Playing it on the blog here isn’t the ideal place, it works much nicer when it is set up properly with the right equipment however you can still get an idea of how it works here

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Once the block is on the platform the game is won and the characters will show a victory sign

In this game you are working against each other to collect the most points while avoiding getting killed. The level designs on these games are nice and simple and consist of simple platforms. I felt that these types of levels would be easy for people to draw up themselves and would be great areas for a fighting game.

I took a look at a game called Super Smash Bros Brawl. This game has a similar sort of level design to what I had in mind.

I decided that I would attempt to make a fighting game where the characters can punch and kick each other and whoever’s health bar depletes first loses the game. I decided to keep the controls simple and only gave the characters two moves so the game is easy to understand.

I think that this type of game will work well because the player can have fun drawing up new levels to battle on and because you are playing against another human player the game will be different every time.

Once one of the characters health has compltly depleated the loser will fall and the winner will hold out a winner sign

Player 2

This is the player-two character. I’ve made her a girl in an attempt to make a clearer distinction between the two characters when they are jumping around. I built this character on top of originals design so it shares the same animations and will save me time if I need to add new animations to the characters as it only requires a little bit of editing.

Both Characters in Game

Two Players

So this got me thinking of ways that I could make a game that would play and react differently every time. After sitting there playing the game for a while it suddenly clicked with me how much fun could be had if I made the game two-player. By making the game two-player you could either play cooperatively of competitively depending on the game type you wanted to play.

I took the current character and duplicated it within flash and edited its code to function independently. Seeing the two characters moving around together worked really well and even though I have not created a level for them at this stage it was still really fun to run around with the two characters together.

It was easy to get confused with which character was which when they were both jumping around so I plan to create a new design for the second character to make it clearer.

Because my game is to be played on the pages of a sketchbook I was struggling to decide whether I should include sound or not. My concern was that if I use music or sound effects it might shatter the illusion for the player. However I understand how much of an important role sound has in a game and felt that I should at least try some sounds.

I felt that adding music would be a step to far but thought sound effects could add something to the final piece. I came up with the idea of recording myself scribbling on and flicking through pages of my sketchbook. I then took the audio that I recorded and tried to match it up to the different character animations that I have created. I choose to use these sounds in an attempt to keep everything consistent. I hoped that by recording sounds from the sketchbook it wouldn’t shatter the illusion that it was all happening on the page.

I tried to keep the sounds quite subtle and kept the volume of them low so as not to draw attention to them. I’m not totally convinced that the sounds I have chosen to use are right at the moment, but I do think that the game works better with them then without. I shall continue to experiment with some other sounds to see if I can find some that work better.

Below are just some of the sounds I tried

Jump sound

Step

Long Movements

Walking

Health Bar

In order to show that the character has taken damage I created a health bar. Whenever the character is hit or takes damage the health bar will deplete. Once the health bar is empty the game is over and you must start again.

Game Over Screen

HomeMade Touch Pad

I decided that I would try a more conventional method of controlling the character for my game. I didn’t want to use a keyboard from the computer because it was too large and completely shattered the illusion of not playing the game on in the sketchbook. So I decided to try using a control pad from a console instead.

PS3 SixAxis Controller

In order to get the controller to work I used a program called GlovePie. This program lets you assign keyboard key presses to buttons on the control pad. Once I configured the button presses the pad can then control my game.

At first I wasn’t sure that this would work very well because it did feel a little out of place with the rest of the project. However once I had set up the game and started playing using the control pad the level of control that I had over the character and the game was increased vastly and was a lot more responsive then the level of control that I had when using the mouse. By having more control over the character it also made the game a lot less frustrating and more fun to play.

I feel that the trade off here is worth it. The control pad is still small and I don’t think it intrudes too much on the idea of playing completely in the pages of the book. Using the pad also means that people won’t put their hands in the way of the projector blocking the projection of the level.