Save a Mole
2. After a major rewrite. The RPG System it's finally a reality, it isn't done yet...but it's getting there :D.
3. I launched an experimental flash portal, Doki Games.
4. I started the development of my second game.

I hope to accomplish great things in this "new year".

I don't usually worry about being what he would call "zero-hit wonder", but the main question here is...CAN I DO THIS ON TIME?

The Development Strategy

The quality of the games I make is directly related to my abilities as a programmer...so I'm always trying to improve myself in the programming department. For this project I'm going to start using some new techniques and concepts that I hope will improve the quality of the software. (some of these techniques can be found in the Game Programming  Gems series)

But game programming isn't all about programming >_<....I can honestly say that the biggest mistake that I made with Save a Mole was to focus more on the technical part than the fun part. Now  I'm also  spending a  lot of time thinking and designing the game as a whole. For this I'm using a really GREAT book that I read some years ago but never used...that is "The Art of Game Design"...so I'm using all of the 100 lenses to design the best game I can.

I'm also changing my launching strategy. Inspired by danc's flash love letter, I'll try to get  "real world" feedback as soon as possible. For that I'll launch an "open alpha" next month (I'm hoping next month but my thesis may not agree with me... T_T).

The Story Behind It

I started to work on a shooter with a designer I met over Newgrounds...right now that project is in "stand by"..but one of the ideas that came with the initial braintorming is behind this game :)..by the way, I don't know why all my games seems to start with me looking for an artist....>_<.

The current game idea is very different from the original one...but the original concept is still there :).

On a side note...I still want to make a shooter...if the current shooter project remains "on hold" for too much time I'll have to start making the damn shooter on my own...

The Game

The original was something like this game...(but the end result is pretty far from this... n_O)

I just made this in inkscape...so don't hang be for the missaligned circles

I just toyed with the code about a day or two...trying to find out if it was fun or not....in the end I thought that it was fun enough...I mean...I wasn't looking for the most fun and innovative concept in the world :S I was trying to just finish a game!!!.

I showed the prototype to some of my close friends and they said that it was "fun"...anyway...I decided to move on...

I basically had most of the game done in "prototype form"  and it was very easy to do....really easy...the problems started the second I began working on the "real game".

Problem number 1 -- 3 moles vs 9 moles

The first thing I noticed was that Vicki made the background for 3 moles and that copy-pasting the holes part wasn't going to solve the problem...

The original graphics intended for 3 moles X_X

Thanks to templo de zelda I learned a thing or two about image editing, with a little help of Gimp (btw I learned on photoshop and started using gimp went I took the "open source path") the background problem was fixed...not as good as I wanted...but it was fixed.

I don't really remember why....but I DO remember that I had to make the background 2 or 3 times...just to get it "right"...and you may be wondering, "with all the talk about the damn background...why don't you show it!!??". That leads me to the second problem.

Problem number 2 -- Raising/Hiding the moles

The original graphics acomplished the hide/raise effect by layering the lower part of the background on top of the mole and it's an effect that work great...FOR JUST ONE MOLE!...and I WANTED 9...I had to get really creative to fix this...I ended  cutting the mole and the background into small pieces en using the Z-index of each piece carefully to make the effect. It may seem like an easy thing to do, but let's count the main layers of the game:

1. The moles
2. The grass
3. The  soil

Ok I just have 5 pieces...but at the time it seemed like 11! >_<

I had the hide/raise effect  ready :p and OMFG! I noticed that the graphics didn't include a mallet... the main enemy of my game....it was  time for problem number 3...which I'll explain in my next post...

Pagination

My main concern regarding Doki Games is that usually a flash portal has lots and lots of games and  finding or discovering games it's really difficult. Unless of course the games are either new ones or best rated ones.

Even though I don't have many games right now (hardly 80) most of my updates to the site will be geared towards managing the games. The first step...is...pagination! (hey I have to start somewhere >_<...I launched Doki Games with almost nothing!). You must know what pagination is...you see it everyday:

In some categories (2 btw) I was starting to get more games than one page can handle...and that's bad T_T. To solve that I included pagination :D, also I made my pagination without using visible url parameters so instead of an url with action?page=5 I have something like action/5, it's simpler for the user to type the url in that way :D.

Social Widgets

So...you are playing the best game ever in Doki Games, it's SO great that you want to share it with your friends :D, maybe even on facebook...you couldn't do that with Doki Games 1.0...but you can now!! :D

I integrated the social widgets in the site in basically two ways:

1. Using addthis share button...if you want to share the game :D
2. Adding the official "like" buttons of:
   Facebook
   Twitter
   Google+
   Stumble Upon
   Pinterest

Random stuff & the road ahead

I  made some changes to the background  of the site and I optimized the code a little bit by removing one unnecessary database query....that's nice ^_^ believe me :D.

I'm going to keep uploading games and making small additions to the site until I reach 150 games...then I'll add a bigger feature. In my main plan for Doki Games I'll have a decent site by the end of this year, or at least I hope to.

Navi

While Developing Save a Mole I noticed some repetitive tasks...actually a lot of them...and I decided to make myself a program to automatize those things :D. Navi could be easily described as a "Snippet Manager" and I'm making it with C#/Visual Studio. Today I just finished the first version:

Navi 1.0 -- Just terminal interface right now....also I'm making Navi on WINDOWS O__O WTF!

Even though right now it's just has terminal interface I have big plans for Navi....Now that I think about it I have big plans for almost everything... I'm going to test drive Navi 1.0 while working on my second game and after my second game I'll decide which new features to implement.

Yep...my program it's called like Zelda's Navi...and I really like navy the fairy :D she never annoyed me ;)

Game 2 Spikes

Tomorrow I'll start working on some spikes for my second game :D...as you may recall a spike is a little program used to test something...and I have some things that I wan't to test before making my second game.

Thesis

U_U

And..this is it...the main reason behind my slow progress...I've started to work on my thesis...and I must finish it in order to get my degree.

Let me say (write) that working on my current thesis really isn't as painful as you may think...mainly because I have a GREAT GREAT research topic...I may talk a little bit about it someday...but I really doubt it...after all this is my "game development blog" =P.

Just keep in mind that I may not be able to work that much on my games :(.

1. The classic "dancing"  flowers.
2. Static NPCs 
   Right now they just stand still ^-^U
3. Basic portal detection (with houses)
   By this I mean that I can detect when the player enters a door. In later iterations I'll be doing something when that happens.
4.  Floor Items ( the classic pokeball)

In this post I'll talk about how the idea of the game came to be..it actually wasn't a straight forward process as you may think...

The Initial Dilemma

It all started right about...this post...I was working in 2 games with 2 different artists (a mini-game and a platformer if you are curious)  and after a while ("a short while" if I may add)  the designers couldn't keep working on the games.

I understand that they had college papers/projects to worry about (so did I by the way and  back then I was also working part-time). But more importantly  I also understand that making games maybe wasn't their goal in life, their raison d'être. And while I accept that at the time I was really mad about all this...I'm ok now ^-^

A little image that I have of one prototype

But making games is my raison d'être and suddenly I was left with 2 incomplete prototypes...I had to do something about that...

A wild mole appears

The famous mole

I thought about searching for a development partner online but I really wasn't so eager about that idea for 2 main reasons:

1. I JUST had a bad experience with "partnerships".
2. I really had nothing to offer in my request...I wouldn't be able to attract serious artists that way.

The only ways left were to create the art myself (OH GOD NOOOO T_T) or to use free art....obviously I started using my google-fu to it's full extent in order to find every piece or free art on the net. I literally have a 444.9  folder filled with free art. Among all my "spoils" was a cute whack a mole set by Vicki Wenderlich.

My initial purpose about this whole "flash game projects" was to start small and build from there so I din't want to make a huge game. The concept of save a mole sounded simple enough...BUT if I was going to use free art...making a generic whack a mole clone didn't seem like the best idea...in fact just clonning a game isn't a great idea.

I had to change something :S ...anything.  I played tons of crappy "flash 6 whack a mole clones" while researching the concept. The majority them had really bad graphics  and I quickly noticed how cute Vicki's graphics were. It almost made me want to save the moles instead of whacking them...and the main idea of Save a Mole was born.

Doki Games Current State

About the games on Doki Games

Since the "conception" of the site I wanted  to have quality over quantity,  I had to play hundreds of games to pick the +-50 that I have right now.  I  think that I forgot just how many bad flash games are out there :S. Just that experience will help me a lot when taking criticism for my own games :p.

Anyway most of the games are from mochi media, that is mainly  because the parser that I made  only works with mochi games (right now...more sources to come). I also added some other games "by hand" that I know are great :) like Bubble Tanks Tower  Defense  O__O I REALLY LOVE that GAME!.

I noticed that the update rate of the mochi streams is kind of slow...so I'll be adding lot's of "custom" games in the near future :) and I'll try to add some more sources to my parser too.

About the development process

I'm using Server Groove to host the portal, and I think that it's the best hosting for my current needs :) THE BEST. If anyone needs quality PHP web hosting I would recommend Server Groove.  Besides the hosting, I think that I managed to make the site very fast, the website was done in less that a month, that in itself is a proof that I'm not the same developer...I might be a little better now :p

The small development time also could be explained by my launching approach....right now instead of launching a "complete" site I'm just launching a minimum viable product.The current Doki Games has just enough  features to be launched :S NO MORE. It doesn't even have game pagination...but it  doesn't need all that right now :). In a few weeks I'll be launching Doki Games 1.1 with some features to improve 1.0.

Why is Doki Games better than Juegos.com.sv

Wow...this post is really getting larger that expected...I'll try to be brief from now on...why exactly  is doki games better than juegos.com.sv? well....let me see....

1. The upload process is faster. I even made a program that helps me to review and upload games :) do you want to see it? here is it:
   

   The game info appears in the terminal...I'm lazy I know...

   I  made the uploader in C# and Mono, BTW the uploader is also a minimum viable product :p I'll upgrade the uploader along with the main site :)

2. Also :s I  know now what to expect about the development of a flash portal. Back when I started juegos.com.sv I expected huge loads of traffic by the first week....now at least I know that I have to wait 2-3 months  to START seeing some results...and maybe even a year to start making profits. Also learned  that SEO takes time (lots of time) to work, but it works :) that's for  sure :) So My goal for this year is only to cover the hosting costs =).
3. Now I actually have a "marketing" plan for the site :) even if the plan very weak...is still better that my previous plan...which could be resumed as "hoping for the best"
4. I have a clear idea of what the style of doki games will be, and I'm designing the site and content to support that style :) If later I need to create some more portals (oh God...please don't :p) to incorporate more styles...I would be able to.
5. I made the site  from scratch using a PHP framework  as a base :). Since I know all the source code of the site I'll be able to modify it with ease ;)
6. Finally...all the plans that I had for juegos.com.sv will be used now in doki games :D :D ;)

The road ahead

What can we expect for the next versions of doki games?. I will be continuously adding small stuff like ratings,play counts, social buttons, etc, but the main updates will be related to the number of games in the site. My main concern is creating a site where you can easily browse and discover quality games. You will notice that right now the layout of the site is really simple, that is due to the lack of games.

I'll be adding  games to the site and when I have "too much" games for the current layout I'll change it to a more  fitting one :) that will be the process. I can't go crazy with features right now since all of the "big" features require a healthy amount of games.

That's all folks :p