The McKenna Chronicles
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: N/A (Last update in August 1995)
Levels: 7
Author: A-J Games
Related games: none
Before I seriously ramped up production on The McKenna Chronicles, I settled on a rough story progression then blocked the progression out into levels. The initial scenario and structure were inspired by the zany historical fantasy of WolfTeam games like El Viento and Earnest Evans, crossed with a passing awareness of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
The WolfTeam games are full of fast and quirky action, huge setpieces, and long scenes of interstitial exposition. Accordingly I gave the character a run function, precise Castlevania-style jumps, and a gimmicky, experimental means of attack; and I took advantage of Game-Maker’s new multimedia features to connect the dots between levels with elaborate cutscenes.
I think that, in the vein of Earnest Evans and Castlevania, I wanted to give the character a whip — which in principle would be a good follow-up challenge to the sword mechanic in Ninja Tuck. When I hit a wall, my brain slid laterally to Dark Castle, the crackly Castlevania-styled game for the classic Mac. In that game, the character slings rocks at airborne and ground-based rodents. Although I couldn’t replicate the precise mouse-driven aiming, I could add some realism by making the character lob his stones in a wide arc. Combined with the precisely measured jumps, I felt a mechanic like this would add some strategy and open up neat possibilities for level design.
The simplicity of Cow Hunt must have connected a few key synapses, as my whole approach to design had changed almost like magic. Previously my characters’ movement had always been vaguely defined, and their abilities slightly considered. If a character was to jump, his animation took him somewhere diagonally into the air. If he was to shoot, then at best the projectile might be matched to the animation. Since my command of the design was so hazy, I put only the most nominal thought into how a character would interact with its environment. So long as a task was possible, I was satisfied. “The player will figure it out,” I thought. Never mind that figuring it out often meant glitching the engine and relying on blind luck.
With Chronicles, that approach is no longer an option. The character jumps a precise distance up and over. If the character is to land on a platform, one needs to measure the distance between footholds. Too few tiles, and the character will sail over the target; too many, and he will fall short. Likewise the character’s default weapon has a specific arc to it with certain areas of effectiveness, and the character’s running momentum will only carry him so far if he should stop and slide.
So on a basic level the levels are mapped out according to the character’s abilities, in such a way as to regularly introduce new challenges and explore new uses of those abilities. On a broader level, the levels are also scattered with secret passages full of treasure — treasure that may be used to buy character upgrades, which generally allow the player to blaze through the game with less and less caution. The promise of these upgrades encourages exploration off of the most direct and obvious path through a level, and also gives reason to replay an area.
Even more broadly, Chronicles is one of the few games since A-J’s Quest that I extensively planned, as compared to charging ahead in a blind rush to the end. There was still a large element of improvisation; I don’t think the game’s full arc came into focus until I finished a draft of the first level. Even so, from very early on I had the entire game laid out as a series of labeled blanks. All I needed to do was procedurally fill them in, and the game would be finished. You can probably guess the punchline here.
Out of six planned levels, I worked on four and completed just two. It started off well enough. As with Cow Hunt, the active design began with a Deluxe Paint derived character and meticulously bitmapped backgrounds. In this case the monster and item sprites are also largely drawn in Block Designer. After the first level, the game took its own odd path through space ships, alien planets, and Monument Valley.
The second level, largely informed by Commander Keen, introduces themes of identity and deception. As in Sega’s Alien Storm, monsters begin to disguise themselves as items, background elements, and even as the player character. From here I built on the sprite morphing from Ninja Tuck II, supplementing the raw output of Metamorf with careful cleanup and bitmapped animation.
For later levels I imported textures from NASA photographs, and filled entire tile sets with large self-contained structures drawn in Deluxe Paint. I also drew and animated several full-screen cutscenes, frame-by-frame, and compiled them with some awkward command line tools into the preferred .FLI format.
And then… it was over. I think I told myself it was due to annoyance with lingering issues like the music situation. I wanted R.E.M. styled music, to reflect the fellow in the starring role. Though I had written music for Ninja Tuck II, the method was a headache to implement and the results were a headache to hear. I think maybe I was feeling fussy about control mapping and collision issues.
The real problem may have been in the planning. I may have overwhelmed myself, when I laid the whole game before me as a task that I obliged myself to fulfill. Or maybe, as with Rōdïp, I pulled a Hitchcock. Having planned the whole game in principle, the act of realizing it bored me. I knew where things were going, and my head just had to keep moving forward. Chugga chugga chug!
Whatever. It is clear that my patience with the game engine was wearing thin.
Contents
Instructions
- 4,6 -- walk L,R
- 7,8,9 -- jump L,U,R
- 2 -- duck
- 1,3 -- run L,R
- G,H -- attack L,R
- <SPACE> -- super deodorant
- <ENTER> -- pick up items
- Guitars are 1-ups
- deodorants are HP
- Tapes are just points
- coins are money
- Avoid arrows and chia pets.
I would advise picking up some R.E.M. CDs, turning the CMFs off, and playing those. For some reason, R.E.M. melds perfectly with Ryan.
Any R.E.M. will work, but the early stuff (the I.R.S. years) fits marginally better.
Credits
Design, graphics, sound: Aderack
Testing: M.O.S.H.
Game engine: Recreational Software Designs
Ryan McKenna based on: Ryan McKenna
Availability
This game was not distributed in any form.
Archive History
The McKenna Chronicles was retained as part of the archive from the game's inception.
Links
