firecat-gamedev

[firecat-gamedev]

reemerging from the hell caves with another pride sale... two dollars visual novel

this is the one where two ladies with cool pointy horns smooch on the mouth

[firecat-gamedev]

My latest game jam entry is out! Very short turn-based/action RPG hybrid with lotsa SNES-style inspirations and at least one mechanic from an unlocalized licensed anime TRPG for the DS. That's a bit of a mouthful.

Rating the game requires rating a few other games from the jam so I'll understand if that's too much effort to go through, but I will encourage checking out some of those other entries regardless!

[firecat-gamedev]

It's a Halloween sale for my decidedly non-spooky sapphic demon ladies visual novel! The astute among you may have noticed that Halloween has already passed, and I don't really have anything to say to that, however the fact remains that the game is indeed on sale for the next few days.

(...The truth is that I didn't consider the idea of a Halloween sale until it was too late, okay?)

[firecat-gamedev]

I've once again made a gay Touhou fangame for the yearly occasion, stop by and give it a play and/or a rate if you feel so inclined. If Twitter is on its way out soon like people seem to say it is, maybe I'll start posting here again soon?

[firecat-gamedev]

My new VN, on sale for 70% off until Christmas!

It’s got jazz and demon ladies. Gay demon ladies.

[firecat-gamedev]

Time for my once-a-year posting to this account that I’m not even entirely sure is still followed by any living beings by this point. Anyway here is my latest (incomplete) game jam entry. Wander around a dark and jazzy library and hit things with your little doll’s little sword

[firecat-gamedev]

You could also play this demo too if you want.

[firecat-gamedev]

Oh. Oh right. This tumblr account.

Play game demo now, I guess?

[firecat-gamedev]

I'm disappointed. None of your games have scissoring.

I realize this is some kinda bait, but hey, whatevs.

The characters in the video games I create are mature adult women in mature adult relationships, however I am not currently at liberty to disclose what they may or may not be doing offscreen and behind closed doors

[firecat-gamedev]

I return from the void once more to share my latest little video game.

It’s a fusion of top-down puzzle-dungeon and side-view action-RPG, a curious blend inspired by my favorite series, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story.

Give it a try, and maybe a star or two in the ratings for this game jam! Just... move those blocks carefully and watch out for softlocks, it’s a jam game after all

[firecat-gamedev]

If there’s one thing consistent about this blog, it’s my ability to completely forget to post anything to it. Here’s a BIG ol’ dump of recent screencaps.

Stop by @ Firecat1311 on twitter for updates once a week (usually, but not always)

[firecat-gamedev]

I’ve posted a bit about this to my twitter already, but I guess I should show this place some love too, huh?

Some of you may remember that RPG Maker game I posted about ages ago. Well, it’s still going, and smoothly coasting towards completion under the somewhat cumbersome title “Slay the Dark Evil Queen!” (Maybe I’ll shorten it at some point...)

Here’s some of the new battle graphics and animations.

[firecat-gamedev]

A narrow victory, only by 0.08 overall score!

[firecat-gamedev]

Oh watch out, I’m back on my BS again here. Some real opinions kinda stuff that I’m fine with posting here ‘cus I don’t really think there’s all that many people who read these posts.

So, LGBT+ games in the indie dev scene... They’re VNs. Almost all of them. The number of VNs (and story-centric RPGs that are basically VNs) beat out other genres by a factor of ten, if not a hundred.

I love VNs. There’s nothing that beats the experience of just sitting back and getting fully and deeply immersed in a good gay story that will inevitably make me cry. But stories about romance are not the only facet of the LGBT+ experience, and stories told in words and pictures alone are not the only vehicle for presenting those experiences.

As minorities, we’re forced to assume that characters who aren’t very explicitly Like Us are, well... “Not Like Us.” And when so many developers think that making a story that makes it as explicit as possible has to be the only focus or they may as well not bother, we miss out on a lot.

Where are our over-the-top, cinematic action games, colorful platformers, head-scratching tactics and puzzle games?

Yeah, I know, I know. I myself have the ability to do something about this to some small degree, and I’m doing my part to the best of my ability. But I just wish that my love and appreciation for really well put-together VNs with beautiful art and beautiful stories didn’t have to always come with a tiny, nagging feeling of wanting more.

[firecat-gamedev]

Honestly, I think this is my best work yet, despite the fact that I made it in only 2 weeks. Check it out!!

[firecat-gamedev]

Camera Zones & Transitions

Yo, why am I suddenly posting again? Is it because current events have me going a bit stir-crazy? Maybe. It’s been, what, over five years since I last attempted an informational text post? Bear with me here.

Anyway, here’s a brief explanation so I’ve got something to show the few people who have asked me about how to handle camera movement within and between “sub-zones” inside of a larger room.

Less about the coding specifics, and more about the general principles that can (hopefully) be applied to most any 2D game development software.

First step: Setup “Camera Zones.” There are a few different ways to handle this, but basically you just want to define coordinates of a point at the upper left of the zone, a point at the lower right, and a name/ID for the zone.

My method of choice, using Gamemaker Studio, is to make an invisible rectangular object that can be stretched out in the room editor, with the top-left and bottom-right corners of the object being the two points that define the zone (or, two separate objects, one for each corner).

Now, the camera object will have a value that can be set to the ID of any zone, and then can be told to clamp its movement to never move the view outside that zone.

You could even use this to improve performance by disabling or destroying enemies, projectiles, or objects outside of the currently active Camera Zone!

Next: “Transition Zones.” Essentially defined the same way as Camera Zones, but these will be doing something different (well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a “zone”, it could just be a single line, but I find zones easier to visualize and work with, personally)

Defined for this “zone” are a few different Camera Zones that it can lead to. When the player goes through, it will set the camera to a new Camera Zone.

This is a bit abstract, so here’s a little visual representation of both types of zones:

When the player exits the right of the Transition Zone (which would ideally be setup so the player doesn’t have to actually go completely off the side of the screen) the camera will switch from Zone 1 to Zone 2. Simple, yeah?

This will create the kind of effect you see in many classic games, where touching the side of the screen will scroll the camera over into another area. However, what if you wanted this transition to be more seamless, so the player isn’t venturing out into scary, unseen lands? Here’s another possible configuration:

In this situation, the Camera Zones overlap, and the Transition Zones are entirely contained within the overlapping areas.

It may be a little bit tricky to get everything lined up right, but as long as the full camera view fits within the overlap of the Camera Zones from the middle of the Transition Zone, the switch between zones should be invisible to the player.

Here’s a working example, using a section from my own game:

Fluid, uninterrupted camera movement. If you watch closely you can see the moment where the camera was too low for the lower bounds of the shorter second zone and shifts upwards slightly to fit, but this isn’t a huge problem (and could probably be avoided with the right level/zone layout, if it really bothers you).

Hopefully this helps someone!

[firecat-gamedev]

did I just straight up forget to post this here? I did, didn’t I. well, who even uses tumblr anymore am I right