Finally!

Mothership is live on the play store! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DefiantProdigy.Mothership

RayCray is Back!

I would like to start off by announcing that I, Ray Skinner, am reviving this blog! I noticed that I still get views and I have some of my greatest moments here, at raycraystudio.blogspot.com.  I've decided to revive this blog because I have taken RayCray on as my personal developer alias.  Anything you see with RayCray will be developed with my personal interests from here on out.

What is the purpose of this blog? DefiantProdigy.blogspot.com already exists. Even though I am a co-owner of Defiant Prodigy Games, I feel it is useful for me to maintain a personal developer blog as well. This, will be my story as a game designer.

How did I come to this conclusion? RayCray? Personal blog?

I have been through some epic times in the past three years. My journey into game design was not at all what I expected.  Three years ago I imagined myself working in an office, in a AAA studio, making a decent salary...that's just not my journey!

I work from home, in an apartment on the edge of the city and the country.  I make decent money, although I could stand to make a little more so I could hire my friends.  I have a wonderful fiance, who encourages me to follow my dreams, no matter what other people might say.  My daily routine consists of checking emails(often times I am working with multiple clients), cooking food(I like to save money), and completing whatever programming, design, or art task that needs to be done that day.

I set a schedule, you see I am currently in school for software engineering, developing three titles concurrently, working on many of my own personal projects, and I'm getting married this year!  Many people might think this is crazy, but for me it's how I keep myself from going crazy. I do well managing multiple tasks. It makes life exciting, and I'm always looking forward to work because I'm always doing something different!

So most of you are probably wondering at this point, "so he hasn't mentioned RayCray yet.." . Well RayCray is a title I came up with for my team name at my first Global Game Jam, my fiance(girlfriend at the time) used to use the word cray, and i just thought it was the coolest thing ever so I decided to use it in our team name. Game jams are a huge part of my life, not only have they been great learning experiences, they have inspired ideas and workflows that would have never existed had I not attended a game jam.

There will be more to come, I am making it my goal to make entries into this blog at least once a week. I hope this blog will inspire other designers who just want to make it happen, just do it! Learn what you need to, don't be afraid of research.

RayCray out.

Mothership! Kickstarter

You play as the last surviving security bot on your mothership. Your mission... is to survive!

 Mercer ISland, Washington, United States  Gaming

Two independent game developers, one exhilarating game idea...and we need yourhelp bringing it to ALL platforms!!! That's right, regardless of your preferred gaming device, we don't want you to miss out on the exciting chance to get your name on the Mothership! online leaderboards.

Objective:

Mothership! is quite simple. It is a competitive side-scroller game designed to be played for short amounts of time, from 15 minutes up to an hour. The objective is to be the first on the online leaderboards!

Premise:

You play as the last surviving security bot on your mothership. Your mission... is to survive! Stay alive as long as possible, repel waves of alien attackers, and protect the mothership. Enemies attack in random formations so each play-through is a completely different experience from the previous. Try to get the highest score!

Game mechanics:

This game is different from other side-scrollers. We added a new mechanic called lane switching. Lane switching involves strategically "barrel rolling" between lanes in 3d space to evade or attack enemies, adding more depth and challenge to the game. Need weapons to help fight off enemy waves? Your in luck! Weapon crates drop randomly from destroyed enemies, creating gameplay that requires a combination of skill and luck.

Progress:

At this time Mothership! has one environment level, one player character, six different types of enemies, six different weapon upgrades, and health crates. We are currently making more levels, player characters, enemies, weapons, and crates.Mothership! already has great gameplay and beautiful artwork, but it's still not finished! We want to make the game even more interesting, so we need your help to achieve these goals! Check out the concept art of what we plan for the future ofMothership! and donate to our campaign!

Thanks for your support!

Denis Osmanbegovic (Artist)

and

Raymond Skinner (Programmer)

Please help us reach our goals!

Donate on Kickstarter

Donate on IndieGoGo

RayCray Studio has been renamed!

We have changed the name of RayCray Studio to Defiant Prodigy Games. The blog has moved to defiantprodigy.blogspot.com

See you there!

RayCray Portfolio

Unity Web Player Required

Standalone PC or Mac versions available upon request!

Youtube video coming soon!

Will be updating often, check back for more features..

Also, I am excited to announce that A Bad Trip, Ray Cray Studio's first published game, is going to be released free-to-play this summer!

A Bad Trip

Made at the April 2014 STL Game Jam!

Global Game Jam 2014 : St. Louis, MO

From January 24th at 6:00pm to January 26th at 4:00pm, game designers and hobbyists from all around the world came together and made over 4,000 games in under 48 hours! That's A LOT of games!!! I attended in the Global Game Jam at the University of Missouri St. Louis, where around 200 people participated in the global event. Just in St. Louis alone, 28 games were created. Plus, participants were provided t-shirts, snacks, drinks, and even dinner.

I arrived at the UMSL(University of Missouri St. Louis) campus around 3:45pm, and waited in line for almost 20 minutes just to sign in. Each jammer received colored stickers that corrosponded with their role. The stickers I chose were black and blue. Black for design, blue for programming and writing. Sheets were handed out with instructions and "diversifiers". Diversifiers are voluntary constraints to put on the design. Some diversifiers included: Back to the 1885, Can you Come and Play?, Honor Aaron Swartz, Rebels Learn it Better, and Hackontroller. After the 6pm keynote, when the theme "Things are not as they are, they are as you are" was announced, brainstorming groups were created.  

After the brainstorming, groups began to form. I decided, as a personal challenge, to do a project of my own. I chose to make an FPS(First Person Shooter) for the PC and Mac, that can be played in the web browser. The game is called Dark Saga. I learned a lot during the development process, and made quite a few mistakes. I honestly think I spent more time breaking and fixing the game than I did actually designing it! One of the biggest problems I had was with the network programming. It took me about 4 hours to get all the networking issues worked out, so much time wasted!

One of the most valuable lessons I learned during the jam was that i should make full backups of my project before making any big changes, because sometimes unity crashes...and when it does it can really screw up the code. Despite all my struggles, I did complete a working online multiplayer demo of the game. Which can be found at The Global Game Jam website. Enjoy!