Blogs
The Red R
Posted on 30 December 2016
Click the links below to watch episodes of the Red R gameplay! All episodes have been posted!
Videos
Episode 1: Earth
Episode 2: Pyroteria
Episode 3: Hydroteria
Episode 4: Nateria
Episode 5: Zedithia
Episode 6: Deserteria
Episode 7: The Zypher ZonesAbout the Series
Messiah Quest is the first official game from Xatro Games, but in my origin, I discussed ideas from the past long before I could even program. The Red R is the first complete “game” I made back in 2007, and it is a major piece of the history of Xatro Games. I have recently decided I should share it with the world, and I have recently figured out how I can share it.
The problem with the Red R Video Game is the fact that it is a PowerPoint presentation, and it is for the most part unplayable. The player can use the arrow keys to navigate the slides of the slide show and destroy the entire flow of the game. Also, the graphics and music are mediocre at best, but I was just a kid and desperate to make video games. Either way, I don’t really want to release the game due to its low quality. However it is still a big part of my history, so I recently learned how I can record gameplay (since I may be one of the few people who can actually play it)!
In the next few weeks, I will be adding episodes at the top of this post, and each video will show gameplay of a certain level. Return to this page every Friday to see the new episodes! My goal is to let the world experience my first creation and enjoy it without suffering through playing it.
About the Development
If you know PowerPoint well enough, you may recognize some of the buttons and shapes used in the game. The game simply plays animations on the slides to move the images around. Some of the images act as buttons, so clicking the bad guys will take you to a slide where you progress through the level. If you miss the bad guy, the animation plays all the way through where the hero dies and it jumps to a “game over” slide. The biggest problem with a PowerPoint video game is that the slides do not reset automatically, so when you do get a game over, it is easiest to just restart the presentation (or press the down arrow to go to the next slide as if you never died). Near the end of my PowerPoint phase, I started making a game which was somewhat capable of resetting the animations of each slide, but it was at that point I realized I should move on. It was far too much work to make something that would ultimately be a mediocre game.
As for the graphics, I used MS Paint to draw all the images. PowerPoint had a tool that could make the background of an image transparent, so I used mostly MS Paint. Shortly after beginning development, I found an app that could build sprites. I then transformed my static images into GIFs to make it more like a video game. The tool in PowerPoint that made background colors transparent did not work with GIFs, so that is why many of the images have backgrounds. If you watch the first episode, you will see how I started making the game with static images, and then I suddenly transitioned from static images to GIFs (at first I tried to hide the backgrounds of the animated images, but I quickly gave up on that idea and stopped caring).
The music was recorded with the basic sound recorder app found on old Windows computers. I had a keyboard on which I could record songs, and then I would play them back while holding a microphone up to the speakers. I am not the most talented musician (and I wasn't back then), so the music was as perfect as I could play it. You will hear what I am talking about when you watch the series.
Given the circumstances of my development environment, I am still proud of what I made all those years ago. It was a big personal success which motivated me to continue chasing my dreams. After the Red R I moved on to many other projects, such as a PowerPoint animated series called Pixel Wars, another PowerPoint game loosely related to the show called Pixel Quest, and I even started thinking about a sequel to the Red R. The Red R Video Game was the very first large project I had ever finished. Before there were a few incarnations of the Red R that were far worse than the last, and I never finished them. It’s difficult to stay motivated when you can’t see the end of a project, but the completion of the Red R proved I was capable of building an entire game. All of Xatro Games started from the concept of Red R, and that is why I feel it is still an important piece of my history regardless of its quality.
Unimplemented Features
Now that the entire series is out, I would like to point out some of the strange features in the game that were not demonstrated in the videos. First, let me describe how the game was going to be released. The PowerPoint I recovered was a single slide show which contained the entire game (and when recording each part, I just skipped to the slides for each level). I wanted to allow the player continue the game where they left off without skipping slides and breaking the game, so I created a password system. On the first slide of each level, there is a password on the bottom right corner. The player could then use that password to skip to that level. In order to do this, I created several copies of the original slide show and removed the first few slides so the show would start at a later level. Each trimmed slide show was put into a zipped folder and password protected. The player could view the PowerPoint if they knew the password for that level. So if I did release this game, it would contain the full PowerPoint along with six zipped folders each containing a shorter version of the game.
If you watched the entire series, you may have noticed some weird locations in the first four levels. Near the end, the Blue X mentions secret passages in the levels that allow the player to skip the level, but they need all the Zypher Stones to reach them. The very last slide talks about a second playthrough in which the player starts with all the Zypher Stones. The second playthrough was never made, so it is just a weird artifact left over in the game.
In the level 6~?, the Blue X tells you about the secret passages.
On Earth, there is a platform with a passage leading to Pyroteria, but you need the White Zypher Stone to fly up there.
On Pyroteria, there is a cracked rock below you as you fly. Inside the rock is a passage to Hydroteria, but you need the Red Zypher Stone to break it open.
On Hydroteria, there is a block of ice containing a blue gem. The gem can only be used when you have the Blue Zypher Stone, and it turns you into the Super Red R, rendering you invincible. There is also a bridge of ice that can be broken. Below it is a pit of toxic liquid. Through the pit is a passage to Nateria, but the poison will kill you if you aren’t the Super Red R.
On Nateria, there is a passage to Zedithia that is completely blocked off. With the Green Zypher Stone, you can teleport through the walls and access the secret passage.
All of these secrets are in the first areas of each level, so the player doesn’t have to go far to complete the level. I can’t remember if Zedithia (Level 5) had a secret, but it most likely didn’t because it was the end goal.
Other Secrets
On the topic of secrets, there are a few things I did implement. Here is another video demonstrating most of them, including a secret menu! (There are a few pauses in the video because it didn’t capture the menu whenever I right clicked. During those pauses, I am scrolling through all the slides to jump to the level I want.) Enjoy!