Nick Howard

Lunar Artifacts

A game based on the legend of Kaguya-hime, her five impossible requests, and her eventual return to the moon!

It has six "chapters" in this paper-themed game! You fight against the Buddah, a dragon, a swallow, and a feisty fire-rat; then you break the seal on the tree on the top of Mount Hourai, and grab the jeweled branch. Then you fight off hoards of demons as you try to save Kaguya from returning to the moon.

The game was made for Public Domain Jam and the entirety of the game is released under a Creative Commons license --meaning it's free to download and free to use any of the art, music, or programming involved in the creation of the game. Those assets can be downloaded here!

Description

Super Space Surge is a one man created, space-themed, shoot-em-up, manic shooter! Playing as man kind's last hope for survival against an invading alien race, you take off in your ship to fight off the armada and save the galaxy!

In this single player, shoot-em-up game, you place as a lone pilot who must dodge through intricate bullet patterns, fight off enemies, and save the human race from annihilation in this manic 2D shooter game.

Game Controls

Arrow Keys - Player Movement
Z/A - Shooting
X/S - Bombing
Left Shift - Slowed Down / Focused Movement
Escape - Pause Game
F - Toggle Fullscreen
M - Toggle Muting Audio
G - Screenshot (saves on the desktop)

System Requirements

Any computer from the past 2-4 years should be able to handle Super Space Surge! If unable to, there are options in-game to lower the graphics level!
Please try the demo before purchase, though! Just to be sure that it can run well on your computer.

Credit

Programmer/Designer/Composer:

Nick Howard (Ikizami)

Particle Effects:

Kalamona (Unity3d Asset Store)

Space Ship Sprites:

surt and morgan3d (OpenGameArt.org)
MillionthVector (http://millionthvector.blogspot.de)

Backgrounds:

Hedgehog Team (Unity3d Asset Store)

All images and effects used were either open source, purchased from the Unity Asset Store, or self created. While it's not needed to list the creators, I feel like I should honor them by including them in the credits!

Thank you to everyone who has kept up, helped me, gave me advice, and inspired me to keep going! :) Now, what game shall I work on next?

I have neglected uploading another dev journal entree on here for over a month. I'm pretty disappointed in myself; however, between work, school, finals, drag shows, programming Super Space Surge, I've been neglecting everything. (Social media related, of course!)

Now, in good news! I've finished Super Space Surge! I was going to release it today, but I over slept until one hour before my shift at work. (So today is a no-no; maybe tonight when I get home --if I get home without passing right back out.)

However, for now, I'll be compiling everything for Windows and Mac, getting ready to upload the demos and full game on Itch.io, and then let's play some bullet hell games, everyone!!!

Well, as Super Space Surge is starting to come to a close (sadly), I've been taking a lot more screenshots for things like #ScreenshotSaturday and the likes. I figured I might as well upload some screenshots here!

It's really been fun, lately, creating all these new effects, making new bullets, shooting effects, lasers, bombings, little things wiggle around and jiggle and fly and figgle! It's really been an adventure making everything "come alive," so to speak!

All I have left to do now is finish up some more graphic effects, compose music for the last 3 levels and the extra stage, make the options menu fully functional, and... make people interested in this game!

じゃあ、行きましょう！

I can honestly say that I will eternally be in awe of meeting, conversing, and later selfie'ing with Dr. Michio Kaku. He held a public speaking at Western Kentucky University this previous Monday (Mar. 17th), and it was fantastic. Not only did I run into him before everything on a stroke of luck, but also he picked me out of thousands of people to ask and answer questions. I've always had a huge interest in theoretical and astrophysics. I figured that I would spend my whole life learning about the Japanese language and Japanese culture, as well as computer science and focusing more on programming --along with being a game developer and helping to make some of the world's greatest games. (I'm no where near that, but who knows. Maybe in the future?) However, this has given me new life. A new drive. A new spark of inspiration to chase after my long sought out dreams, and I just wish I had the ability to transfer to an out of state college, study under the greatest minds of the world. I know I have the capacity to be great. I know I have the ability to make changes in the world. I want to continue my journey of being a polyglot. I want to continue being a computer programmer. However, I also now want to continue my love of mathematics and physics. I want to make a discovery in the world. I want to make a difference on the world and help humanity in a whole! I know I could. I just must work hard, diligent, and put in every ounce of my brain power to make my dreams true.

I will make a difference.

I can't stop playing my own game. I don't know what it is about it, but after finishing everything, adding a bunch of particle effects, and well... it's just plain fun to me. I enjoy my game immensely; it's spectacular, and I can't wait to share it with everyone! Since it is now my spring break in college, I have just one quick little midterm to take tomorrow afternoon, then I can focus on non-stop programming for a full week straight.

I'm having so much fun adding new particle effects, though. So, it's going to be more visual and audio enhancements as opposed to programming-specific ones. I'm wondering if I should release another demo, since the playable parts of the game have been completed, but I'm not sure. I might just finish tuning up everything, and release a fully suited up demo of the first three levels (like the first one was), except this time it'll be completely up-to-date, and it'll be my standing demo as I finish the extra stage of the game! Thankfully, I can say that everything else is done. With the exceptions of a couple of attacks I want to make longer or shorter, they're all pretty much how I want them to play, so who knows. I might toy around with the idea of what other people would expect out of a demo version of a game.

Either way, I'm hoping by the end of March to release Super Space Surge. If not by the end of March, at least by the end of April at the absolute latest. Also, if I can crank out games like this (with the lovely thanks of the Unity engine) every 3-5 months, maybe I'll work on making them the absolute best I can (not like I'm already doing that, but making them even better!) and start selling them. Super Space Surge, like I've said from the beginning, will be completely free and open to anyone who wants to play it! I'll have downloads set up on here, Itch.io, the Facebook page (if I ever update that...), Twitter, and who knows where else.

I have finished the full game play of Super Space Surge! Now I'm just on the long up hill climb of adding visual effects, spicing up already in place effects, adding more art and graphics, optimization, and making it feel just right!

I'm hoping by the end of March to fully release it, if not by mid-April!

Recently, I've transitioned into a full on site domain of: www.ikizami.com! It's pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. However, in actual news pertaining to what this blog is actually about, I've been working on the final boss of my game for nearly two or so weeks now. And it's because I'm absolutely infuriated with how it's coming along. Everything I program, I end up wanting to change; everything I put together, I want to alter to be different, have different colors, different bullet sizes, etc. I guess I'm so overly striving for perfection, it's causing me to be unhappy with everything. However, like I've said: it's my game, so it's gotta feel right to me, right?

I figure this time around, I'll have it working how I want. I mean, it's seeming to play how I'd expect a final boss to play, so let's just hope it turns out well!

I finished level five, and I'm about to begin programming of the final level of my game. I'm so excited! After I finish the last level, I have an extra stage to work on, then touching up EVERYTHING graphically! It's been an amazing journey, and I've built up a small following, but I cherish everyone whose bothered to keep up a little on my development. I'm hoping in the near future, that I can start making more desktop games + mobile apps; entirely for fun of course. Money is nice, but enjoyment is priority.

I also got my college degree today! :) It's the first step toward having my Masters in Japanese Literature and Language and in Computer Programming, but hey... I did it. Step one is out of the way, and no one can stop me now!

Ah-ha, it's finally happened! I finally enjoy the play and feel of my game, and (at least to me) it feels like a true bullet-hell. It's finally difficult enough that it makes me want more, and it's playing smooth enough that I'm content with it.

And with that, I've wrapped up level five! I'm going to be working on the fifth level boss all day today, then I'll work the final level + extra stage. Then I suppose, it'll be ready for the last few touch ups, then I'll finally release the game!

Since my last update, I've added a lot of new things.

Health and Energy bars are now textured.
High scores now properly work + save between instances.
New bullet textures. I'm still likely to change these up, however.
More particle effects.
More and more enemies.
Obviously the fourth and fifth levels are now complete!
Lasers now shoot properly!
Bombing now works properly, too!
Inverted color effects. (I may have overused them throughout the game, but that's a-okay because they look kick-ass.)

I want to add multiple ships to play as, as well as make the shooting and bombing more visual. They function exactly how I want them to, they're just not "pretty," haha. After I get the mechanics of everything down and finish the extra stage level, I want to go back and hopefully redo the backgrounds. I've had an idea to make it seem more "3D" despite just going to be various transparent 2d images (or randomly generated particle effects) flying past one another at varying speeds. I'll play around with that at a later point, though!

Well, hello world! This will be the first game release I've done since starting my blog! Super Space Surge is still in development, but I took a break to participate in Flappy Jam for a little while... and what an experience it was! A simple program I made in one hour turned into a couple days of experimenting and fun to balance everything, add extra elements, and make it feel "just right."

Granted, there's a lot more I'd love to touch up on, but for a quick 4 day side-project, I really like how everything turned out! :)

It's fairly straightforward to play:

Click to fly.
Space to start the game.
F - Fullscreen.
M - Mute the sound.
Escape - Exit the program.

It's hosted on Itch.io, and I'll stress again and again: it's a fantastic site and I will stress it to every dev I meet to use!

I took a hiatus from everything recently. Though, picking everything back up, I decided to do a small project for Flappy Jam, considering everything that's happened with the creator. I could make my own separate blog post about that; however, I'll spare the details and simply say that if anyone really feels the need to bash on someone for a stroke of luck, you really have no sense of honor for anyone. Be joyful for another's luck; not a dick.

Either way, moving on, so I've been working on a game called "Ghost Walk." It started out as a simply Flappy Bird clone, but I decided to add a few more things (namely floating ghosts to avoid as well as obstacles). A repetitive and annoying sound track, and some royalty free sprites for the game. I've only spent about a day working on it --and that's not being consistent. I had a pretty bad car wreck two days ago (engine belt snapping while driving down an interstate. Not a good experience.) And with Valentine's Day always being a horrible day for me. (Nothing love related; it's all family related and events that's happened in the past.)

Though, with all do respect, I am going to be releasing the game, and having it hosted on Itch.io. That site has, more or less, appeared out of no where for me, and it seems pretty awesome! A way for indie game devs to get their games out there, a system for taking in donations or selling games that's just a simple buffer between transactions so it doesn't cause a lot of fuss. Plus seeing plenty of good reviews makes me feel more secure about using it. I might end up hosting all of my future games on the site. Also, since it has such a good integration for anything from Unity webplayers, to HTML5, to your own executables uploaded from whatever engine or libraries you've compiled them from!

Alright, now now now, I shall get on to what I've been meaning to state: here's a few current screen shots, and I'll make a post a little later on showcasing the actual game with links to it.

Okay, after getting some constructive feedback from Tigsource and Unity, I've been working on updating everything and making my game feel exactly how I want to feel --all the while, making it feel natural, unique, and fun to outside players as well.

I feel like my biggest hurdle will be trying to make Super Space Surge appeal to player who are not fans of bullet hell games. Although, people who enjoy such games have reviewed me and said they liked it, the fellows who are not so keen on this style of game quickly gave harsher reviews. (Though they were the most helpful, because it really shown where the game's biggest flaws currently were.) I'm sure by the time I release the second demo (whenever that'll be. Probably toward the end of February. One demo per month? Sounds good. Hopefully I'll be done by March!)

Now, on to new features I've added so far:

Inverted color effects. I'm really just playing with this too much. You die, the screen does an inverted color ripple out from the player.
Same with the boss, when it dies, except a lot more dramatic.
I've added screen shaking when you're hit, when you die, and when a boss dies; each with strengthening force depending on what kind of hit it was.
Made the first level a lot easier. (A whole lot easier, since the biggest complaint was: "I can't get past the first level.")
I've added more graphics, more interface ideas, and such that I'm still playing with. Primarily, I'm going to have instructions for how to play appear when the game first starts, and fade out toward the beginning.
I've also labeled certain GUI elements, so there's no ambiguity.
I'm also playing around with the actual controls. Everything I try to think of though, just doesn't feel right.

Z - Shoot; X - Bomb; Shift - Focused; Arrow Keys - Move.

That one feels the most natural to me.

A - Shoot; S - Bomb; Shift - Focused; Arrow Keys - Move.

Took a little getting used to, but works just the same!

LClick - Shoot; RClick - Bomb; Shift - Focused; WASD - Movement.

It could work, my own hand-eye-coordination is too weak in my left hand for that to work effectively.

So, these are the new features added so far. I plan on adding more things once I get around to it.

I want to mess with the background and have a dual-layer background. For example, the main background is a giant skybox which I can rotate around; switch the movement at random; change and fade textures; etc. While the overlay background is a transparent "star" sheet that moves at a different speed. Therefore giving the effect of "moving faster than you really are."
I also want to add a plethora of visual effects for EVERYTHING.

Though, I'd rather not have everyone click "start game" and having 50lbs of glitter attack their screen. I'll still figure stuff out.

I'd love to add weird effects like gravity pools, or something. (I'm not sure!) Maybe I'll have a level where you have to maneuver through an asteroid field, but they're large enough they have a slight pull on gravity.

Well, there you have it. That's the latest updates on Super Space Surge!

Well, after about a month of work, I am ready to release a simple demo of my game, Super Space Surge! What an exciting month this has been. On top of balancing financial issues, starting my next semester of college, and wondering how in the hell I can balance everything, I have diligently worked on this project, and I am ready to release a demo!

This is about halfway done. Music is extremely subject to change as I'm getting used to new programs and every time I make a new composition, I figure out another "ohh, I can do that; this sounds neat," so all music heard is subject to change. Same with sound effects, too. Graphics will probably keep this style. If I really feel so inclined, I'll remake the bullets to be more... I don't know. Less "cartoony-flat-looking" and have a different style --I'm not entirely sure just yet. Bear with me, folks! It's my first publicly released game! :)

Now, onto about the actual game itself:

It is a 2d, space-themed, manic shoot 'em up (also known as bullet hell or danmaku).
There will be 6 levels + extra levels (maybe). In this demo, there are the first 3 completed.
It's entirely created by me or with public domain, royalty-free graphics and sound effects.
My inspiration mainly came from the Touhou series. It's my favorite Japanese indie game series, and I enjoyed them so much, the least I can do is have some fun making my own style of danmaku while also giving the community a chance to have fun (and hopefully take a crack at my games to come!)

For this game, there are very simple controls.

Movement - Arrow Keys.
Shooting - Z
Bombing/Shielding - X
Focused (slowed) Movement - Left Shift
Spacebar - Most GUI control (i.e. to go to the next stage after completing the current one, hit space.)
Escape - Pauses the game.

Good luck, everyone.

Now, a link to the game online:

Play!

I've finished the third level, and now I'm just polishing everything up. Shortly enough, I plan on releasing a demo of the game on here, Facebook, the Unity forums, a link on Twitter, and all that lovely jazz. After polishing it up greatly, I hope it feels exactly how I want it to play in my mind.

Welp, back to work and I'll be back (probably) later today to start posting links and to make an even larger post.

Another couple of nights down the drain. Go me, go me! I've finally implemented a pause system and a way to navigate back to the start screen (in order to quit the game when on a desktop version. I completely overlooked that aspect, because at first I anticipated this being entirely web-based, oh well!) I've also added new effects, such as little numbers appearing to indicate score when you kill a monster. I've changed the screen resolution of the game so it fits a traditional "Facebook Game" layout, as opposed to a more mobile resolution. So, now it's 760x600 instead of 400x600!

Now, I've started finishing off the third level boss (everything else before hand is finished)! Then, I'm going to polish the first three levels as much as possible, then I'm going to release a demo everywhere. Hopefully it's enough to make people want more. One man can only hope, right?

Either way, I'm going to post a video with updated sound effects, all new visuals, and lets see how well it goes!

Oh, happy day. I've finished programming level two today! I need to sit down and tweak it to get it exactly how I want it to play; however, for now, I'm content with it and I plan on starting level three tonight! I'm also considering tweaking up the backgrounds some to make it more interesting than a basic scrolling background of stars.

I've added and finished the bombing and shielding system of my game! Added a score and soon to add a high score marker, as well as more GUI designs so it's more than a basic black abyss. (I've never been spectacular at art; thus, everything is either crappy little sprites, basic things in GIMP, or royalty-free pieces of art.)

For the next level, I plan on adding more types of enemies (which I have two currently planned out, I just need to program them in). Then, I'm still not sure what else to add into it, I'm pretty happy with the game as a whole. Maybe little numbers that appear over enemies and power ups as I kill/collect them that show how much they went to the score. Then maybe more and more particle effects! (Because who doesn't love a good particle effect to make everything shiny and sparkle!) I think that covers up everything else I wanna add.

Argh, I guess tonight's going to be an all-nighter of programming, music, and random Netflix in the background --as usual.

Update
Finishing up the second level of this is proving troubling to me. I keep experimenting with things I like and I can't come up on a definite conclusion to how I want this to end!

Lasers, force fields, spirals, etc. I guess it's time to just sit down and finish actually planning things out on paper beforehand. (It's what I did for level one, and I had that finished in two days.)

Oh well, at least I have Leslie Hall's new album to keep me motivated as I finish this up! "Hand me my glow sticks! Mama wants to jiggle."

On another note, however, I'm wondering what other things I should be adding to this. I have a bombing/shielding system, points, particle effects, about to start the third level, several types of enemies + bosses. Maybe I should add power ups, some sort of "collectable/coin" system to add to the score.

I'm wondering if I could use my slowly growing following to do programming tutorials for the ones who don't know how to so well. While I figure the large portion of my audience will be individuals who can already program --or at least know the basics-, so maybe I should make tutorials geared toward artists, musicians, and complete novices? I feel like it could be somewhat fun. As well as an excuse to make videos, so people on YouTube could be exposed as well.

I've always had a knack for teaching. Normally I'm teaching language, but I'm sure programming could be similar (considering it's technically a language in its own). Maybe while I'm at it, I could do videos explaining Japanese as well; though that's a far off idea and I might at a later date.

If I were to start tutorials, it would either be divided up into C++ or C# with Unity, since those are my most proficient languages. Then maybe I could progress into other things, such as Java or UnityScript with Unity (their 'take' on JavaScript), then possibly eventually Japanese, though that's just an idea. (Okay, maybe I really want to teach Japanese since that's what my actual profession is, but still!)

Alright, I figure if I'm going to do this, I might as well do this. So, I'll begin working on what I wanna do, I'll plan it out, and I might make a video or two --or nine hundred-, you never know.

Overview
-Super Space Surge is a game created entirely by me starting in January of 2014. It was made in Unity3d, Garageband for music, and GIMP for graphics.

Description
-I used the game Touhou, created by Team Shanghai Alice, as my main inspiration, and I tried to keep the spontaneous feel of the game with a space-theme. I plan on there being six levels, and multiple difficulty levels. Once it is finished, I'll have the game up on here, on Facebook, and on Kongregate, with links to all.

Test Here!

Controls
-Movement - Arrow Keys
-Shooting - Z
-Super Shot/Force Field - X
-Focused Movement - Left Shift

Hello World

My first post and my first step into the world of social media and blogging. I'll be showcasing everything I've worked on and completed here! Also, I'll showcase other indie blogs that I really enjoy, and possibly start doing podcasts and game reviews.

Who Am I?

I'm a 20 year old indie game developer currently in college for Japanese and computer programming. I've been working on games off and on for a little while now, but going to work on publicly showcasing my products.

Now, sit back and enjoy! Hopefully this won't be a flop.

Nick Howard

Lunar Artifacts

Hello World

Who Am I?

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