It’s been literally months since I started this blog. Originally I had intended to post about game development on a regular basis, highlight indie games I thought were cool, etc. All that pretty much went by the wayside when I took some web design and programming classes through UCLA’s extension program (I work full-time, so classes were in addition to work).
So why am I bothering to post anything here? Well, I need a place to post my game design and development-related thoughts, and this is as good a place as any.
Right now I’m participating in the closed beta for a game development software platform called Stencyl. I can’t say too much more about the software beyond what you see on the site there, but I can say that it’s enabled me to get further with game creation than any other software platforms I’ve used. Note that I am NOT a paid employee of Stencyl, just an individual participating in the closed beta.
So what do I like about the software? I think the visual Behavior designer is probably the most significant feature for me. I have some programming background but not enough to build a complete game. The visual designer is complex enough to allow me to implement pretty much any kind of gameplay functionality that I can come up with. My art and music skills are so-so but good enough to allow me to make my own game art and sound assets. StencylForge is another significant feature in that it allows for easy sharing of game resources.
Until Stencyl goes public, I don’t plan to discuss how it works in any depth or how to use the software’s visual designer. That said, once it does launch publicly, I will be covering how to use the software tool in the context of what I’m working on.
In the meantime I plan to discuss game design in more general terms and talk about the projects I’m working on. Stay tuned for another post on the subject of game design in the very near future.
Games in Progress... 