Intro to Blogging

My first blog post!  Exciting!  In the next few months hopefully I'll be writing about programming and designing video games, specifically my current project Germ Wars.  Right now it's a "school project that I'm going to keep working on", something I have never actually done yet.  Typically, school teams split up and our project dies, rapidly.

But!  This project may be different.  For one, for once someone other than me is seriously interested in continuing the project.  That would be Don Xu, the artist.  We both want to ship a title by publishing Germ Wars to Android's marketplace.  

It's going to take a lot of work to get there though.  The control scheme is designed for a computer keyboard, not an Android touchpad, and gameplay may have to be revamped to adapt.  Right now I might describe Germ Wars as a Bullet Hell shooter without the shooting, and the precise dodging required may not translate well.  We're gonna have to do a lot of playtesting and probably change up the mechanics.

Assuming we do get the gameplay working well, I'm also going to be adding different modes of play and some features expected in phone games.  Right now there is just one "Go until you die" arcade style mode.  We will be adding more difficulty modes and/or levels that introduce new mechanics.  I'm currently working on a tutorial the player can play through (rather than read an Instructions page).

The second reason I might be able to finish this project is this blog.  Hopefully writing it will help me organize my thoughts and force me to hold to deadlines.  Also thanks to Matt Findlater for inspiring me to write a blog.  See you next Friday, when I will have the game's tutorial done and a new blog post!