It's been a while since I last worked on Rocket Boy. About a year actually. Rocket Boy originally started as a small project to explore GameMaker: Studio's physics engine. A short time later I found myself interested in procedural generation. A few other cool ideas came to mind here and there and before I knew it Rocket Boy had become a very large idea made up of so many very simple concepts. I decided that a project with a scope that large would need to be set aside for a later date, when I had more time, and perhaps was a bit more experienced. It has been a very busy year for me, and I felt that a refresher of the current state of the game was in order. After a quick compile and play through I see that what I currently have is an infinitely scalable, proc-gen universe. Basically Rocket Boy can fly aimlessly in any direction and get all the planets his heart desires. As it stands I only have one model of planet, and plenty of bugs and glitches to go around, but each planet is unique and different from the rest. I'll start compiling a list of bugs in a bit, but next I need to get a clear picture of what Rocket Boy needs to become to be ready to ship. Originally Rocket Boy was a 2d physics puzzle solving game, from there it became a planet explorer, then an example of what procedural generation can accomplish, and eventually I began adding the ability to build/grow your own planet by deconstructing other planets. Some of these concepts are just examples that need a lot of work, and some are completely fleshed out requiring very little revisiting. I've had plenty of play testing done on these concepts, and based on that I know that I'd also like multiplayer functionality and some sort of AI interaction to be added as well. I'd like to settle on one general description of Rocket Boy that attempts to tie all of it's previous versions, concepts, and ideas together. After that if/when needed I can add and expand as my heart desires. After a few tries I wound up with this: "Rocket Boy is a 2d space exploration adventure, and multiplayer planet building game." That is as far as I am willing go to define it at this point in development. That one sentence alone is enough to give me a good starting point and direction to go in without limiting or restricting myself from adding or taking a way later. It will help keep me agile. Any indie developer who has ever completed a game from start to finish is probably getting some red flags by now, because that person knows that the larger the scope of a project is the more likely you are to never complete it. Fortunately I am not just a dreamer starting from scratch, planning a project with a scope that can never be reached for a game that will never be finished. The scope of Rocket Boy might seem daunting at first, but I have a few things going for me. The first, and most important thing is that I have done everything I will be doing here before. I can use the code from other projects of mine to make Rocket Boy's development move along quickly and smoothly. Second, I use GameMaker: Studio. GM:S is designed for rapid game development and I will be taking advantage of it's designed purpose. I have also been doing some thinking on what Rocket Boy should look like and if he should have other modes of transportation. Here are a few quick concept sketches of a direction I'd like to try to go in... Also thinking that Rocket Boy should have some sort of a logo, but I am no artist, and have no ideas of what it should be... And that I end my second post. Please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading and see you next time!
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