adhwa87
Muhammad Adhwa' joined
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Hello guys,
It's been a very busy month and the good news that I've finally assembled 2 of my friends to aid me in finishing the second preview of 'Mari Mengelak' game.
Well, the bad news is, I've been busy with my postgraduate studies and currently finishing up part of my thesis writings. I hope that it will be done by around October. After that, I have some times looking at some preparations that is needed to proceed with the project.
Again I'm really sorry for the long silence. It's just that I'm currently on a tight schedule.
Thanks!
Hello guys, first of all thank you for reading this post in my blog. Since I don't have any significant opening, let me just tell a story how 'Mari Memanjat!' game concept came from. (sorry for the grammar mistakes)
It was around Saturday morning, 21st June 2014 where me and my 2 best friends was 'lured' to attend the AngelHack 2014 event at Telekom Tower at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia due to free registration fees. We came there with the intention on understanding how app development culture works in Malaysia. After registered, we enters the hall full of programmers. Coming from a designer perspective, it was an overwhelming experience since this is the first time I saw a place full of developers. I usually attend designer's conventions (animators, graphic design etc.). Thus, I felt that this is my perfect opportunity to discover and get to know how programmers develop their app.
The AngelHack event requires the participants to form a group and build any application within 24-hours. It's funny though because when attending event like this, with all capable programmers around, both of my friends and I look at each other and say "Shit, now what we supposed to do?". We know that AngelHack did require us to produce app within 24-hours but the atmosphere within the hall doesn't really feels 'designer-ly' and 'casual'. It is more like 'tense' and 'stress'. Unlike designer event, where all participants are crazy, friendly and sometimes doing hilarious jokes to squeeze for ideas, this feels more like 'business-oriented'. This experience is really new to me. However, this experience really helps open my eyes on understanding other developers working nature and perspectives. Maybe in my opinion it's stressful but for others it's just like any other day.
While looking and browsing the list of the project that the other teams going to made, I was shock that 100% of them are creating business and social apps. Thinking back on this, this may be relevant due to the pitching session that needs to be presented to the AngelHack sponsors. The three of us paranoid.
"Can we do this type of app?"
"No, I don't know how to use XCode and Eclipse."
"I only know PhoneGap, but I'm not confident enough to build this."
"How about you?"
"I only know web development and Unity."
Three of us silenced. We don't have the skill to develop this kind of app. It was then I spoke, "Let's just bulldoze this thing. Let's make a mobile game". The three of us agreed and we start brainstorming ourselves. But it was useless due to the atmosphere and the tense in the hall. Then the three of us leaves the hall and start walking in hope for inspiration.
We walk from 4th floor to Ground floor several times, chit-chatting about our personal experiences, mundane as well as stupid discussions. After some long walking we were exhausted and decided to use the elevator to ascend back to 4th floor where the hall is situated. When we are in the elevator we start discussing some funny games such as Bum Plugger: Revenge of the Shit Spewer Game! and Alpaca. Then my friend tells a concept of stop button in elevator where stops the elevator from ascend and descend. Then from there continues with a joke if the elevator is malfunctioning and rapidly descending down, the only way to stop the elevator is to hit the 'stop button'. However due to the shakiness when descending it's hard to reach and press it.
Eureka! That's where our first initial idea came. A game where an elevator is rapidly descends, the player needs to press the stop button. The challenge is the player needs to reach the stop button. I start drafting the idea right away. Another idea is to create a non-balance environment to emulate the shake within the elevator.
The initial idea of the game is that the player need to balance the character by tilting and swipe multiple time to move the character to reach the stop button, left and right in the correct sequence. At the same time there's an obstacles coming from the top like banana and trashes (even salaryman) and the player need to evade. If the obstacle hit the player, it will stun the player for a certain of amount.
I start design and code right away in Unity. Several hours later, one of my friend asked "Isn't it inappropriate to develop this theme? I mean, there's an elevator nearby right? And we are in the one of the major company building right now". Again I'm stunned. I've already finished the accelerometer function in the game and on the way finishing the obstacle spawns. I can't disagree with him due to the relevant feedback that he gave. I start fiddling with the quarter-done app, thinking for better theme. We got another 12 hours to finish off the app. While mindlessly coding different type of tilting event function, one of the function allows the character to move towards the tilted direction, like Asphalt. Combined with the spawned obstacles that I've coded, it seems like the character is trying to evade from the falling obstacles. One of my friend saw this and said, "Now, we have the answer"
This is how "Mari Mengelak!" concept was born... very boring right?
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