Darren Arquette » Game Design

Hard at work – Work in Progress

Darren Arquette — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:49:42 +0000

Man it’s hard, writing a Game Design Doc, when you’re trying to put down what you have in your head but are hoping to make enough sense that the reader will understand it.
Fair enough some will say I should have enough experience with writing that way, especially when counting my Novel, but I still find it really hard. Just because it mkaes perfect sense to me, I’ve been growing this idea for some time but when it comes to telling someone else it’s hard to explain it to them just because it clicks in my head but obviously this is new to them and they probably wont get it the first time.

So atm I’m writing what I’ve called “Scale of Evil” in my game doc, detailing the size of the hero and the suprioer size of the Bosses as well as the way the player will interactive with and how the fight should/will play out.

Game Design Doc + Happy New Year

Darren Arquette — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:05:04 +0000

As some of you may know, from following me on Twitter, I’m currently writing a Game Design Document. Nope unforunetly it’s nothing big just a small ICA but as you can see a section on the right has been opened, entilted; “Engauge Your Enemies“
And before you ask/say, yes that’s not how you spell “engage” (meaning, carry out or participate in an activity), the Engauge I use means, Process of converting an image file containing a graph or map into numbers.

Weird I know but here’s the reason why I have called the game this…

It’s mostly about the gameplay, sure you engage your enemies but you also, like Ikaruga, asorb different colours of energy which in turns may, or maynot, make you stronger (still working on that) but also when you defeat stronger enemies, aka bosses, you turn them into a card or object (not decided yet) which allows you to use them as a state building thing to further allow you to use them to make yourself stronger, like an RPG in away, they can be applied to your ship overall or just certain parts.

But that’s not all, the story is also the reason.

Our hero is a ex-pilot, the only one amongst a small rebel alliance fighting against an opressive force, so he goes in to take images and provide the rebels with data but he accidently gets involved and thus must fight the enemy… or maybe not sounds a bit cheesy I guess you’ll just have to check out the page regularly for more updates.

Oh and before I forget, Happy New Year everyone. Hope 2010 is a brilliant year for everyone.

Better late than never

Darren Arquette — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:51:03 +0000

Hey guys and gals,
As you may of noticed I’ve given the whole site a bit of a general make over with some new features, mostly to help you guys advertise me ;D, but you should also see a bit of new content up amongst the site as well as a few slight page changes (more of which will becoming by the end of May 2010.)

And for fans of literature, you may of noticed I am now posting my entire book, Forgotten Tales: A Phoenix Dream, onto the website. There is a good reason for this and it’s not to try and grab the attention of any publishers or anything it’s just I’ve been working on this book for so damn long that I just want to get it out there.
As some of you may know, I came up with the original idea for it at the age of 12, began writing a brief outline for a story that then turned into three, then five books (3 are the main story, the remaining 2 are a side story that takes place between the first two books) and then at the age of 16 began finally writing Part 1, and finally completing it at the age of 19.
So yeah little sick of seeing it and just wanna get it out of the way to work on the next ones.

Other than that, I wish everyone that vists here a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

What's Up With: Short Games

Darren Arquette — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:09:54 +0000

Two games have really annoyed me today, Wanted: Weapons Of Fate and RE5.

I got both these games for my birthday, with Wanted just yesterday, and I’ve almost completed RE5 and completed Wanted yesterday… WTF…

Sure both games are enjoyable, graphically appealing and have loads of replay value but COME ON! I buy games for entertainment that lasts longer than it does to cook a fucking turkey not a pot noodle. Come ON…

RE5 is stupidly short compared to RE4, which was about a good 20 hours, but with RE4 is felt like the story was all wrapped up by the end. Now with RE5 I’m still clueless as to why everything is happening…

I am really fucking disappointed with developers these days, now I know the cost of make games has gone up for a number of reasons (Number of staff for one) but come on, WTF has happened to originality, innovation and the good fucking games?
Fuck it I’m off to play PURE.

Story generator

Darren Arquette — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:29:46 +0000

After reading my friend, Chris Walter‘s new blog post where he decuss’ abit more about the gameplay of an idea of this, and briefly mentions coming up with a story/characters which promoted me to, and willingly, be the first to argue that story doesn’t make a game but the gameplay does, however I would also be the first to argue the story makes a game.

Now personally, I recently have been thinking of all three at the same time. This character is like this, why?, this world is like this, why?, this gameplay is like this, why?
Well mostly because the way I come up with my idea’s is through Dreams. lol I know a little weird and batty but trusty me. Later in the day if I still remember these dreams I try to develop the story a little more, and even the character and game mechanics, then I give the game a working title.

Like last night, I had a dream of Zombie like creatures, Surivial Horror right there, and it was going to be sort of over the shoulder and a few other things.
Most of my idea’s such as this have originated from dreams of mine, one story of mine (Phoenix Dream) one character was inspired by one of my dreams, a lion animal that appears in the first… well I kinda wanna remain vague on what happens to this character later on in the series but hopefully you get the idea.

To be continued…