1 About this document

This document shows you a few screenshots to give you an inside look at what's going on in my game's development. Here's a few things to note:

Separating each image and caption is a divider to help separate the groups.
Not included are problematic screenshots from before where I have a problem I'm trying to fix. The screenshots here are of things in their normal way. There may, however, be some exceptions to this (such as strange glitches and the related), but, for the most part, they are of things in their normal way.
Occasionally, a fix or update is made, especially to the captions.
Each "square" in the textures is 32 quants. Objects are arranged based on multiples of 64 quants^* and rarely 32.
For the first screenshots, the numbers to the top left indicate position and frame rate. The first is the x position, the second one below that is the y position, the third is the height, the z position and the bottom number is the frame rate, in frames per second. A little later on are screenshots showing of another number, the speed of the camera with a special function I created.
The screenshots shown here will only be of the worlds and levels in the demo version. For every detail possible in more depth than what is in here, I plan on releasing two versions. The first version is the standard version which is basically everything except the development details and a special version which is the same as the standard only going in great depth on the development process.

2 Screenshots 1 through 10

Screenshot #1: Tutorial level: the beginning area
This is the tutorial level at the beginning. Here, you learn a very important, and rather common thing: jumping. At first, you need to climb up this staircase by jumping. Your character can jump about 1.5 times the height of the steps giving plenty of clearance. See that dark object behind the staircase? That's a platform that moves. I scripted the movement just so it's easy for me to create moving platforms and easy for you to create moving platforms in the special level creation system I have yet to develop. All you need to do is just enter the range, start position, speed, and starting direction as well as choose which color and size of platform as well.

Screenshot #2: Tutorial level: the second challenge
This is the second area to the left at the top of the first area. Of course, you could take a right, negotiate two moving platforms and collect an extra life, but in time mode, sometimes that's not always the best option unless you fast at it. Anyway, in this area, you learn how to jump across gaps. Fall down, it's splash and buong (you die in other words). Of course, the gaps are rather small, but this is just to teach you how the game works. The first two gaps are very small but the third gap, to reach the red platform straight ahead, is twice as big, but still easy to negotiate.

Screenshot #3: Tutorial level: going underwater
In the water regions, you'll need to learn how to navigate in water. In this game, you sink to the bottom and jump around as if you were in air, but the speeds are rather slow. There are four colors of water: blue (the water shown here is the blue water), blue-green, clear (the hardest to see), and a swampy color as if it was a swamp. When you do hop in the water (in which has waves), you can stay in it for no more than 30 seconds or so, otherwise you drown and lose a life (don't worry, there's plenty of 1ups around). See the blue and green objects at the other side? Those are springs that will toss you up very high. The blue ones are weak, they only send you up four steps (screenshot 1's stair case shows you the height of one step). The green one is twice as powerful sending you up nine steps. There's a red one at the top of this tower that sends you up sixteen steps giving massive height. These springs give four times the height when you're in the water, useful for getting air when you need it most.

Screenshot #4: Tutorial level: the 1-ups
Using the red spring will help you get up here where a 1up is. Of course, you could just jump off and pick up a lot of speed. This is the highest point in the tutorial level, twice as high as anything else so it makes a good look-out tower in a sense. In other words, you could see practically the whole level from here. Also, you can see another view of the springs as well and what you'd have been through so far. See that black platform on the left-most side near the water? That's the goal! In each of probably 1000 levels, all you gotta do is rescue someone named George. That black platform has George on it, however, I haven't created him yet, so he's not there at this moment. Also, in this view, you can see 3 of the 4 moving platforms. They're all black and much lower than the camera's current position.

Screenshot #5: Tutorial level: the 2-ups
Usually, games have plain ol' 1ups. This game has 2-ups, 3-ups and the hard to find 5-ups as well. This is an area in which you can find a 2-up. There is a lot of distance to cover in order to get down there and you're gonna have to wait for the platform to come which can really hurt your time bonus. Unless you're focused for score (which can also give 1-ups), going after anything past a 2-up isn't recommended unless you're very fast or happen to know a big shortcut.

Screenshot #6: Tutorial level: The whole level from the goal
To reach the goal, you'll have to obtain the glide ability as the gaps here are impossible with regular jumps. Upon reaching the goal, you clear the tutorial level and gain bonus points depending on the time you spent on the level. The faster you go, the more bonus points you can obtain. It's based on the square. That is, if you finish in half the time, you'll get four times as many bonus points. This tutorial level could be done in about a minute if you sped through it. It'd take about 5 minutes or so normally, especially to read the text that comes up that explains how to do certain things.

Screenshot #7: Experimental design: The colors of the platforms
Because player freedom is my ultimate goal, when it comes to the level creator, you can choose from any of these platform colors. There are 64 in all! From each group of 16, going right adds to the red, going down adds to the green, and the blue is arranged, in increasing order, top left, top right, bottom left, then bottom right. Yet, there are 3 different sizes as well too! Unlike shown in the first screenshots, the platforms here are of much better quality, let alone coming in 64 different colors. As I'm seeing it in my mind, when you create a new object, you'll see a big display of various items. First is the color palette covering up a large portion of it, below that are the three available sizes and to the right are the various orientations (3 available). On the left (or top right) contains information. Help contents will appear at the bottom to explain things (which can be turned off and on). You could almost just paint a picture using these blocks! The colors available offer a fair palette.

Screenshot #8: Encountered problems: What's with the gray on the sides?
This is one of the problems I've had to face. Because I didn't bother to do a test run to check on things, though it appeared just fine in MED, this problem meant wasting nearly 2 to 3 hours fixing the problem. The problem, however, did get fixed.

Screenshot #9: Tutorial level: Progress as of Apr 28, 2005
Part of a before-and-after sequence, this image shows the original view of how the tutorial level looks, with one exception: the realistic-looking clouds. I especially love the way the sky fades away from the fog effects. Those clouds do move too (although they may be rather fast)!

This is one of my favorite screenshots.

Screenshot #10: Tutorial level: Progress as of May 1, 2005
Part of a before-and-after sequence, this image shows the after view of how the tutorial level looks. Note how much better the area looks compared to before? There are far more colors available now and the platforms look much better. The before image shows of streaks along the sides. I've removed the walls and stuff. Also, the platforms are much better looking as well. The next page shows you the same basic views as the first six screenshots show, only with the latest improvements. Also, you might notice a goal platform clearly visible. The point of the game is to reach the goal in the shortest time possible. This way, it's highly distinguishable to make it easy to figure out where you need to go in each level. I've run a test and at 1024x768 resolution, this platform can be seen from even 10,000 quants away (about a quarter of a mile or 1250 feet) on the outdoor worlds. Missing, at this point, is the starting platform, where the game begins. This platform, too, will be highly distinguishable, but instead of saying "goal" it says "start" and without the exclamation point.

This is one of my favorite screenshots.

9.1.2 George Game 13
9.1.2.1 Overview and development progress
9.1.2.1-1 What George Game 13 is
9.1.2.1-2 Screenshot gallery
9.1.2.1-3 Progress
9.1.2.1-4 FAQ
9.1.2.2 George Game 13 screenshot gallery: Screenshots 1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31-40 | 41-50 | 51-60 | 41-70 | 71-80

Footnotes:
* In case you're unfamiliar with a quant, a quant is basically one unscaled texture pixel. Normally, it can represent anything, but in my game, 8 quants is one foot (making each square on the platforms' image equal to 4 feet). On the indoor worlds (featuring the origins of the game), 512 quants is 1 foot.