Nice Outside
All right. Since I haven’t written any poetry since early spring and I have nothing else to blog about, I’m going to use this space mostly to follow the development of the video game I’m currently working on. To make a long story short, I was born the same year the Nintendo Entertainment System hit American shores. My father bought the NES for himself, my brother, and me on release (as well as the SNES when its time came–we were the first on the block to have both systems). You hear stories of children being raised by wolves. I was raised by the blue bomber and Samus Aran, among others of course. Video games, and Nintendo games in particular, shaped me as much as anything else. But I didn’t want to simply play; I wanted to create.
I made a few simple and laughable games when I was in high school, but I haven’t attempted to try again since. Those were school projects, anyways, and way too short to be called actual games. But inspiration hit a few weeks ago, and I’ve been devoting time most nights to get work done on what will be my first actual release to the indie gaming scene, albeit a modest one. Start small, right?
The new game is inspired by working the corporate lifestyle. I don’t mean to make an artistic statement with the game, but it will be influenced by the way I understand life, which is unavoidable. As a theme, most of the language will differ from regular video game phraseology, but the mechanics will nonetheless mimic super simple platform gaming.
The title: Nice Outside
The story: There’s no doubt about it. It’s nice outside. Your only choice is to complete all of your work as fast as possible to get outside while still scoring a decent productivity for the day.
The gameplay: There will be four “worlds” (floors in-game) that the player has to traverse in order to get outside. They consist of Market Research, Product Summary, Financial Analysis, and Customer Revisions. Each world will end with a meeting with that floor’s Project Manager. Sort of like a boss fight, only there won’t be any violence in this game. It will take creative solutions to beat each one. Every floor will have different gameplay mechanics as well. I’ve only finished the engine for Market Research, in which you have to collect all the good research in the level, take it to the computer, and ride the elevator to the next level. I haven’t quite figured out the exact details of the Project Manager stage (PM Christina). But by the end of the week, a playable demo should be ready for sharing, at which point I’ll be posting in the TIG forums for help. I don’t think I’m doing a good job of keeping the .exe small right now, and I’ll need advice on figuring out how to make the game perform the same functions faster and cleaner before I go too far.
I’ve written the title music as well as the Market Research tune and the necessary sound effects, though I’d like to add some percussion to the title music. All that remains for the demo of the first world to be ready is a bit of tinkering with a certain in-game obstacle and level design for a handful of additional stages. I may or may not put the demo up before creating the Project Manager stage. Ideally, I’d like to finish it first, but that might take too long for me to wait for any initial feedback.