Back on the grind.
Friday, January 15th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Hey, been a while since I last posted here! I’ve been very busy since summer, having released a good handful of games. LongAnimals editor is just getting better and better, and is now allowing us to put together game prototypes in a matter of days.
First of all was Bubble Guinea Pop, a physics based puzzle game themed around bubble gum blowing guinea pigs. There are 50 levels, with new toys to play with all the way through so dont quit early!
With zOMGies we had a go at kickstarting the zombie genre with fast paced scrolling gameplay. The game has had some great success getting got front page, medals and a score of 4.26 on Newgrounds, so expect an overblown sequel sometime in the future.
Finally check out RobotJam’s dog betting game Gone To The Dogs, in which I animated the dogs! Its got some great laidback and addictive gameplay so go and check it out!
Thats the past, what about the present? I’m currently working on my final year project for University. The working title is Enola, and its a turn based RPG game with sidescrolling exploration sections, 3 towns, 16 enemies and 3 bosses, all animated frame by frame at 30fps. Its a pretty huge undertaking, but even if I dont get the game finished to its full scale for my Uni deadline, it wont be released until I think its 100% perfect.
Ill be posting updates about that here every week, so keep checking back!
Update on summer projects
Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Hey,
Just a quick update on what I have been up to. I havent released anything new lately and i’ve been itching to get something out there, I’ve been working really hard and it feels like havent got that much to show for it right now.
The first and biggest thing for me is the Newgrounds Power of Three event this summer. If you clicked that link you will have seen my name sat right at the very top of a list of about 100 teams, next to Tyler Glaiel (Closure, Aether) and Luis Castanon (Newgrounds Rumble, Portal Defenders). Im teaming up with these guys to make the sickest game ever over summer, sharing art priveledges with Luis, who is an incredible artist and one of my biggest influences. The event is gonna be massive and the quality of some of the teams is unbelieveable. We have a lot to match up to, but my team is also amazing so keep your eyes peeled for greatness in September!
Medieval Mercenaries is finished. We just need to get the final thumbs up from Armor Games, then I guess they will take it from there. Its a commissioned game so Im not sure how the submission process on sites like Newgrounds works, but hopefully I will at least get co Author there. Now I just have to wait and see how long they keep hold of it before release!
The next thing to move onto now is Redneck Downhill challenge. This hasnt really been touched since we started on Medieval Mercenaries, but LongAnimals physics engine has been greatly improved since he started a physics based ball game with RobotJam, so that will be implemented and hopefully the game will move along nicely. I did another level the other day which turned out beautiful and revitalized my enthusiasm for the project. Check it out.
Obligatory Penguinz mention - I have now planned pretty much the whole of Penguinz 2. This game is going to be massive. In terms of content and popularity. I just know everyone is going to love it, and have no doubts about it whatsoever! Just you wait and see! I also got to play an early build of Penguinz on the iPhone (yup!). It surprised me and was actually pretty good fun and ran nicely, so we will have to see what becomes of that!
Anyway, thats all for now. I KNOW youre reading this (yes you! No one else reads this, im talking directly to you!), so LEAVE A COMMENT! My life is at risk here if you dont, seriously guys.
Im off to download festival next week, YES!
Medieval mercenaries + other stuff
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Ive been working hard with LongAnimals over the last month to finish a game for Armor Games called Medieval Mercenaries. They basically wanted something like Penguinz but bloodier and Medieval themed.
No problem!
Its not as big as Penguinz, theres 7 enemies, 6 levels and 6 weapons, but theres a lot more variety in there. The weapons all play pretty differently and the enemies attacks are more varied and interesting… Anyway, it makes for a fun little game and im looking forward to seeing it in a more finished state. Oh and its really really bloody!
The game should be done in around 2 weeks. Im not sure how long it will take to hit websites, but we dont have to go through any sponsorship process as its a commission, so its up to ArmorGames when they release it. Keep a look out!
What else… Another project with LongAnimals ive been doing on and off is Redneck Downhill Challenge. The idea is the players build their own cart out of parts, then race the computer downhill, complete with ragdoll physics and cart sharing. The idea is cool and its actually coming together quite nicely.
One thing im most excited about this one is the art style. Theres not too much for me to draw, so its given me a chance to really concentrate on refining the visuals and so far its looking great!
After this two its time to start on Penguinz 2. Really really looking forward to getting down to it, ive had so long to plan and gather ideas since finishing the art for Penguinz (8 months or so ago). Its gonna be bigger and better in every way and we can really concentrate on making an amazing game rather than building the engine this time round. Of course, theres going to be a LOT of new stuff in this one and weve been saving a lot of ideas. Looking forward to it 
Anyway thats all. If ANYONE reads this pleaseleave a comment, im sick of 10 of these bullshit russian spam comments a day!
Bye!
Penguinz released and Mardoms Marvellous Mind submitted!
Saturday, March 28th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Wow, its been a busy month.
Ive been busting out for the last few weeks to finish my Interactive Media Production unit for uni. More on that in a second.
First off, Penguinz is done the game is finished and up on kongregate, so go and play it now! Its also apparently good enough for Medals on the site, which will be added on monday! That should hopefully add some interest in the game, people there already seem to love it. Im so happy with how it all turned out in the end. LongAnimals was a godsend and although it took so damn long to make, its definately been worth it.
As mentioned earlier I finished (kinda) Dr Mardom Marvellous Mind. Its been such a heavy project to work on, I hadnt ever coded a game before or even used AS3, and I had to learn the language, code the game and do all the art in 3 months. The art was LOADS of work and a platformer with the added dream/nightmare function wasnt the easier thing for a total newbie. I really dont have that much programming experience and im amazed i got the game to the standard it is in that time… Saying that, its still buggy and theres loads of things that piss me off about it. Anyway, give it a play!
Gonna do some work on it before finding a sponsor and releasing it to the world.
So yeah thats the past/present…. On to the future! Started talking about a new game with LongAnimals to work on over Easter. It started off as a small project but as we began throwing around more ideas its developed into a pretty cool little game!
The idea is Downhill Redneck Racing! You choose a racer, build a cart out of various parts and bits, and then race it down a hill. Weve been talking about all sorts of features we want to include, sharing custom carts its pretty much definate. Other ideas are saving and sending ghost tracks to other players, or possibley even online multiplayer withthe new api LongAnimals has been working on for MindJolt.
Sounds good though, looking forward to getting stuck into something new!
That me done, go and play Penguinz!
Its been a while…
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Havent made a blog post in quite a while… I have been spending a lot of time with flash however and have 2 really great games coming out fairly soon.
The first is Penguinz, a project ive been working on for about a year and a half. I dunno how its taken nearly that long, ive managed to get through a fair few coders before finding the right one!
Anyway, im glad its taken that long because its looking amazing. From the way it plays to the way it looks, its shaping up to be a really awesome game, by far the best thing ive ever released. Im sure its gonna do really well and im very excited about it!
Lots of baddies. Theres 15 enemies and 4 bosses in the game, not just these guys
The other game Ive been working on is my current Uni project. THis is the first game ive coded and so far its going really well. Ive picked up actionscript pretty fast and im making it do things I want to, which is awesome
Whats even more awesome is that the game is actually turning out to be really really good. The art is awesome so far and im having some real fun with the level designs and transformation animations. We have some really good gameplay mechanics to implement which should keep players hooked on every level
Heres a pretty picture:
So things are going great! Im also on the lookout for a work experience placement for over the summer. Ive contacted some pretty cool companies and ahve got some really positive feedback so hopefully ill find somewhere good! If you own a games company and are reading this hire me for 6 weeks! Ill work for freee!
Anyway that is all for now, expect to see those 2 games in the next month or so.
Stuffs getting heavy
Thursday, December 4th, 2008 | Flash games, Grindhead, Interactive Media Production, Uni | No Comments
Ive got sooo much on at the moment. Its crazy. I feel as though literally every second I spend is either on my computer working on something, at uni, eating or sleeping. I need to chilllll for a bit. No time for that right now though!
Ive pretty much totally ran out of money now, so ive been working on a little christmas game for some quick cash. the game is really fun actually, and Im so pleased with the art so far. Heres a sneak peek:
We are also getting on having a proper Grindhead website up and running to put all of our work on. We have some pretty ambitious ideas and im really looking forward to seeing the site come together, and have a place where I can put ALL my work and blog stuff and everything.
On top of that, weve just started Our Interactive Media Project at uni. The brief is so broad and so damn awesome. Basically weve got to make an immersive game. Thats pretty much it. The only other restrictions are that we have to present 2 seperate media artefacts, so a game and a website to go with it, for example.
Our group has come up with a pretty awesome idea, which involves 2 seperate game engines, one done in flash (awesome.) and the other Unity 3D. The latter is a fairly new piece of software and currently only availible for macs, but it seems to be ridiculously powerful compared to other browser media players like say, um, flash. You can do full 3D, like really well with crazy effects. Check out http://ww.unity3D.com and see it for yourself. Ive got some pretty big ideas for the platform in the future 
Anyway, im REALLY looking forward to properly getting into this project, ive been a little preoccupied with this game and the 10 day deadline at the moment, but once that is done I am going to be ON it.
Ill post updates soon!
Media and Activism - The Day Today
Thursday, December 4th, 2008 | Interactive Media Production, theory | No Comments
This is my media and activism online assignment 1
I chose to look at The Day Today, a parody news program first aired in 1994. The program is filmed as a mock news program presented by Chris Morris, and presents its fictional stories in a unique sneering satirical style. It parodys the over complex and hollywood-style effects and presentation used in news broadcasts and their production. Bizarre news segments are fired one after another, from suicide bomber dogs being released by the IRA to the currency being changed to the Queens eggs.
The program changes the relationship between audience and media in the way that initially, the viewer thinks they are watching a real news program, and slowly realises that in fact it is a parady from the ridiculousness of the stories being told, which also emphasizes the humour.
In The Day Today (and its sister program Brasseye), Chris Morris introduced a new, sharper and more crass humour, which paved the way for similar spoof programs like dead ringers and Ali G. Short features involving getting members of the public to say silly things also influenced programs like Trigger Happy TV.
The show tried to make audiences more aware of the ridiculousness of some television and the stories told in them, showing satirical news pieces, sometimes totally over the top. Chris Morris has always been against censorship and regulation and tried to fight it with his own often controversial satire, most famously with the Brasseye Paedophile special.
Nearly there…
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments
I love PHP. Its simple, easy to debug and generally just works well. I keep thinking of awesome features I want to build and add on to my website, new websites I want to make and other ideas. I really like it and cant wait to use it again.
So far the website is going reaaaally well. At the start of the unit I thought I was going to struggle to produce a site to the scale that I wanted to. I was getting stuck at every little point, and it seemed as though the end was miles away. After a while I started to learn the basics of PHP and found things pretty straight forward from there. I kind of wish we were taught how to use the language a bit better. We werent really given any lectures on coding principles, like why things work, and database structure and normalization hasnt even been mentioned…
But anyway enough of that. Im reallllly happy with the site, both the functionality and appearance. Im really happy with the visual style its got, I would have like to develop it a bit further and made more use of the “papery” theme, but I dont have enough time and dont want to make the site any more graphic heavy.
I managed to fit quite a lot of features into the site, little things like the pop up box on the profile showing users that love the selected sandwich, make it a little more exciting and visually dynamic.
Tomorrow I need to finish the final bits and bobs and the site will be done! At the moment my main priority is getting the image resizing done… I had it all set up and working on the grindhead server, until I found out that GD isnt installed on the impserver so we have to use some api called Image Magick… its a bit of a pain in the ass as I have no idea how to use it… Oh well…
First Project.
Friday, October 17th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
So we’ve been give the brief for our first 2nd Year project: Create a dynamic database driven website in which users can register, upload content and edit details using xhtml, php and mySQL. I was given the theme of a photography society.
Soooo PHP. Ive used it a little bit before, we were taught the very basics last year in the Narratives Unit, but Ive forgotten most of the little that I picked up. It seems fairly straight forward and very similar to actionscript, so I shouldnt have too many problems getting it to do what I want to once ive learnt all the syntax and got my head around everything.
Ive already pretty much 100% come up with my idea for a site. I wanted to make a decision early on so I could get started as soon as possible. The basic idea is a photography/recipe site. Users create sandwiches, take a photo of it and share it along with its recipe with other users. Sandwiches can be favourited, commented on and edited by their users. Im also thinking about some other more advanced features like awards for sandwiches reaching views and comment milestones and allowing other users to post photos of thier versions of the sandwich.
Ive started planning everything and working out everything I need each page to do, looks like its gonna be a lot of work! I have the advantage of an early start and experience with website design so everything should pan out well.
Ive started planning out the designs for each page, heres how the front page is looking at the moment:
Ok I reused the wavy top bit off my purple layout. I liked it.
Bye.
Back in Bournemouth
Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | Interactive Media Production, Uni, Web Design | No Comments
So im finally back in Bournemouth! We opened the door to our brand new house to find the “renovation” that was going on over the summer never actually happened… In fact the house hadnt even been cleaned and had stella cans, old tissues and pregnancy tests lying around everywhere - YAY!
Anyway thanks to lots of angry shouting parents its all getting sorted out, we’ve even got a 20 MB internet connection working now, so im happy.
Second year is sounding really cool so far. The first brief is a PHP web design project, the full details of which I find out in about an hour. What I know at the moment is that we are going to have to create some kind of database driven CMS site, which is going to be really interesting. I have some initial ideas but im gonna wait to see the brief to properly start thinking about it. Luckily my 3 housemates are studying computing and did a shit load of PHP last year, so if I do get stuck ill be able to get help easily.
We were asked to make a website layout for our next PHP workshop, heres what I came up with:
Click the image to see it properly
Curvy.
I liked the purple I used on the layout for this blog and used it again. Ok so im unoriginal. Fuck it, purple is cool. Anyway, im pretty pleased with how it came out, I think doing the Zahav site over summer helped me not forget XHTML, I picked it up really quickly again.
Speaking of Zahav, the website is pretty much 100% finished, just a few things that will inevitably be changed need to be done. Anyway, the company has no money and cant pay us right now. fuck knows whats gonna happen but if I dont get paid Im going to be so angry. We spent so much time on that site redoing and changing things… Im just going to try and be positive, we might still get paid and doing the work was one of the biggest learning experiences ive had since I started doing this stuff.
Anyway, check out the site. we built a database driven news and updates system, an xml driven flash gallery for all of the company’s cars and various bits of flash (my job) and some other static pages. It took a long time, especially since the client made us redo everything about 3 times until they were happy with it, then decided to revert back to the original designs we did anyway…. *deep breath*
click too view the site
Anyway I have a lecture to go to, peace out.