Vol.12 JAN
-
Feb
2018
Contents: PLAY
Happy New Year 2018, How are we doing? Fresh New games GAME JAM 2.0 Review with @jerjer Community Polls: GAME JAM 2.0
LEARN
Building Dark & Under with @filmote
EXPLORE
Building Dark & Under Deluxe Pack with @Keyboard_Camper
Questions with Developer @luxregina #arduboy in the classroom
Page 2 of 32
A welcome note: Hi there, i’m @widehaslet, you don’t often see me writing articles, but on January 16th 2016 I posted on the Arduboy Community that I was going to start an online magazine called Magboy. I was flooded with ideas and the best of lucks which I was thankful for. I then created a Slack for me and the team and got to work, with our editor @celinebins and our contributors. On Feburary 2nd 2017 Volume 1 of Arduboy Magazine was released to the public, and over 150 people went over to look at it. It was 11 pages long and only featured 4 contributors. Every month after, some with delays, we done it time and time again, with one of our magazines even having 53 pages! Here we are, a year later, posting another volume of Arduboy Magazine. Who would’ve thought we’d make it this far? We only did because of our team of brilliant, dedicated team of contributors. -widehaslet
Do you wish to contribute? Have an interesting article you wish to share with the Arduboy community? A cool project you did, your experience on working on it? A funny joke? We want to hear it! Send arduboymag a message through the Arduboy community page or a DM on Twitter! Page 3 of 32
Thank you to this months contributors! @filmote: In between writing articles for this magazine, Simon has released two of his childhood favourites - Choplifter and Karateka - both of which are on GitHub and on Erwin’s game site.
@jerjer: Cohost of “Nintendomain Podcast,” aspiring amateur games journalist and recent purchaser of an Arduboy. Jereme enjoys visiting classic gaming conventions and finding new and old portable handheld systems. He lives in Illinois with his 2 cats and a Nintendo Switch. Website: http://www.nintendomainpodcast.com
@Keyboard_Camper: Scott is responsible of the attractive Deluxe Packaging custom to specific Arduboy games. View more of his work here: https://keyboardcamper. wordpress.com/
@luxregina: Cyril Guichard is an Advertiser turned Indie Game developer turned professor. Visit his site to find out more: http://luxregina.com/portfolio/
@Pharap: Feel free to ask Pharap for help with things. He believes the three great programming virtues are laziness, impatience and hubris. https://github.com/Pharap
@Your name: This could be you.. Help contribute to the Arduboy Magazine!
Page 4 of 32
Arduboy
Company
news:
What’s happening at headquarters?
@Celinebins
Arduventure Play-testing
The Arduventure code has been play tested the past few weeks, and the factory has been getting ready to produce the units in early Feb!
Instock in Feb
The Arduboy store online will be back in stock again the second week of Feb.
Where to buy Arduboy? In order to better deliver the Arduboy to you, a distribution model for sales has been currently implemented. You can now purchase the Arduboy from a variety of different retailers from around the world!
Talk to us!
Page 5 of 32
Happy New Year 2018, How are we doing? by @bateske
Ok so it’s a new year and thanks to all of you Arduboy has been in business and my full time job for 4 years! Holy Cow! What have we been doing well? What do we suck at? What needs to happen in your mind? Things on my to-do list: - Official Game Repo / Uploader Tool (Seriously, this has to finally happen!) - Proper Documentation minisite (The fact we don’t have this embarrass me make it hard to sleep) - Education!!! Must make a classroom curriculum! Arduboy the book! (Please reach out if you can help).
Things not really on my to-do list: New Hardware (WHAT!?) … It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just the current hardware is still selling well and until I finish the other things on my to-do list… Arduboy isn’t “done”. … but actually I have a new product that isn’t arduboy but instead music related I might do as a side project. Music nerds write me a note. Thanks everyone for keeping this community 100 Seriously I can’t stress how awesome everyone is! I never expected to see so many amazing talented people from around the world join in on this party. I wish we could all get together and have a party some time! Ok your turn! If you ran Arduboy, what would YOU do? Discuss here!
Magazine Year in Review.. Have you read all of the magazine volumes since it’s first issue this year? Here are some statistics for the Arduboy Magazine thus far..
Reads: 10,328 Impressions: 52,749 Followers: 58 Total Likes: 78 Shares: 32 Link-outs: 854 Thank you for reading, liking, sharing, and most importantly contributing to the magazine! Read about what the future hold here. Page 6 of 32
Volume 1
Feb 2, 2017 11 Pages 15 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 5
Jun 2, 2017 45 Pages 4 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 9
Oct 7, 2017 47 Pages 5 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 2
Mar 2, 2017 19 Pages 9 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 6
Jul 3, 2017 41 Pages 5 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 10
Nov 17, 2017 46 Pages 12 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 7
Volume 8
Apr 2, 2017 40 Pages 12 Likes Re-read it here
Aug 16, 2017 49 Pages 3 Likes Re-read it here
Volume 11
Dec 9, 2017 36 Pages 3 Likes Re-read it here
May 2, 2017 34 Pages 7 Likes Re-read it here
Sep 8, 2017 53 Pages 4 Likes Re-read it here
Thank you for being part of making the Arduboy Magazine a success in 2017!
Page 7 of 32
W
ES AM G
by @Celinebins So many new games were released this month! If you missed them on the community pages, here they are.
FR ES H
N E
PLAY:
That will get you hooked
Choplifter
@filmote Test your dexterity! To shoot the tanks you must hover above them but in range of them shooting you! You cannot simply fly at the maximum altitude and bomb away.
Cutie
E
Evade
2
@JuiceLizard [NSFW] - nudity in this game. This game was made to celebrate a recent song by Vive la fête: “You can sleep in my bed”.
@JayGarcia A follow up to the first popular EVADE game. It is the first, first-person Flight simulator for the Arduboy, with 3 enemies, 11 total songs, and Space Balls, all in smooth scalable vector graphics. to be continued next page >> Page 8 of 32
Karateka
v0.9
@filmote The player controls an unnamed protagonist who is attempting to rescue Princess Mariko. The game exhibits a combination of a sidescrolling platform and fighting game elements similar to a beat ‘em up.
Millipe @Dreamer2345
A small centipede clone.
Micro-city @name
The community is impressed by this city simulation game inspired by SimCity. Develop your own dream city in the tiny Arduboy!
Super
Soldiers
@DavidInwood
This is basically a Power-Ranger type of fighting game. You play as the Pink Super Soldier as she learns how to transform, and then teleports to Fort McMurray to fight a giant ant.
Tamaguino
@Keyboard_Camper
AB
This is a migrated Alojz Jakob’s [Tamaguino] for the Arduboy. Want us to feature your game? Write in to us with your game, how you made it, and anything else you want the community to know!
Page 9 of 32
Make games!
Use fresh code!
Get social!
2n
Ardu Gam ja
5 Dec - 12
A winner will be chosen based on how complete the game is, how fun/unique it is, and how well it fits the theme. The winner will receive Arduboy Swag!
nd
uboy ame am
Win Prizes!
Help the community!
2 Dec 2017
Have fun!
The jam is all about creating something new alongside others and experiencing the creative process together. Join individually or as a team. The official theme of the Game Jam: Holiday! the theme is any holiday that you celebrate nondenominational or otherwise! You could theoretically make a birthday themed game if you want.
#ArduboyJam Page 11 of 32
Arduboy Game Jam 2.0 Review by @jerjer Is it already that time again? Yep. It’s time for the Arduboy Game Jam 2. Although this is my second time writing for Arduboy Magazine, it’s my first time experiencing the joy and creativity the Game Jam seems to inspire. I was asked to look at all 13 of the entries featured on the final poll and give my take on each. This task was a joy. Not only did I get to fire up the Arduboy and play a bunch of fun new games, but I also had that ‘ol Holiday flame stoked in my heart. I never would have thought Arduboy could be such an important part of nurturing my holiday spirit this year, but I’m a better person for it.
ardu
@FerJerez
Turf
Some might even say I’m more “Festive,” or I’m in a bit of a “Frenzy.” It’s possible I’ve gone “Kooky” from moving too many “Xmas Tree” sections around. But enough about me. Let’s take a quick look at all 13 entries and go over their presentation and playability. Not all entries are directly related to the theme “Holidays,” but they are all a welcome gift to me this frigid Illinois Winter. I’ve decided to knock them out in alphabetical order to avoid displaying personal preference.
Masters
First up, from user @FerJerez, we have “Ardu Turf Masters.” The programmer describes this game as an homage to Neo Turf Masters for the Neo Geo. Of course, on the Arduboy it takes on a slightly different presentation. You are given a full 18-hole course, and tasked with getting the lowest score possible. The entire map is side-scrolling from the left to the right, with varied distances and pars for each hole.
This game didn’t really evoke a “Holiday” spirit at first glance, but then I used my noodle to ponder its place. What do a lot of people do when they’re on holiday? That’s right, they golf! So, although it may not be as festive as some other entries, it justifiably belongs within this list of Holiday Arduboy Jams!
The map features multiple bunkers and water traps, as well as various types of rough terrain to take away from your max drive distance should you land in one.
Chri-Bocchi @obono
Cat
Next, from user @obono I present “Chri-Bocchi Cat.” In this game, you are a cute little kitty trying to save all of the presents Santa has dropped. You move from left to right and bounce them off of your back for 2 minutes at a time, forever chasing that high score. The title screen is hilarious, as the main character seems to be swiping at Santa’s
face. Is this the reason all the gifts have been dropped? If so, I suppose the kitty is redeeming itself by saving the gifts for the children with its… Magical back? Our cuddly character has an incredibly useful ability in that every time a gift contacts its back, the gift becomes two gifts. to be continued next page >> Page 12 of 32
This means you can allow some gifts to fall, if you keep some up in the air at all times. But remember, the more you have at the end, the faster you’ll accumulate points.
I think getting the high score is enough incentive to play multiple times. It gets extra points for letting you meow by pressing down!
The game is over when you drop all gifts, or when the timer has expired. Towards the end you will be thrown into “Fever” mode, and your back will split gifts into 3 instead of 2. This results in a satisfying rapid score climb depending on how well you’ve done so far. This game very much adheres to the Holiday theme, as it has snow, presents, Santa and many other Festive Features.
Easter @Pharap
Panic
Staying comfortably within the Holiday theme, but with a bit more Spring in our step, we move on to the next entry by user @Pharap. Easter Panic, as the author says, is based off a recent Google Doodle. It reminded me of a computer language they taught us in 7th grade called “LOGO.” You instruct the rabbit what to do in a series of steps (programs) and then set him in motion. The goal is collecting all Easter eggs within a set number of steps.
Festive @crait
The controls take a second to learn if you haven’t played a game like this before. But once you figure out the second puzzle you’ll have a pretty good idea. The controls are on Easter Panic’s entry page, so check them out and check this game out too.
Fight
I saw Uncle Sam punch a Turkey. In user @ crait’s game “Festive Fight,” you’ll get to do a lot of punching. As the creator says, “Holiday mascots from throughout the calendar must fight in order to compete for the affection of the children throughout the world for some weird reason.
This game definitely fits the holiday theme, even featuring the word “Festive” in its title. Nice touch!
This game is unique so far in that it can be played with a second player simultaneously on one Arduboy. I was unable to try this mode, but it seems like it would work well. Each character only has 2 moves, either Attack or Retreat. Charge forward and dodge back to be the last mascot standing! to be continued next page >> Page 13 of 32
Hello @FManga
Commander
In “Hello, Commander” by user @FManga, you gotta shoot some elves. That’s about the only Holiday connection I’ve found so far, besides the shadowy bunny giving you instructions between levels. Spooky.
Eventually, I believe you can add more characters to your party and it would be far more exciting than the footage I’ve obtained. I suggest checking this game out, as it might provide a lengthy Arduboy experience.
This is a fairly complex Turn-Based strategy game. I haven’t played it long enough to give it a fair review, but I can say that I like it so far. There’s a balance to moving and attacking, and the terrain seems to affect approaches and attacks.
Holidate
@MorganLapis and @SerendipityDoDa And then there’s Holidate. By @MorganLapis and @SerendipityDoDa. First off, I can easily say I’ve never played another game like this on the Arduboy. It’s definitely one of the most unique game I’ve played among any platform recently.
promise multiple endings, and I think may have even added more since the version I have was released. Of course this one fits the theme, it’s Frosty the Snowman like you’ve never known him before.
In this game, you meet up with Frosty the Snowman. In a series of response-based story arcs you can possibly end up dating Frosty. He’ll ask you back to his igloo, and the rest is left to chance/fate. Frosty always seemed to melt away from me a bit the few times I played, but the creators
Kooky
@shdwwzrd
Kookies
Santa needs his cookies. In user @shdwwzrd ‘s game “Kooky Kookies,” Santa’s pretty much done all the hard work already. He’s filled up the stockings and hidden all the presents. Now he just needs to eat all of them delicious cookies. And he needs to refuel quick, cuz the kids are gonna wake up soon! This is a pretty addictive game that keeps track of the highest scores in EEPROM if you so desire. You have to eliminate all the different cookie shapes by clicking on them when 2 or more are touching horizontally or vertically. If you learn all the tricks you can set up chains and combos that are worth more points.
Definitely worth checking out. And definitely was festive enough that it made me hungry for Christmas cookies.
to be continued next page >> Page 14 of 32
Prize
@GoateeRP
Frenzy
Presents are falling from the sky! Well, Prizes are. In Prize Frenzy, by user @GoateeRP, you are a basket moving around through space and capturing as many Prizes as possible, seen as delightfully tied packages. You continue playing as long as you can, avoiding bombs as catching just one means game over. You also need to collect little clocks to add to your time meter at the right. Once that runs out, or once you bomb out, the Frenzy is over. No doubt about it, this game is a holiday gem reminiscent of Kaboom on the Atari 2600.
san
San
@chame
User @chame decided Santa needed to swing his gift sack around more. In this creatoradmittedly Rygar inspired game, Santa moves along a scrolling field from left to right, with some freedom of movement to sack some butt. He can move between three horizontal planes, and can perform some satisfying swing attacks using the directional buttons. Your score is tallied on the right side of the screen. Capture as many presents as possible and kill as many enemies as Kris Kringle Craves. But don’t get hit or Christmas is cancelled.
Santas @madya121
factory
Speaking of ruined Christmas, user @ madya121 has submitted “Santa’s Factory-An Endless Arcade Game.” The premise is both good and bad. This year, too many children behaved themselves. Now there’s way too many gifts and they need to be properly directed through the Factory Pipes. Your job is to use a pipe-plunger thing to push presents into their proper packages. But be careful. This pressure is on, as one mistake will gum up the entire works and, that’s right. Christmas will be blue all because of you. You messed up.
to be continued next page >> Page 15 of 32
Santas @eried
happy
little
packer
Santa’s here again in his final alphabetical appearance in the Arduboy Game Jam 2.0 entries list. User @eried has submitted “Santa’s Happy Little Packer,” a fun little puzzle game. As the creator says, “The rules are quite simple, fill the sleigh with the gifts.” There are a lot of different shapes made up of a total number of blocks that matches the volume of the sleigh. You must fit all of them together without overlap. There is no rotating of the boxes. Also, once you place one down it’s there until you complete the level or restart. Successfully pack the sleigh and you’re on to the next level. There’s ribbons on the blocks so it’s Holiday themed.
Working
Holiday
@ardubeast and students from Bard College at Simon’s Rock For entry number 12, we have “Working Holiday” by user @ardubeast, with assistance from students from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts.
Once again, I must commend including “Holiday” in the title to fit the theme.
In this game, humorously, you are on Holiday but still must actively avoid work. You control the character Nervous Nelly and must avoid an onslaught of work-related items while moving from left to right. The sprites in this are nice, and effective enough in their presentation you can always tell the setting, be that a city street. Or the hallway of a school. Or even the inside of a kitchen. The adventure continues in groups of those 3 settings, ever increasing in difficulty. You can continue to avoid work until the brutal tide of items pushes you all the way to the left edge. Then you will have worked too hard and the game will be over.
to be continued next page >> Page 16 of 32
Xmas
@Mr.Blinky
tree
minigame
And now for the final entry of games I’m talking about on this entry list. Why is it last? Because alphabets. In “Xmas tree minigame” by user @Mr.Blinky, I felt myself transported back to school once again. To a puzzle I had in that same 7th grade math class where the teacher took us to the computer lab to hide turtles (a LOGO reference). You start the level out with an undecorated tree on the far left.
The graphics are lovely and accurately portray a living room. Where you’re moving your tree around all weird. It’s definitely worth finishing this puzzle, however, as the tree becomes decorated and dazzling if you properly complete its rightmost depiction.
Your task is to move all five of its sections to the far right. You can only move one section at a time, and are unable to place a larger piece on top of a smaller piece. It all makes sense once you start playing.
Don’t want to read? Watch the video here!
Like game reviews? Be sure to subscribe to NintenDomain Podcast’s Youtube channel and be notified for any new videos!
Page 17 of 32
Community POLLs! by @bateske
This month we took to and asked how everyon program. We got 40 votes “It made me smile and laugh more than any other game in the jam” “out of the box thinking but well Frosty just freaks me out. I see this image and it reminds me of those “creepy strangers” mum would warn me about... What are his intentions? Does he have motives? What dark secrets does that smile hide?”
prize
frenzy
#12 holidate #12
working
holiday #9
“Pretty funny, mostly because I can relate”
santas ardu
turf
easter
factory #9
masters #9 panic #8
“programming games are awesome”
Santas happy #7 little packer
5% 5%
11%
11% 11% 14%
17%
“love a puzzle game like this.” “I like puzzles and never played something like this one”
Kooky
20%
20%
Kookies #5
“love this kind of puzzle game.”
Chri-Bocchi
Cat #5
“the world needs more cat-oriented games.” “As simple as funny. I like how the screen fills with stuff, its…satisfiyng”
Which was your favorite Game Jam 2.0 game?
the community pages ne started to learn how to s and these are the results!
Prizes!
Congratulations to the prize winners! Everyone is a prize winner!! For taking part in the second Game Jam, all participants have received a package from Arduboy!
#1 Sansan
“High level of perfection.”
44%
“The controls and attacks are just perfect.”
35%
#2 Hello,
Commander
23% 23%
#3 Festive fight #3 Xmas tree minigame
Thank you everyone for taking part and voting! Page 19 of 32
Level: Beginner LEARN:
Dark and Under - Level Designers by @filmote Dark and Under was released in December with three levels that were designed to provide a couple of hours of game play but not be so large and over-powering that people simply gave up. As part of the development process, we put together a level designer and have released this alongside the game to allow players to develop their own levels. I have noticed a few other games have released level designers - including @ Dreamer2345’s RogueBoy – and think other developers should embrace the idea as it will extend the life of their own game.
It should be a simple process that generates the necessary artefacts and allows the developer to simply compile up the resultant game and play. Making the process as simple as possible requires thought when designing and building your game. Sure, it can be added later but this may require some significant re-work of code. This article describes how we developed Dark and Under and the associated level designer to use a single configuration file that both could read and manipulate.
In my opinion, allowing others to design and incorporate new levels should not require them to understand how your game is designed or programmed.
The Dark and Under Level Designer in Action In Dark and Under, the various levels (or dungeons) are constructed from a palette of tiles. Each tile is 15x15 elements and each level can be up to 15 x 15 tiles in size. Although this doesn’t sound like much, the third level of the released game is only 5x4 tiles in size and it feels huge! The screenshot below shows the tile editor – users can open an existing configuration file for editing from the File menu or start a new game configuration. New tiles can be created by clicking the Add Tile button or an existing one chosen for editing from the palette.
to be continued next page >> Page 20 of 32
Once the tile design is complete, the levels or dungeons can be constructed by arranging the tiles and adding enemies, items and doors as required. Likewise, the initial position and direction of the player can be specified.
Enemy and player statistics can be altered and this will drastically alter the ‘beatability’ of the game (is that a real word or did I just make it up?)
Finally, any logical errors encounter while designing the levels are displayed on an errors tab. Double-clicking on an error will take you to the level in error and highlight the appropriate object. This screen is important as it ensures that the resultant configuration will result in a logical and playable game.
to be continued next page >> Page 21 of 32
The Configuration File In Dark and Under, all configuration items are stored in a single file called MapData.h – a valid C++ header file. The level editor knows how to read and manipulate this file in its native format and the resultant file will compile properly within the IDE. The file has a number of sections that describe the overall game parameters (including starting health and attach poser for the player), enemy details and the tile and level configurations.
As you can see, the #define directive is used extensively as it allows the parameters to be incorporated into the game at compilation time without the need to have program logic embedded within the configuration file itself. Our tiles and levels are encoded as arrays that are stored in PROGMEM. These can then be easily referenced by other sections of the code by simply #including the file where required as, after all, it is a valid class header file (.h).
#pragma once #define #define #define #define #define
START_HP 20 START_AP 2 START_DF 2 MAX_HP 50 LEVEL_UP 50
#define #define #define #define …
ENEMY_OCCULAR_HP ENEMY_OCCULAR_AP ENEMY_OCCULAR_XP ENEMY_OCCULAR_MV
15 10 20 true
const uint8_t PROGMEM tiles[] = { 0xFF, 0x81, 0xED, 0x05, 0xF5, 0x95, 0xD5, 0x05, 0xDD, 0x85, 0xB1, 0xA5, 0xED, 0x01, 0x7F, 0x7F, 0x40, 0x5E, 0x52, 0x5A, 0x4A, 0x6A, 0x02, 0x6E, 0x42, 0x5E, 0x54, 0x55, ... }; const uint8_t PROGMEM level_00[] = { 72, 65, 76, 76, 87, 65, 89, 83, 32, 79, 70, 32, 84, 72, 69, 32, 68, 69, 65, 68, 32, 32, 7, 58, … };
// Level Caption Line 1 // Level Caption Line 2 // Player Starting Pos
const uint8_t PROGMEM level_01[] = { … };
Building a level designer may not be as fun as building the actual game itself. However, it may entice people to build new level sets for your game and ultimately extend the life of the game.
Play Dark & Under here. Level Designer for Dark & Under here.
Page 22 of 32
Community:
Deluxe Edition Dark and Under Arduboy packaging by @Keyboard_Camper Previously I had made a “Deluxe Edition Virus LQP-79”, things kind of fell in place from the moment I saw a Red Gold backed Kickstarter Arduboy available during the store stock clearance; something just clicked as I gazed upon the blood red silkscreen. Combined with the multitude of content Team A.R.G had on their website and my love for the game, it was an easy project to get on with. I knew exactly what I wanted and how I was going to do it but sadly the project got put on the back burner at around 80% done as I was very short on free time and distracted by other projects (including mindlessly physically bricking my original Arduboy).
It was around this time @luxregina posted a WIP for a game called “Dark & Under”. I was absolutely blown away by the beautiful screenshots, the pixel art was nothing less than amazing and even though I’m not huge fan of the video game RPG genre, these few screenshots told me that I was going to love it. The reason I knew I was going to love this title was that in my youth I was a huge fan of medieval fantasy from painting miniatures to reading Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy game books. Combine that with the Arduboy, which I personally consider the next generation of LCD games that I grew up with in the early 80’s, it becomes pure nostalgia.
to be continued next page >> Page 24 of 32
Having discussed with @luxregina about special edition Arduboys, I showed him my unfinished Virus deluxe edition and my homemade version of “Dungeon in a Tin” alongside a Green Kickstarter Arduboy which I managed to win on an auction site for that game. I was eagerly waiting for the release of Dark & Under so that I could get a feel for it to start my project when @luxregina reached out and asked me if I would like to make a “Deluxe Edition” for Dark & Under.
I toyed around with a few idea’s when @luxregina kindly sent me some original art files. This gave me a better insight into the game as well as a point of reference. After some pondering I decided that unlike finding a suitable tin (as I had with the Virus set) I would go all out and allow users to make their own game packaging. I eventually decided on a playing card style tuck box, much like the original Arduboy packaging.
Now the challenge began, I had only seen a few screenshots of this game and knew very little about it.
Designing the box.. I started to use colours but then it dawned on me that this is a monochrome “vintage” game, and I really wanted to do monochrome for many reasons:
● Colour printers were a rarity in the era with many small businesses relying on monochrome printers and oversaturated photo copiers.
● In the 70’s and 80’s, colour really wasn’t an affordable option for smaller companies, at best they would push to using coloured paper (with only the “big boys” going for more than two colours). This was also one of the reasons the original Ninja Turtles comic books were in black and white.
● I wanted to pay a little homage to the original Dungeons and Dragons White Box Edition that is also replicated by many open sourced variants under the OGL.
● Black & white Ink drawings were and still are very popular within fantasy tabletop game literature.
● And finally I wanted to do something a little more print friendly although the Creature Cards did come out a little more ink heavy than I initially wanted.
Lessons learnt.. Being a creature of habit and reluctant to change (I still use Windows Classic view), I soldiered on creating the box and cards in my dated copy of Photoshop 7 where I reached a point where I thought I was happy. At this point Arduboy Magazine issue 11 was released and I read @luxregina’s pixel art article and absorbed the section on pixel perfect lines, this made me take a deeper and closer look at my work and to my horror I noticed the fuzzy edges of the raster images and that my test prints were really unsharp.
I wanted a crisper black and white and not 50 shades of fuzzy grey. This is where I opened myself up to a world of pain. I realised that to achieve the finish I desired I will have to use Vector images, learn to use Adobe Illustrator, and work in unknown territory. (Pictures on the next page)
to be continued next page >> Page 25 of 32
Instantly after converting all my .PSD layers to Vectors and making everything “pixel perfect” I was seeing the kind of results I was looking for. The next hurdle was the card stock I had chosen to use really wasn’t suitable for using my inkjet printer with. The ink would bleed into the card creating once again horrible fuzzy edges. This was easily solved by purchasing an inexpensive monochrome laser printer.
For my final box I chose to laminate the card after printing. This really added to the rigidity and gave them a nice glossy finish. The set of creature cards also were laminated to match the box finish, these were done with both pages in a single laminating pouch to only laminate the face sides. I am happy with the end results and have learnt a lot from this project. If you would like to take a look or print your own you can find the PDF in the Garage-Collective/Dark-And-Under/ distributable/Artwork Folder
Would you make your own limited edition Arduboy for your favorite game? Page 26 of 32
Designing an open source Dungeon Crawler by @luxregina Note: This post is taken from @luxregina’s blog post. Read the full story here: Dark & Under post mortem. The processing prototype When I bought the Arduboy, I somewhat assumed it would be compatible with the Processing language (some sort of JAVA layer) that I became familiar with from teaching it at SCAD. Even though everything had to be developed natively in C++, I decided to stick with my original idea and develop a working prototype in Processing, and try to rely on the very helpful community to help me with translating the code from Processing to C++. 10 to 12 hours of work later, I had my first working prototype (yes, Processing can be that fast!), made a video of it and posted it in the community forums. That approach paid-of, as a community member, Simon Holmes @filmote decided to help out! The game design
Read the official Game design document PDF here.
Being a child of the 80’s, I grew up with games such as Dungeon Master, Wizardry or Eye of the Beholder – so it made a lot of sense trying to port that experience. I took a good look at the gameplay pillars
of the genre and identified the game loops that would have to be present: Exploration: this core loop provides the “meat” of the game: it’s all about finding your way out of the maze. Fight: provides the challenge to the player’s exploration loop as well as acting as a feedback system to the player’s progression Loot: provides both a gameplay challenge (inventory mgmt) and short term reward system. Level-up: provides the mid-term rewards and allows the players to make (somewhat) meaningful decisions about their character. With a good integration of these loops, we would have a game that would feel “whole” yet be simple enough to fit within the 27K limits of our hardware. Production challenges and solutions The creation of art assets is usually not the challenge.. However, this time, I got surprised: technically, a section of a brick wall (e.g: a close-up left section) is 16×56 pixels – knowing that this representation obeys perspective rules. It was incredibly hard to put details in that size, with only 1 color, while respecting the perspective. Wall sets being our biggest budget in term of graphics, and due to my inability to provide good looking variations in the time we had imparted ourselves, we decided to stick with only one tileset, and use the memory left for more enemies, items to collect, etc..
Interested to know more?? Read about consideration of the game’s user interface, level / encounter design, technical challenges & testing, promotion, launch, and post-mortem here! Page 27 of 32
EXPLORE:
In this section we’ll ask the same questions to a different developer in every new issue.
Questions with game developers by @celinebins
This issue we interview @luxregina, the advertiser turned Indie Game developer turned professor to find out more about him and how he got the Dark & Under game together with help from the Arduboy community.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.. I’m Cyril Guichard, I was born in France, lived in a whole bunch of countries and finally settled, living and working in the US for the last 14 years. I started my career in advertising, then moved to digital advertising, while developing games as an independent, and for the last 3 years or so, I’ve been teaching Game and Interactive Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, a prominent art school in the US.
2. Where did you find out about Arduboy the first time? I can’t really remember where I found out about Arduboy - it was an ad, or maybe an article. But before the Arduboy, I was aware of the Tetris business card that acted as the “prototype” for the Arduboy. I remember thinking it was a great idea (and being slightly jealous! :)) - so when I saw the ad/article, I made the connection and purchased my Arduboy from Amazon.
3. What is the first program/game you created for Arduboy? It’s Dark & Under - although I didn’t do any of the code: @filmote and @Pharap did all the coding.
Code wise, all I did was to provide a early prototype written in Processing, to show Filmote how I was envisioning the gameplay to be. On the Dark & Under project, I took care of the graphics and the game design.
4. Did you have app / game development experience before Arduboy? Yes, I developed a bit over 20 games in total as an independent, and worked as an Art Studio Manager on a Ubisoft game for 2 years. I’ve developed most games in Flash/ Actionscript, a couple using Processing (Java) and more recently a couple Unity games (C#). Most of the time, I paired with a coder, so I was more acting as the Artist/ Game designer. More recently, I learned Processing and C# and all the games I’ve done for the last 3 years, at the exception of Dark & Under are solo project were I did the art and the code.
to be continued next page >> Page 28 of 32
5. What do you read to learn how to code for Arduboy? I’ll pass on this one: unfortunately, while understanding the process much better, I still don’t speak C++ even after being involved with @filmote and @Pharap
6. What app/game do you currently have on your Arduboy. I have only one Arduboy, so it obviously has the latest build of Dark & Under! I need to buy one more to be able to check other people’s games without having to de-install my own! (Particularly since now, I have that spiffy Collector Box made by @ Keyboard_Camper
7. What app/program is your favorite? I tried many games and loved many of them - 1943, CastleBoy and Mystic Balloon being among my favorites - and I’m eagerly waiting my backer reward for Arduventure!
8. What is the next app/program for Arduboy we can expect? I don’t really know - since I don’t do C++, I’ll have to find someone that is interested to work with me anyway. I’ve had that infinite runner (with a little bit of a twist) that I had designed in Unity that I would love to port on Arduboy. The game would fit the constraints of the Arudboy quite well… I’ve made a post about it on the forums a while ago.
Right now, I’m developing a FPS on Unity, so it’s a large, long term project. It may be nice to take a little break and develop for Arduboy again at some point!
9. What app/game would you love to see on the Arduboy? I really wanted a Dungeon Master clone, so that’s why we did Dark & Under. Any type of adventure game on Arduboy will grab my attention: since the device and the screen are so tiny, I think they do well for calmer, less twitchy gameplay.
10. What is your best tip for other people who want to start creating apps/games for Arduboy? Well, from the perspective of an artist, I’d say that being able to show your future partners that you really thought your game through helps. I guess @filmote could provide some insights on this, but I would assume it was maybe comforting for him to see a prototype of the game because he knew that the game already had a solid foundation. And if you don’t code at all, at least having a bit of documentation showing that you considered the many facets of your gameplay allow your potential partners to take the measure of what they are getting into.
Want to find out more about @luxregina’s work, visit his website here. Are you a developer and want to be featured here? Reach out to the Magazine through Twitter DM @arduboymag
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New (another) unofficial repo - Update @eried is back at it! Now the repo has filtering and other features thanks to @FManga.
Check it out here! Be part of the discussion here. Page 30 of 32
#arduboy: Arduboy
in
the
classroom!
A big hello to @adrubeast, @ardubun, and all the new community members from Simon’s Rock! They are taking a 2-credit course on ‘Arduboy programming’ ending in May.
Reach out to us if you are a teacher, and would like to use the Arduboy as a learning tool! Page 31 of 32
Thank
you!
Thank you for reading the Magazine! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did putting it together. We want to know how to make the next volume better than the last, so write in to us to tell us what you think!
https://twitter.com/arduboymag