Sticks and Stones – Quadolor Games

Stopgap Post

mstop_4 GameMaker: Studio, Sticks and Stones, Windows February 20, 2013 0 Comment

I wanted to make this post after I had gotten all of the stuff I wanted to say organized, but it was taking far too long. And the fact that I haven’t made a post in a long time, I decided to post what I have so far. Don’t worry, this blog isn’t dead yet.

I have good news, bad news, and better news.

The good news is, the font caching bug is now fixed:

Hurrah, hurrah

The bad news is I’m suspending the development of Sticks and Stones until I can think of a new theme for the game, as I don’t like the one I had in mind anymore. Even if I can’t come up with one, at least I have the beginnings of a 2D adventure game engine that I can use for other projects.

The better news is I’ve got a new project idea, one that is more traditional and less experimental. Once I gather all the information, I’ll post it here. Stay tuned for updates!

Go home Font Caching, you are drunk.

mstop_4 GameMaker: Studio, Sticks and Stones, whoopsie doodles, Windows February 10, 2013 0 Comment

I didn’t expect myself to post so much in such a short time frame, but this is too amusing to pass up. I was just messing around with Stick and Stones for a little bit when suddenly this happens:

Have you been hanging out with Zalgo?

The newest update of GameMaker: Studio (v.1.1.805) changed the way fonts are handled. As I understand it, instead of caching the font at compile time, it now caches it whenever you make and save any changes to the font resource within the project (e.g. changing the font itself, size, style, character set included, etc.). This way, if you have multiple people collaborating on the same project on different computers, only the person who created the font resource needs the original font file; everyone else will just use the cached font on the texture page(s):

“Somebody please put me out of my misery.”
(Note: Black background added for clarity)

As you can see, this new method still has some bugs to work out, and for my project that’s entirely text-based, this is an obvious problem that needs to be addressed. Fortunately, the devs have taken note of this and are working to fix it. The workaround they suggested is to recreate the font resource and delete the old one every time you make a any change to it, which is a bit of a bother.

Sticks and Stones – First Test

mstop_4 demo, GameMaker: Studio, Sticks and Stones, Windows January 31, 2013 0 Comment

I’m starting a new project in GameMaker: Studio: a short, text-based exploration game, though not in the traditional sense. Let me explain:

The idea for this came from my experience playing WarioWare: D.I.Y. One part of the game had Wario hiring you to do the graphics for some pre-made microgames. I didn’t take that part of the game seriously and drew absurd and non sequitur things. On a few of them, I got lazy and abstracted the things I was supposed to draw as words:

You’re in for a world of it.

The goggles do nothing!

This gave me the idea to do a whole game like this. I call it Sticks and Stones, which, as you may have guessed, comes from the nursery rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” (Or “…but names will never hurt me.”), which I plan on using as a theme for the game.

As for the music, since my muse is tapped out of original tunes at the moment, I decided to dive into the domain of the public. Maybe it’s because I named my game after a nursery rhyme, but here is a sample of the music. It’s a tune that goes by many names: When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye, The Ants Go Marching and The Animals Went in Two by Two:

Anyways, that’s all I have to say for now. Check back for more updates!