Back! With good news!

The first semester at Digipen is over in the blink of an eye. Boy, was it a busy semester.
.....

A few months ago, I participated in the local Actionscript Awards 2010 competition. As it turns out, I managed to get myself a 3rd place. Yippee~

That said, I really wish the organizers were more efficient - till now, I still do not know what I've won, the website isn't updated with the details either. I suppose I'll need to wait till the prize-giving ceremony for a surprise.

3rd Week gone by

Okay, I admit it. I probably will not be posting any new updates on Final Boss any time soon simply because I. have. no. time. (I'll still update the blog though)

3 weeks in Digipen has proven to be a little hectic and at times, downright nerve-wrecking(yeah, Math quizzes). Despite that, I'm having a great time in the school- its another step towards my dream of becoming a game developer and quite frankly, that's all that matters to me.

(Okay, maybe the Math quizzes weren't so great)

School Starts... tomorrow!

Just great. My National Service of 2 years is finally ending in a week, school's starting tomorrow, and I'm no where near finishing Final Boss! The ORD (Operationally-ready Date) mood must be getting to me.

Well... Digipen Singapore, here I come! =)

HTML 5 Canvas

I once saw someone posted a link to a game developed purely with Javascript and HTML. While making a Javascript game isn't on anyone's "TODO" list any time soon (view source, anyone?), it does bring to mind the possibility of creating much more complex and innovative web content.

With that in mind I dragged along an experienced web developer friend to guide me while I fooled around with the scripts. Click on the link below to see the result:

Particles! Yay!

Filler! Sorry!

Good Break

I've been enjoying a good break, playing games such as Resident Evil 5 and Okami. It's good to finally take a breather after so many weeks of hard work. That said, it's about time I get back to my projects again. A new, short game =). Final Boss can afford to wait a little longer.

The WeatherMan: Submitted for Competition

Okay, pardon me for not updating the blog lately, but for the past 2 weeks I've been really up to my neck with projects and deadlines. It is therefore with a great sigh of relief that I announced the completion of the WeatherMan project.

Fancy a peek?

I suppose I ought to emphasize it's not a game. Rather, it's a little about telling a story, and a little about conveying a message to the "players".

I've learned a lot from working on this project, especially from the technical perspective, considering it's my first time working on a Bitmap-blitting system (which I really should have done long ago). I've experienced first-hand how transformation of bitmapdata can KILL framerates (and thus stuck to copypixels() thereafter), and for some strange reasons, how the Timer instance didn't quite run at the specified interval it's supposed to run at on Internet Explorer (Firefox seemed fine).

When I headed into development, I was determined to not make sprite sheets for my character sprites. As such, all art assets were completely drawn and animated in the Flash IDE before being cached as BitmapData at run-time. Going all bitmap has yielded consistent framerates but has also made creation of certain "dynamic" game elements (aka in-game cut-scenes?) far more troublesome.

Perhaps a mixture of both vector and bitmap graphics is the way to go for my next project. For now, though, I need a serious break.

The Glass Ornament now known as The Weatherman

The Glass Ornament : From MovieClip to BitmapData

Even as Final Boss remains in development, I've taken on a new project for submission to the Actionscript Awards 2010 organized by Singapore's Republic Polytechnic. The project is tentatively titled - The Glass Ornament (TGO).

  From a design standpoint, TGO is not much of a game. Rather, it would serve as a virtual experience for players. In case you are wondering, the contest theme is "Climate Change".

  Now, from a technical standpoint, I intend to break away from rendering vector graphics onto the stage and instead, do the rendering by bitmap blitting. At this point of development, I am still working on converting my MovieClip(with the various frames of animation) into an array of BitmapData, skipping the sprite sheet step altogether.

  Hopefully I will learn much from this project. Anything else ( such as winning ; ) ), is secondary.

Final Boss : 13th post

Final Boss : 12th post

Sorry, late again. >.<
Fever has been holding me back. I've implement a new throwing attack - a video will be up this weekend.

Final Boss : 11th post

I apologise for the late entry >.<


For the past week, what I had done was mainly the tweaking of the boss' attack patterns.
Full stop. =(

Final Boss : 10th post

The project is progressing, a snail step at a time.

Added features:
- camera shakes when the monster lands after a jump
- some scripted events to add tension

Final Boss : 9th post

Way of the Ninja Boss.

Final Boss : 8th post

Been busy the past week, so busy in fact, that I didn't really clock much time working on Final Boss. The least I could so was to fix some bugs.

Stay tuned for next week.

Final Boss : 7th post

T_______________T

Added features:
- character can walk backwards while shooting
- particle effects when character dashes
- bugged boss behaviour

Ugh, bugs to fix...

Final Boss : 6th post

Other than integrating some PHP into my web site, I have been (surprise!) working on Final Boss as well. As with last week, I'm still working on the boss behaviour.

But wait! That's not all! Incidentally I've managed to give the character the ability to dash (by double tapping).

*Cough* The difference between dashing and walking animation is just a shear transformation away *cough*.

Final Boss : 5th post

5th post for Final Boss! I wish I have something to show (screen shot or something), but frankly I do not have anything presentable this week.

I've mainly been working on the boss behavior these few days; perhaps next week will see more progress =D!

Final Boss : 4th post

Some animation frames for the boss character.

Unfortunately, I need to return the tablet to my brother for a period of time, and will not be able to continue with the development of the game (not much, anyway). I suppose I'll just have to work on the other projects in the mean time =).

Oh No I'm late!

Late for last week's entry, that is. Worry not, I'll post my progress soon, before the day is over.

Final Boss : 3rd post

Boss Design XD!

Oh and Happy Lunar New Year!

VisualNE : 2nd Post

Aloha! Another week flew by us and once again I am posting an entry at the very last minute.

VisualNE remains early in development but already, key features are being implemented. The engine requires at least 2 xml files in the same directory as the swf (not a problem if user wants to host it on his/her own web page, but submission to flash portals is going to be a lot harder). One of the files defining the assets to load (pre-loading), while other the defines the main menu of the game.

At its current state of development, the engine has managed to support the creation of images as well as working buttons(kinda).

Here's how the main menu's xml looks:

Stay tuned for next week's entry.

VisualNE : 1st Post

Development on Final Boss can't continue without a tablet, so I got to work on an idea I had in mind for some time.

A Visual Novel Engine! Thus the project name "VisualNE".

I've always been intrigued by the Japanese's countless visual novels, especially those that eventually spawned their own anime series(Kanon, Higurashi etc). I would love to make my very own visual novel (though I must admit my poor command of English is a major hurdle) and while I'm at it, why not make it an engine that everyone can use (as long as they know xml)?

At least, that's what I had in mind for now.

Proof that I did some work >:(

Final Boss : 2nd post

This week saw no significant progress, thanks in part to the fact that my brother needed his tablet back. That said, I will proceed with this entry introducing the tension building sequence of the game, which also happens to be more polished than the other portions.

 The "tension builder" attempts to create atmosphere, or rather, to build up the tension in the game right before the final showdown with the boss. This particular section of the game relies heavily on scripted events(such as lights switching on by themselves when the player approaches, camera zoom etc) to immerse the player in the scene.

Final Boss : 1st post

It has been a while since my last post, and I figured it's about time I give the blog a little makeover. Now things look cleaner and maybe I'll feel more compelled to update the blog. About the self-imposed once-a-week entry? Well, it really is just another way to get myself to work instead of procrastinating about it.

Here's a little project I've been working on for the past months, crudely titled:

Basically a parody of the final bosses in video games in general, this game intends to mimick the cliches found in the most climatic moments of a generic action/adventure game.

 As of now, the project remains early in development and is likely to remain so for some time, seeing as I have some other projects to attend to.

Stay tuned for more updates next week.