Introducing Project Amethyst
21 Dec 2014
Alright, so this is my first post about this.
I've posted a few on Enjin, but I felt it might be a good idea to start posting stuff here instead.
Anyway, Project Amethyst (working title) is my attempt at making a standalone platform specifically designed for roleplay.
Servers get pretty much full customisation over what goes on in the world, how it looks, how players interact with each other, etc.
So far, I've done:
- A login system (which needs a little redoing)
- Sending object types from the server to clients (with some object scripting in Python, Ruby or JavaScript, your choice.)
- Sending tiles from the server to clients
- Movement
- Partial support for character sprite switching
- Chat system (with channels, both radius-based and global, with different mechanics and UIs for each)
I'm hoping this will become the go-to choice for roleplay communities - it should be expandable enough to allow for whatever environment you want. Once I have something I'm relatively happy with, I'll release some initial builds so that I can get some feedback from you as to what you want to see.
Here's a quick gif of the client in action so far (this won't be the default art for too long, just waiting on artists, so we'll have to make do with placeholders for now.):
Ludum Dare 31
15 Dec 2014
So I haven't updated this blog in ages.
Sorry about that.
Anyway, just a quick thing I did recently, I made a game for Ludum Dare 31.
You should totally go play it here
Games I want to make
17 May 2014
Once in a while, I come up with an idea that seems pretty decent and think "I want to make that!". I also have a fear that I will forget these before I get round to actually doing them. So, without further ado, here's a list of the games I want to make:
A busking game.
You start off as a man on the streets who has to beg for money as people pass you by. Gradually, as you get money, you can afford things like plastic pots and sticks, and you start drumming. A guitar, and you start playing. Practicing makes you better. Buying nice clothes makes people more likely to give money, but does cost money in the process. Events like an economic crisis can make people less likely to give money, and things like festivals make people more likely to give money. Eventually, there would be a world leaderboard that you could get onto with all the crazy things you buy, and people could see what you do.
An expansion of Descent
Descent was the odd little thing I made for Ludum Dare 29 (you can play it over on the Games page, if you're interested) I'd like to shift all the difficulties - easy should actually be easier - perhaps snappy turning rather than the curvy mechanic in place now. Normal should be the current easy, hard the current normal, and insane the current normal, but with one life. I'd also like to add a feeling of progression - currently, there's no way to complete the one included level, so perhaps going deeper into the cave system could add another level of depth, and unlocking new levels. Of course, I could just expand upon the current one, but people already give up without moving one or two rooms. Finally, I'd like to juice up the graphics and audio a bit more. I wasn't keen on the music I came up with, even though people who played it seemed to enjoy it. The graphics really weren't anything special, either.
An RPG of steampunkery
I'm working on a classic RPG called Harmonic Moon right now, but I'd like to make something with things like airships and complex mechanics that have to be fixed. Of course, there's nothing stopping me from including these things in Harmonic Moon, but I'd like to make a game focused around them
An abstract music/puzzle game
This is something I've had in my head for a while. As music progresses, you press various combinations of keys and tiles flap out in different directions. Levels progress in difficulty, from triangles, to squares, to pentagons, to hexagons. A diificult concept to explain, and I think I won't fully understand how I want it to work till I've tried it.
Finish off Harmonic Moon
This is my current project. It feels like it's growing pretty big, and there's a fair amount of interest in it from friends. If I can make something out of this, I might be able to get a proper artist to redo some of the graphics, or a musician to improve on the music.
So, that's a brief overview of stuff I want to do at some point. I look forward to creating these!
A sneaky preview
15 May 2014
Here's a sneaky peek on an RPG I've been working on, called Harmonic Moon.
This is a picture of my progress on the palace in Avirnyr:
Updates on things
04 May 2014
Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. Since the last time I posted, things got a little crazy and I haven't really set aside the time to write up any proper posts.
The first thing that happened was Vayleryn essentially died and whatever remained was merged into Wayward Realms. Wayward Realms is a fair bit bigger and has been going pretty well - check out the website here. There's been a few critical bugs over the last few days, which I've managed to fix, but it's been quite stressful.
I entered Ludum Dare 29 over last weekend. You can check out the game I made over on the games page.
I've also started work on an RPG, I'm hoping to make something pretty good out of it.
Finally, I've restyled and reorganised the site again. I wasn't too keen on a lot of elements of the old style, so hopefully this one will be a lot nicer.
There's been a lot going on in my personal life over the last couple of months, and I'm struggling to keep up with everything. Hopefully we'll see this site kept up to date, but no promises there.
Have fun!
~ Ross
Jekyll
19 Nov 2013
Today I discovered an awesome static site generator called Jekyll. It actually powers GitHub pages, and I thought it would be worth a look. So, this evening, I integrated Jekyll into my site. This means that writing blog posts in much easier now (no more manual editing of feeds after posts!) and layouts are managed in one file, so I don't have to update it everywhere. It also uses Liquid, which allows you to use selection statements and loops to generate pages. I would definitely recommend it for getting blogs up and running; it's very easy to set up and is a huge time saver. It's also a lot simpler than most larger blogging sites, and allows you to have complete control over everything.
Maven release plugin
30 Oct 2013
I'm integrating the maven release plugin into my workflow; this means that you'll see updates on GitHub's release tab, and stable releases are far easier to push.
Experimental atom support
30 Oct 2013
I've added Atom support to my blog. See http://alyphen.github.io/blog.atom
