Goon Gaming

Many of you only know me in the scope of this class. In reality, this class is for my minor, and my main course of study is programming; more specifically, the programming of video games. This may not come as a shock, as I dedicated this blog as a means of discussing video games. With this in mind, I felt like showing you some of the games I’ve made would be a good way to sign off this blog with a personal touch. Who knows, maybe you’ll try them out and end up liking them.

Plague 2054 (Text-Based Game)

Plague 2054 is the most recent game I’ve made and it’s probably a little different than most games you’ve played. You’re a survivor in post-apocalyptic, zombie infested world. You wake up and begin the game by choosing who you see waiting for you in the kitchen of the shelter you’re squatting in. This ultimately starts you on a given storyline path, but the choices you make along the way will decide your ending. The game has over ten different endings based on your choices. I used the idea of letting players make their own choices because I felt it was a way for them to feel more connected to the story. The downside for some is that the game consists of reading. It is more of an interactive story than a game; kind of like those Goosebumps “choose your own adventure books” where readers would flip to a certain page to see the result of their choices. It won’t hurt my feelings if this isn’t your style of game, I just wanted to put something different out there for those who are looking for a different way to play games.

Space Runner (Side Scrolling Shooter)

Space Runner was the first game I had ever developed. Both of the titles I mention in this post were created by me and me alone. This title is reminiscent of a Galaga type of game. However, instead of top-down play, I programmed a mechanic that allowed it to look like the spaceship was moving toward the right side of the screen. I used free sprites from online sources as a means of programmable objects and tied various scripts (of code) to each object. For example, the background has a looping mechanic, hence the perception that the spaceship is moving when in reality it is just stationary. The game has a story as well, but it is secondary and optional to view. In this title, I truly tried to capture the essence of 80’s arcade music and 8-bit graphics. I think my favorite part of this game isn’t the actual playing of it (even though I find the game to be a fun way to see if you can beat your old high score), rather the environment and sound effects are what I’m proud of implementing. This title is far from being perfect, or polished even. As it stands now, the first few levels are playable and work 100%, but there is a bug that freezes the game during the final boss battle. I believe it has something to do with the mechanic I used to freeze time virtually as a means of proceeding to a different level or menu. It has been a while since I’ve gone through the extremely tedious and annoying task of trying to find the line of code causing the game to break in what I feel is the best level.

Were you surprised to see that I have already made a few games? Will you try these games out for yourself? If you do, please let me know how you feel about them and any suggestions you have. Even if you don’t want to check these titles out, I still appreciate that you took the time to read this post. It was a pleasure having class with you all and I hope all of you have the utmost success in future endeavors.

For Those Interested in Playing My Games

You can find both of these games on my itch.io site. Here is the link.

***No references were used to create this post. GIF images were found via google search. Remaining content exists from pre-existing knowledge of the titles mentioned***