I have brought this up before, but I feel I should bring this up again. I think this is a necessary step we must take before we can tackle project like Aeon, while giving us something to play with in times of HatPC downtime.

I am talking of course about a simple Flash platforming game.

Take a look at this game: Box Clever. This is a platforming game made by Gaz, who also made Red Remover. The game is incredibly simple. The main character is an unanimated blue oval, that tilts over when it runs. The enemies are green ovals. All the terrain are plain black blocks with gray blocks being interactable objects. The only gimmick of this game is the fact that you can make the gray blocks unstatic by clicking on them with your mouse.
A game made by an experienced Flash game maker, but simplicity to the max. The game has been very well received. It scored a 4.4/5 on TheGameHomepage, it got badges on Kongregate and Gaz has released a user-made Map Pack.

I feel this is the direction we should take for now. Simply graphics, simple sounds, only one song for the menu, only one song for the levels, the gameplay itself only containing its essential components and of course the Level Editor. Release that game not only here, but also on other sites to gain publicity and only after that expand the game to eventually become Aeon.

This approach is that we will have a full game to work with earlier, instead of endlessly having to wait for the final Aeon release, as well chopping the process up into better manageable bits. It will give us some publicity and I think Livio also gets advertisement money if he publishes it on other sites. Such a segmented release should also make it easier for us to test all the objects in small batches, allowing us to better finetune them.

The purpose of this thread is to convince Livio and others to take such an approach and to decide exactly how this process should go.

My suggestion is that this simple game should come in several releases, with each release containing new objects and having finetuned the previous objects.

The first of these releases should be close to the current Aeon demo. It should contain a playable character, the treasure substitutes, the door, spikes, platforms, falling wooden crate substitutes, floating wooden crate substitutes, falling metal crate substitutes and floating metal crate substitutes.
It should have two versions. The first is purely the Level Editor. Like in the current demo, this level editor should allow you to change all the various variables, such as the falling speed of crates or the jumping height of the character. After a week or so we should decide on which settings to use for the main game. Then we should use this level editor to create 30 or so levels and combine these levels as the main game for the second version.
This second version should get distributed to other sites and should get a simplified level editor, one where you can't change any of the variables. It should at most get a "Play this game at the Interguild to get this feature" button to lure people in, but nothing more.
After this we can work towards the "sequel". Livio could spend his time coding in new objects while the rest of us could further finetune settings of the game and make more levels.

Any input from you guys? What do you think our Road to Aeon should be?

This sounds like a good idea. It always bugged me at the back of my mind that we were coming up with all these graphics and complicated mechanisms, yet our most advanced version of the game contained an arrow and yellow/grey boxes. We don't need to release a new demo every time some new crate/mechanic is complete, but it'd be nice to release a few rudimentary demos along the way that're still fun.

Not really a demo, just a separate, simple series that will be the groundwork for Aeon. These games will all be released as full games, just with simple graphics, music and whatnot. The Acceleron series, or something.

Complete support.

likewise. i have known about that game of Gaz, i actually thought it was pretty bad but still i played it through, certain levels were surprisingly nice. it really is amazing what people can do with a pen and paper, i think.

I totally agree with you here, Jellsprout! This is a great idea.

One thing I'm not too sure about: releasing to other sites. What you described the "first version" as being is very simple, and could definitely be a cute little game, but I'm not too sure it would actually be "Aeon." Does that make sense? Aeon is like HatPC. Spikes and blocks: NOT like HatPC.

In other words, while I LOVE your idea, I think your definition of a "first draft" is a bit too simple. Maybe include arrow boxes, a couple of other characters, (maybe 3 total) and a couple different tilesets and songs? I've written four songs for the Aeon project already, we have plenty of sound effects, so that wouldn't be a problem. This way, we'd have a more robust game more along the lines of what we are all aiming for, but it would still be simple and manageable.

Again, Jellsprout, I really think you have a great idea. I just don't think we should make it TOO simple. Simple, sure; but not TOO simple.

Support!

I learned a lot about programming large projects this semester, and I see where I made a lot of mistakes when planning Aeon. For one, I was too concerned with getting the final version complete, rather than focusing on the core of makes this game Aeon.

Jell's suggestion reminds me of the iterative approach in software engineering. Rather than planning every single feature and designing one big program, one should instead focus on the elements and features that provide the most risk to the project. For example, one of the risks in Aeon could be that collision physics may not work as nicely as we wish (this is actually true for the current demo. Collisions glitch up when two moving objects hit each other). Rather than waiting to get to the point where we could test collisions in Aeon, one should instead quickly build a sloppy prototype, where the collision algorithm could be tested and figured out with no other distractions. Once that's done, we could implement the finished algorithm into the real project neatly. Sure, we end up writing code that we plan to throw away, but it saves so much time in the end.

Each time a prototype is made, it's said that we've completed a "loop" in the iterative process. The more loops you get done, the better your game will be. The faster you get each prototype done, the faster you can progress on your game.

By the way, my current build of Aeon already lets you load images from URLs. Even if the game doesn't have images in them, that doesn't mean users can't still use images in their levels

APPROVE
I agree with this 100%

Livio! Are you still in Tucson, or no? If you are, we should hook up and work on Aeon some. Even if I don't have ActionScript experience, I could most certainly contribute.

This could be interesting. I demand a photo so that we can all remember the first time two Interguild members met each other.

Now, if Jell would just go to our Swedish smash tournaments...

Hey, I've threatened to hunt down members and take them to Burger Kings in the chatbox before. Of course, that won't happen until I get enough money to buy a Whopper, lol.

No I'm not in Tucson. It'd have to wait until fall.

Haha, which sucks, because I'm going to ASU this fall. Let me know any days you're coming up to Phoenix to visit family or something, and maybe we can hang out. I'm going to the Downtown Phoenix campus, so I'll be in the neighborhood.

I live in north phoenix, which is pretty far away, unfortunately.

If we want any of this done, I think we're going to have to ban Livio from the Minecraft server.  I had to threaten him with kicking before he went to work on Aeon, like he promised he would before he left for his vacation.

what? this was the first time I had played minecraft in like two weeks. If anything, you'll just be banning Haily and forcing him to buy minecraft himself. actually that doesn't sound like such a bad idea...

and I've already started to work on aeon

You should make a new post in your development blog. I am wondering what you are working on now.

I'll post an update tonight. I was thinking of getting into the habit of regularly posting updates since it lets me kind of step back from my work and look at it critically. Plus, it's a good way of measuring how much progress I'm making.

Well, it's 6:30 p.m. Interguild time.  I think that's nighttime enough for an update.