Hi.

I'm Jeff Stippick, Senior IMM major at TCNJ.  This is where I'll be blogging about my Senior Thesis, from initial ideas to progress in development.  I wanted my Thesis to be a culmination of everything I've learned in the 5 years (and counting) that I've spent in college.  So, what better for that than a game?

While I can't for the life of me come up with a cool and catchy name yet, my game is essentially a 2D shooter/platformer in space.  I think I want it to play similar to the Mega Man X titles, where you can only shoot straight, but also perform actions such as wall-jumps and sliding maneuvers.  There may also be sub-weapons like in Castlevania to give you more versatility in combat.  For example, Castlevania has throwing axes that allow you to hit airborne enemies more easily, or holy water that can drop on enemies below.  I was debating over this style or simple 8-directional shooting, but I think this will make for more exciting and challenging gameplay, especially if you can only have one sub-weapon at a time.  There will also be environmental hazards, such as pitfalls and death beams.  Having to worry about both this and the enemies can make for some pretty crazy scenarios.

The art style will probably consist of bitmap sprites made in Photoshop, although programs like Illustrator and Flash certainly have their advantages, too.  There are a couple of reasons that I'm going with 2D graphics, the first of which being that I barely know how to do 3D graphics and more or less know Photoshop like the back of my hand.  Secondly, 2D graphics are sort of becoming a lost art.  I think they can easily look better aesthetically than most 3D games if the art direction is good enough.

This may sound off-topic, but I played Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon a few months ago, and was blown away by its rocking 80s-inspired soundtrack.  That's a big inspiration for my game's music, as it showed me the kind of awesome things you can do with crappy-sounding synths you find in programs like Fruity Loops.  Furthermore, it goes perfectly with the alien atmosphere I'm trying to pull off.

And now to address the elephant in the room: programming.  I'm not the best at it, which is why I went with a simple genre like a platformer.  Luckily, there are tons of tutorials online, and I have friends who have coded much trickier stuff in the past.  As for the engine, I'm leaning towards Game Maker, though I've heard some good things about Unity.  Overall, I think as long as I manage my time wisely and don't slack off, everything should come together nicely.