Greyson Wright's Blog

Taking the Simplistic Approach

2011-03-10T17:25:00.000-05:00

It doesn't take a flashy design to make a good website, yet many people fail to realize that.

Don't get me wrong, most of the flashy websites look great and all that, but is it really necessary to go all out on a design? Simplicity is fine, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

You don't have to go all out and put in bursts of colors everywhere, or have an awesome 20MB background image that every other website today seems to like doing. You can have a simple color palette and work with those colors alone, and adding effects if necessary and if you think it looks good.

Don't worry about if other people will like it. Yes, you are making this website for other people to view, but you cannot please everyone, and you must realize that you cannot design a website to appeal to everyone.

A bad design to someone might be a good design to another, or it might be a bad design to everyone. If you're like me, you don't like flashy websites. They might look nice, yeah, but it simply just isn't what I had mind.

I want to create a site with a simple design that looks good and does the job well, and that is what I have been doing.

I've showed people my site, some like the simplistic look, others not so much. It is good to listen to their suggestions because some of them might actually help make your site look better without the cost of losing the simplicity that you're going for. Actually, in my case, their suggestions helped make it look even more simplistic.

The design I'm shooting for is a clean, simplistic look with little to no flashy effects or gimmicks, with the primary colors being black and white. Some of the people I have shown it to think that it needs an overhaul because it looks too plain.

Yes, I admit that it is indeed a bit plain, but that is part of the style I'm going for. It doesn't look bad (at least not to me) so I don't plan to change it... yet. Once my site is finished, I may or may not begin working on a different design, maybe a design that is less "plain" but still retains the simplistic look that I want it to have and looks good.

Should I change the design, would it be flashy? The answer is simple: no. I do not like flashy websites, and if you do, that's fine. You can like flashy websites and I can like simplistic websites and we can still live on the same planet without slitting each other's throats.

What is a flashy design? Take a look at IGN or something. My definition of flashy is a website that looks "modern" and is, well, flashy. Tons of images, colors and generally not very plain. And my definition for simplistic would be a site that looks clean and doesn't use many colors, isn't too image heavy and with no flashy/fancy looks or effects. Simplistic must look "modern" as well, whatever "modern" may be.

A bad design != simplistic. Keep that in mind.

So what's the point of this blog? Primarily it was just for me to get the message across that simplicity can be better than flashy as far as websites are concerned, but I guess it more or less turned into a rant.

Oh look! An entry!

2011-02-02T01:44:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I wrote something on this blog, and it seems like each time I do write something, I open it saying that same exact thing... though maybe I haven't and I'm just imaging things again.

Where have I been? What have I been doing?

I have been right here, behind my laptop, pecking away at the keys and making words appear on the screen and sending them to people. I have been right here, behind my laptop, working on my website (which I had planned to finish before the new year but evidently didn't). I have been right here, behind my laptop, playing an MMO and fearing for my virtual life each time I stepped foot outside of our palisade boundaries.

I have been here all along, accomplishing little, but planning big.

Maybe I just never had anything to write about? Surely, I could come up with something, but would it have been worth reading?

I guess it could have been worth reading, but neither you nor I would know that as I didn't write anything.

Now here I am, writing this entry which most likely will not be read, or only read partially. What exactly am I even writing about?

I am writing about things. Things which I am writing about. The reason behind my writing about things is unknown to you, but is it to me? Maybe I have nothing of value to write about. Maybe I shouldn't have wrote anything at all, and instead kept it balled up inside me... maybe it would've been better that way...

So lately I have been playing this game called Haven & Hearth. It's basically an economic simulator/MMO/do-whatever kind of game. It's pretty fun for the most part, but diving in alone and with no knowledge of how to play can be a daunting task.

I've wasted over two weeks of my life playing that game, and now I am just a little bit bored of it (it has gotten repetitive for me a bit). I'm sure I'll still play as I kind of feel obligated to as I have a responsibility (ha) to uphold in my village.

What I should be doing is studying for my GED. Education comes first, after all, but I cannot bring myself to do so.

I have never darkened the halls of a school before, at least not for learning purposes. I was homeschooled throughout my lifetime and so I must get my GED if I have any hopes of getting a life in the future. Did I mention that the internet basically is my life right now? I haven't much of one offline.

Maybe you already knew all of this, and maybe you don't really care. Do I care that you might not care? Obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't have written this at all. If you're reading this, you obviously have a desire to continue reading (unless I've lost you at this point, then feel free to drop off and never come back (don't actually never come back)).

Maybe you already knew I've been working on a website to replace the void in my life which OverByte left. Maybe you know that I wanted to finish it before the new year (if you read the third paragraph of this blog you would know) but failed.

I really haven't worked on the site since Christmas eve. Gotten sidetracked with Christmas gifts and the game I mentioned above.

I have the desire to finish it, I just lack the motivation for it. I actually did open Notepad++ and wanted to work on it yesterday, but as soon as I did, that little bit of motivation was murdered.

What would motivate me to finish it, or at least work on it? Probably if I knew that people would visit it regularly, or if I was inspired by something to finish it.

Sure, it'd be nice to have your creation get popular, but if you're doing something you love, and completing it is a major achievement for you, then you would think popularity wouldn't matter as much.

Maybe it doesn't matter. I want to finish it. I am aware of the possibility that it will never get its feet off the ground and I still want to finish it. So what's the problem?

Motivate me.

It's the same with game making anymore. I get an idea in my head and figure out exactly how I want it to be, so I open up Game Maker. As soon as it opens, I lose all motivation, down to the very last little sliver that is hiding waaaaaaaay down there. "There" being somewhere that's pretty far.

So what have I really been doing? Procrastinating.

Nothing to write about

2010-10-26T12:42:00.000-04:00

The title says it all. I really haven't much to write about, but since it's been three months since I last blogged I figured I'd try to come up with some stuff.

My game (TBHTWTEM) recently passed 300 plays on YoYo Games. I'm not too sure but I think it might be my most played game since I started using Game Maker, but it's definitely my most played game since under the alias of RC/RedChu.

What does this mean for you? Absolutely nothing. I'm not particularly proud of TBHTWTEM anymore. I rushed it when I could've taken my time to make it better, and I messed up with the control layout (which is an easy fix but I no longer support the game). Despite it having over 300 plays, the highscore board has 283 entries at this moment in time, plus it's hosted on a couple of different sites so however many people played it from those... I'm assuming not everyone submitted a score for whatever the reason they may have chose not to do so.

You may or may not be wondering if I'm working on any other games. Whether you are wondering or not doesn't matter because I'm going to give you the answer anyway.

After TBHTWTEM, I started work on another project (as you may have read in a previous blog entry of mine). That project basically collapsed and I've lost all interest in it. Since then I've started work on various other projects, none of which got past the planning stage, or if they did they didn't get very far at all. I still have a number of ideas I'd like to make into games, but I lack the motivation to do so. I try to find spriters who will sprite for my ideas but when I do, they're always too busy to do anything (why they agree to sprite if they're that busy is beyond me).

Don't get me wrong, I understand if someone is too busy with their lives to sprite for someone they don't actually know on the internet only to get nothing in return, but it'd be nice if you let them know that you are instead of agreeing to do so, you know? The same goes for everything else though, not just spriters. Teams usually will get little to nothing done on a project due to the lack of time/motivation with team members. You could be waiting for days or weeks for a team member to do what they're supposed to do in the project (if you're sending the source back and forth with each other, it can get frustrating when they don't send it back to you so you can work off what they've done (if anything)).

This is why I want to make games by myself, but this is why I don't make games. I see so many games that are released that are big hits and usually have beautiful graphics, something which I cannot achieve. It takes away any motivation I had.

I always wonder how something so simple could be received so well, and then I want to do the same thing but can't. It's frustrating that I have ideas that I will never see the light of day, or if I do I execute them poorly, lose motivation and stop work on another project. If I actually set my mind to it and not worry about the reception of the game and the competition of other games, I might actually finish something that I think is enjoyable. If I didn't worry about what some people will think about the game and make it how I want it to be, I would most definitely finish games.

Writing this is actually motivating me to make a game how I want it to be, and how I think it should. I'm sure that motivation will fade in a couple of minutes though (I think it already is).

Ah, well. I strayed from the point. I'm currently wanting to work on a couple of projects but am worrying too much about how they will be received among the community.

Then there's my super secret website that I need to finish. I haven't touched it for a few weeks (again, another motivational problem). I also don't particularly care for designing layouts for a website, and I do it without using photoshop or something to whip one out before making it happen, so it takes longer to make everything visually appealing to me. Coding the website isn't hard at all and it's my favorite part.

However, one thing that's taking so long is because I want to redesign the website again, but I know if I do that it will never get finished. Which it's really never going to get finished if I don't work on it, which is what I'm doing (or not doing, I guess. I don't know).

I guess this is the end of the blog now since I don't feel like writing about anything else. I'd say I'll try to update this more often but I know I probably won't.

$5 from Swag Bucks

2010-07-23T14:07:00.003-04:00

In my previous blog entry, I mentioned that I earned enough swagbucks to redeem a $5 PayPal card. At first, I was expecting to receive a card in the mail or something, but then I was just expecting an email with information on how to obtain the $5 in my PayPal account.

It said that it would take 2 to 3 weeks to get the $5, but in reality it only took 9 days. The $5 was automatically placed into my PayPal account and I didn't have to worry about anything else... except now I don't know what to do with the $5 as there really isn't much you can do with that little money.

Usually I don't trust websites that claim to give you something for nothing, though with Swag Bucks, you're wasting your time filling out surveys, answering a daily question or searching the web. There are more ways to earn SB though, such as fulfilling special offers.

Usually though, you'll make most of your SB (swagbucks) by using there search (which is powered by Google). Surveys are hard to get approved for, at least for me, but they seem to have a decent payout of around 100SB or more, however, the higher the payout, the less chance there is of you qualifying for the survey.

Each day, you'll receive 1SB for checking the surveys (you don't have to do any to get the measly 1SB). Participating the in the daily poll will also get you 1SB, and so will using the toolbar.

Occasionally, you can find a Swag Code that you can enter for a few SB. I've never had gotten a code that gives you 20 or more SB, though, at least not that I can recall. Finding the codes are difficult though unless you know where to look. One good place to see if there are any codes available is We Love Swag Bucks, but by the time I remember to check that site, all of the codes are expired.

Additionally, if you can get your friends to join (or just random people) and earn SB through searching, you can make SB off of them. You get 100% of the SB they receive from using the search until they make over 1000SB. You do this through a referral link, and if your goal is to make a lot of SB, referring a bunch of friends should be one of your top priorities.

Receiving the $5 was reassurance for me that Swag Bucks is not a scam. They require no money to receive your redemptions, earn swagbucks or for anything, really. Unless you're purchasing something through their shop, then I'm sure that there would be a fee.

I fail at updating this

2010-07-17T20:26:00.001-04:00

How is a blog supposed to get regular visitors if it never gets updated more than once every two or so months? However, I doubt that if I regularly updated this that it would bring in more people, as not too many people probably care about what I'm up to. Nevertheless, I should still update this more often.

Since my last blog, I've started 2 new game projects, both of which have never gotten to see the light of day.

One of the projects I started on right after the release of The Black Hole That Wants To Eat Me was a game in which you controlled a rocket, or something... I can't vividly recall what it was. Farthest I got with that project was one sprite, which took over 2 hours to make and I still never finished it.

I also attempted to make a game development team called "LlamaWare". I did end up getting two people on the team, one for graphics design and the other as a writer and possibly a back-up composer. Despite having ran a search on Google for "LlamaWare" weeks before this, someone brought it to my attention that the name is already in use. Now, before we even resume work on this project, I want a name.

If any of you have a good name that is not already used by anyone else and are willing to share, please do. Coming up with names is a pain in the monkey sometimes.

In other news, I've started work on a new website. This is indeed the website that was mentioned in issue 1 of Andrew McCluskey's Rekame Mag. It's still too early to go into details about it, but it will basically be an ever growing magazine in website form, with no set dates for new content releases. It will not focus entirely on Game Maker, but rather the entire indie gaming community.

The website will feature interesting articles, indie game reviews and (possibly) previews, news concerning the indie gaming community and lots more. The possibilities are endless with a website rather than a PDF publication, we could have video reviews, tutorials and other fun and interesting items.

A date for when the website will be finished cannot be set since I'm too lazy and will most likely slack off during the development process a lot. It will, however, be finished before the end of this year, and hopefully before September. I have a lot of things that are going to be placed onto the site, and I'd like them to be fresh and not outdated, you see... I'm hoping to get it done sometime in August, if not sooner.

I finally got a PayPal account. I know they're free and all, but I always thought that you had to have a bank account before you could get one. Not that that matters anymore, since the day after I got the PayPal account I got a bank account. Now I can finally purchase my own stuff online (such as domain names and things I'd rather not mention on here). $400 in savings and $100 in checking to start with.

I finally earned enough swagbucks to get a $5 PayPal card. I have to wait 2 to 3 weeks, however. For those of you who are unaware of what swagbucks is or want more information about it, I'll tell you here.

Swagbucks is a website in which you collect points (called SwagBucks or SB) by using their search engine, which - by the way - is powered by Google. You cannot always obtain points by using the search, though, so don't use it constantly trying to get more points as it does limit how many you can get in a certain amount of time. Other methods to get points include taking surveys or participating in special offers.

It takes a while to get enough points for anything of value (such as the $5 PayPal card), but it's still fun sometimes and isn't really inconvenient to use. Another way to get points is to refer people you know, for every point they get through searching, you get the same amount up until they hit a certain overall amount of points earned.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today!

After all these years...

2010-05-09T20:40:00.000-04:00

I've finally finished a game. Yesterday I released The Black Hole That Wants To Eat Me, an arcade type game where you try to survive as long as you can while a black hole is pulling you back towards it. I explained the details in my previous blog.

I uploaded it to YoYo Games on the early morning (around 1am) of May 8th, only to uploading an update in an attempt to make it instant play compatible. This did not work unfortunately, and also caused the highscores to not submit. After I discovered this, I updated the game again around noon on the 8th with some minor changes as well.

I expected the game to be considered crap among those who played it, but a few of the early players actually found it fun, but somewhat difficult.

It only has around 30 plays on YoYo Games at the moment. The comments so far are positive. As far as I know, it only has 4 plays on GameJolt. It's on 64digits as well, but the downloads counter on there is broken so I can't tell how many downloads it has.

The little feedback I have received from TIGS and the GMC so far is positive.

So basically this game that took me less than a week to make has exceeded my expectations so far, as far as feedback goes. I really don't expect too many plays though, but it'd be nice to have more people play my game so I could get more feedback on it. Ah well, doesn't matter. At least I finished something.

I might as well say that I did make a game on Christmas for a small one and a half hour competition, but it sucked and I hope it never gets played. The last games I actually finished making (other than the previously mentioned crappy one) were during my early days of Game Maker.

Anyway, yeah. I made a game.

A fresh start

2010-05-07T01:02:00.004-04:00

I started this blog back in November or October of 2009. I wrote three blogs and then stopped. I recently decided to revive this up and I deleted those previous blogs, hence the title "A fresh start".

Where to even begin...

A few days ago I started development on a game idea that I've had for a while now. At first you don't succeed, try again. And at first, I didn't succeed. Everything seemed so exceptionally difficult and I couldn't get it working. Granted, it was around midnight and I may have been sleepy and wasn't thinking properly. It was either the next day or the day after the next that I started working on it again and got the engine working right off the bat.

The game is pretty much finished and all that it needs now is a few finishing touches and an online highscores system. Whenever those are done, it'll be ready for release.

Personally, I've been hesitant to release it publicly because I have this thing where I don't want to release a crappy game, and no matter what the game is I always think it's crappy. I'm going to ignore the fact that it will probably suck and release it anyway, because after all, I am claiming to be a game developer, am I not?

It's a simple arcade game where you repeatedly bash the Z key to build up strength whilst running away from a black hole in the middle of space. You can't get away, and the point of the game is to survive as long as you can. The game gets progressively difficult as the strength of the black hole grows and your strength diminishes quicker. Rather than to leave the player alone in these sometimes very difficult situations, I added power-ups that, when collected, will increase your strength, decrease the black hole's gravity or decrease the time it takes for your strength to fall.

In addition to power-ups, we have obstacles that you must jump over. That doesn't sound too difficult, but when you're in the air you cannot build up strength, thus slowing you down and possibly lining yourself up to die quicker than you would have if you had hit the obstacle. Hitting an obstacle will either increase the gravity of the black hole or make your strength diminish quicker, and it will also make you lose any strength you had built up before you hit it, making you get quickly pulled back towards the black hole.

The game is titled "The Black Hole that Wants to Eat Me", and I'm not going to lie; it is very difficult at times, sometimes to the point where I want to rip out my Z key in frustration. I suspect that if people actually play it and the highscore board gets a little filled out that it could be a bit addicting... for me at least. Trying to get the highscore in my own game.

Well, I've been up since way early (for me) this morning and it's pretty late, so I will end this blog with a screenshot from TBHTWTEM.

P.S. I'll write more like I intended to for this blog eventually. No guarantees though.