Greetings

Title Screen
95%

-have to implement some global variables to record the users score and remaining credits. That's it.

Level 1
100%

Level 2
80%

-I have to play around with the zombies on the second level because for some reason (I think there's some aft code in there somewhere) they cause it run with a terrible lag.
-Fix Evil.K's death sequences.

Level 3
60%
-Lucifer is half-finished and already implemented in the game. However I want to have a 'transformed' Lucifer where he flies around attacking you, instead of running on foot. Working on the mesh at present.
-Level needs more gore.
-Death scenes for all enemies.

The Damned is truly nearing completion. All 3 levels are quite fleshed out now, and are loading nicely into a placeholder mc on the title screen, and all in all I'd say it was about a month and a half from going beta to alpha.
Sweeet..

I of all people know it's not a perfect game. It's a bit sparse in places and doesn't feel like there's enough action going on, but I'm quite satisfied with it as a first-time game. I'm reaching the point where I'm ready to move onto the next project, which at the moment in my head is a remake of the C64 classic Samurai Warrior. The Damned 2 will come soon in the future though, and it will absolutely blow away the first one.

Update Central

Greetings peeps,

Yes, I have been busy. Just had my Japanese style wedding a few days ago, and boy am I glad that's all over. Anyone who's ever had an 80 year old relative sing karaoke at their wedding will know exactly what I'm talking about.

But somewhere inbetween in between the sake drinking and the speech-making, I managed to find the time to sneakily work on The Damned, and in fact I have quite a few updates to report (as if anyone reads this shit).

The third level is going well now. I rewrote the entire enemy spawn function, and also made the decision to reduce the dimensions of the sprites. It's amazing how much faster the game runs now, and without any serious compromise in visual quality. Sure, the monsters look a bit blockier when they get close, but the extra frames of animation more than make up for it. This was the way I should have had it from the start.

Got the little Crow dudes running around in there now, and I FINALLY invented a method that works successfully in simulating fog with movieclips. Further more, the modified weapon code is functioning well now, and can accommodate any other firearms I decide to include (not likely until The Damned 2). Another addition (though still in testing) is the implementation of a power-up symbol that gives you extra shotgun rounds if you shoot it. It's done but needs a cool sound effect.

One last amendment is the inclusion of a new beastie. Yes, I thought just having CrowMen to shoot might make the level a little bit bland, so I've gone ahead and designed my own Garrador/Dr.Salvador hybrid. No name for them as yet (any suggestions?). I downloaded (oops, rented) Friday 13th the second part the other night and the whole sack on the head thing was working for me. My character doesn't wield a machete, but a karambit, an ancient Indonesian style hunting tool. It's a lot uglier.

Check him out;



The other day we were chit-chatting on FlashKit about C64 remakes, and I was thinking how I'd love to remake the Friday 13th game. Making a Jason character now might save me some time in the future if I ever do pursue such an idea.


More to come real soon!

Back at the helm..

So, for the past month or so I've been a little busy. My wedding is on the 4th of November, and I've been up to my ears in prep. I'm actually already married so the whole event feels a little pointless, yet this is how they do it in Japan- marriage at the local registry first, wedding later on in the year.

I took a coding hiatus from The Damned for a while in order to work on my isometric engine, but I'm back now. I've basically spent the last month teaching myself how to use 3DSMAX, and I've been learning rather than creating. FINALLY, I'm getting the hang of working with a mesh in Max, though for almost a week it's been an awful wrestle trying to get to grips with texture mapping enough to produce an end result I can be proud of. I suppose I've got more of an advantage over your average noob though, having mastered other programs such as TrueSpace and Lightwave in the past, and know my specular from my ambient mapping. The change was inevitable really, as Poser is well...shit.

Presenting my first mesh success 'CrowMan';



Picture this little squawking freak coming at you from out of the fog, because that's what will happen in the game.

He isn't the boss, just the standard enemy for the 3rd (and final) level of the game.
I have yet to rig him up and attach wings, but the mesh and texture maps are finalised. He's not perfect- yes, the mesh seams are visible close-up; yes, some of the textures don't blend nicely- but from a distance he does the job. I figure later on down the line I'll probably come back to this game and improve on all the graphics/code one day anyway.

It's a high-mesh model of Poser's James, exported to Max and altered quite a bit. As mentioned, texture mapping was the hardest to do. Only until I came across an easy method using a combination of UVW MAP and UNWRAP UVW,to keep all the textures in one jpg file. At anyones requests, I will write a mini-tutorial on how to do this.


All for now.


Progress on the game should be faster now that MAX and me are starting to like each-other.

Well howdya do..I wasn't going to bother to blog today, but my little peach is asleep already, and here I am.

I figured out a little trick today. Have you noticed that all my demo's run a little bit faster now, yes?


Well, want to know the secret?


RAMP UP THE FPS ON YOUR GAMES. BIG TIME.


I know, I know, every respected programmer will beg you never to go over 30 fps - because do you know - the poor cheap bastards out there who haven't upgraded their PC since 1999 and can only dream of figures and specifications such as 64mb ram and 1.4 ghz won't be able to play it.
Well screw 'em, that's what I say. After all, they're in the minority. I say boost it up to 60, and while you're at it, get some real sprites on the screen, not peewee space-ships that expire with miniature explosions.
Why stop there? Make two versions of your game, one that runs at 60, and one at 80 with twice the action - for the people with real graphics cards. And screw the guys who tell you not to push your fps beyond what is deemed considerate. Because the fact is, Flash simply can't handle big, fat, in-your-face bitmap games at 30 fps. MY little 500 pound laptop runs them fine at 50 fps (though online it slows to about 30 -JUST RIGHT-). And I don't know anyone who has a shittier laptop than me. Anyway, people who are regularly into games tend to own high-spec computers. Even kids who are not into games that much will nag their parents to buy high-spec until they give in.
My old dear has a fairly decent PC and believe me, she doesn't know the difference between the vacuum cleaner and the electric toaster. That's just the way things are these days, PC's are faster, better built. So there you have it. Focus on making the games you want to make, not the ones that are built to serve redundant specifications.

So push forward with your evil-self and slam the fps to the hilt. 'Cos unfortunately with Flash, it is so often is the only method available to whip some honest performance out of the slow-ass biatch.

p.s.New FLASH GTA demo on the sidebar.

Kris is back in the house...

It's been an inexcusable absence, but the dude is on the scene once again.

I've been pressed between finishing The Damned and YouTube. It's incredible that in a periodically short amount of time, YouTube now has videos on just about everything. I even discovered one containing out-takes from Vamp, one of my favourite childhood horror movies.

Progress with The Damned has been, er, damned slow. See, prior to the third level, most of the models I created were humanoid and as such could be made with a minimal amount of mesh adjustments and a few Photoshopped texture maps, but on the third level I have been faced with the task of creating the 'birdmen' monsters that I have conjured in my minds eye. Another issue has been focusing on the actualisation of a foggy landscape. I'm still working on creating the illusion of a believable, animated forest floor, but the ceaseless displays of moving, sometimes animated alpha-channelled images is persistingly costing a lot of processor power and getting around this has been tasking. It's times like this when you wish you had a senior coder with 10 years experience handy.

On the sunnier side of things, Lucifer is looking sweet coming out of the mists, and the 'birdmen' are coming along in a nice, creepy fashion.

A demo of the level 2 boss, EvilK, has replaced the previous link to the first level on your right side, enjoy. Seek out the weakspots!

p.s.

A bit of free code for those who want it. Mist in AS using the perlin BitmapData filter. Slow as shit, unfortunately.

import flash.display.BitmapData;

function makePerlin()
{
 

  for (var a = 0; a < 10; ++a)
    {
        offsets[a].y = offsets[a].y + offsetSpeeds[a];
  
    } // end of for



    datab.perlinNoise(50, 50, 6, rnum, false, true, 1, true, offsets);

  
  
}
  

var offsetSpeeds = [4, 2];
var rnum:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
var datab:BitmapData = new BitmapData(550, 400, false, 0x00CCCCCC);
var offsets = [new flash.geom.Point(0, 0), new flash.geom.Point(0, 0)];
var mc_1:MovieClip = this.createEmptyMovieClip("mc", this.getNextHighestDepth());
mc_1.attachBitmap(datab, this.getNextHighestDepth());


onEnterFrame = function ()
{
    makePerlin();
};

Okay. Today, bad movies..

Just a couple of horror flicks that've come out in recent years that are don't deserve the praise.

Hostel
Damn, well this started off pretty good, but the last 30 minutes killed it. And thinking about it, the only reason is was good in the beginning was not because of any horror element, but just enjoying the adventure that the 3 young guys were having getting laid in Slovakia and the Netherlands.
Like I said, the last 30 minutes were bloody ridiculous. Suddenly the mostly complacent hero turns into a whacko and does all sorts of comic-book anime shit involved cutting up bad guys. It's completely deters from any form of psychological reality. To top that, there's one part involving this crazy American businessman torturing a Japanese girl with a blowtorch. Moments later, the J-girl is up and running with a prosphetic eyeball hanging off her cheek.
The whole thing leaves you shaking your head muttering "weak". I can't believe Takeshi Miike lowered himself to do a cameo in one scene of this steaming poo-pile.

Saw 2
Ahhh, this was rubbish. Frankly, I think Saw was the equivalent of a one-hit wonder for the two main dudes involved in the producing of it, and so it came to me as no suprise that they disguise the lack of any solid professional talent in the making of the second one. The guys shouldn't have sold their souls to cash in on the franchise, because they could have remained respected members of the horror crowd otherwise. Sigh.

There are parts that are good, but Saw 2 has the feel of a college project with a big budget. Jigsaw is over-exposed and has some stupid lines. "Oh yes, there will be blood" sounds like it's ripped off from Waynes World, for Christs sake. There are major writing flaws in the human psychology of the characters, and the plot tries to be too clever for it's own good, ultimately leaving us with a weak ending that never really seems feasible.

Dead Birds
First off, don't let me convince you that this is a bad movie. It's not. But it is overrated. If anything I'd say watch it if there's nothing else at the video-store.
So what didn't I like about it?
Well, though the acting was good, I generally felt the pace was a little slow throughout, and I hated the grown-up kid from E.T. in the role of a cowboy tough guy.
Though the monsters in the movie were original and spine-chilling, they never reach their full potential as seat-jumpers. You don't see any good killings, and the movie almost seems like it's 90 minutes of people traipsing through beautifully rainy corn-fields or in and out of shadowy rooms, without any of it ever coming to a remarkable head.
Lke a delicious Caesar Salad that you never get to eat.
At least the ending has a good twist.



VIDEO-GAMES
-----------

Just posted a demo over at FlashKit. Here's a pic of the GUI.



The reason it's titled FEAR is because that was the name I changed it to before I discovered some cheeky bastards have called their game F.E.A.R.
Sons-of-bitches.
Mind you, it's hardly an original name, and THE DAMNED is started to grow on me more now.

More to come tomorrow.

Photoshop does the trick...

I'm feeling more optimistic today. Just got 250 quid remitted to me as a wedding present, and I just watched the new "Hills Have Eyes" movie which was hachet-in-your-skull sweet.
Hell, let's skip video-games for a minute and let's talk about horror movies. If you're not into them, roll on down the page some.

Let me tell you, I am more than qualified to make a zombie-game due my Tarantino-esque obsessiveness for gore flicks. Here's a presentation of a few superb movies for you guys out there with *BitTorrent*...ahem....sorry I meant 'time to see'.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The new one. I loved this more than the original. Embedded in my brain is the memorable scene of one of the victims having his leg chainsawed from behind a washing sheet line, and Leatherface giving a hammer-sandwich to some guys head.
Most memorable scene: The prior mentioned hammer to the head. SMACK!

Dawn of the Dead
Both the old one and the new one are good flicks. The first one starts off at a fast pace, but wanes toward the end. It's actually in some ways more of a social commentary than a clear-cut horror movie. However, it is still superior to the second one, which is somewhat formulaic for the most part. Saying that, it's a great Friday night.
Most memorable scene:A zombie baby being born.

Hills Have Eyes
I haven't seen the first one so the only thing I know about it is that it starred the mongoloid guy from Weird Science.
This is a great movie. It's part of this new wave of gore-out, scare-packed horror movies that you just can't get enough of. This one goes that extra length to shock and has truly horrific and delicious moments.
Most memorable scene:Mum and daughter coming in to the trailer to save their daughter only to get blown away.

Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2
Whilst the second one is slightly better, the first one is still high viewing. The director has made good use of jarring imagery that sticks with you, such as;- two kids watching a body being dumped into a pipe, only to see the murderer/monster turn to notice them; the monster exposing his face to the kids on the bus as he 'scents' them (very nice moment), and the flying monster snatching a kid into the sky whilst being chased by the family. Excellent movies. Probably the ones responsible for this resurge in good-quality horror movies in recent years.
Most memorable scene:Ah..too many to mention

Imprint
Very rare 1 hour Takeshi Miike special, and one episode of an American show called 'Masters of Horror'. To be honest with ya, I thought the Ring and the Grudge were both shite. What's so scary about a teenage ghost-girl with hair issues? Nothing. I see she's even making her way into video-games, which sucks.
No, you could say I was skeptical about this offering, but how can you go wrong when a horror episode is taken-out of a horror series for being too grisly. I just had to have it. It wipes the floor with the other directors efforts (even f*&king Argento screwed his one up, twat). A stylish, unpredictable and ultimately sickening period piece, which I can do nothing but recommend. Though I have to admit I generally enjoy the simple Hollywood horrors more, Imprint is an hour of madness you will do well experiencing. One last thing to mention is the marvellous acting of the lead Billy Drago (Snow from that movie Vamp). This guy, with his gaunt features and demonic grin, was born to do horrors. So why isn't he in more? Come on directors, get him into some good flicks before he croaks!!
Most memorable scene:Kumomo getting tortured with pins to the fingernails. Yowch!

Silent Hill
Wow, a highly original paranormal horror. This doesn't aim to get you behind the couch as much as go for the long-term creep out. It does well in absorbing your attention for the entire runtime. People who have played the Silent Hill game will adore this. It is the best attempt of a faithful conversion of a game to the silver screen I have ever seen. It beautifully captures that mixture of mystery and the traces of ethereal sadness that the game expounded. Resident Evil was cack (how dare they fire Romero when they pawned his invention!!), House of The Dead was...ummm fuck House of the Dead. S.H. will probably remain the popular choice of the People-Who-Know-A-Good-Horror-From-Their-Arse crowd for a measure of time.
Most memorable scene:Without a doubt Pyramid-Head tearing a girls flesh off and chucking it at the door.


The Descent
Oh yes. I've left the best for last. Do yourself a favour and watch the others first because this one is the chocolate at the bottom of the Cornetto. You will benefit from that lingering taste that should be maximised. In comparison to the others mentioned here, I can only sum it up by quoting Lance as he talks to Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction "These are all real, real good shit, but this one is the the f*ckin madman". The Descent is absolutely terrifying. Believe me, I haven't reacted to a horror this way since Aliens. Everything in this movie is perfect. The cast, the music, the lighting, the residual fear of the whole situation. And it continues to scare you, again, and again, then when you've already shat yourself, one last time. Then finally, the ending is poetic, and yet deeply disturbing and memorable. Watching this movie is like going down the gym for all the constant heart-rate fluctuations you go through. Horror movie of the decade.
Most memorable scene:Can't spoil it for you. I'm not that cruel.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to Video-Games

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm forced to make my death-scenes with some simpler animations. Truth be told, Snakeman's one is done now and it's not half-bad.

I'll post a pic today or tomorrow.

Don't you just hate it when you spend a great deal of time on some element within a game, only to realise it'll never work?


I came to this conclusion the other night after irritatedly trying to piece together a decent animation.
After discovering that Flash could embed avi's and compress them into satisfyingly small files, I thought I might try to make some decent CGI for The Damned - some death-scenes for when you get killed by the bosses.
However, I got as far as a Snakeman animation with him pulling the main character out of the boat and down to the depths, when I suddenly realised something very important. It looked shit.

I don't have the skills in Max yet.

Bugger.

It was taking far too long, and for all the effort it still never looked anything better than what it was, a beginners effort to make something that looked pro.

Oh, it could have been great. Let your imaginations play on;

a) Snakeman biting the hero, and then dragging the paralysed meat down to the bottom of the lake.
b) A quiet EvilK scene where you see him tossing a blood-drenched burlock bag off a cliff, which opens to reveal all the hero's chainsawed body-parts inside.
c) Lucifer tearing out a chunk of hero neck. Then almost as soon as the hero has died he is raised to be undead, and follows Lucifer out of the scene.

It sucks, but what can you do?
For the time being I suppose I'll finish the death-scenes with simple animations alike to the one you can find in the game now. No wow factor with any of that crap.

So hey, if any 3d masters out there fancy getting their names on a game, (and maybe some cold hard cash IF it sells), how about you rustle up a few nice animations for me?

Pretty please????

New Weapons

BEAT-EM-UP TUTORIALS

It seems like the beat-em up tutorials I wrote on GotoAndPlay() are gaining in their popularity or something because recently I've had quite a few folks out there sending me their own home-grown examples of their own fla files complete with a million bugs and a beg to save their game. I'll likely make a FAQ, because it's always the same problems that pop-up. Basically, too many people out there are trying to make SF2 before they can even make DragonNinja. Doh!
Because of the amount of requests, the tutorials updated with new improvements and better code are being linked on the blog today. I also felt guilty for using code on movie clips so that has also been corrected.
I'm a little unhappy with GotoAndPlay.it because despite having sent them a couple of tutorials (of which the originals were wiped from my pc that exploded), they haven't done anything about publishing them. Oh well, you will find the tutorials on the sidebar, and future tutorials on here or FlashKit, if they'll take them..?


THE DAMNED

Shotgun now available for the third level of The Damned.
I was considering only having the handgun for the entire game, but I figure every good zombie game has got to have a couple of chainsaws and a shotgun, so I went ahead and rendered me up some 3d models and voila!
Actually the code to operate switching between weapons have been finished already. However, I'm thinking the shotgun will be more of a special weapon that only lasts 10 seconds or so but does immense damage to the enemy, to keep the balance in the game.

Something else I have to do is some more death-scenes. There's only one at present, when you get killed by the water-zombies. So today, I shall be working on something for Snakeman, perhaps a little embedded video of our hero getting dragged to the depths of the lake, like that scene in Friday 13th.

Blogger is behaving today.

Here are the other bosses that have been created so far;

EVILK



A pyscho based on LeatherFace who tries to carve you up with a chainsaw. EvilK is a shite name for a game boss, but leaves no mystery as to which flash coder authored the original game, in the case of E.Baum or another criminal stealing it and claiming property rights. The showdown with EvilK is 100% complete already, and I'm 98% happy with it. You fight him in a dark cave, and I've used an actionscript generated tint to colour him black so that you only see him when he comes running out of the shadows. It works suprisingly well, and has the desired effect of scaring the poo out of you on first sight. He also has a blood-curdling scream to go along with the ear-ripping chainsaw sounds. (Update 8/2010 'EvilK' became 'Project K' in 'THE INSANITY 1 & 2'

LUCIFER



Lucifer is a demon that was accidentally raised by a necromancer who foolishly believed he had will enough to master. Unfortunately for him, he raised a sovereign monster far beyond his control and was slaughtered. Lucifer is a quick boss that grows wings in his second stage of battle, and can also raise other creatures to his aid. He doesn't have any special weak points, unlike Snakeman or EvilK- you simply have to be nimble with the mouse to catch him under the crosshair.

Lucifer has been rendered but I've yet to get him into code. I figure after he's done I'll tweak the game up, see what the public thinks, and then maybe make a few more levels if it's popular.

Apologies for a long absence..

No excuses, other than myself being lazy to update I'm afraid. Well, not exactly lazy- in fact pretty busy. Not with chasing hot babes and driving fast cars, worse luck, but with coding.
I ran into a coding problem with Nexus and decided to drop the project temporarily. I hit a brick wall and realised I don't have the programming know-how to deal with the ever fiddly tile-engine. Instead, I've been working on my first game, House of Splatter (now retitled with the less daft-sounding 'THE DAMNED').
And man, what was a tiny little shooter has now matured into a top-notch game. Who would have known it had such potential. In its current stage of completion it features new graphics, bolder death scenes, extra blood'n'gore, an intro page, and some perversly evil bosses:

SNAKEMAN





Snakeman is a creature kind of inspired by Jason from Friday 13th. He lives in the lake and protects his vulnerable tongue with a tempered steel mask. *HINT*

Go ahead and check out the first level of THE DAMNED on link section.


Sorry the rest will have to wait as Blogger isn't uploading pictures properly right now.


The bosses have some fairly predictable AI patterns, but won't be beaten by any lazy trigger fingers (saying that though, Snakeman is a bit too much of a wimp at present). You also have to time your reloads very carefully or you will get a game over - as a unique aspect of this game is that you have only one life.

I'm quite chuffed with the mileage I can get out of Poser these days. When I first got my hands on the program about 5 years ago, it was of little real use and just a way to waste an hour making two crappy looking-models kung-fu fight, or do 3d humping for a laugh.
Nowadays, it is much improved.
It's a bug-ridden application that crashes more often that not; a pile of cack compared to Max or any of the other big boys, but it certainly can do the job at times. Now that I've figured how to wrap textures around models correctly with UVMapper, deform them with magnets, and have mastered the Cloth room, Poser truly has become indespensible for making realistic keyframe animations. I recommend it to other newbs who are embarking on their journey into the world of 3d animation.

Tile-Engine Rebirth

It's highly enjoyable remaking old classics of your childhood. but it sure is time-consuming. I'm embaressed to say how long it took to make some of the backgrounds alone. Today I got quite a lot done though.

Check out the Nexus link for some new updates.

You can press Q to punch, and if you're in the elevator room, you can see the doors open too when you press it. I haven't as yet implemented a proper elevator system as of yet(that's probably next) but if you tap Space bar it flips arrays and you can see the next level when you leave the screen.

CODING
First, I got around to rewriting the art/tile based hybrid engine. If you check the Nexus l*ink you can see the little beauty in action.
It wasn't much of a hurdle to code- in fact, I'll post the code here for the newbs.

tile_width=60;
tile_y=50;

myMap = [5, 4, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 0];

//myMap is the array for the background. The numbers refer to the corresponding movies. Ah, you'll get what I mean in a minute..It'll probably end up as a 2d array (to deal with levels) but I'm just keeping things simple for now.

myMiddleMap = [[0,10,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0],
[0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],
[0,0,0,0,2,0,0,0,0,0],
[0,1,0,3,0,0,1,1,1,0],
[0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,0],
[0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0],
[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,10,0]];

//myMiddleMap is a double-array that contains references to objects held in movies that combine to create the middle tile layer.

this.createEmptyMovieClip("background", this.getNextHighestDepth());

background.attachMovie("cavetile_" + myMap[current], "cave", background.getNextHighestDepth());

//In the library, my backgrounds are all named like "cavetile_1" "cavetile_10" etc, so all the above line does is check the myMap array to see which one is up, then attaches it to an empty movieclip called background.


for(var i=0;i < style="font-style: italic;">current is a referer to which screen you are actually in.
First we check to make sure the array reference isn't 0. If it is, that means there's nothing to plot, so we do nothing except go to the next tile, 60 pixels further to the right. If we do have a tile that needs to be placed, we give it a name "Midtile" with a number from 1-9. and we position it appropriately by setting its x co-ords to i*the set tile width.

Later on I make sure to replace 'cave' with the new backgrounds at screen change, and remove the previous one when it's out of view, along with all the tiles that are attached to it.

I quite like my little tile engine because it's fairly flexible. Though the mid-tiles have to retain a set width, their height is dependant upon you. Further more, since they're all movies, they can be animated and code put on them.

For example, an invisible wall tile is pretty easy to implement.
When the character runs, before incrementing or decrementing his x position, we check to see if a collision flag has been raised. If so, we disallow any changes. The collision flag check is performed within the tile movie itself. You run a hitTest to see if the _root.hero has collided with it, and if so it returns true and our character stops moving towards it. With most tile-engines, you have to check every frame for a collision, but because the code is inside the tile and not on the main program, it's that little bit faster as it only runs tests after it has been created.

I'm either really smart, or my code is pants and I'm just too dumb to recognise it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was thinking about whos faces to use for the undercover agents. In the original, the faces were digitized and probably mates of the programmers, but I figure "Why not just go the whole hog?" and put my favourite actors in there instead. So look forward to seeing Christian Bale, Al Pacino, Di Caprio (haha, just kidding), Christopher Walken, and plenty of others make an appearance. I figure I'm never going to get sued since the game is being made basically just for my entertainment, and if any Ebaum or wherever steals it without my permission for their site then they'll likely be the ones getting the finger pointed at instead. Hell, I'd find it hilarious if I was a famous moviestar and some cheeky Brit used my face for a crappy game.

Well, it'll be a laugh getting to that, but first and foremost I need to get the levels working properly and a tracking system up and running. Did I mention I welcome volunteers? Sigh.This is going to take forever...

Labours of love.

Bollucks. The worst thing that can happen to any programmer happened to me. I know, you're thinking "Your doctor told you you've got 6 months to live". Nope. Worse.

My laptop died. I know, shocking news. What makes it even worse is that it was smack-bang after I had just finished coding a sweet little tiling engine that worked exactly in the way I described in the below post. Oh man, it was so perfect. There I was, rubbing my hands in glee and self-congratulation, and was 5 seconds from saving when I knocked a bottle of wine over the soddin' keyboard. Instant frizz-out. I'm now writing from our new nifty 80 gigabyte 1.6 mhz Dynabook, so, some good things can come from bad.

Oh but Nexus. Shite. I lost all my Poser animation files. The actionscript. Everything I worked for. And none of it was backed-up because, hey, who ever imagines your PC is gonna fry? I mean, maybe your flash memory stick or CD drive but the whole thing. Let's just say I will learn from my mistakes. It takes the piss that I will now have to use a decompiler, and try to salvage whatever crap I can from it. I'm pretty hopeful I'll get the code back, but all the graphics...unlikely.

All for now, folks. Will update you tomorrow on the how's-it-goes.

Nexus [2]

Didn't have time to fiddle around much with Nexus today. In the morning I noticed that I had forgotten to remove movies that were no longer visible to the player once another background movie swiped over it, so I fixed that. Then later on in the early morning I made a few more screens for the cave level. Trying to make sodium lamps in the walls was a bit of a bugger in Photoshop, but after dabbling with a million filters I finally got a result I was satisfied with.

You can check out the additions now - I've updated the link below.

Nexus [1]

Working on Nexus kept me off the porn all day, much to my wifes delight. (not that she ever catches me anyway, *chuckle*)

TILE-ENGINE




Originally, I had decided I was going to use small 50x60 tiles for everything, but today I was going over it in my head and I thought "Well, hang on EvilKris, that could be a waste of time - since the screen isn't that big in dimensions anyway. Why not just use 1 big tile per screen - for the lions share of the background- and one simple row of tiles that runs along the middle of each screen for objects and doors."

That way, even if the main background on each level is fairly homogenous, I can just chuck in whatever 8 tiles I like sort of randomly and each screen will still look unique. I probably won't need to piss around with many 2d arrays or map editors as much.

Anyway, I designed a couple of screens of the cavern where you meet the first Nexus member in the original, and suprisingly, designing the main background tile-engine only took about an hour of my time (guess my coding's improved), complete with an RPG style screen swipe'n' all.






Simple is best eh?

Will update the flash file on this page in a week or so..

Nexus

Here now's a new prototype I've been working on. Based on the old C64 game 'NEXUS' (C64 - Oh those were the days...). So far you can roll, jump and run, and punch with Q.

The character was made in Poser. Some of you out real, real old time gamers might recognise that the animation seems a little familiar. That's because it was modelled frame-for-frame on Impossible Mission, yet another C64 classic. You've got to love those golden oldies. I've been trying to figure out a way to make the main character less fuzzy when he's animated (looks perfect if he runs on the spot). Reducing the amount of frames in the animation hasn't worked, nor decrementing the detail. What a bugger..

One good discovery I made today (that had quite stumped till now) was how to make a flash file 'reset' when the player gets game over or hits the Escape key. With regular flash animations, all you have to do is stick _root.gotoAndStop(1) and that would work fine, but with a game you get some odd results with that method and your movies will still be there even back at the beginning frame. Finally, I came across this bit of code-

loadMovieNum(_url, 0);

- which does the job marvellously. No need to set all your variables back to their original values or unload/remove movies.

CHECK IT OUT HERE


By the way, if anyone out there wants to fiddle around with the stuff I've made already, adding your own code or techniques, that's cool with me.

Welcome..Stay a while...Staaaay forever!

Greetings,



EvilKris here. English teacher by day, game coder by night. This is my game-programming journal and portfolio of existing projects. So far I have yet to fully complete any of my games but a number of prototypes can be found here for those of you who would like to take a peek.

Mostly I go for action/arcade games so anyone who fancies a 3d isometric rpg engine won't find one on here. However, should you be into scrolling fighters, 1st person shooters, or generally any class of game that requires nimble fingered dexterity, you might not have to look any further.

I find Flash to be the medium of choice. It's close to useless for making 3d games in, but for 2d games, it's fundamentally one of the best game-creation tools out there and does half the job for you most days.

I make games out of nostalgia and desire to replicate those happy memories of my teens. Now that I'm a little older, spend less time chasing chicks, my geeky new hobby is taking old games and redesigning them myself. Currently I'm working on the classic Nexus for the C64. They'll be a demo on here somewhere.



GAMES UNDER CONSTRUCTION



I'd like to apologise first as, due to this blog being hosted on a freebie geocities, there's only so much bandwidth on offer, and as a result, some of you may have to keep retrying every hour if it reaches it's limits. (Hey, I'm getting hosted reeeealll soon).






HOUSE OF SPLATTER - 1st Person Gunnery








I shamelessly decompiled and ripped quite of lot of stuff from other Flash games out there whilst making House of Splatter (though one could argue their stuff was already from other games anyhow!). If it ever makes it past the prototype stage I'll change all that, but for now enjoy what is available.

In the game you are supposedly Rick from the game Splatterhouse, and the stage is set prior to his reincarnation as the mad hockey-mask sporting nut job who goes around battering zombies to death.

Umm..there's not a lot you can do here except shoot zombies till the cows come home. Oh! And you can die if you let one get too close.

KEYS:

Mouse moves the crosshair.

R - Reload







THE DEMON WITHIN










- Scrolling Streetfighter/Mortal Kombat rip







Since nobody has made one yet, I thought it would be awesome to have a Streetfighter game in the mould of Mortal Kombat Mythologies.

You take on the role as Ryu out to seek his revenge on Akuma for the murder of Ryu's mentor and father-figure Gouken. Instead of it being a boring one-screen SFII clone, it's a scrolling fighter. At it's present stage, it has a functional fight engine (though the moves are more akin to Mortal Kombat in structure), and you can fight a never-ending horde of Sub-Zero's each complete with the most basic AI ever conceived. I've actually two versions planned. The first is a simple game such as you see here, where you have to beat progressively harder enemies until you can take on the boss, and another far more ambitious project with Ryu able to leap around platforms like Strider.