All alone out there...

Lonely

Sure would be lonely, out on that island all by himself. The last human on the planet.

The Little Things

Work presses forward on Us. Aaron is learning the ropes really quickly. And even though it's in such an early, awkward stage. I love how it's looking. The look of 2D characters in a 3D box is neat. I have some cool ideas for what I want the background and other objects in the game to look like so I'll be working on that. A new Demo has been posted on our site (link over there -->) in which you can now control all 3 characters and shine their lights around. Also character speed/jump has been adjusted to our liking. Oh yeah! and music! The game has music and some sound effects! It's neat!

Speaking of our site, it's slowly getting cleaned up. I just finished some buttons on it that I think look just swell. I'm gonna start working on some menus, banners, etc. soon.. I'll be switching in between artwork for the site and artwork for the game to keep myself from getting bored. I'm extremely excited for all this! Stay  tuned!

The name is Dyco

So in my past posts I've called us Dycomi. Well, times have changed and we are known Dyco. We like this name better. The name change was sort of us starting over with our ideas. With 'Us' taking off and one of our friends ditching us and bringing in a new guy (oh by the way Aaron is here now. He is good with coding.) We decided to rename ourselves. Not that it really matters, lol. Just did it for our own conscious.

Anyway, Us is coming along. There is a demo now on our (temporarily shitty) website. It isn't much but boy, I'm excited.

Us

Lately I've been spending alot of time doodling up some levels of Us. My idea of how I wanted it to be has changed. Originally I wanted it to be moving the group to one area with very easy puzzles and focus on story. But the more I've thought about the flashlight mechanic (oh yeah there is a flashlight mechanic) the more I get excited for creating some awesome puzzles. Above and Below are two examples of how these puzzles might look, and the object is to always get one of the characters to the door. I don't think it will matter which one. With solar panels, buttons, crates, switches, and doors, the puzzles can get quite hectic! I've got a few designs jotted down that are really mindbending, and I can't wait to see how they get solved! 

Oh hey, news.

So, we're a bit into summer now. As me and Colten have both been super busy between conflicting schedules and other complications in our own lives, not much has gotten done save some brainstorming. I'm extremely excited to announce this.

This is Us. Us is a 2D (duh) Puzzle/platformer involving platforms, puzzles, dangerous red stuff, some white stuff, and some other stuff. There's one important thing that makes Us different, but it's a secret. Us is also a love story. We are really, really, REALLY excited for this. Work on ToweRPG has seized for the time being because we both want to focus on Us (lul).

So to make a list of everything currently in rough draft form: Us, ToweRPG, Unnamed racing game, and unnamed game about bedtime stories.

We're trying to pull ourselves together to get some real progress done.. but it's difficult. The summer is starting to clear up for the both of us and hopefully in the coming weeks we will have more time to work together.

In other news, Colten released an album. Check it out, yeah?

Introducing: Grid System

Over the past few days I've been coming up with a little magic system that is unlike anything I have seen in a video game before. I call it the Grid System. Believe it or not: It involves a grid.

Above is an example of a lower level grid. Looks fun and simple right? Here's how it works. Spells, instead of just being learned and then automatically added to a characters Spell list or whatever you may call it, the spell is instead made available as a 'tile' on your grid. When you level, instead of getting AP points to distribute into your skills you get Gridpoints. These Gridpoints can be used to add spells to your grid with each spell requiring a varied amount of Gridpoints to add one tile. Once a spell has been added to the grid, it becomes available for the Character to use. The size of the Grid is affected by the characters Mind stat. But it gets a bit more complicated then this.

If you notice above there is 3 different Spelltiles in 3 different shapes. These are 3 examples of how these Tiles could be added. The line of four fire tiles on the left side of the grid, when cast, would cause a constant flames spell because the 4 tiles are aligned in a straight line in the grid. If the grid was expanded and another flame tile was added below this line, the spell would become even stronger. The 8 water tiles in an o shape would cause an AoE spell and the 4 shadow tiles (the purple ones) would cause a sort of shadowball spell. Each element can be arranged into any of these shapes. The character could also create unique effects with certain tile layouts.

The above spell would be an AoE shadow effect that also drains health, the yellow tiles being Heal tiles. This is just one of the many, MANY combinations that would be available, along with other shapes and other types of spells.

I'm pretty proud of this system. I find it pretty unique and I am excited to implement it into a game.

Thinking about classes..

We've been talking about how we want actual gameplay to work and we've decided to want really heavy class-based role play elements. So far there are 21 classes. You will start with one of the 3 basic classes, Warrior, Mage, or Bowman. At certain levels, along with certain guild-related quests you class-up. The first class up you choose a specific focus. Then at the next level milestone you level that focus up again. Right now once you choose your 'path' your stuck on it for the levels, there's no more branching, though we might chagne that.Here's a few random classes: Hunters - Fast, agile bowmen with an eye to kill. Spellblades - Powerful wizards with the strength to cut down even the biggest enemies. Brutes - Heavy warriors who favor large hammers over anything. Shadowbanes - A dark class who can torment an enemy using their knowledge of shadows. These are all typical RPG classes, but I have a few classes I've constructed myself. More on this later :)

TowerRPG + Second game + Unity

TowerRPG is still coming. Due to absolutely crazy schedules between me, Micah, and Colten, it's slowed a bit.  But It's still coming. We will soon be getting some REAL art (Well, the tile sets atleast) and work on music and sound has begun. I've been spending today doing some of the games basic design.

I can't express how much you should NOT judge the graphics right now. It's nothing but me doodling in MS paint. We've got Yako working on much prettier grass. :)

In other news, we've started on another game. Rather, me and Colten are. At the moment, anyway. Not much to say about it yet. It will be super fast and fun and explode-y and stuff.

Finally, the unity engine is out for free right now. So we all grabbed that. It's about 354.56%* harder to understand then the 001 engine. It's legit. It scares me. But I got a few ideas I'd really like to put to use with it sooo I better get to studying.

Well that's all for now folks! Hopefully later this week I'll be able to post some music samples. Until then, remember to always tip your mailman.

*This number estimated, not based on actual fact.

It's working, IT'S WORKING!

So the absolute very first of absolutely anything at all is in the video below. Using place holder 'EVERYTHING' I'm just proud to have a character that can walk around maps and open doors. Progress is being made!

The next step for me is to build the rest of the town and get some temporary NPCs in there, then I'll begin work on the tower... Another member of the Dycomi team, Micah, is working on the games mechanics, the battle system, the class system, spells, etc. So you won't see any real gameplay footage till he is done with that. The third of the original members is Colten. He is the music/sound effects guy. We're really hoping to have absolutely everything you hear in this game made by us. The fourth addition to our team is Yako, the art guy. He will be working on some real tile-sets, sprite work, and all things else those fancy art people do.

Current Project

The team is currently working on a small RPG set to be released on the iPhone this summer. It's less of a game that we hope will be 'defining' and more of a project for us to work together on just to say we have something complete and out. Currently we have given it the name "TowerRPG". It'll be a fun, fast paced RPG. I'll be posting images and details as they become more solid.

Current Going-ons

Let me take a moment to introduce you to the current beginnings of what we hope to one day be a company. Dycomi is an idea sparked from three college dudes with a passion for gaming. And that's it. We all three love games, they have been with us for all of our entire lives. We each view them in unique ways and each have different ideas for some great games. Our knowledge of programming? Minimal. Our knowledge of marketing? Pshh. Our knowledge of what makes a good game? Well, there might be a little bit of sunshine behind that.   Hopefully together we can get something playable out. Our first project we have dubbed with the temporary name "TowerRPG". That's all you get to know for now.

This is a blog

Hi. I have dreams of having a successful game company one day. Here's to that.