“If this industry can’t find a way to make money off the primary market — even with DLC and exclusive pre-order content and HD re-releases and map packs and online passes and annualized sequels and “expanding the audience” and AAA advertising and forced multiplayer — then, if I may be so blunt, fuck it. It doesn’t deserve our money in the first place. If an entire industry has its head so far up its ass, is so focused on short-term gains, and has embraced such a catastrophically stupid blockbuster business model in the pursuit of a stagnant market of hardcore 18-34 dudebros that it thinks it has no choice but to take away our first-sale rights as its last chance of maybe, finally, creating a sustainable stream of profits, then it can go to hell.”
—From this ridiculously quotable NeoGAF posting (via discovergames)
June 2013
2 posts
“An industry which thinks it’s reasonable to wage war on perfectly normal consumer behaviour in this way is an industry that’s seriously dysfunctional”
—Pre-owned crackdown is a sad excuse for business innovation By Rob Fahey (via mazznet)
May 2013
3 posts
April 2013
1 post
Ludum Dare 26: One Life
I finished my entry, with 2hrs to spare no less:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=12116
You can play it online here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73345123/ld26/index.html
Download for Windows/Mac/Linux from here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/73345123/ld26/ld26onelife13-05-03.jar
March 2013
2 posts
Random update to post some sprites I’m done with. I’m guessing I have at least another 10 enemy sprites to do, 2 of which will be big bosses so will take longer. Then I’ll probably get lazy and just recolour/redesign a few to pad things out.
January 2013
1 post
December 2012
2 posts
HEY! Vote for "A Nation of Wind" in the IndieDB Indie of the Year competition! →
indiedb.com
CLICK DA LINK PLEASE! And reblog! It would be a huge deal for me to be in the top 100 games!
Oooooh......
.. shit. I need to get something done.
So I started redoing all the sprites and tiles in Insect Crisis because I’m a stubborn idiot and felt I needed to do it all myself. This basically means I won’t be finishing the game until the new year. I do have 3 weeks off work to get it done though… whether that actually happens is another question.
October 2012
1 post
August 2012
4 posts
Just watched the videos for your shmups and it looks great! Are you using Game Maker? How do you get your ship movement to be so fluid? In my game, I use the "jump to" command and it's hard to make the ship move tiny distances.
It’s programmed in C++ with the SDL framework and OpenGL for graphics. Getting nice, fluid, consistant movement is difficult in any framework or engine, but in Game Maker 8 I found it even harder because you don’t have as much control over the frame timing.
If you want to stick with Game Maker though, you will definitely need to start using the Game Maker language.
Then start reading up on fixed time steps and variable time steps. Here is a great link: http://gafferongames.com/game-physics/fix-your-timestep/
In Insect Crisis the physics is done at a fixed time step (100 steps per second) and the game is drawn as fast as possible (unless v-sync is enabled). It was overkill though, and I did most of it just to learn how it was done.
July 2012
1 post
To anyone that cares
Apologies for lack of updates. Got a new job and having to commute 90mins each way (including 2 connections) is cutting into my can-be-arsed-to-do-anything time. Once I catch up on lost sleep I should start getting stuff done again.
June 2012
9 posts
“Michael Jackson is the master of the linear tween.”
—Robert Penner, Easing Equations
The Grind
With the game about 90% finished I’m now starting the grind through the last 10%.
Here’s a quick list of stuff to be done:
- Playtest final stage
- Add healthbar for bosses
- Add stage clear scoring presentation
- Add more music
- Add intro
- Add ending
- Cleanup any code that might need it
- Final build and playtest it thoroughly
- Release?
I’ll probably be posting some screenies of stage 4 and 5 at some point too.
