I'm really starting to make nice progress with Berathen: Spirit Detective. For those of you who don't already know: This game is a top-down, adventure RPG. Usually detective games are presented as point and click adventure games. I personally have never been a fan of point and clicks, I usually get frustrated by the system.
In point and clicks I always mistake objects I can interact with for objects that are just art in the background. I find this incredibly aggravating and usually find myself clicking all over the screen. So of course when I decided to make a detective game I chose to do away with the point and click controls you usually see in this type of game. It makes much more sense in my eyes to present this kind of game from a top-down RPG perspective. It is quite usual for adventurers to explore every tunnel in a cave and examine all the pots in a town.

In case my explanation is confusing I've provided a link to a screenshot of my game in development.
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q255/Venks428 /Detective01-1.png

Again don't let me confuse you when I call this game a RPG. I mean it in the same vein that Harvest Moon is a RPG. There won't be any random battles with monsters or anything. The focus of this game is to solve a crime. Not grind experience and gold for hours. Though that sounds like a great idea for a sequel.

The story for this game, thankfully, has been completely written up. I've outlined everything and have estimates for how long I think all the events will take me to program. According to my estimates the game should take about twenty-one hours to complete. I'm a rather lazy guy so I'll only be programming so much in a day. Though I will try to do a lot tomorrow. Despite the fact I have rather comfortable cushions in my estimated times, I wouldn't want to stumble across an obstacle and not be able to get this game out on time.

The release date for this game is May 19th. The reason I am so adamant about releasing this game by this date is that it will help me focus and finish this project. I have been playing around with the idea for a long time and programmed all the ground work. But I have been very slow when it comes to actually getting much done. If I can manage to get this game out on time it will be the first of many games I plan on getting out in short bursts of time. No worries though. I have plenty of testers and will be making sure it's as polished as I can make it within a reasonable amount of time.

When the game comes out I hope you all enjoy it!

I have to say I've fallen in love with the concept of rushing writing to meet a certain deadline while also keeping a certain word count. I came across the idea from NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month.
Apparently every November writers are encouraged to write a novel in 30 days. These writers get together in libraries or online and write, write, and write.
To reach their goal you're supposed to keep continually writing, never stopping, even if you're not sure exactly what you want to say next. You have to accept that what ever you've written before was pure gold and keep moving forward never looking back. Even if their are grammatical or spelling errors. That's what editing is for.

I borrowed this idea for my game Berathen: Spirit Detective. I've been working on ideas for the story for quite some time and I have to say I was just never pleased. By the time I had decided on one thing I was changing my mind about something else.
When I took to my new writing exercise I would find myself repeating statements and misspelling words. At first I was rather discouraged by my shoddy looking work, but at the end of my sessions I was always impressed by the sheer amount of words I had somehow typed. Forcing myself to write like this was really helping me pinpoint details in the story which I had previously unwittingly avoided.

Writing isn't exactly something I normally find that interesting, but there was definitely something exciting about rushing against the clock. Writing my game's story as fast as I could trying to finish by the deadline. I wasn't exactly writing a novel, my goal was much short, but the idea was the same. If you also have problems coming up with the story for your game or simply writing I suggest you give this idea a go.

Tink originates from the game Berathen Star which you can play here:
Berathen Star

In Berathen Star the young twinkling hero is chosen by the Almighty One to protect the heavens from a gang of rogue stars that call themselves the Ninja Stars. Despite insurmountable odds Tink gives it his all. Not because he believes it is his duty, but because he's far too apathetic to argue with the Almighty One.

But now! Tink is on a new quest!
Having failed to protect the heavens the Almighty One has been destroyed by the Ninja Star gang and has been scattered across the sky. With the Almighty One smashed down into nothing but star dust he somehow still finds a way to communicate with you and asks you to stop the rogue stars from stealing his power.

If you'd like to help out Tink and the Almighty One head on over here:
Tink's Quest

This article was originally posted on Berathen

There is a certain question I've been asked a good many times in my life that I have not been answering correctly. That question being: "What kind of music do you listen to?" In my past I would always answer: "I don't listen to music." And well this is just not true. I do in fact listen to music, but the genres I'm usually provided do not really fit. The type of music I listen to is video game music.

It's not that I'm opposed to other types of music. My family has a truly diverse interest in music. Ranging from hip hop to classical. I'm more then happy to appreciate this music when I hear it around me. Though to be honest I do usually stray away from music with vocals. Not that I abhor it, but I do prefer to hear the actual instruments and beats more then I care for the words being said over them. Though silly songs such as those by Weird Al Yankovic can sometimes provoke me to sing along.

I may turn up the volume for whatever is on the radio as I'm driving somewhere, however, what I enjoy listening to is video game music. When I'm programming away or doing some chore around the house I like to play the original soundtrack of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney or Earthbound. Now and then I really get absorbed into the music and lose myself in memories of playing the title where the music I'm listening to originated from. A great way to get myself pumped to completing a task is listening to Sonic Adventure 2's theme for City Escape. The music is great in and of itself, but the memories of perfect tricks off of ramps and well timed homing attacks are quick to make me inwardly smile.

Then there is just the fact that video game music is very impressionable. Mario is a great example. A lot of people who haven't even played Super Mario Bros will easily recognize the music from stages 1-1 and 1-2. The combination of music reused in different parts of a game and the fact the music itself is usually not that long of a loop causes you to hear it over and over again. Have you ever played Super Mario Bros 3? Try listening to literally one second of the themes to stages on the first world and then humming out the rest. I bet you'll be surprised how much you remember.

Now just because video game music is impressionable and more then likely has memories attached to it doesn't mean the actual compositions of sound can't stand on their own merit alone. I personally find Megaman 2's Crash Man theme and Castlevania Symphony of the Night's 'Dance of Pales' to be outstanding music that I would highly recommend to anyone. In fact both of those games just have amazing soundtracks all around. While recommending music let me also sneak in Star Fox's Corneria theme. Star Fox is so due a new installment in the franchise.
Anyways, I must ask, what kind of music do you like?

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Please check out my gaming website at: www.berathen.com

I'm sure most of my friends know that I, alongside a few friends, have been creating a video game. Now I'm not sure how many of you know the passion that goes behind this. This is more then just something we do with our spare time. This is something we, at least the most devoted of us, hope to one day make a living off of.
The video game industry is a vast and lucrative industry dealing with entertainment. Even during this recession the video game industry has continued to grow. Now not everyone who wants to get into the video game industry has to be someone sitting behind a computer at some big company.

1) There is a lot more that goes into making games then just lines of programming code. Artistically speaking we have sprite artists, concept artists, 3D modelers, and more. The sound and music in games doesn't come from no where. There must be people able to produce background music to accompany the sounds of guns firing and enemies exploding. No matter what you're selling you need marketing. You can have the best game in the world, but if no one knows it exists it won't make a penny.
Lastly it is not the programmers who decide the main character should be able to fly when running at full speed. The programmers just make these things happen. It is the Game Designer who comes up with all the ideas for the game.

2) Also getting into the game industry isn't as hard as you might think. You don't have to be part of some large Game Publisher. There are plenty of people who go solo or form small groups to produce their own self-funded games. These games tend to be 2D more casual and time friendly games. Most of these games come from the video game industry's indie scene. Thanks to digital distribution anyone with the skills and passion to make games and sell them can do so. Some well known Indie games are: Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, and World of Goo.

The time has never been greater for Indie games. For a long time solo and small-team developers have developed games for the PC, but thanks to new download services like Playstation Network, Xbox Live Indie Games, and Wii Ware Indie Developers can market their games to console users. Not even cell phones are safe from digital distribution. Many of the iPhone's many apps are produced by Indie Developers.

Seeing all this opportunity and having a strong passion for Game Design I have made it my goal to become a true Indie Game Developer. My current project 'Divine Space' has seen a lot of work in Game Maker. A lot of Indie Developers frown upon Game Maker because of its simplicity as a tool for game design, but I'm not so proud as to not use it. My logic is that any tool that can be used to create a selling product is a good tool.

Divine Space is nearing its completion. In order to rise awareness of my game I've been hard at work on both a website dedicated to it and a Flash version of it. If you've been on the internet you've more then likely seen or interacted with a Flash application. Newgrounds.com is a site dedicated to works made in Flash. Let me create an analogy so that you might understand what it was like going from Game Maker's programming language of GML to Adobe Flash's programming language of AS3.
I would say it's like learning how to build a Medieval castle out of MegaBlocks. You know those huge blocks for toddlers? Now you're using the smaller normal Legos. All the principles of building the castle are the same, but now you have a lot more pieces you have to use and must pay a lot more attention to detail to obtain the same result.

In Game Maker if I wanted to create a bunch of enemies I'd write:

//Create Event
spawn=0;
KC=0;
KameKaziCross=false;

//Step Event
spawn+=.5;
if spawn=200 KamekaziCross=true;
if KamekaziCross=true
{
KC+=1;
if KC=1 instance_create(84,16,oKamekazi);
if KC=3 instance_create(168,16,oKamekazi);
if KC=5 instance_create(252,16,oKamekazi);
if KC=3 instance_create(336,16,oKamekazi);
if KC=1 instance_create(420,16,oKamekazi);
if KC=5 {KamekaziCross=false; KC=0;}
}

Now to get the same thing done in Adobe Flash with AS3:

//EnemySpawn Class
public var kC:Number=0;
public var kamekaziCross:Boolean=false;

public function stepEvent()
{
spawn+=0.5;

//=======Spawn Times=======
if (spawn==200) kamekaziCross=true;

//=======Formations=======
if (kamekaziCross==true) {kC+=1; if (kC==6) {kameKaziCross=false; kC=0;}}
}

//Game Class

//=======Enemy Formations=======
if (enemySpawn.kamekaziCross==true)
{
if (enemySpawn.kC==1) {enemyCreate(84,16,1); enemyCreate(420,16,1);}
if (enemySpawn.kC==3) {enemyCreate(168,16,1); enemyCreate(336,16,1);}
if (enemySpawn.kC==5) enemyCreate(252,16,1);
}

public function enemyCreate( xPos:Number, yPos:Number, type:Number )
{
var newEnemy:Enemy = new Enemy( xPos, yPos );
newEnemy.assignType(type);
army.push( newEnemy );
addChild( newEnemy );
}

Crazy eh?