28.09.05

A Better Development Diary…

Posted in everything, games, web at 10:07 pm by the2bears

Where can you find a better Development Diary than my Relentless Automata one? Lots of places I’m sure, but one that is very good is found here, at Moonpod’s site. The diary is a good insight into their working style and includes lots of visual progress on their games. They show videos of rendered 3D models while I show a lone screen-shot. They’ve also built a web community around their forums, small but dedicated. An essential element for any independent game developer, especially if you’re trying to make money through repeat customers. Something to strive for…

development development diary moonpod

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24.09.05

Oldboy

Posted in everything, movies at 1:04 pm by the2bears

Watched the Korean movie Oldboy last night. It is one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time. Incredible acting and cinematography combined with an interesting and tight screenplay. Why do foreign films seem so much better than Hollywood productions these days? Oh right, because they’re created without marketting’s influence.

The premise of the movie is what first compelled me to buy it: a man, Oh Dae-Su, is imprisoned for 15 years then released. He has 5 days to discover the reasons for his incarceration. I really don’t want to say much more than that about the plot, other than most of the movie revolves around Oh Dae-Su’s quest for revenge and understanding.

But this is no The Count of Monte Cristo. I feel that one of director Chan-wook Park’s primary goals in making the movie is to challenge us. To challenge us to reject the movie by introducing subject material that is counter to our societal norms. He seems to want us to question ourselves, will we take an all or nothing approach? Or will we allow ourselves to appreciate the movie despite the emotions elicited.

This is a good movie, a very good movie.

korean movies

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23.09.05

Games With Style: Part 10

Posted in everything, games, shmups at 8:20 pm by the2bears

One of the most unique shmups I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing is Platypus. Instead of 3D models rendered with fancy textures or sprites made up of pixels the objects in this game are actual captured images of claymation models. It must have been a ton of work. The payoff is incredible though… everything from explosions that are literally splatters of plasticene to damage shown as holes to several layers of parallax scrolling look amazing.

It’s also a pretty good game, though perhaps a little difficult after the first couple levels. As shmups go it’s been well thought out. There’s a decent power-up system with a variety of weapons, fruit that can be caught for points (in fact each fruit can be shot and split for extra points) and a good variety of enemy ships to shoot. Attention has been paid to the details as well. Things like ships on the ocean, volcanos spewing lava and enemy activity on the background layers add to the overall feel.

A game with this much work put into making it deserves to be rewarded with a purchase if for no other reason that to encourage games as art.

claymation games horizontal indie platypus shmup shooter

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22.09.05

Relentless Automata: Part 18

Posted in everything, games, projects at 8:10 pm by the2bears

Relentless Automata still progresses slowly, and is now at a stage where it requires a lot of general clean-up. By that I mean that the mechanisms for starting and stopping waves and levels needs tuning, the criteria for searching for Life patterns needs to be more abstract and flexible, and a host of other small things. That’s always a tough task to motivate for, as there is little feedback other than “not breaking the build”, but a necessary task all the same. Once that’s done then I can put some effort into adding new patterns and enemies spawned from them. Slowly but surely. I like the vector look as shown below, I’m glad I made that move.

conway project relentless automata shmup shooter

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18.09.05

Relentless Automata: Part 17

Posted in everything, games, projects at 11:08 pm by the2bears

It’s been a long time without an update on Relentless Automata. This is primarily because I only seem to be able to program a few lines of code a few days a week. I like the latest change, however. I’ve added support for vector-based sprites. I like the simple look I’ve been using so far, but it seems overkill to use textured sprites when most of the enemies I envision can be easily rendered with OpenGL primitives like lines and quads. These scale better than textures too.

I’ll be honest and admit that Geometry Wars (found hidden in Project Gotham 2 and its sequel are visual inspirations here, as are many of Kenta Cho‘s games. Expect simpler point-particle effects and explosions to complement the new look. I do think, though, that I’ll keep a softer look for the Life cells, seems a good thing to allow a distinction between the two “worlds”.

Amidst this fairly big change in the plan for the visuals I improved the “homing” movement in some of the enemies, and they now track a target with smoother motion and they do this more efficiently. Kind of neat having a chain of them, with the first tracking the player’s ship and the rest tracking each other.

geometry wars kenta cho opengl project relentless automata shmup shooter

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