I recently popped round to my folks for a visit and found my dad clearing out the attic. After constant pressure from my mum he’d decided to finally throw out his entire vinyl collection which had been gathering dust for years. My gut told me this was a huge mistake and pleading with him to reconsider. After all, there were sure to be some real gems in there. My dad’s not the sentimental type though so my pleas fell upon deaf ears.
Gameplay Footage
I thought it was about time I showed off some actual gameplay footage from Dare the Monkey. This is one of the levels from the Jungle world and features some of the jumps, obstacles, and platforms that our little monkey hero has to contend with.
Make It Snappy
Here’s one of the baddies for your viewing pleasure. With many of the levels being based around both land and water I thought a crocodile would work well. On land the player needs to jump over our cool croc to prevent getting eaten, while on water they can jump onto the croc’s back to keep themselves from getting wet.
Work-Life Balance
Developing an indie game can be an incredibly time consuming and stressful experience. You need to find some way of balancing your workload with family and leisure time.
Plan to Succeed or Fail to Plan
Being a lone developer can be a daunting and difficult task. Get it wrong and you’ll spend a year or so of your life making an absolute turkey of a game or worse still the game might never actually get finished.
Run Animations
Just thought I would share a couple Maya playblasts of Dare’s various run animations. For the most part our little hero runs on two legs to show his more human qualities but on occasions he reverts back to his more primal roots and runs on all fours.
Fan Art
Yup, that’s right, I received my very first Dare the Monkey fan art last night. Ok, so it was from my five year-old son, and his daddy did help him, but wee Freddy’s drawing was just so adorable I had to post it here for the world to see. What do you guys think?
Starting with a Sketch #4
It’s important that there’s variety across each of your game’s levels. A change in scenery acts as a reward for many players. Also, knowing that there’s something new just around the corner can keep a player chipping away at their current level just that little bit longer. If you think about it, along with high scores, it’s really one of the earliest forms of incentivisation in video games.
Being heavily influenced by 80s and 90s arcade platform games, I thought it only fitting that a few of my game levels should be themed around caves and deadly lava rivers. I’m pretty sure the visuals will excite the player and there’s always that element of danger when hot molten lava’s involved.
The Right Tools for the Job: 3D Modelling
For most of my modelling needs during the development of Dare the Monkey I’ve been using Autodesk’s Maya. It’s an incredible piece of software but it’s also extortionate! Of course, there are plenty of cheaper 3D modelling packages out. For example, there’s Newtek’s Lightwave, which is half the price of Maya.
Starting with a Sketch #3
When it comes to jumps and platforms, Dare will be running along and landing on flat surfaces. However I don’t want the player to really be aware of that. Dare’s natural environment consists of rugged terrain and weather beaten man-made objects and I wanted to convey that to the player while still making it possible for them to identify where each platform is.
Dungeons of Doom on iOS and WatchOS
Dare the Monkey on iOS, watchOS, and tvOS
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