Dodge is a game that I crafted in 48 hours for Ludum Dare.
I used the tool Game Maker and its associated language, GML, to craft the behaviours exhibited by the various different attributed and objects of the game, as well as to input the details resent in the various structures (including menus and cheats) present in the short game which I have created in the recent past in aforementioned way. To manufacture the simplistic graphics, I used the associated image editor included with Game Maker; a somewhat useful method of creating images which, while not the absolute best available, is suitable and in fact excellent for my minimalist purposes. Indeed, the very theme of this competition was minimalism. Therefore, minimalist graphics, sounds and gameplay was in order.
Upon first mention of the theme, on the weekend's Saturday, my thoughts immediately flew to such simple games as Super Hexagon. Such works are simultaneously simple and exceedingly easy to understand, but also exciting and enthralling in their simplicity. Verily, this was the type of experience I aimed to induce in my small list of players. And lo, I commenced the creation in the afternoon of the Saturday of Ludum Dare 26. I had the grand idea of a simple dodging game in which one must aim to avoid an array of obstacles approaching from a grand multitude of directions, increasing gradually up to the point where more enemies were present than is humanly imaginable. A further idea was for a sound to play each time a villainous square arrived on screen, and for it to sound somewhat like music. I retrieved the indie sound creation software SFXR and used it to manufacture a limited list of sounds, a random one of which would be played at each arrival. From then, I commenced coding with the grand usage of variables and random number generating functions; menus were created; testing was done, and procrastination performed slightly.
I then had the prototype tested by someone who wasn't me and acted upon their complaints, adding an option to deactivate things disliked by them and eventually changing it to be the default. I then essentially completed the game a decent and respectable quantity of time prior to the competition's deadline, so I decided to implement a Cheats menu for joyous cheating aimed at those with copious amounts of spare time on their hands. Then, I uploaded it to the Ludum Dare website and awaited criticism.
Much criticism and commentary was done, but other than a proud assortment of comments present beyond the link at the top, nothing interesting happened except for when gameplay was streamed for a short time by slightly well-known personality Jelly Cakes, which was mildly interesting to me.
I have gained nothing much from this moderately interesting series of events that transpired over a short amount of time, except for the ability to program a couple of things which I had never done before, or even really tried to do; I also have another game to amuse me in times of dire procrastination and I have also gained the vital knowledge that when attempting to create a system which creates procedurally and randomly generated music, it is an idea beyond excellent for the sound files for the individual notes themselves, to be pleasant sounding; for even the greatest musician cannot make a ghastly instrument sound exceptional. No amount of skill will allow one to play glorious and beautiful music upon a bottle of armpit sweat, which has not been tuned appropriately. However, the attempt was appreciated by the Jelly Cake fellow, and he commented positively on the sound, along with a number of other people.
Thursday 9 May 2013
Tuesday 12 March 2013
Arbitrary commenting upon Homestuck
As I passed through the depths of Homestuck for the first time, one particular Flash stood out in Act 1. As such, I shall arbitrarily comment upon it. If you haven't read Homestuck, make some time and read it. While there are much better Flashes upon which I could comment, this one makes a slight amount of sense to those unfamiliar with Homestuck, unlike others which require extensive knowledge.
The Flash animation of which I speak is on this page.
The first thing that one would notice is the poor actual animation quality. It is rather clear that the entire 50 seconds or so of animation entirely consists of still images layeres on top of each other and sometimes moved about in creative ways. Indeed, this particular animation consists mostly of absolute still images. This is something that seems to be occuring in large amounts as of late; this simple animation style. Probably because it's a lot more accessable and easy than the mainstream animation styles, such as 3D animation, vector animation and hand-drawn animation. Notable other examples include the Cheating series (Cheating in high school, etc.) and my own admittedly quite poor attempts at animations.
The animation opens with the main character of Homestuck, John Egbert, holding a blue apple, looking upward at something which, as one may guess, is ominous and is in a general upward direction. If one has taken the common courtesy to read the previous 245 or so pages, it should be obvious that said object is a meteor. Indeed, the Flash soon cuts to a shot of the meteor, hurtling toward John's home. To summarise my opinions and thoughts of the initial revealing of the meteor, it is a reasonably well-drawn meteor, when compared to everything else thus far. The shading on the craters is my particular favourite, along with the way the trailing fire is drawn. Furthermore, the speed at which the clouds pass the meteor (Special relativity; they are indeed moving past the meteor) is appropriate to convey a sense of hurrying. The background music at this point sounds reminiscent of a clock, particularly the one in the TV show Countdown, although that may just be in my head. That, coupled with the actual countdown that appears on the screen, further amplifies the sense of hurry and impending doom. Following this, a shot of the meteor above the neighbourhood is displayes, emphasising that it will indeed hit the neighbourhood, and it will indeed do damage. Next is a series of shots wherein various places in John's home are displayed, alternating with shots of the meteor in time with the background music which has further intensified by this point and now resembles the ticking of a clock much less. This series is very effective, again, in conveying the sense of doom; but also in increasing it by featuring both an increased musical rate and a decreased shot length. As the music comes to a climax and a finale simultaneously, so does the visual side of things, as the meteor is seen racing toward John, for several seconds it appears to be literally within spitting distance. This section implies that our heroic protagonist John has died. The final shot - one of a fiery mushroom cloud - serves to further amplify this idea. Of course, he is not dead; that's not what happens to main characters in the first act of things.
This particular animation, in the grand scheme of things, is the first in a short series of EOA (End Of Act) Flashes in Homestuck, which have progressively gotten longer over time, and as the Acts continue. The latest, known as Cascade fulfills two interesting points: Firstly, it is about fourteen minutes long. Thusly, it is revered as many be the greatest page in Homestuck due to its length, complexity, and how much it progresses the plot. Secondly, it is almost indecipherable to those who are not familiar with Homestuck. "Why is there a giant flying record disc?", I imagine said people might ask, "How does he survive with that sword through him? Why does that frog have galaxies in it? Why are all those poeople wrapped up?" Cases have indeed happened when a person has seen it, (Albeit, in the case that I know of, it was presented as music for a dencing game, and the visuals were playing second fiddle to the epic and delightful music. But it's still valid, is it not?) and in one, (the aforementioned) the person stated that (s)he had no idea of what was transpiring in the background, but quite enjoyed the music and admitted that the dance moves presented and recommended were nigh-impossible, as well as the prospect of dancing in such a manner for fourteen minutes. An absurd notion that anyone would take that particular presentation seriously, but indeed some have done this absurd thing and have produced videos of themselves achieving various scores by dancing. Alas, I digress. The point is that this particular animation is highly awe-inspiring to those who understand the context, and the music can be enjoyed by those with and without familiarity with the chapters of Homestuck thus far. Other EOA Flashes include Descend and Enter. Lots of verbs, it would seem.
The Flash animation of which I speak is on this page.
The first thing that one would notice is the poor actual animation quality. It is rather clear that the entire 50 seconds or so of animation entirely consists of still images layeres on top of each other and sometimes moved about in creative ways. Indeed, this particular animation consists mostly of absolute still images. This is something that seems to be occuring in large amounts as of late; this simple animation style. Probably because it's a lot more accessable and easy than the mainstream animation styles, such as 3D animation, vector animation and hand-drawn animation. Notable other examples include the Cheating series (Cheating in high school, etc.) and my own admittedly quite poor attempts at animations.
The animation opens with the main character of Homestuck, John Egbert, holding a blue apple, looking upward at something which, as one may guess, is ominous and is in a general upward direction. If one has taken the common courtesy to read the previous 245 or so pages, it should be obvious that said object is a meteor. Indeed, the Flash soon cuts to a shot of the meteor, hurtling toward John's home. To summarise my opinions and thoughts of the initial revealing of the meteor, it is a reasonably well-drawn meteor, when compared to everything else thus far. The shading on the craters is my particular favourite, along with the way the trailing fire is drawn. Furthermore, the speed at which the clouds pass the meteor (Special relativity; they are indeed moving past the meteor) is appropriate to convey a sense of hurrying. The background music at this point sounds reminiscent of a clock, particularly the one in the TV show Countdown, although that may just be in my head. That, coupled with the actual countdown that appears on the screen, further amplifies the sense of hurry and impending doom. Following this, a shot of the meteor above the neighbourhood is displayes, emphasising that it will indeed hit the neighbourhood, and it will indeed do damage. Next is a series of shots wherein various places in John's home are displayed, alternating with shots of the meteor in time with the background music which has further intensified by this point and now resembles the ticking of a clock much less. This series is very effective, again, in conveying the sense of doom; but also in increasing it by featuring both an increased musical rate and a decreased shot length. As the music comes to a climax and a finale simultaneously, so does the visual side of things, as the meteor is seen racing toward John, for several seconds it appears to be literally within spitting distance. This section implies that our heroic protagonist John has died. The final shot - one of a fiery mushroom cloud - serves to further amplify this idea. Of course, he is not dead; that's not what happens to main characters in the first act of things.
This particular animation, in the grand scheme of things, is the first in a short series of EOA (End Of Act) Flashes in Homestuck, which have progressively gotten longer over time, and as the Acts continue. The latest, known as Cascade fulfills two interesting points: Firstly, it is about fourteen minutes long. Thusly, it is revered as many be the greatest page in Homestuck due to its length, complexity, and how much it progresses the plot. Secondly, it is almost indecipherable to those who are not familiar with Homestuck. "Why is there a giant flying record disc?", I imagine said people might ask, "How does he survive with that sword through him? Why does that frog have galaxies in it? Why are all those poeople wrapped up?" Cases have indeed happened when a person has seen it, (Albeit, in the case that I know of, it was presented as music for a dencing game, and the visuals were playing second fiddle to the epic and delightful music. But it's still valid, is it not?) and in one, (the aforementioned) the person stated that (s)he had no idea of what was transpiring in the background, but quite enjoyed the music and admitted that the dance moves presented and recommended were nigh-impossible, as well as the prospect of dancing in such a manner for fourteen minutes. An absurd notion that anyone would take that particular presentation seriously, but indeed some have done this absurd thing and have produced videos of themselves achieving various scores by dancing. Alas, I digress. The point is that this particular animation is highly awe-inspiring to those who understand the context, and the music can be enjoyed by those with and without familiarity with the chapters of Homestuck thus far. Other EOA Flashes include Descend and Enter. Lots of verbs, it would seem.
Thursday 28 February 2013
I don't like macs. Why does anyone like macs?
On another note, the youtube channel to which I upload my animations is this.
So that's something.
Thursday 7 February 2013
Put pen to paper and- animate?
Wow, literally nobody viewed this place this week. Seems I'm wasting my time. I've always been a time-waster, though, so no change there. Allow me to continue wasting my own time, and nobody else's (because nobody's reading this)
I have opened a new youtube channel under the name of AChapWhoLikesToDraw (A chap who likes to draw) One such video is here I will at some point start uploading videos that actually make sense, such as one that features clingfilm reflecting a bowling ball, which quickly decapitates a professional bowler. Or something along those lines, I'm not sure.
Also, I have the assistance of a composer to create some music for such videos in the future. The music I've used so far has been from Machinima Sound, and I imagine I'll end up using some from Incompetech and possibly Zero Project, so I'm likely not going to get all my music custon-made, but it's nice anyway.
Also, I have been doing an increased amound of tomfoolery at Google Adsense. Given the miniscule number of people who come here, I can't expect to make any revenue at all, but I can still annoy you with adverts. Not now, though. Later *evil grin*
I also have a new logo/avatar/recurring image/thing that I want to implement in some places.
I have opened a new youtube channel under the name of AChapWhoLikesToDraw (A chap who likes to draw) One such video is here I will at some point start uploading videos that actually make sense, such as one that features clingfilm reflecting a bowling ball, which quickly decapitates a professional bowler. Or something along those lines, I'm not sure.
Also, I have the assistance of a composer to create some music for such videos in the future. The music I've used so far has been from Machinima Sound, and I imagine I'll end up using some from Incompetech and possibly Zero Project, so I'm likely not going to get all my music custon-made, but it's nice anyway.
Also, I have been doing an increased amound of tomfoolery at Google Adsense. Given the miniscule number of people who come here, I can't expect to make any revenue at all, but I can still annoy you with adverts. Not now, though. Later *evil grin*
I also have a new logo/avatar/recurring image/thing that I want to implement in some places.
Thursday 10 January 2013
Yokcos.site11.com
'Tis worth mentioning that I have a lousy 'website'. It looks utterly hideous and defaulty, but has a couple of nice small games. It is here, and features a few things. Like this:
As you can see, I need to learn more HTML and CSS and XHTML and things...
It is useful for hosting images on, so that's a bonus that doesn't require much knowledge or effort.
That thing that happens to blogs
This is probably that thing that happens to blogs where people stop updating for a year or so, then make one last post to pretend that they're coming back but never touch the blog again.
I entered Ludum Dare 25 and came 158th of 902. Good, I suppose. The game I crafted was Deadland. It features a purple blob and purple missiles and purple bombs and purple plants and purple sky. Woo, purpleness!
Also, apparently, it's a good idea to craft one game a month, so I think I'll give that a go. I plan to, for January, craft a hammer-centric survival platformer (and it's already the 10th, so I should stop making excuses and start making games.)
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