VMC-Game: Official Announcement!

Hello, hello! There has been a button on the top bar named "VMC-Game" but I never had the time to actually elaborate on what exactly it is! Before I talk about the plans on my mind, I need to give you a context. If you are not interested in my life story, skip to the next section.

Also: Warning, long post!

Xiad and Programming

It is not possible not to have programming as a primary hobby when both of your parents are programmers. Well, that was no different for me. I remember a six-year-old Xiad asking his father questions about what he does, though not comprehending a single word from the answer. My parents did not want me to become a programmer. They always said "You will lose your mind, and at some point it will take up all of your time. We want you to discover other areas of interest before you dive deep into coding. Otherwise you won't have time to discover anything else." Little did they know that the restriction motivated me to learn coding myself.

With the help of my father I became a professional web developer, focusing on client-side coding. It's up to you if you take HTML and CSS as programming languages... but it's a start! Later I learned external tools, libraries, client-server interactions, networking and so on to improve on what I did. As of now, my father and have 23 collaborative projects: 17 company websites, 3 shopping websites and 3 personal blogs. That said, I was always more interested in functional/algorithmic programming rather than static/web programming. So here is the brief summary of the journey I have gone through, while being in the web development industry:

(2006 - 2012) My first interaction with programming was actually on Microsoft Powerpoint. I managed to make multiple games with that software. Weird to think, right? Those games included:

• a quiz with a score system and a countdown! Unfortunately there had to be a different slide for every single combination of "score" and "time". Back than I did not have anything else to do, so the effort I put in is justifiable.
• a game where you had to go from point A to point B, without letting your mouse touch anything. Those were not always static walls either. Some levels included moving objects, locks and keys, timed obstacles, and so on.
• a very short stickman game! Yes, every slide meant a frame in the animation. Despite the animations, the game was not a platformer. It was a choice-based game. You were choosing from some paths: some deadly and some not. I remember that I reached the slide limit in multiple Powerpoint files. I'm still sad that none of these survived :(

(2013 - 2016) After moving to a boarding school, I realized I do not have the control of my parents anymore. That meant I could finally learn about game development! I came across a software named Game Maker, running a IDE-specific language named GML (Game Maker Language). If you have no experience in coding but still want to create some basic games, Game Maker 8.1 is recommended. However if you have any experience in any programming language, you will find it very limiting. At the time, it was a sufficient tool for me.

My very first actual game was a 2-player top-down shooter. Both players controlled their tanks, blue or red. If you hit the enemy tank, they would teleport to their spawn location. Players also had colored gems. The aim was to break all of the gems of your opponent before they destroy yours. I played a lot of games on Tank Wars I, and I later added different maps too. Tank Wars II tried to achieve the same in a multiplayer (online) environment, but failed.

So Tank Wars II became a singleplayer game. This time, you were playing against a terrible AI. The enemy tanks had unique abilities. However this version did not have a story at all. It was not as fun as the 2-player one either. It slowly got abandoned. Development of Tank Wars did not stop, and I released different versions of it: Tank Wars Plus, Tank Wars: Hero, and Tank Wars 4P were the only versions to be completed.

Then came a game named Tetragon. It was once again a top-down game. You were playing as a square which cannot stop once it moves. That meant, if you press up, you could neither change your direction nor stop until the character hit a wall. The puzzle game had a lot of levels and a level editor; with a lot of objects such as timed walls, moving walls, portals, keys, coins... Later some of my friends helped me translate it. So Tetragon is available in multiple languages! (I have the download link. Message me if you are interested in playing!)

Encore advertisement

About 2015 Undertale got released. It was the first RPG I have ever played. It was more shocking to learn that its developer Toby Fox has also used Game Maker! It was a huge motivation for me to create my own RPG game "Encore!". I collaborated with a graphic designer friend and made the first rooms. Then I burned out and never continued coding it. The game was about a man who invented time machines. Some evil men did not want such a powerful thing to exist, so they made the protagonist forget about their past by using pills. The main character was a clever one, so he left a note to himself before any of these happen. So that he knew the initial path to uncover his own past. There was planned to be multiple endings, but they got never implemented. (I have the download link. Message me if you are interested in playing!)

Lastly, there are Cubism and Cubism II. The second one was created after I accidentally deleted the project files of the first one. It was an annoying-Mario type platformer game, which ended up with a lot of broken friendships. It included a player shop, and also fancy graphics! (I have the download link. Message me if you are interested in playing!)

(2017) I made a card game. Not digital. I did it with using paper and pens. We played a lot of games with my friends, who then helped me to balance the cards. It was exciting! I tried to make a digital version of it but my current programming knowledge was not sufficient. Even though it had decent graphics, it got never coded.

Woooooo

(2017 - 2019) This time period is the golden age of my creations. As three friends, we founded NOVA Game Programming. One friend was an expert at 3D modelling and coding. Another one was an IT guy with decent algorithmic knowledge. And there was me, who was a beginner at all of these; but I could produce sounds and music! We joined forces to create six games in total. In the process, we had guest members as well. The largest two games we created with this team were:

• Gyroball is a mobile game which managed to get 100+ downloads on Google Play Store (it is still there). It had a unique gameplay, but of course it is very amateur. We even hosted a tournament in our school :P
• RandomLands TevTilTöl Edition was our most ambitious game! We 3D modelled the entire campus of our high school and made a futuristic shooter game in it. Once again, we made a tournament for it and it got over 30 people participating! [Beta] [Release] Just for clarification, I did not make the music on this one despite the credits saying so. All I remember was that it was an inside joke about me not contributing enough to anything and the Music section in the credits  looking sorry for itself.

(2019 - present) These are the years I stepped up my programming skills. I had a break from creating games since my graduation from high school, because I wanted to learn some actual programming languages. From Discord bots to sudoku solvers, web scrapers to math tools, Minecraft mods to optimization algorithms... I have been a busy bee.

Now, it's time to talk about my next project: VMC-Game!

VMC-Game: Board of Tecnocrats

Well, I am just bored of coding platformers and top-down shooters. I wanted to try out something new with all the knowledge I acquired since my last solo project. Thus, I decided on coding a digital boardgame. I do not want to give away too much, as even the main elements of the game are subject to change. This time I will take my time to decide on when exactly to start the development process. Until then, I will be refining ideas and try out some stuff to see if they are possible to do.

As you can tell from the title, the game will take place in an alternative VMC-Tec universe where the characters are the same, but the lore is not. I will include some places like TecTower, giant castle or Kaeden Heavy Industries in a simplified style. I will also include as many VMC-Tec members as possible, each with a unique skill set. I would love to have everyone as the main characters, but it is not feasible for me. I will try to include everyone as characters, but please understand that I won't be able to include everyone as main characters. Who are the main characters? Well, can't promise anything yet... but obviously Xiad is one of them :D

About the gameplay: It will of course involve some basic concepts from Minecraft; but they will not be copied exactly. I will briefly touch on what I mean by that later in the post. Firstly, let's talk about the game board. It will have a square grid board, like chess, but of size way larger than 8x8. (I am not sure about the perspective just yet, so please let me know if you have any ideas. As in, should it be completely top-down (Tank 1990), or top-down with an angle (Undertale)?) Each square, or "block" consists one of the following:

• Nothing. Those are the blocks which the characters move onto.
• Solid wall: Depending on the setting, this may be a brick wall, mountain cliff, wooden planks, hay bales... Essentially anything that would prevent characters, mobs and projectiles to go through them.
• Transparent: Yet again, depending on the context, this will be a riverbed, sea or void. Essentially anything that would block character and mob movement, but still let projectiles through.
• Special: I will detail this later.

It will be turn based. Similar to many board games like chess, Monopoly and so on. My inspiration comes from Undertale, Hearthstone and Army Attack, though. In Hearthstone, you have a limited energy per turn (named mana). Playing cards costs mana, depending on how strong the card you are going to play (and your mana is renewed each turn). Attacking with your "minion" does not cost any mana, but you can attack once with every minion per turn. Your turn continues until you press "End Turn".

I will integrate a similar energy system. I do not want to give it away yet, so let's call it mana for now. Moving a character around on the board will cost mana. The further you go, the more mana it takes. That mana is renewable through special blocks.

Any other move will not cost mana, but other resources. Each character has a unique set of moves available. A character can only perform one of these per turn. To put general descriptions:

• None: Do nothing (Regenerates health if not in combat)
  
• Change the location of the character: (Available to all characters)
  
• Walk: Walk to the target destination. (costs mana)
• Pearl: Ender-pearl to the target destination. (costs mana, health and pearls)
• Elytra: Fly to the target destination. (costs mana and rockets)
  
• State of the character: (Does not cost mana) (available to all characters)
  
• Defend: Attack the mobs in the range at the end of the turn (cannot attack twice in a turn)
  
• Gather: Depending on the profession gather wood, stone, food etc
• Wander: Pick a random available location in the range and walk there at the end of the turn.
• Forge: Smelt materials
• Craft: Craft materials
• ...
  
• Attack (Costs mana) (Only one of them is available per character)
  
• Sword: Melee attack with medium damage, affecting multiple neighboring blocks
  
• War axe: Melee attack with high damage, affecting only the target block
• Bow: Ranged attack with low damage
• ...
  
• ...

Back to the topic of special blocks: Those are the blocks which the characters can interact with. For example if a character is set to Gather; stone, trees and farmland are special blocks. As long as the character is set to Gather, they will collect cobblestone, wood log and wheat at the end of every turn. Those items are placed to the "communal chest" which is the common storage for all characters. When destroyed, the items do not disappear, but collecting any more materials won't be possible.

Alongside those essential items like wood, stone, food and experience orb; there are also items you can acquire by killing mobs or shopping. I don't have concrete ideas on what they will be just yet, but here is the brief plan:

• Collectables can be found as drops ingame. They are used to improve the stats of a character; such as walking range, attack damage, armor, ...
• Diamonds
• Bones
• Apples
• ...
  
• Items can be bought from the shop in the main menu, using an ingame currency:
  
• Firework rockets
• Stone / Iron / Diamond tools
• Ender pearls
• ...
  
• Enchantments can be bought from the shop in the main menu, using experience:
• Sharpness 1 - 10
• Knockback 1 - 2
• Lifesteal 1 - 5
• Looting 1 - 5
• Protection 1 - 10
• ...

Before You Ask

• Q: Is there a story line, or is this a survival game?    
• A: There will definitely be a story line. I may add an endless "hardcore" mode depending on how I go with the schedule.
• Q: What will the price be?
• A: All dev/alpha/beta versions will be free and exclusively available for all VMC-Tec members and some other trusted users. After the first release all versions will be available for everyone for free, with a donation button :)
• Q: Which platforms will the game be available?
• A: Unfortunately, only for Windows PC. However there is a way to run Windows applications on an Apple product. I will cover that in a separate post when I approach the release.
• Q: Any estimated release date?
• A: Who knows? All I know is that the development process will be starting after August, occasionally streamed on Twitch. It will take at least 6 months. At most? Uh...
• Q: Can I contribute?
• A: Yes! I would appreciate if anyone can help me with the graphics after I decide on a palette. I am also desperately searching for someone who can compose songs in MIDI format! Beta-testing is always open for VMC-Tec members so it requires no application. If you want to contribute on any of these, please reach me! (Discord: XiadMabsax#9751) Please note that I have no budget for the game, therefore this is not a paid job. So I won't expect anyone to take such a responsibility.
• Q: Which software(s) will you use to code the game?
• A: After such an introduction about games I coded, you would expect to hear Unity or something... but I will use Game Maker this time. I don't have that much time to devote on the development, so using any other language will be considerably slower. Despite knowing that Game Maker is very limited, I will prefer that one for the sake of speed. For graphics, I use the built-in graphic editor of Game Maker. When needed, I use Photoshop too. For music, I use FL Studio for other games, but unfortunately Game Maker is not capable of running .mp3 files (or similar). I don't have a MIDI keyboard and FL Studio is a pain to compose MIDI that way. Therefore I use Anvil Studio.

Those are all I want to reveal for now. I have more ideas on my mind but they will need some more thought into them. The VMC-Game posts will be more a lot less frequent than other posts on this blog. I am thinking of releasing two update posts per three months. That said, I will post an extra one if some drastic change happens in the development process.

So yeah. See you soon!