Dock

Penguin Again Finished!!

2009-12-14T02:58:14Z

I finished Penguin Again for Ludumdare!! It's a small puzzle adventure game about penguins, again! XD This time it is third person, and features cakes.

Play it in a browser: HERE
or grab a windows EXE HERE (about 5.7mb)
Mac OSX universal: HERE

I think I need to sleep now!!

Voxel Cakes

2009-12-13T17:22:33Z

My game involves voxel cake!

8.5 hours left on the clock, and I'm starting to worry that I won't be able to get this done! D: Need to focus on essentials for a while! o_o

Penguins are back!

2009-12-12T22:08:25Z

I totally didn't plan to use penguins again, but... well... things ended up going that way! Still got a lot of work to tame the little gits, but I'm enthusiastic about how it will come together. Gotta keep working hard!

luncheondare

2009-12-12T14:11:32Z

Chicken rolls for lunch! Game is going a bit slowly, but I'm slowly checking off my list of mechanics I want available, then I'll be able to build the game based upon what works. :)

ld update

2009-12-12T12:04:06Z

Okay, I have dialogue boxes working now, and some sort of basic GUi. I still don't know what the point of the game will be, but I want to try to get some of the difficult/annoying stuff out of the way first.

still exploring ideas D:

2009-12-12T09:30:24Z

Breakfast was delicious! :)

Starting to play around with ideas. I'm struggling to get started on this, I think perhaps because I already did an exploration themed LD entry last time. I'm probably going to go for a third person exploration game with some sort of items to find.

ludumdare 16 start!

2009-12-12T06:24:32Z

Ludumdare 16 has started! The theme is Exploration! I have no ideas for this, but I'm going to do it! :D I got up at 4am and I've just been setting up my project, getting title screen and gui buttons working. Need to start designing a game!

Ludumdare #16 tomorrow

2009-12-11T10:06:06Z

I realised I haven't drawn any males in ages, so I just put this together!

Tomorrow is Ludumdare! I'll be designing and making a game in less than 48 hours, based on a a theme that is announced tomorrow morning.

This will be my fourth time participating, and it's always a big event for me. My aim this year is to make something that isn't 'scruffy', as all my previous LD pieces have been very rough and a little bit embarrassing. So I'm hoping to have things like a title screen, a 'win/end game' screen, sound effects, and maybe a bit of music! So I need to follow my own advice and keep it simple, avoid wasting time on stuff that isn't crucial. Wish me luck!

I have loads of work to do today, but hopefully I can get it all done and spend a few minutes preparing. Oh yeah, I'll be spamming my journal with progress updates as always, sorry! :D

It's December! Christmas is coming! D:

2009-12-03T11:46:22Z

Token cheesy picture for the holidays! Christmas is just around the corner! I should start thinking about buying presents!

I'm still somewhat exhausted from the IGF submission, but I can't slow down now. I have lots and lots to do over the next seven days, and then there's another Ludumdare 48 hour game challenge!

Tumbledrop entered into IGF Mobile

2009-12-01T22:49:55Z

I just entered Tumbledrop into the IGF Mobile awards! It's a big step for me, because it's a playable build that's in a good enough state to enter into a competition. Of course it's up against hundreds of other games, so its a long shot, but I'm glad that I was able to get things together. Here's a quick video based on the iPhone version:

Tumbledrop starting to take shape!

2009-11-26T23:15:41Z

I'm working really hard on Tumbledrop iPhone at the moment, and it's really starting to take shape. I'm aiming to enter this into IGF Mobile early next week, so I'm really in crunch mode at the moment. Working on new level designs is a lot of fun though, and it's exciting to see things fall into place!

Eurogamer Expo

2009-11-04T16:46:10Z

Eurogamer Expo was last weekend in London, and I was due to attend as part of the 'Indie Arcade'. Unfortunately I've been ill for the last ten days with con-flu, i.e. a bad cold from London Expo. This killed my productivity and also made it so that I couldn't travel down to attend Eurogamer Expo as planned. Tumbledrop was there without me though, and apparently it went down pretty well. My favourite shared moment from the show is that one of the stern looking security guards became enthalled by Tumbledropfor a while! XD

I really regret missing this show, as it was something I was looking forward to. Nevertheless, it sounds like it was a cool event for everyone, and I hope I get to show my games at upcoming shows.

Halloween 2009 costume artwork exchange whoo!

2009-10-31T00:29:00Z

pickled_jo as Vicky the Viking!

sonia_leong would make a better Holmes than Robert Downey Jr!

yapipie would enjoy being a palace guard solely because of the hats!

esjay is very handy with the net in Animal Crossing!

rikfuzz can really be the prinny, dood!

toothycat makes a fetching Seiji Hayami - Cutey Honey cosplayers watch out!

chococat hasn't cosplayed Ranke from Cool Cool Toon yet, to my knowledge! The only zombie girl she hasn't done?

tyris_flare as Yumi from Ulysses 31 already has the blue hair!

e_m_e_r_a_l_d misinterprets the bunny costume from Donnie Darko! XD (sorry!)

tigerangel_hel is, well, a tiger angel! XD Is this accurate?

pinkapplejam is zx spectrum tan! She needs to take care of her cassette player!

That was a lot of fun! I'm looking forward to seeing what you have drawn! :)
Happy Halloween everyone!

Halloween exchange pictures :)

2009-10-30T16:37:27Z

The halloween exchange pictures I'm doing are mostly finished now, and I should be able to post them up at midnight tonight! Whoo! I'm really looking forward to seeing what some of you have done, and I think you'll be, uh, surprised by some of these XD They were a lot of fun to draw!

Maid

2009-10-12T08:19:53Z

Just a pinup using markers for colour. :)

Making a game in two hours

2009-09-20T01:53:59Z

'Klik of the month' is a group is psychopaths whom decide to make a game in two hours from scratch each month.

One of those psychos reminded me of the contest, and for some reason I felt like giving it a shot. I didn't have any ideas for games, so I settled for a 'toy' and spent 90 minutes making this. There's not really much there, but it seems to work okay and I was pleased to complete anything within the allotted time. I'm generally becoming more much more comfortable with the idea of creating games quickly like this. You can play it HERE (use sound if you can).

Isla de Muñecas

2009-09-19T08:47:49Z

The 'Isla de Muñecas' (Island of Dolls) is an island in Mexico which is heavily decorated by plastic dolls. They have been there for sixty years, and can be found in the trees and around the huts of the island. There's a charming photo expose on youtube which talks about the island:

There's more information about the island here and in some other youtube videos.

K.K. Slider and Hatsune Miku Duet

2009-09-14T23:14:16Z

I'm a big fan of K.K. Slider and Hatsune Miku, both of whom are computer generated singing talent. Someone has put together a duet! :)

"Nice Cave" Timelapse video

2009-09-03T08:14:16Z

Watch the HD version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWgWGk07Ueo

I've just uploaded the timelapse video for my ludumdare game. This is the 48 hour development period reduced to about three minutes, with a little bit of gameplay footage shoved on the end for good measure. :)

Ludumdare 15 - Post Mortem

2009-08-31T12:50:59Z

Ludumdare 15 is over! This was my third time entering, and my first time having a successful entry. It wasn't without its problems though, so I figured I should do a write up of how it went.

The idea behind the 3D environment was to make 3D 'tiles' that can be put together in a grid arrangement. These were made in 3D Studio Max and exported to be used in Unity. The shapes had their texture co-ordinates setup so that they share one material for all of the objects. PCs can render a LOT of geometry so long that it shares the same material. This concept worked out pretty well, as the final game runs nicely on even the shittiest laptop!

I also decided to go with low-resolution textures, with 32x32 per metre square. This didn't quite work out unfortunately because 3D Studio MAX's UV texture co-ordinates are pretty inaccurate at low numbers, and even unfiltered textures suffer. This method was a thoery that didn't work out, but that's okay.

The graphics in general are very rough. These are all my 'first pass' attempt at graphics, and I didn't have enough time to clean them up. The tiles for the walls were never really finished properly, and some of the areas didn't get a proper treatment for the floor. In general I think the graphics look okay though, and I was pleased how consistent the visuals are.

Building the 3D environments also took me a while longer than I had hoped. Things because faster when I started from scratch, but I didn't expect the environments to take so long. Unity's editor isn't too helpful with this either because there are no easy ways to select multiple objects, so I had problems with things like enclosed areas being invisible or hard to click on.

I lost a bit of time by wasting time on code that wasn't important. I spent a while trying to get good keyboard only controls working, which I later scrapped because they clashed with the mouse controls, and I didn't have time to make a toggle. I would have been better off spending that time on a title screen and ending screen, which I regret not implementing.

I used 'SFXR' (CFXR on the mac) for sound effects, and I was massively pleased with the results. I started work on some music but I couldn't get anything to suit the theme. Sorry the sound effects are a bit loud! I was pleased to get some sounds in there though, it makes the whole game feel much more responsive!

In terms of game design, I didn't really have a solid game design figured out. Towards the end I decided to use what I had working well (doors and object-keys) and make the game progress based entirely on those. I think this worked out okay, with the game being a bit of a challenge but not so long to become boring.

All in all, I think it went okay! I am looking forward to the next ludumdare! :)

Ludumdare Entry - success!!

2009-08-31T03:44:01Z

I was able to submit my Ludumdare entry on time! Whoo! It's very ugly and ghetto, but it works and you can play it from start to finish! It's my first time having a successful entry into LD48, so I'm really happy about that. :)

play the web version, or you can download EXEs for PC or Mac from HERE

first test build of penguin game

2009-08-30T16:11:36Z

Here's my first test build of the game! Please test it out and let me know what sort of FPS you get.

LD15 - penguin says kwa

2009-08-30T10:09:49Z

I'm still working hard on my ludumdare game. I have NPCs working now, and some sound effects too. I need to work hard to build a basic 'quest' ASAP, and then I can come back to clean up the artwork later on, and maybe get some music in there if there is time.

Ludum dare update

2009-08-29T21:21:12Z

The game is coming along slowly but surely! I haven't got any new screenshots to release from the last few hours because I've been working on things like GUI and keys and doors. I'm starting to work on some better tiles now too. :)

Selina made me some really nice Risotto for dinner. I feel replenished and ready for a few more hours of game dev before bed .

I also enjoyed some strawberries whilst working on a few 3D object tweaks!

LD15 Update - Grid Paper!

2009-08-29T09:45:43Z

The best thing about this theme is that it gives me an excuse to use grid paper! Yay!

And here is my cavern so far. It's looking a bit more 'fecal' than I would prefer, so I think a palette change is in order soon!