Backyard Ninja Design's Secret Scrolls

Red Ice, "Death Pants"

2011-11-05T16:08:00.001-04:00

So what's up with me, you may be wondering. Well, I've pretty much been doing artwork for a couple projects, Red Ice and "Death Pants"(name WILL change).

Red Ice is an action/arcade style hockey game that the gentile fellas at STRd6 are cooking up. They've got me arting it up all over the place! I'm putting up most of the work on my Imgur account, take a look see if you like. Also, you can play the prototype of Red Ice with an HTML5 compatible browser here. You'll need a gamepad btw.

"Death Pants" is a running game that me and several other fellows are putting together, I'm on art duty here as well. Nothing to show officially yet, but expect much more info in the future.

Working on my own projects has pretty much slowed to a crawl at the moment, the plate is full. Apologies to those who look forward to them being updated regularly.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks for stopping by.

Convert long term.

2011-08-22T17:22:00.004-04:00

Ok, first off, new build of Convert.

Second, new video.

Ok, what I’m going to talk about here is future gameplay plans for this thing. Basically how it’s slated now is there are 7 major areas in the game, stage 1-1 through 1-5 are in one of these. The first 4 of these areas are to primarily warm the player up to the different units and their uses, as well as challenge them to overcome natural obstacles. After that 4th area, the Gromm show up, the game shifts into a territorial defense/offense deal, where instead of simply fighting nature, the player is pitted against a force like theirs that can change and adapt. Here’s a breakdown.

-Once Gromm are encountered, Conquest and Defense missions become active. The player also gains access to NPC commanders who have different behaviors and preferences.

-When the player captures their first Factory territory, Resource missions become available. Manufacturing can then be used to enhance structure and unit abilities globally and build more structures.

-Each “round”, the Gromm attack any stage the player controls. The player can choose to defend it themselves, or assign an NPC commander to the task. Assigning an NPC frees them up to take a different mission this “round”.

This all goes on until the player gets far enough into enemy territory to trigger a certain event, I’ll cover that late stuff, well, later. Instead, here’s a short description for the mission types mentioned above.

Conquest - Just like a regular mission, only you’re taking territory from Gromm, who start out at an advantage.

Defense(Incursion) - The Gromm attack one of your territories away from the front line. You are at an advantage.

Defense(Invasion) - These occur on front line territories, basically you have to survive massive waves of Gromm units for a certain period of time.

Resource – More player vs nature mostly, but with a time limit and no HQ. Collect as many resources as you can!

Convert Feedback

2011-07-11T14:50:00.003-04:00

This here blog page thing is reserved for feedback on Convert!

Just leave a comment and I'll get to it shortly, unless I'm dead, then I'll get to it never.

Convert Stage 4

2011-07-08T20:03:00.002-04:00

I've added another stage to Convert. Some other additions...
-The title screen now has a stage select.
-Pressing "r" mid-level will restart the stage.
-Pressing escape will return to the title screen.
-New enemy and spawner, Gants and Gant Mound.
-Sentry Mode, click on a unit to turn on/off their sentry mode, costs 10 energy each time.
-Pilgrimm sentry will reverse the move direction of friendly units.
-Strigrimm sentry will temporarily increase the move speed of passing friendly units.
-Sturgrimm sentry will stand guard and slowly regenerate hit points.

Download the game file here, PC only.

I REALLY need to get a separate page for this.

More on Gants and Gant Mounds
So the Gant Mound is a destroyable spawner that is aligned with neutral territory, so if the ground under it is converted to anything else, it gets destroyed.
The Gants are a fast spawning weak unit that move erratically, and converts land by slowly draining energy from it.

More on Sentry Mode
Pilgrimms can be used to round up your units for a massive push, or keep them from wondering into danger.
Strigrimm can be Sentried at intervals to make other units reach the front line quickly. How this works code wise is, the Strigrim's maximum speed per step gets applied to the passing Grimms, and this effect lasts for 3 seconds.
Sturgrimm regenerate their HP based on adding their speed to HP every second.

What's Next?
At the moment, I have 3 more unit/spawner types planned, and another special spawner.

Chillin' with Shark : The Great White Destroyer Summer Sale Week 1

2011-07-03T21:42:00.005-04:00

The madness continues! Here's a quick recap of the rules...

This week's discount is %51 off!

Here's the video proof, plus cat.

Take a swim, if you dare!

Chillin' with Shark : The Great White Destroyer Summer Sale

2011-06-29T23:20:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year again, when the heat forces people to flee towards bodies of water. This makes my buddy Shark pretty happy, easy meals are good feels. When Shark is happy, prices drop.

It's a summer sale event, Chillin' with Shark!

That's right, for the whole month of July, The Great White Destroyer is on sale, and the price depends on the dice. Let me explain with the power of video.

Let me reiterate the rules here, in case your brain melted from the awesome.
-Every Monday during July, I'll roll three 10 sided dice, the sum of these rolls + %30 is the total discount for that week.
-Anyone who has dice can make their own roll on video, if it's higher than mine, it becomes the new discount for that week. The video must contain no cuts in action, I have to see the dice roll and land.

So it looks like the first days of July have a %50 discount, not a bad start. Who knows how low it will go come Monday? Check back and see.

Weekend update, mostly Convert.

2011-06-26T21:25:00.003-04:00

Convert prototype is what I'm calling it at the moment. That little experiment I started last week. I liked what was going on with it so I dumped the Backyard Ninja avatar and went with a proper control scheme.

Presentation wise, this is bare bones, all placeholder art, just the gameplay itself. Genre wise I think it falls somewhere between tower defense and an rts. I'm putting it up for free for people to try out. There's only 3 stages at the moment, I'll be adding more every week. When I get all the gameplay elements represented I'll consider turning it into a full game, art, music, all that jazz. Until I get a proper link on my webpage, use the one below.

Convert prototype file

Feel free to leave feedback here, or drop me an email, backyardninja@dumbmanex.com .

The Great White Destroyer News, no work to show this time around. I am devising a sale for next month however, more info on that later this week.

No video, only this blog post.

2011-06-19T23:15:00.008-04:00

Rats and crap turds! I've simply been too worn out these last few weekends for the video bullcraps. So here I am, posting some update stuff about a few things.

The Great White Destroyer ver 1.4, it keeps on rolling. Here's the rub since last time.

The Gun Cops are the first line of assault and only show up after Shark is caught breaking the law. They'll close in and begin firing slowly, and will reload when out of bullets. That's your chance to rush in and disarm them, or eat them, whatever.

Shotty Cops are a lot like Gun Cops in behavior, with a few differences. They're slower, and like to get a little closer before shooting. They fire spreads of bullets naturally, but unnaturally the bullets travel slower than normal.

I love the name Swat Cop! Trained in the art of Three Shot Burst, as to be deadly and quick. These guys not only shoot Shark with their cool auto-rifles, but sport some tear gas as well.

As you can see, to save some time I re-used some art from the other fish and added to them. It works out very well, they look great in action. Next up I'll be working on the law escalation system, sorta like the Grand Theft Auto thing. Instead of it resetting every time you evade the law like in GTA, it continues to increase unless you avoid breaking the law for a while, or take a day off, or wear a disguise, but more on those mechanics at a later date. Plus, lets all shoot Shark!

Hellhol news, there is none. The game is not forgotten, I've just been busy.

Free Stuff will get a few more bits sometime tomorrow. That crappy Fall/Winter tileset will get on there, as well as another character from the defunct Snowball's Chance 2.

Backyard Ninja Adventures I'm toying around with this freebie game here where I showcase different game mechanics in a 2D sidescrolling fashion. This thing here is a take on one of the first games I piddled around with, dealing with taking territory by directing flows of units who behaved in predictable patterns. Anyhow, I'll probably make a few stages based on it and put it out there, see what people think. More at a later date.

Thanks for stopping by.

Summer bummer.

2011-06-04T21:42:00.003-04:00

Summer can be a bummer! I'm talking lousy humidity and high temperatures. I'm talking sweat is yanked from you even while in an air conditioned environment. I'm talking, being miserable and wanting to slouch the day away. At least until you get used to it again.

What? Video? Yes, of course.

Thanks for stopping by.

Double The Shark + Elementimals

2011-05-29T12:16:00.007-04:00

This week's video...

I play other folks' stuff.

Thanks for stopping by.

Weekly update I guess.

2011-05-21T22:08:00.003-04:00

Well the world sure is taking it's sweet time ending. Video!

Drats, I found another targeting bugger with the Lad. It only rears it's head when fighting something larger than 1 48x48 square, origin point related. I whiteboard that sumbitch, easily fixed, sometime next week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Midweek artwork plus more.

2011-05-19T23:12:00.003-04:00

Hoyooooo! Yeah, so I've got some pieces of art for The Great White Destroyer up on the Facebook.

Hellhol!

I've got the little girl unit(Lass) functional. She can give enemy units(male only) cooties, which puts a damper on sp(super points!) recharge and gives them one additional random malady. It only lasts for a turn or two. She can also scarf down chocolate to refill 1/2 of her max hp.

I also toyed around with one high level unit versus low levels, fun stuff! A level 50 Gorky vs level 1 monsters. I went about surrounding it and keeping it distracted until I could drop something bigger on top. If you can damage it and have the unit survive, you get your own guys to level up. I think a level one just hitting him gave it 5 levels of advancement. Status effects help too, good old blind might keep him inactive for a round or two.

Random name generation. I've got it working for Gobbys and Trollgees. It selects a name from list A and adds another part from list B. Here's a few examples for each monster...
Gobby - Stikkreddy, Antfud, Greenyget, Gorgik, Gopgem, Rumppussgox
Trollgee - Trokbush, Mendtras, Wulktrix, Mabranch, Tusktrig, Mendhungr

I think I'll work on the Gorky names tonight, it's silly fun.

Also, a friend of mine(Ian) is venturing out into indie game territory and has begun to blog about it. He's much better at it than I, here's a link to it.
Game.Dev.Life

Thanks for stopping by.

Irrelevancy abounds!

2011-05-14T20:04:00.003-04:00

Here's the video, in all it's glory.

I forgot to mention that some other work did get done for Hellhol. I made some more tweaks to the target finding code, and had some random name generation working for the Gobbys and Trollgees.

Thanks for stopping by.

Adding game mechanics, and more.

2011-05-07T18:47:00.002-04:00

A video for video's sake. That made no sense.

Thanks for dropping in.

Hellhol visuals, more units, art for sale.

2011-04-29T16:08:00.004-04:00

Behold the video and all will be revealed!

Thanks for stopping by.

Gobbys bleeding and dying all over the place!

2011-04-16T21:47:00.005-04:00

It's true, and they explode whilst leaving a rather large block of bones behind. Check it out plus mooooore!

A reminder to any indie gamers out there, Pixel Prospector's Big Video Project is ending this month, so if you want to win some games by making videos of games, get on it!

Yoyo Games put out Gamemaker 8.1 yesterday. Some new stuff in there, mostly I'll benefit from the extra functionality on the room editor.

I forgot to post about it last week, but I'm throwing some of my better artwork from my unfinished projects up for cash. These will mostly be tilesets and character animations. I'll be adding new pieces every Monday(until I run out), unless other business calls. Check it out.

Thanks for stopping by.

When Gobbys Attack!

2011-04-09T15:01:00.003-04:00

It's Bullcrap time! All is explained in the video.

Magicka is a pretty rad game. I wasn't sure I'd like it from watching the gameplay, but being able to tackle any encounter with so many methods is very enjoyable. These methods being the dialing up of spells. It was a little clucky at first, but you start to roll with it. When enemy wizards start throwing beams around, and you start throwing beams, funny stuff happens! Usually one party explodes gloriously.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hellhol Bullcrap 4-2-2011

2011-04-02T23:27:00.004-04:00

Video!

I'll most likely stick some more pics up on the facebook photo album soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bullcrap of a different sort.

2011-03-26T12:40:00.004-04:00

Not the kind with videos, no. This week my pc was acting wonky, chugging when it shouldn't have, plus the internet connection had turned south. I'm talking 1 to 2 kb per second south. The problem turned out to be several things at once! Our wireless router was biting the dust, the internet lines out here are being upgraded, and my compy had a few trojans on it. So after much teeth gnashing, some phone calls, some virus scans, it's all back to normal now.

So the rest of the week I spent prototyping an rpg/puzzle, or puzzle/rpg, whatever. More details on that later.

Also, I picked up one of the Sega Genesis collections through steam, there were a few games from the Shining series in there that I never got to play. Focusing on Shining in the Darkness at the moment. I still find that type of thing enjoyable, my only real gripe is that the labyrinth can spit monsters at you every step sometimes. Ha, this old stuff doesn't hold your hand either! No map, no mercy, few details about your quest. Who knew I had to clobber a giant effing crab(who will stomp your ass flat) to progress the story!? I actually looked that up to make sure, now that I have a grasp of how the game is set up, I'll hoof it from here. I managed to memorize the layout of the first floor, but some of the others I take the "lets go left/right at every turn" approach. Good times.

Bullcrap 3-19-2011

2011-03-19T16:03:00.002-04:00

Have some video!

I'm still fighting this damn ear infection! It's been trying to come back for 2 weeks, now it can taste the wrath of a different antibiotic!

Thanks for stopping by.

Website Redesign + Shark Demo

2011-03-11T19:36:00.005-05:00

After being down for a week due to a damned ear infection, I began work on changing the look of the Backyard Ninja Design site. It's pretty much done and I'm pretty happy about how it looks. Thanks to Jason Campana, he simply suggested I go with a white background after looking at it in progress, and the end result started trickling in.

Now I want to talk a little about The Great White Destroyer demo.

As some of you may know, it constitutes half the game content. This originally sprang from my own experience with demos, my knee jerk "Only a few stages, come on!" reaction. I fear this was a mistake, as the player may be satisfied with the experience due to consuming so much of the content.

Half a meal versus a little taste. What would excite you more?

So I'm reworking the demo to make it shorter. The player will have access to 3 stages from destroyer mode, 3 from manatee. They can't post scores to the online table, and achievements are locked out. You can still get them but they won't show up unlocked. Most of me loathes this change, but I need to develop a business side for this to work right.

So next week I'll be testing this new demo build to make sure it's less bugs, then I'll be making some changes to The Great White Destroyer site. I can't wait until this is all wrapped so I can get back to developing Snowball!

Bullcrap 2-26-2011

2011-02-26T20:55:00.003-05:00

Video action!

Here in the next week I'll be working on updating my website! It's been the same for a long while. I'll also be making some changes to The Great White Destroyer Demo, I'll discuss that in more detail at a later date.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Great White Destroyer B-Day Sale/Giveaway Finale

2011-02-21T14:10:00.004-05:00

This is the final stretch of February, and your last chance to win free copies of The Great White Destroyer! This week I've asked 5 questions about various stages in the demo, send me the answers and you could win one of 10 available copies.

Act fast, this promotion ends February 28th. For a more detailed look at the rules, visit http://www.dumbmanex.com/TheGreatWhiteDestroyerHome.html

Questions? Comments? Contact Brent Anderson at backyardninja@dumbmanex.com .

Bullcrap 2-19-2011

2011-02-19T17:57:00.002-05:00

Video!

Thanks for stopping by.

2x Bullcrap 2-12-2011

2011-02-13T11:10:00.003-05:00

It's a double video this time, twice the bullcrap! Let's gooooooooooooooo!

So my next goal is to get the chaty chat chat working for the cut scenes. That would entail the artful display of text and locking down the controls on all in game objects. Shouldn't be a problem as Shark was full of them. I might use some of that code and refine it down now that I know more about it.

Also, round 2 of Pixel Prospector's Indie Games : The Big Video Project is under way. He's got a small list of games that need some video footage, who will step up and contribute? I don't know. Well, I will, so I guess I sorta know.

Thanks for stopping by folks!

Bullcrap 2-5-2011

2011-02-05T17:14:00.005-05:00

Video action!

Week 1 of the Shark birthday was a bust. I was expecting people to at least try for a free version, I hope it's not because it would require a minor effort on their part, haha. Oh well, week 2 coming up anyway!

Next week I may begin working on roughing out the first enemy or one of the solid obstacles, most likely both. Hopefully more that that.

Thanks for stopping by! Until next time.

Bullcrap 1-29-2011

2011-01-29T17:23:00.003-05:00

First off, video...

Let's see, next month will be The Great White Destroyer's first birthday! To celebrate, the game will be half off, plus I'll be having a quiz on the demo version, the prize being free copies to the winners, 10 a week.

Also got some more free games from the PixelProspector big video contest(round 2 is around the corner) so a big thanks to these guys for laying some good games on me!

PiEyeGames
GURUY Entertainment
BlitWise Productions
Wolfire Games

Ok, that's it for now.

What a crappy week.

2011-01-22T21:14:00.003-05:00

What started out as an awesome week quickly went south with the appearance of flu bug! I haven't been hit this hard by one for some time. So naturally not much work was to be done. Hey, here's how I spent Wednesday night...

As well as the vomiting, my mind raced about all kinds of random garbage and was driving me a bit crazy. Sleep was no where to be found! It was a pocket hell. I'm pretty sure that was the low point of my immune system and the push back is under way.

So next week I'll try to get some work done with my flippy energy levels, frequent naps and all.

Bullcrap 1-16-2011

2011-01-16T20:43:00.003-05:00

First off, video...

Next up, PixelProspector recently had a video project/contest which has concluded for now, I'd like to thank him and and everyone who donated the prizes. I've had a chance to play them and it's aces all around. So I shall linkify them!

Rake in Grass
Charlie's Games
Incitti.com
KloonieGames
TimeTrap
Elecorn

Lastly, my work objective for next week, I'm not sure. I'll have those land slopes done in an hour or less, I guess maybe work on stuff related to the player, get some kind of hud in order. Who knows.

Well thanks for stopping by, until next time.

A new year of Bullcrap! Yay!

2011-01-09T15:28:00.007-05:00

First off, video.

Now for those concepty pictures I mentioned in the video.

And that's that, until next time.

Achievement success, plus extras.

2010-12-18T17:26:00.003-05:00

That's right, they all work just fine and are do-able! I also added some ">>><<<" to the combo text, they tick down as combo time nears it's end.

When a combo's time would run out, it would flash up the total points earned, there is now an extra effect to help those stand out in the form of a frame.

My main man tester Jay suggested having the achievements visible on the pause screen, which is an excellent idea. I have it functioning, and it only shows what you can get in the stage you are on. Simply move the mouse down and to the right or left to scroll them around to take a look.

I most likely won't be posting anything until after new years, so everyone have a safe merry Christmas, and a happy holidays, and an excellent new years!

Achievements:They fuction for the most part.

2010-12-12T15:35:00.003-05:00

There's still some that need tested, and a few that need fixed so they actually work. I did a lot of work on combo timing, to make some of these easier and let the player try to build up extra points if they like. Jetskis don't blow up as fast either.

Examples of what hasn't worked out...
Drown Their Sorrows(3x drown combo) is being changed to just drowning one person, it's hard for me to even come close to drowning two let alone three!
Push Me, Pull You's(snagged by 2 hooks) code just didn't work period, so I missed something.

I had my doubts about Squid-Kebob(big squidy and little squidy hit with same spear), but I came within 2 pixels of pulling it off the other day. It's possible, you just need to find the right enemy placement and timing.

This last Friday I toyed with the idea to upsize You Got The Shaft for 1024x768. I would make the tiles 48x48 instead of 16x16, so all my numbers would just need multiplied by 3. I also did a few Monsta animations at the new size.

I wouldn't use near as many frames as the smaller ones due to memory. I'm also thinking of ditching the falling block thing and replacing it with combat related challenges. I dunno, what do you guys think of all this.

Just Bullcrap, 12-4-2010

2010-12-04T17:48:00.003-05:00

I forgot to show off the barriers in that last video segment, durp! Next time I guess.

Achievement art continued.

2010-11-27T15:09:00.006-05:00

MOAR!

I've got 24 more to go, 9 of those are just the same images with higher numbers in front so they don't really count. Maybe another day and a half of work. Then it's onto coding the stuff and testing, which I'm looking forward to.

!!!I AM FUELED BY TURKEY AND PUMPKIN PIE!!!

That's my way of saying Thanksgiving was awesome as usual, good family and good food. Now the toilet will feast on my holiday dumps from now 'til mid January!

Also, The Great White Destroyer is on sale at GamersGate now, until the first week of January. The discount will vary, right now it's 40% off.

ALSO also, if you happen to have some commercial indie games and would like to contribute to a fatass compilation video of commercial indie games, check out Pixel Prospector for the dealio. I have to get in gear and submit some myself. The deadline is Dec. 12th, so get movin'!

That's it for now.

Achievement Art

2010-11-21T13:39:00.003-05:00

That's what I've been working on, and will be working on for the next 3 to 4 days most likely. Examples you say? Surely.

This one is "Sharkburned Again!", you get it for eating the good Admiral.
"Faster Food", gotta get a 10x combo meal while non-frenzy.
"Feather Sniper", get it with a 3x bird shot combo.
"Man Fisher", knock some poor swimmer onto a fishing hook.

All the originals are 512x512, but these here are the ingame 64x64 versions. Now, just a few screenshots.

Here's the new addition on the title screen.

And this is what the actual achievement screen looks like.

Sounds sorted, now achievements.

2010-11-13T14:07:00.004-05:00

Right, got The Great White Destroyer sounds sorted out. All the music has been converted to mp3, except for the frenzy tracks, left them wav for fading purposes. I think this led to the game running much smoother in some areas, even when testing in debug mode it's faster than before. The ram needed to run the game has also decreased to around .6gig instead of 1.5gig. Also got the game displaying for 1024x768, by using the view port settings. Everything is still 800x600, it just get's blown up.
[EDIT] Forgot to mention that the game loads up in around 30 seconds now, holy cow! It used to be anywhere from 1:30 to 3 for some people.

On to the achievements! I've never been a big fan of these but they are a central part of gaming now. I have a list of them with quasi-clever names and descriptions. A few examples would be...

-Right back at ya! = Destroy L. Sharkburn's boat with his own dynamite.
-Manfisher = Knock a swimmer onto a fishing hook.
-5Cent Bulletproof? = Get shot by Lil' Snips 5 times before killing Big Snips.

Stuff like that, I think there's 72 listed at the moment. So I have to come up with a place in game to scope these out, make some art, get it coded. That's what's up for next week.

Crapmunch movement and more.

2010-11-06T13:21:00.005-04:00

I didn't get all the animations finished this week, had a few busy days. But these three are done.

There's a poo scoop, where he flings dung and sometimes oozes at the player. Then there's a shovel swat. Last is his walk cycle, which works well in reverse also, probably due to him being so large and round.

YoYoGames released their spec info for developing iPhone/iPad games, so I'll be converting The Great White Destroyer(TGWD) and Snowball's Chance over for those platforms starting next week.

For TGWD, I'll be downsampling my sound effects, hopefully without them sounding too bad, to save on file size. Having the music be .MP3s will be a huge help, they're .WAV currently. Also I'll be working on screen size related issues, a control scheme suited to portable touchscreens, achievements, improving performance, all kinds of crap. I'll try to do it in a smart way so there will be a new PC version as well. The same goes for Snowball's Chance, I'll probably add even more stuff too, content wise.

Friday Bullcrap is Saturday : Back to the Shaft!

2010-10-30T18:41:00.002-04:00

Ok, first up is a report on the Trick or Treat sale. There is nothing to report. It still continues until Halloween eve.

Back to You Got The Shaft. No video since my work on it this week is all just art, so I'll post it for ya! Been working on that mini-boss from the first stage, I have 4 of his animations completed so far.

His name is Crapmunch, he eats crap with his shovel. A rundown of those anims.
-#1 is a prefight idle, he's chawing on poo. It's a pretty simple squishy animation.
-#2 is also prefight, he's shoveling some more stuffs into his mouth. You'll notice his arm stretches out there, anatomy can take a back seat on this one.
-#3 is an intro of sorts, he turns to face Monsta when he gets close.
-#4 is a combat idle, I will be a tad slower in game than in that gif.

I've got a handfull more to do, hopefully they can be wrapped up this next week sometime.

Everyone have a safe Halloween!

Trick or Treat Sale! The Great White Destroyer

2010-10-23T23:57:00.006-04:00

Let's play a game. The Great White Destroyer(TGWD) will be on sale all next week, a special sale, one of choices.

On Monday, TGWD will be $4. If someone chooses to buy a copy, I want you to look on the order form under where you enter your name, there will be a "Company" field. I'd like you to enter "Trick" or "Treat".

Why you ask?

At the end of the day, I'll be counting up all the Tricks and all the Treats. You see, a Trick will increase the game's price by $.10, and a Treat will lower the price by $.10. So after it's all added up, we get the new price for the following day. If a purchase is made and the "Company" field is left blank or something off the wall is put there, a coin toss will decide the outcome, heads will count as Trick and tails as Treat. There are limits. The price will never drop below $2 or go higher than $5.90. Will the price go higher or lower? Time will tell.

I'll list the results the following day.

So there it is, the game is on.

A slug and a bug.

2010-10-16T15:51:00.002-04:00

Working on some characters for this new venture to nail down the art style. Got a couple finished ones here. I'll be hashing out a good handfull more while throwing down crap on paper, then I'll actually start putting some game together. Trying to decide on doing single player first and adapting multi later, or just start multi. Ahhh anyway, characters.

Contrasaurus Launched!

2010-10-11T15:59:00.004-04:00

My buds over at STRd6 have finally got Contrasaurus ready for the public consumption. For those of you not in the know, I worked on the pixel art for the game. It's a sidescrolling action romp with a t-rex who gets snatched up from the past, loaded to the brim with explosives and amunition, and thrown into a conspiracy blender! You are the t-rex, YOU ARE THE CONTRASAURUS.

It's all made with HTML5, so if you're going to play, throw IE out the window. You need yourself some Google Chrome, possibly Safari or Opera.

Links for the link god!

Here's the official STRd6 launch.

It's in the Ludum Dare October Challenge!

Give it a go people!

Multiplayer headspinning.

2010-10-10T13:08:00.003-04:00

Only because I don't know crap about coding that kind of thing. If I understand it correctly, server code actually runs the game and is purely computational, while client side does all the pretty stuff, and they communicate back and forth. Is that a propper stripped down explanation? I don't know. Anyhow, been roughing out ideas for this next venture, doing research, deciding on how it'll play and look. All that fun stuff. Plus I'm pretty sure I've gained what I can from the Torque2D tutorials, as soon as I have enough down on paper I can get to prototyping.

What's going on!?

2010-10-04T13:32:00.003-04:00

Ok, so Contrasaurus work is wrapped. Finished up with a little Robo-Reagan energy beam attack. No pics, because I don't feel like it.

I took the plunge and got me some Torque2D. I've been going through the tutorials and think I'll be just fine. There are some extra steps code wise compared to what I'm used to, but that's ok. I was going to take YGTS and start porting it over, but I don't think so. Frankly that kind of game has been done before, and I've had some genre mixers bouncing around in my head lately, stuff that as far as I know hasn't been done yet. So, I'll begin full steam ahead on that in the next day.

I hate leaving a game on the floor like YGTS, but there really wasn't that much done yet. That was maybe a months worth of work(or less) over a period of 4 or 5 months. It may get revisited down the road, who knows.

YoYoGames has plans for Gamemaker regarding the iphone and ipad, which means I might get the Shark on there down the road, maybe even Snowball.

That's it for now, I'll be back when I got's stuff.

Friday Bullcrap 9-25-2010, no-vid edition.

2010-09-25T14:57:00.002-04:00

So I've turned all my attantion to Contrasaurus as we're close to having the art done. This way I can close out faster, and not burn out as I did while doing both this and YGTS.

So, here's some stuff I did for the C-saur this week.
This is a cutscene where they're getting ready to ship C-saur off on a mission in South America.

Another cutscene. C-saur traveling through time.

Here's a gunboat boss. All the guns are actually seperate with animations and/or death frames.

These next bits are a crate, and commando animations.

Annnnnnddddd, that's it. I'll resume work on YGTS as soon as C-saur is wrapped up. Have a good weekend folks!

Friday Bullcrap 9-18-2010, hey wait that's a Saturday!

2010-09-18T15:13:00.002-04:00

Before we get to the video, here's a few pics from YGTS for those of you who'd like to regulate your shaft intake. There's some Contrasaur toward the end of the vid if you'd still like to check that out. Anyhow..

An overlay is added to give atmosphere to the stage.

A new stage in progress.

Ok, vid time.

Friday(Saturday really) Bullcrap 9-10(11 really)-2010

2010-09-11T20:54:00.001-04:00

Friday Bullcrap on Saturday, 9-4-2010

2010-09-04T17:04:00.002-04:00

Before movie time, I wanted to mention that there's been a lot of traffic on my TGWD highscore tables. Most of the entries appear to be gunk, I don't know if someone is screwing with them or what, but some of the entries' scores don't even get sorted right. I'm pretty novice at php, so bummer on me I guess.

Also, Metroid: Other M is pretty slammin' so far. I know it's minor, but they do a slick job at transitioning from pre-render to in game, damn fine job. That's always been one of my bother areas, back in the PS1/N64 days, I hated pre-render due to the jaring difference between it and the in game look, I prefered in-engine cutscenes like Vagrant Story and Ocarina. Oh well, video!

Friday Bullcrap, Saturday, whatever.

2010-08-28T16:17:00.002-04:00

Friday Bullcrap 8-20-2010

2010-08-21T15:57:00.001-04:00

Friday Bullcrap 8-13-2010

2010-08-14T20:27:00.001-04:00

Friday Bullcrap 8-7-2010

2010-08-07T16:37:00.003-04:00

I did get more Contrasaur stuff done this week, for whatever reason it slipped my mind. I did a parachute animation for the soldiers, some debree for exploding vehicles, and Reagan getting up from a kneel.

Anyway, here's those photoshops, feel free to take/use 'em.

Friday Bullcrap 7-31-2010 + Shark Month

2010-07-31T15:52:00.003-04:00

At the end of the vid, I announce Shark Month. All of August, The Great White Destroyer is half off, plus I'll be putting up great sharks in history. Have a visit every Monday and Wednesday, won't you?

Friday Bullcrap 7-23-2010

2010-07-23T21:18:00.002-04:00

Friday Bullcrap 7-17-2010

2010-07-17T21:23:00.001-04:00

Friday Bullcrap 7-9-2010

2010-07-09T19:22:00.003-04:00

Some stuff about YGTS's stage 1 background art and animated tiles. Also, Contrasaurus art.

Saturday Bullcrap 7-3-2010

2010-07-03T16:07:00.001-04:00

Contrasaur walking, sorta, and YGTS minor stuffs.

2010-06-29T13:08:00.002-04:00

My contract time ran out, but most of C-saur's walk is complete, just need to add the minor spots and scale pattern overlay. It's taken 15 hours so far, but in the process I've devised some new tricks(new to me anyway) to help speed up future animations of this size. No examples, I'll put the animation in this weeks video.

Managed to put in a few more effects for YGTS last night. It's just a shadow effect that takes place during power moves, the higher your power meter, the bigger the effect.

I'm going to start working on the first stage tileset today, hopefully have something to show for the weekend.

Friday, no, Saturday Bullcrap

2010-06-26T14:57:00.001-04:00

Contrasaur ready to animate.

2010-06-23T20:24:00.002-04:00

The design is finalized, but before I throw up the final version, here's a few more steps we went through to get him done.

This style sheet here has the features chosen from the first put together. STRd6 wasn't sure about the skin pattern yet, so I had the go ahead to experiment. I looked up various random predatory animals and threw down their looks on the dino.

Number 1 was picked out fo that bunch and refinements were made, as seen in the next sheet. Note the larger eye, smaller brow, smaller calve muscles, rounded knees, straighter back, and less back pattern.

And finally, for my own personal use, a pic of the final design with the basic shapes involved and my process for creating the beast, just to help keep him consistent while animating.

Now, here's some random pics from YGTS. I've got some special effects for when you hit stuff, normal and power. Power punching a row of blocks will transfer the energy to the end block and cause it to move over one square. The same for a power upercut, but to a lesser degree due to gravity. I also fixed the air uppercut to drain power as it hits things, in the same manner that the air faceplant does. Blocks break into pieces now, don't know if that was done for the last post or not.

The end, for now.

Where'd Friday go?

2010-06-21T20:40:00.002-04:00

Had a busy weekend with family, didn't really have the time to work in a video. So it's Monday!

I've done some gameplay tweaks to YGTS, blocks that come down on your head will now deal you damage and break if they pin you, I still have to make the "Ouch my effin noggin'!" animation for it. I've also set up a sample stage 1 to test out the falling block aspect, I need to get an enemy in there to test that out as well.

Since last Wednesday I've gotten a few animation done for Contrasaurus, namely the soldier death and soldier bit in half. It's not that gory, which is a change for me, I would have geysered that stuff, rainbow(all red) even! Today I worked on a style sheet for the Contrasaur himself. It's got 3 different designs with 3 different color patterns and a couple hue swaps.

So the client looks it over and tells me what they like from where, and then I make up a new one which should be close to OR the final design. I don't think Tyranobee is a very strong contender, but I may use that myself somewhere down the road.

Monsta kicks up dust after planting face.

2010-06-16T21:19:00.003-04:00

Worked on some more animations today for Contrasaurus, a soldier upper torso shooting animations. You can see some of my animations in their prototype, which is updated frequently. Just use about any browser but IE and it should work.
http://contrasaurus.strd6.com/
There is a little green running dino in the first scene, and later bullets, dirt effects, blood effects, spark effects, and some running soldiers.

Got some YGTS work done also. Monsta's power downward attack is done, he plants his face rather hard into the ground, these weak ass pics barely convey the awesome.

This here is what it looks like sorta powered up.

So what it does on ground is damage things below you and spread an effect wave that can do things like pop some poor soul off the ground.

Also did some special effects, like dust puffs from running starts and landing from a jump.

You'll see it all in motion come Friday. Also, IDs rage engine is something.

It's Monday, and I ain't got nothin' to show for it.

2010-06-14T21:52:00.002-04:00

That's right! Spent today working on Contrasaurus art and watching E3 press conferences. Gawdamned akward things they are, I wish they'd toss out all the flash and "special guests" and just show off the damn games. Oh well, Nintendo better be ready, Microsoft and Sony are looking to take a bite out of their softcore gamer stockpile. Also, Bullet Storm looks like it'll be a blast to play.

Friday Bullcrap 6-11-2010

2010-06-11T23:17:00.001-04:00

Contrasaurus and mining hats.

2010-06-09T20:51:00.004-04:00

I've been contracted by STRd6 to do artwork for their game Contrasaurus. They'd like me to tell you to check out their story document and a demo mockup of the game in action. The links will be below, you must have a HTML5 Canvas compatible browser, like Firefox, Safari, Chrome or Opera.

Prototype Demo http://contrasaurus.strd6.com/
Plot Story Fun Time http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfbxkqk5_798t6nk6cz

I'm enjoying myself with it, the wacked out story hits me the right way, and I love 2d shooters, plus dinosaurs! AND Reagan!

On the flipside, here's some headgear action for our old man Beardy.

I've also gotten more done with YGTShaft, but I'll leave that for Friday.

Friday Bullcrap 6-4-2010

2010-06-04T20:04:00.001-04:00

Texturing results and something else.

2010-06-02T21:17:00.003-04:00

Texture Teusday yielded 3 textured objects, the Stickaxe, Old Pickaxe, and Fine Pickaxe. Some of the Fine texture was from the Old one, saving some time. Pictures.

Each of those textures are 64x64. You really only see them from a distance, so no need to sap the memory.

Also, I've been piddling around with a 2D game, a little here, a little there. I'm calling it You Got The Shaft as of now. I've got some animations for the main character done and working. Also his platforming physics are working. More details as they are fleshed out, so heres a pic. It's small, tile based 16x16, more oldschool.

Concept Monday

2010-05-31T22:49:00.002-04:00

Yep. So I worked on concepts for the collectable items, like bones, roots, precious stones, etc. Here they are.

The precious stone meshes will be reused with different maps to reflect the material and worth. Same goes with the nugget, chunk, ore, and slab. Those will be shared for the different metals.

Also, happy memorial day! Thanks to all you troops out there, dead and alive, for your years of service to the country and it's citizenry. Stay safe folks.

Friday Bullcrap

2010-05-28T14:11:00.001-04:00

Random drop tables, shipment of pickaxes.

2010-05-26T19:37:00.002-04:00

Yep, been working on random drop tables today. everything from precious stones to metal, power-ups and tools. Not much to say about it yet. All is not lost for blog however.
Art dropped off a shipment of fresh pickaxe meshes today, thanks much dooood! Here's some pics. In order, Fang, Old, Fine, Throwing.

I think I'm going to institute a rule on myself called "Texture Teusdays". I work on nothing but textures on Teusday, pretty self explanatory. I've got Bad Eye and these axes to pretty up, don't want to get too buried.

Scripting items, a ghost also.

2010-05-24T21:39:00.004-04:00

Got most of those food items scripted in game, I think two of them don't do what they're supposed to yet, no problem, just some number juggling. This leaves me no real visuals to present, so here's a ghost.

They mostly come out when a dead body is disturbed, their only real attack is haunting you, where they take up residence in your body. Having to much of this going on can yield different results, from simple frights to mild possession.

??Saturday Bullcrap?? More Food!

2010-05-22T15:46:00.003-04:00

No Bullcrap vid this time, not really enough moving stuff to show off, I don't think anyone wants to see a buffalo burger spin in circles for a minute or so. Anyhow, a few more food items, a bottle of Snake Oil, and a Sugared Rabbit Foot. PIC!

Ok, so these food items are power-up items, so let me tell you what they'll do for good ol' Beardy. These all have a minute long duration. Testing may change some of this of course.
Buffalo Burger - Raises attack power, movement speed is unaffected by large items.
Chicken Feet - Increases movement speed and you are immune to slow effects.
Turtle Jerky - Stamina is increased, immune to pain, cannot be knocked out, cannot be dazed.
Sugared Rabbit Foot - Increases luck, zero cave-ins.
Snake Oil - Faster stamina regeneration, cures poison and cold.

I managed to get some of the item pick-up code into place, the item spins, you walk into it and it destroys itself. This all prompted me to get the player stat variables in order to begin passing these effects onto the player.

Alright, have a good weekend.

Strange Food

2010-05-19T21:42:00.003-04:00

Been modeling some of the powerups for BM. Pictured below, from left to right, Buffalo Burger, Chicken Feet, and Turtle Jerky. Oh, that's the Crush Axe I mentioned some posts back, never had a pic of it, so there you go.

I'm wanting to get a few more items done and start coding the drop tables and actual items/effects themselves.

Shark Ads

2010-05-17T19:55:00.004-04:00

I'll be dipping my foot into the advertising pool here in a day or so. So today I've been making ads of various sizes. They all follow a common "Eat, Destroy, Be Sharky" content that my first ad had. I'll be doing this through Project Wonderful, after looking into various ad services, I like their take on it. A bidding system, you set your bid, the amount you're willing to pay per day, and limit the total and/or set a max bid. You get to choose what sites your ad shows up on, they give you the trending visitors per day, it's all very loose and free feeling. Me likey. Anyhow, I've got a few more ads to hammer out. Here's the ones I've got done so far. They aren't nearly as animated as my original, but I have a 100k limit to work with.

The next few banners will most likely be still images, or maybe two frames, I'll see how much memory I have to work with.

Friday Bullcrap 5-14-2010

2010-05-14T21:14:00.001-04:00

Sand everywhere!

2010-05-12T20:58:00.002-04:00

No, I'm not at the beach. I finished up the Sand Wall block, it is fully functional. When you destroy them, they destroy other sand wall blocks that neighbor them in a chain reaction.

I did the Crush Axe texture today, no pic, silly 3DS renders it wonky. Also started texturing Beardy.

Dirty Particles

2010-05-10T21:24:00.003-04:00

Got particles working for the dirt wall block, looks good too. In motion anyway. There are two that fire off, one for the debree and another for kicking up a dust cloud. Until Friday, here's a pic.

Currently working on the sand wall block, got the model done, just need to texture and get it in game. After that I think I'll texture up Beardy(whom is all rigged up thanks to Jay) and that Crushaxe(thanks to Art) which is pictured below.

Friday Bullcrap 5-7-2010

2010-05-07T23:04:00.002-04:00

Easier floors.

2010-05-05T22:45:00.004-04:00

YES! Forget that tile crap, Unity has terrain. You paint your textures onto it, well, some kind of alpha layers allow multiple textures to show through, I think. Anyway, it's pretty awesome, a ton of freedom for little texture memory cost. A picture perhaps? Yep.

Terrain does more as well, geometry like trees or rocks, grass, very cool.

Mummies and shark.

2010-05-03T23:03:00.003-04:00

I've taken a few days to give The Great White Destroyer a little love, so not much has been done on Bad Mountain. That's why I try to have crap put back, so it's Mummified Miner time, DUR dur DUUURRRR!

As for shark, I added a few more edibles in the Eat This section of the website, and other things I won't mention until later.

Friday Bullcrap 4-30-2010

2010-05-01T00:15:00.003-04:00

Long day. Here's the video.

Now here's a sharky promo.

Bad Eye design finalized.

2010-04-28T21:57:00.003-04:00

You remember that rough concept some weeks ago, here's the character model sheet.

I've done some optimizing on that wall, less polys thanks to some tips from Jay. Also have another wall chunket done, have done specular and bump for it, plus bump for that first wall. Currently working on floor tiles. I'll most likely video it all up for Friday.

More Explosives.

2010-04-26T19:40:00.002-04:00

Yes, but just 3 more.

You best face this one forward, the BFF bomb.

The POW Keg, nothing fancy, just a very large explosion.

The Stink Bomb. Fling crap everywhere, repels some monsters and humans in general.

Also, here's a pic of some wall action.

I plan to finish up another wall chunk and then do some floor tiles.

Friday Bullcrap, Explosives

2010-04-23T20:05:00.004-04:00

Ahhhh I said I was going to do Unity stuff, but was still in a concepting mindframe, so I went with that instead. Here's three tools from the explosives set.

Dynamite, your standard explosive.

The Crossblow! It shoots explosions out in 4 directions.

A Bomb. Covers more ground than dynamite, and the blast direction can be effected by walls.

Perhaps I'll lay out some floor tile action and start modeling some of that.
Have a good weekend!

More damn pickaxes, sorta.

2010-04-21T21:38:00.002-04:00

They're more like special tools that do the same thing, only better, but with limited uses.

Here's the Fang, a double headed pickaxe, the best digging without sacrificing speed.

The Crushaxe is heavy, noisy, and powerful.

Finally, the Throwing Pick. The weakest of the pickaxes, but you got distance and speed.

I've already got a round of explosives concepted out, but gotta save some stuff back, don't want the blog content well to run dry. I think the next couple of days I'll return to Unity and scripting.

Pickaxes

2010-04-19T22:51:00.003-04:00

That's what I got. These three serve as your primary digging tools. You start with the Stickaxe, but that is replaced with the Old Pickaxe and/or Fine Pickaxe. All are upgrade-able and will never break.

Here's the Stickaxe, it's your starter tool, crappy.

Here's an Old Pickaxe, sorta rusty. Better than a Stickaxe.

Then there's a Fine Pickaxe, only one of the finest products brought to you by Fine Co. Oooh, nice leather grip, better than that p.o.s. Old Pickaxe.

I'm on to some explosives now. Wheeeeee!

Friday Bullcrap, less video

2010-04-16T19:28:00.003-04:00

No vid, just pics. Today I have this...

And my good friend Jay is currently modeling Beardy, here's a pic of that...

He's around 2400 polys at the moment.

I've already started drawing up items and I'll most likely do another character before going back to the coding/scripting.

Everyone have a good weekend.

Old alien model finally serves purpose!:O

2010-04-14T22:29:00.004-04:00

Ok, to test out the model importing in unity, I dug up an old alien I did years ago to throw in there. It's a smooth process for certain, this singular picture is my only proof!

Also, I have completed a model sheet for old Beardy. It's pretty bare bones but will hopefully do the job for now.

I want to get a few more things drawn up before going back to the game script itself. Working on Rabid Cavecoon and some items, such as pickaxes and dynamite.

Dirt B Gone

2010-04-12T21:31:00.003-04:00

Right, got the collision working on that "pickaxe" action. So the damage numbers are passed and things will happen. Gif on this!

Working on some concept art, right now I'm working on Beardy's character sheet. Here's some walls.

Friday Bullcrap

2010-04-09T19:13:00.001-04:00

Camera Action!

2010-04-07T20:57:00.003-04:00

Not as exciting as the title makes it out to be. I got the player camera working. It sits pretty at the 3/4ths overhead and when sight of your character is obstructed, it swings a little closer and higher to give you and overhead vantage. The movement starts out quick and eases in slow. I have a timer on there also that has to count down before it swings back to normal to keep it from bobbing if you are moving behind segmented walls. There may be changes to how this works later of course, but for now it's good to go. I'll most likely show this off on Friday, so until then.

Dumbass.

2010-04-05T21:10:00.002-04:00

That's me. I got the collision detection working. My problem, I was translating the object's position using the Transform class instead of using the CharacterController class. Hurf durf! Anyway, I'll most likely work on the game camera next, get it to change it's position on the fly when a wall comes between it and the player.

Here's some progress on Beardy, I think the one on the far right is what form I want him to have. I've been working on boiling him down into simpler shapes, there are some small signs of that in this pic.

Rotation works. Collisions don't.

2010-04-02T23:07:00.003-04:00

I know you probably can't read a damn thing on that screen, but you can see the player mock up rotate correctly! I should note that the player object has no downward gravity at the moment, and when it did the collision for the ground box didn't work either. Grrrr.

I'll give this video thing a try every Friday.

Set frustration to maximum!

2010-03-31T21:59:00.005-04:00

I'll lay this down, I'm not primarily a code guy. My origin point is more on the art side. Understanding some of the Unity scripting is driving me up the wall. This is going to sound pathetic to a lot of people, but I've spent the last few days trying to get an object face a certain direction based off it's last xyz to current xyz. Sad as hell, I know. What pisses me off the most is I'd most likely have 50% of this game prototyped in GameMaker by now, intead of this peasly 2-0%. I think, maybe, I'm starting to grasp this Classes thing and how they have their own variables and functions, and you instance these in the code, and this jazz is applied to whatever asset the script is assigned to. I researched the math(trigonometry??) behind the actual finding of these things also, helped me understand better, but not solve the problem. Man was I enraged earlier, good thing I had that chili and a Cavs game to watch. I'm rambling now, I'll try this stuff again tomorrow, damnit.

Beardy has a beard.

2010-03-29T22:59:00.004-04:00

Here are some roughs for the main character, Beardy. Was trying to find a look for him face wise obviously. Anyhow, the story so far on him, he's returned to Bad Mountain after all these years(it kicked his ass when he was younger) to dig out it's black heart, and also to loot it. He has gambling debts and bar tabs that need paid, and some new teeth would be nice, maybe a swank suit and an estate of his own.

Did some shark business today, and attempted to start prototyping the controls for this thing in Unity. I need to print some stuff off to have in front of me, having trouble keeping all this new info sorted mentally.

Bad Eye concept art.

2010-03-26T22:15:00.003-04:00

Today I bring to you a rough concept of the "Bad Eye" monster. It's a stalker type of monster, you can kill them, but they reconstitute after a while. This one will track you by sight, so if you stay hidden for a bit, it would go back to patrolling at random. If it's in range of an explosion or cave-in(sound/vibration trigger), it will come to investigate. The stalker monsters in this game don't get along with other types, and will even hunt them if the opportunity arises. I've always liked monster in-fighting! Who wouldn't want to see a Rabid Cavecoon devoured by one of these? Anyway, pic.

Rock Walls

2010-03-24T22:47:00.004-04:00

So I've been working on fleshing out some different wall types, was going to name some of them after real rock types, but decided "eff that!" and went with Tough X or Hard X. Anyhow, here's a bit of the document detailing these.

"*****Walls*****
-Bad Rock Wall-
These craggy walls seem to watch you from the shadows. They are also indestructable. Serve as stage boundaries.
Hit Points(HP)-infinite
Cave-in(CI) - 0%
Produce(Prod)-none

-Dirt Wall-
Weak earth that crumbles easily.
HP-2
CI - +1%
Prod - none

-Sand Wall-
Somehow tremors don't effect the sand, but one good smack from you and it all tumbles down. When it collapses, any adjacent Sand Wall collapses also.
HP-1
CI - +1%
Prod - none

-Re Wall-
A wall made of loose rock that will reassemble itself shortly after crumbling. Wierd.
HP-3
CI - +1%
Prod - none

-Rock Wall-
Standard rock wall.
HP-3
CI - +2%
Prod - +1%/+0(pstones table)

-Hard Rock Wall-
Harder than your average rock.
HP-5
CI - +4%
Prod - +2%/+1(pstones table)

-Tough Rock Wall-
Tougher than your hard rock wall.
HP-10
CI - +6%
Prod - +4%/+2(pstones and pmetals table)

-Black Rock Wall-
A special density makes the pickaxe unable to penatrate.
HP-10
CI - +6%
Prod - +10%/+5(pstones and pmetals table)

-Vein Wall-
These walls are laced with precious metals.
HP-5
CI - +10%
Prod - +100%/+10(pmetals table)

-Gold Wall-
Not made of gold, but containing gold.
HP-5
CI - +5%
Prod - 100% creates 5 Gold collectables.

-Silver Wall-
Not made of silver, but containing silver.
HP-5
CI - +5%
Prod - 100% creates 5 Silver collectables.

-Crystal Wall-
Made of crystals, which seem to be all the rage with local witches. Striking these makes strange vibrations.
HP-5
CI - +5%
Prod - 100% creates 5 Crystal collectables.

-Wierd Root Wall-
A rather large root, to what plant it belongs, nobody knows. Striking these causes the cursed plant to writhe in annoyance, increasing your chance of cave-in by 2%.
HP-5
CI - +5%
Prod - 100% creates Wierd Root collectables.

-Bone Wall-
Who makes a wall out of bone, seriously? Destroying these will give you bones, but rustle up some angry ghosts.
HP-5
CI - +2%
Prod - 100% creates 5 Bone collectables.

-Meat Wall-
How a wall made of meat, LIVING MEAT, exists is beyond comprehension. Destroying these may attract predators.
HP-5
CI - +2%
Prod - 100% creates 5 meat collectables.

-Lava Wall-
Striking these with a pick is a bad idea, as lava spurts forth from the hole. Explosives is your best bet.
HP-3
CI - +4%
Prod - +2%/+10(pstones table)

-Monster Wall-
It has a rather large mouth with teeth. If you get near, it will try to bite/eat you. Impervious to damage from the outside. Try to land some dynamite in that maw while it's nashing it's teeth, but not to quick, or it will spit it back out in your face.
HP-5
CI - +5%
Prod - +10%/+10(all table)

-Talking Wall-
These walls can be fed certain items in return for information on various subjects. Or you can just break them, in which case they'll scream.
HP-5
Cl - +5%
Prod - -5%/-5

-Lucky Wall-
These rainbow colored formations grant luck when destroyed.
HP-5
CI - -25%
Prod - +25%/+25(all table)

-Unlucky Wall-
Just being around these walls can cause bad things to happen. CI increases near these are boosted by 5%, all Production table rolls are decreased by 10, thrown items might bounce funny.
HP-5
CI - +5%
Prod - none

-Bombrock Wall-
These walls explode when destroyed, throwing unstable bombrocks in random directions.
HP-5
CI - +10%
Prod - +5%/+5(pmetals table)"

I've made a list of what I need to prototype this thing, and have worked on fleshing out other things like player statuses, inventory, how the score(dollars$$) works, the regular jazz.

A Good Mountain?

2010-03-22T21:03:00.002-04:00

No, it's a Bad Mountain! At least that's what I'm refering to this new game as. If the name is not taken by the time this is further underway, I'll go with it. Here's some crap from my overview document, regarding the player and their actions.

"-Sneak,Walk,Run-
Sneaking is used to move without alerting certain monsters to your location. There may be certain terrain types that produce different outcomes given the speed of your movement.
Control - Analogue stick covers this. Keyboard control will require function keys in addition to movement keys.

-Dig with a Pickaxe-
Used to dig out obstacles(rock,dirt) or strike enemies. This method is much quieter than using explosives, but can take longer. Default Pickaxe has unlimited use.
Control - Button press.

-Drop/Throw Explosive(dynamite)-
Use dynamite(etc.) to blow up obstacles or enemies. This method is powerful and dangerous, but fast. It also has the added risk of causing cave-ins. Default Dynamite has unlimited use, the time it take to lay one stick is restricted.
Control - Button press will drop the dynamite in front of you. Holding the button will charge a throw, let go to release it. the longer you hold, the further the throw. Be careful as the dynamite is lit, don't let it blow up in your face.

-Turn On/Off Light source-
If the player has aquired a light source(torch/glow worm) they can hold it in their off hand, or pack it away.
Control - Button Press to swap on/off, hold button down while on to drop/throw similar to dynamite.

-Action-
Used to activate certain things in the environ, talking, picking up a special item, etc.
Control- Button, behavior my vary given the circumstance.

-Swap Equipment-
There may be more equipment that falls under Pickaxe/Explosive/Light that the player can store and use at anytime. Swap them out for when the need arises.
Control- Undecided. On a controller it may be the shoulder buttons swapping in a forward or backward manner for each action type. Keyboard, could be hotswapped with number keys as well as the controller method.

-Talk/Shop-
Player may encounter characters that will talk or sell items, powerups.
Control- See Action. Shopping will have the player selecting from stock to purchase.

-Pick up, Drop, Throw Big Item-
There may be large objects in the environment that the player can manipulate, like a box, or a fungus. The player can only move while doing this, and their speed may be affected.
Control - See Action. Dropping/Throwing the item would function the same as throwing dynamite.

-Pick up Goodie-
Simply move over top of the item to collect it. This could be gold, bones, gemstones, etc.
Control - Duuurr.

-Check Backpack-
Brings up a screen detailing collected items and tools, selecting them gives a closer view with details on various things, like worth, power, uses, etc.
Control - Controller would be select, keyboard would be any non essential key.

*****Life and Death*****
A tolerence meter of sorts, as in a player gets hit, a bit is shaved off, if they remain out of harms way for a few seconds it starts to regenerate. Of course, if it is depleted, they will die in a horrible fashion depending on what did them in. The player can choose to continue on the same map, but doing so will cost collectables and strip them of their extra items/powerups. They could just hang it up and have their corpse/ghost haunt that stage in future games."

I generally have an overview document that details basics for everything, and then break off with more documents with details if needed. I don't know how the pros do it, but I also work primarily alone(at the moment). I have made an effort to outline more though, as it is a help to keep things organized.

I'm working on documenting different types of destructable walls. I also have a few rough sketches for character and monster ideas, but that comes later.

Got a bit more of one Unity tutorial left, and I've already started going over the script functions and such. Hopefully I can get to prototyping in a week.

Learnin' and Burnin'

2010-03-19T22:40:00.004-04:00

That burnin' part is made up, I've set flame to nothing.

I continue my trip in Unity tutorial land. Nothing to report there really, you move forward, and all is well.

Laying down some ideas for a game, it's one of those thought rushes you can taste, you can see it play out in your head, and it is good! A few basics.

-Top down 3rd person.
-A maze like cave setting with static and random elements.
-An eco-system comprised of various quirky(yet deadly) creatures/plants that can be pitted against each other.
-Primary player interactions include moving, digging(pick-axe), explosives. Explosives are faster than digging, but cause loud noise/vibrations and the potential for cave-ns. Digging is quiet but slow.
-Grab the goodies and find a way out.
-I'd like some multiplayer co-op or competitive, with other varied game modes.

Basics for now. I mean, there's some more in depth stuff, but I have to have something to talk about next time.

Boooooooorrrriiinngggggg!

2010-03-17T21:33:00.003-04:00

Not much to say really. I've contacted a few distribution services, waiting to hear back. I have a few portal sites to try later, but doing only a few at a time as there may be a need for special builds of the game. Don't want to be rushed in too many different directions.

In the meantime, I'll most likely get back into Unity, and maybe jot down some game ideas, I've had one brewing these last couple days.

Curses, audio de-sync!

2010-03-15T23:13:00.008-04:00

I spent today capturing some new video of the v1.1 shark. I did manage to record sound through my desk mic, but good lord does the game take a performance hit. On top of that, the audio de-syncs(how is this even spelled!?) in the first 20 to 30 seconds, badly. Clearly my rig isn't equiped for these operations, or I'm ignorant to better methods. So I just put clips together and used music from the game, just like last time. Here's the vids.

Version1.1 Vid
Frenzytime Bossjazz!

Also, a big thanks to Andy over at PC Games and Reviews for giving me some ad space. If you like pc games, and the reviews of pc games, check him out, he has good stuff.

Tommorrow I start on contacting reviewers and distribution services. *thumbs up*