hand eye social

I'm in the back there somewhere
On Thursday I was in Toronto to see Capybara and Superbrothers present their games Heartbeat and Sword and Sworcery. It was the first Hand Eye social of 2010. I didn't get to see much of the presentation because the place was packed and I could hardly see over the crowd, but it was still pretty exciting. Both games look (and sound) very cool. I'm interested in getting more involved in Toronto's indie game scene, so I was very happy to be there and I look forward to the next one.

Read this for more info about the event.

jetpack basketball v1.01

messhof has released an updated version of Jetpack Basketball, originally made for Bivouac Urbain in August. It now features the option to play against the computer. Not as intense as playing against a human opponent, but still pretty good. The only thing the game lacks now is the ability to steal the ball, which sounds like it's coming in the next update (edit: and it's here).

star guard

This game is a super concentrated kind of awesome.

a walk at night

This is an excellent third-party level for Knytt Stories. It is short but the atmosphere is fantastic.



You can download it here. Direct download link here.

jumper 3

I don't normally have the patience for these types of games, but Jumper 3 was fun enough to keep me playing until the end. In it you control Ogmo through over 50 stages, switching between five separate forms with different abilities. For an additional challenge you can try to collect the coins and medals. I really liked the simple graphics and the music, as well as the general atmosphere created by the story and setting.

I personally would have enjoyed this game more if the controls were a little easier. The way Ogmo accelerates when moving horizontally makes it hard to predict his movement, and each of Ogmo's forms have different physics properties which make it even more difficult to learn. But overall it's a very polished experience.

animated gif creation

In my previous post, I included an animated gif showing my editor in action. I thought a gif was appropriate in this situation because it was a short animation, uploading it to YouTube caused serious distortions, Photobucket doesn't allow me to host swf files, and because the limited colours make it suitable for gif compression. I used several free tools to make this gif, and thought I'd describe the process in case others find it useful.

First I used CamStudio to record the demonstration. It's a really simple app that outputs avi files and has the option of converting them to swf files.

After that I used RAD Video Tools to convert the avi file into a series of gif files. I set "Adjust (adds/removes frames) to" to 15, so the output would be 15 frames per second of video.

Then I used GIMP to turn the gif files into a single gif animation using the instructions I found here. Like the post says, I opened the first file and imported the rest as layers using File -> Open As Layers. I saved the file as an animation that loops forever with a 60 ms delay between frames. I also set "frame disposal where unspecified" to one frame per layer, and checked "use delay entered above for all frames" and "use disposal entered above for all frames".

The result was a 523 KB file with 266 frames at 272x248 pixels, 17 seconds at about 15 fps.

newest addiction

Kryzta. TIGSource describes it as:

an “anti-shooter” where you defeat your enemies with their own bullets. Collect the power-ups they drop to shield yourself (or press “Z” to unleash a devastating attack with them).

It was made in only 6 hours - a great example of rapid game prototyping/development.



Last weekend it was Portal: The Flash Version. Portal is one of the few commercial games that I actually kind of want to play, but can't be bothered to, so this was a good way for me to get some portal action.

knytt stories

I've just finished replaying Knytt Stories (The Machine and A Strange Dream). It's a 2D platformer by Nifflas that came out in 2007. I meant to post about it earlier, but didn't get around to it until now. I have much love for this game - I think it's as close to perfect as a game can get.



First off, it's very easy to pick up. The interface and controls are extremely simple. The game is all about exploration (which happens to be my favourite thing to do in a game). As the player advances through the world, they gain new abilities that allow them to reach places they couldn't access before. I like that it does not rely on the kill-or-be-killed mechanic (it's just "be killed," but still, it's refreshing). There are infinite lives and plenty of save points, which cuts down on the frustration. Story is minimal: just enough to provide context, the way I prefer it. The retro style music and graphics are great and combine to make a fantastic atmosphere. Levels are short, which is good because I don't have a lot of patience these days, and it makes for a tightly focused experience. Nothing is out of place; all the elements fit together to form a cohesive whole.

This article goes into more depth on the gameplay.

I also recommend previous games by Nifflas: Within A Deep Forest and Knytt.

falcon punch

This was part of a group project for my presentations class. Excruciatingly intense hilarity provided by Colin and Steve:

love letter

Dear Maya Animation Curves,

I'm hopelessly addicted to you. I can't stop thinking about setting your keyframes. I want to run my cursor over your splines. Let me unlock the weighting of your tangents, and manipulate your control points. I'll gently scrub back and forth along the timeline, and then we'll edit until our motions are in synch with the music. We can cycle to infinity all night long. Or at least until after the buses stop running.

Love,

Anna

cutout animation

Yesterday I learned that the style of animation I'm going to use in my game is called cutout animation. Two examples of it can be seen here and here. The best example of the use of this technique in a game is probably Odin Sphere:



My implementation is going to be rather primitive looking compared to this though.

reboot

Quite possibly the best show ever.

It looks like every episode has been uploaded onto youtube, so I'll have to go and watch them all. Here's the first part of the first episode.

game music

One of my more recent discoveries in game music archives is Mirsoft: World of Game Music. They've got DOS game music in several different formats, mainly S3M, MOD, and MIDI. I was surprised that they don't have the Tyrian soundtrack in LDS format, but that can be found here.

Zophar's Domain is a great source for game music. It doesn't seem to be updated anymore, but it is probably the best place to get NSF (NES) and SPC (SNES) files. There are also various sites dedicated to certain formats: USF Central (N64), GSF Central (GBA), PSF Central (PS/PS2).

Also available for download is Cave Story music, which is playable using OrganyaView (click on the icon located at 2004, Music), all of Nifflas' music, and Wings 2 music.