DevGames

James Gugenheim

(DevGames owner and creator) is a
Software Industry Professionals Member.

Software Page    About the Developer    Developer's Comments

Comments on current projects and future releases

     James is reluctant to proclaim or describe future games due to development times and the over sensationalization of unfinished software that is never released (vaporware) or over-hyped software (hypeware) with features and statistics that never make it into the software flood the internet and magazines with advertisements every day. James does not wish to add to that flotsam and jetsam of deception. But if you are curious to what projects James has in mind then please read on, just be warned they may never be seen by the public eye.

     Crop Designs marks a change in game styles for James. It will be the last 2d game he will release, as he is now turning his vision away from the 2d action genre to the realm of 3d action and binary-space-partitioned (BSP) games. Although, as mention on the About the Developer page, an isometric tactical tank game and an isometric visualization tool are all but finished. -Meaning they may someday find their way to release if I dust them off finish their code.

     Current work involves a stand alone over-the-shoulder shooter. Screenshots to the right. All originally planned role-playing elements to it have been dropped and replaced by a compelling story line, flavorful puzzles, and heretofore unseen weapons that give the main character a unique feel and new style of play. The game is based on the end of an undead/demonic war set in the near future (some of the characters are pictured on the right side of the title graphics of the software page.) The current engine being used is the Genesis3D Open Source engine, but is subject to change as other people may be brought into a collaboration and possible investors gained. Because of the relative lengthy development time needed by a single developer, James is unwilling to comment further, but has included three screenshots from the first two 'levels' of the game. Expectations are for a release in the first quarter of 2010.

Comments on programming languages

     The screen savers were written in Visual C++ 6.0 MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) and are animation based.

     Crop Designs and Doctor O's Monkey Masher are both amalgamation projects written partially in VC  6.0 and a game scripting language created by Mark Overmars. To learn more about the game scripting language and its development environment (entitled Game Maker) click here.

     Game Maker was originally a freeware development tool but it has moved into the realm of shareware by offering more features after registration. If you are interested in a cost effective way of designing your own two-dimensional graphical software without C++ or VB (more than games are designable with Game Maker despite its name) I recommend it to you.

     James now works exclusively with VC++ 6.0.

Comments on Crop Designs

     In creating Crop Designs James especially enjoyed designing and programming its artificial intelligence routines. The AI used in the game uses four behavioral routines that are selected by an algorithm that considers many dynamic runtime factors and hard coded values. The more basic of the behavioral routines includes random directional movement and a comparison of least distances (similar to what was used in 1980's arcade console games.) The more complex routines includes recent footprint tracking and A* Pathing (an algorithm that finds a route by exploring a path to a goal by comparing all directions at every step.) All of these combined to give the computer controlled opponents a wide range of behaviors ranging from the savvy to the lucky while keeping frame speeds high.

     The AI proved so efficient the behavioral selection algorithm had to be weighted toward the simpler behavioral routines (internally dubbed quirks) to give players more breathing room. Early beta testing proved the original AI to be overwhelmingly tough and detracted from the enjoyment of the game. The new weighted system corrected the problem while leaving the AI enough power to remain challenging.

Comments on Doctor O's Monkey Masher

     Doctor O's Monkey Masher did not require any reactionary AI routines. The mashers' sole job were to close and the players were the ones who did all of the reacting. Instead, the most memorable aspect of creating the monkey masher game was its musical score. Since the game was based on classic arcade game philosophies (game play and presentation) the musical theme need to follow suit.

     For a brief moment James considered completing the game without a theme. At the time licensing music was not a viable option, and if there was going to be a theme he would have to be the one to write the music. He dusted off his old keyboard synthesizer (which he had played when younger) and began experimenting with it.

     Sound effects were one thing, but stringing notes together into music was something much more difficult. After many long hours a piece of music evolved out of the noise. It was tweaked and replayed over and over again until it was finally something worthy of being called a theme. Luckily only a cleanly repetitious loop of music was needed, and not a complete song, else the process would have taken three to four times longer.

    Although most of the coding and artwork were complete before the theme was addressed, some of it was later changed to meld all three game aspects together. Many of the supporting graphical assets were thrown out. In the spirit of the theme song, the jungle motif was adopted for many of the supporting screens instead of scenes of the machine. The theme song and jungle screens contrasted with the metal mashers to give players a sense of Monkey Mark being taken from the jungles and thrown into the deadly machine. The game would not be the same without its theme and the influence it had on the artwork..

Software Page    About the Developer    Developer's Comments

     Copyright © 2008 James Gugenheim. All Rights Reserved.

Click to enlarge screenshots.

Click to enlarge screenshots.