Arrrrrgh... I hate it. I really do...

So once again; behind the eightball, breaking my promises, incapable of knowing if this is the correct usage of ";"...

But its not all bad news! Sure, I've been super busy with work the last couple of weeks. Sure, I've had to endure the terror that is my parents coming to check up on me (and I do mean terror, trust me on that), but not everything is a total bust up.

With my one free day these last couple of weeks, I managed to clean up this engine I had sitting about my hard disk, wasting space. I've managed to iron out the immediately visible bugs and create something of a pre-pre-alpha version of the game I wanted to make together. Please note that not only is this incredibly early, but it's supposed to be this easy because I'm deliberately leading you to the answer. Every time you understand whats going on, It makes me feel just that little be more superior.

Anyway, check it out here.

This is really an exercise in eastern game design. It's fully a topic I intend to write about in depth (when I'm warmer and more in control of my fingers) but until then you'll just have to work out your own what the hell I'm babbling about. Until then... Rock out.

(Note: There is no picture or anything because I am hammered and I have nothing relevant to show. This is a test to see if I can convince myself that posts can consist merely of words without the need of images. Who knows, I may wake up tomorrow feeling guilty and have to google image search an appropriate image out of shame. Only time will tell.)

Slapdash Efforts.

Work has been ridiculously busy this week, so I haven't been able to keep to my plan. It sucks majorly, but I guess this is what you've gotta do to be in this business.

I felt bad though, so I quickly painted this picture. I saw a breakdown of Ubisoft's artists painting character shots for the new Prince of Persia game and thought it didn't look so tough. This is what about an hour of time and an outdated copy of Fireworks can get me... Not too bad all things considered.

This was originally going to be Ryu from Streetfighter, but as I was doing the pose I changed it to Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur. Then I decided I'd make it Genjuro from Samurai Showdown. All those samurai types are the same anyways...

The good news and the bad news.

Lets start with the good news first, followed by the bad news, followed by meandering paragraphs of wankery.

So, the good news: I got an awesome job at a very awesome video game company. It's not the greatest job, and it's not what I want to be doing for ever, but it is most definitely; a start.

The bad news: This blog, as I intended to use it, doesn't seem to be as possible as it did when I started it. Back when I had stars in my eyes and lofty ideals and such I had a lot more time on my hands, and a lot more tolerance for giving up other things of leisure. These days, it's like I need the spare time to do other things I hadn't previously considered. And play video games.

The wankery: Well, it's not really all that bad. The whole purpose of this blog was to use it as an 'Experience Lite' substitute anyway, and since I'm now working in the industry and gaining real +1's to experience I guess its not as important for this blog to function that way.

That's not to say I want to stop with this thing, but it means my current work plan needs an overhaul. Working on one project is tough enough as it is, so instead of the one comic/one game, two posts a week OR DIE thing I was going for before, it's just going to be one project/one post a week definite. Thats not to say I wont post more (I entirely plan to post extra if I can or indeed, have something interesting to post) but the plan is to ensure quality, to you, the reader, my greatest fan. Don't say I never do anything for you.

So yes, the current project shall be: Johnny Lovebaby buys the farm: The comic of the fictional short movie based on true events. This is mainly because I have more of this finished at the moment, but I'm also thinking I'll be leaning more towards short comics and such anyway, since I'm getting my games exp. at work anyway.

I do intend to do games stuff as well, but as I've found previously, doing all the work by yourself sucks. I'm thinking if I try my hand at making maps, or using free game engines I might have better results, but only time will tell. Also, for extra posts I might start writing design docs for games ideas I have, so then there's a record of them and I have a free ride to sue anyone else who managed to 'have the same idea' down the track. To those types of people: I live with a lawyer.

Anyway, I think that does it for this post. Picture is almost entirely unrelated; It's from this site called Mojizu that people put characters up for voting on. It's all a massive popularity contest though, so feel free to sign up and vote for anything I put up!

Long over due post (Bruce Lee single-room beat-'em-up "homage" game-thing)

So, now it's come time to actually write this post, I've lost my train of thought from last week. My plan was to have a definitive character style sorted out, and maybe some basic animation. What I have is 4 possible ideas (out of about 7 others, 3 were really poor :P).

All of them need tweaks, but my favorite ones are the two center ones. The first one is good, but I think it may be a little too detailed for me to animate/flash to handle. The last one, on reflection, looks pretty crappy too. I should've used a bigger palette I think. I think I might try and combine the middle 2 somehow for the actual sprite. I really like he pixel one, in fact I have a gigantic soft spot in my heart for anything pixelly, but the only other game I've finished was pixelly so I want to try something different now.

So basically, I want to make a simple little beat 'em up. Influenced not so much by Bruce Lee (and his movie Game of Death), but the more the crappy Hong Kong knockoff copycat movies that got made to cash in on his success.

I'm still tackling the creative decisions of it all, but I'm thinking something dumb like "Bruce Lo and the Tower of Doom" or "Bryce Li and the Temple of Deadly Games of Death..." Basically, the plan is to have a one room battlefield. You have enemies in that room that you have to dispatch with kung fu awesomeness before you can climb up the stairs to the next floor, where you repeat the process, but a little harder this time. For me, it means I don't have to worry about annoying things like scrolling... and I can save on backgrounds!

I also hope to implement some basic physics to it, so you can throw enemies into other enemies, or furniture, and pull off crazy floating combos. I don't think it'll be hard to find inspiration for the moves, but I think its more important to make something that is easy to pick up and kick ass with rather than something more technical, a.l.a Street Fighter 2. I don't really plan for it to be competitive in anyway... just something you can pick up and play for a little while and be entertained. Maybe if it works tho, I could beef it up a little to allow for the combo freaks to show off... I think I want to try and sort out the graphics first tho, considering thats where I normally seem to stall.

Anyway, return next time for more internet frivolity... possibly even back in regular intervals!

Kung Fu Killers- ATTACK!

So... I got commissioned to do this pic today... But since I'm getting a whopping ZERO dollars for it I figure I can do what I want with it. So here it is, an update for today.

Other news.... I've been thinking about stuff, and to me, trying to get into games development, maybe I should be thinking more about, you know... making games. So I think I've gotta organize some kind of schedule and limit myself to certain things until they are done. I mean, Virtual House counts as a game.... but to a casual observer it wouldn't look like one (and thats what I'm aiming for) but I don't think people would get it unless it looked and played like a game. I think thats something I've gotta take into account. I'm all for making games that are "more than the game", or making games that are different form the normal but I think the gaming industry, particularly in the state that they are in now, just wouldn't get it.

So anyway, working out a schedule. One short comic and one game at a time. Sort my time out so I'm not just working on the comic in my lunch break in my car at work. Also, update virtual house at some regular interval (or indeed, get it up somewhere first). For those playing at home, the comic at the moment is "Johnny Lovebaby Buys The Farm", and the game is yet un-named, but I've got an idea and I'll probably elaborate on it next post (also, somewhat related to todays pic. Kind of).

It's still a post... I guess...

So I didn't really get around to doing anything post worthy today or yesterday. Things conspired. I slept in. Excuses Excuses.

Anyway, I'm still going to post today regardless.. If only to update on a few things. The first of all being Virtual House Mk.2, or as it stands at the moment, VH Beta. The reason being that the main framework for the first stage is complete, but the actual bits that make it a game aren't done yet. As it is right now, I'd still be happy to put it up, but I currently have no space anywhere for it. This is a problem I'm going to have to sort out soon... I wanna have somewhere to put up stuff that isn't pictures.

Anyway... Also something to add is the Infinite Canvas Jam archive still does exist! For some reason the "last" button doesn't work though, so be weary of that. It's not the greatest comic in the world, but it was fun doing the occasional strip.. and I think its one of the longest jams ever on the web (apparently these things happen often but die early). Check it out if your bored and aren't afraid of getting boreder!

Lastly, the picture today is another thing I've scavenged from the crappy facebook graffiti superwall thing. It's relevant because I'm a freakin' Mastermind. Trust me on this.

Snake?.. SNAKE?.. SNAAAAAAAKE!?! NO SNAAAAAAKE!!!

Today totally didn't go as planned, but I couldn't go to bed without posting something, so behold: Solid Snake.

I think I did this sketch in my car at some point. It just happened to be on something else that I scanned in and it looked alright, so I figured may as well post it. So after coming home from a crappy night at work, I resisted the urge to play LOTR or watch Jericho and speed painted this pic.
Metal Gear Solid is quite possibly my most favorite game ever... But I'm too tired to gush about it in this post. No doubt I'll do something proper sometime and I'll have my chance then.

Those following my other stuff, I've done a redo of the Johnny Lovebaby cover that I kind of like... But I'll reassess it in the morning with rested eyes. Also, Virtual house is still on track to be finished by the end of the weekend... Providing its not too busy.