Just a short update before I skip off to visit Falling for the weekend.
I haven’t made much progress with my game(s) this week owing to a creeping feeling of fatigue and some rather unpleasant and frequent headaches..however I did fix the bug where my characters were ‘moonwalking’ whenever they changed direction and sometimes disappearing altogether for a few seconds.
It seems that having the left/right/up/down walk cycles seperated in Director’s cast library caused the last image to appear (hence the moonwalking) and the space between the walk cycles was the reason for the disappearance. So I put the images sequentially together with no spaces and it seems to work. Now they don’t vanish except when moving diagonally (technically moving up/down and right/left to chase the player) but it’s a minor glitch that I may not fix.
Now the reason for this post: Mucking around with my new PSP (pictures soon) I found a tutorial on puting flash games on your PSP. In my case it didn’t work because the USB lead I got is knackered, however the tutorial pointed me in the direction of a great little flash game: Bowman 2.
As the above image (and game title) suggests, it’s a little bow and arrow game where the objective is to shoot the opposing player (computer or human). You click and drag to set the power and angle and then release to let fly your pixelated arrow of death. The animations are simple but quite humorous (getting an arrow sticking out of your head is especially smirk-worthy) and there’s also bird shooting and target practice modes. It’s all purely abstract fun – little stick men – and it just adds to the charm.
Leading on from that game, I discovered a nice little sniping game by the name of Tactical Assassin 2. Again, those evil stick men must be stopped and the simple style works well.
It’s a little too easy – I only got stuck when I shot the wrong ‘object’ – but there are nice little touches like the movement of the crosshairs due to your breathing/nerves. I was really impressed with the whole shop section where you can buy new weapons (although simply using the starting rifle has no problems) and the sound effects and music are really good. Overall it’s a nice little shooter and it’s given me a few ideas for a similar Director incarnation. Watch this space.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Hey Hey
You should upload your game! I wanted to try it you know :O
May 28th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
You will be one of the first, promise;-)
I still have to add a few details to make it ‘playable’ (I’ve been working on the music in the last few days) but i’m almost done. I have to admit to a creeping lack of interest in favour of other projects – ones that would’ve been more achievable for CW2!
I’m away until thurs, but I’ll resume work as soon as I get back. I’ll hopefully have something for you soon=)
May 29th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Heya, thank you so much for your comments on my blog. I hope you’re enjoying your weekend away. You have some good ideas…I’ve read about those police days (and thought about being a special constable), but sometimes I think I’m too young and should get some life experience first. I wish I could make up my mind…*sigh*. But never mind, this is what uni is for! And most of your twenties. ^^
Glad to see you’re still using with Director, I haven’t touched it since the coursework. I know you said you left a program-y course at your first uni, but you seem really enthusiastic about the technical side here.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Hey, I’m glad something I found was of use! Don’t worry, you still have time. I’m of the opinion that it’s never too late to study and i’m sure it’s possible to switch careers later too.
Yeah, I have to admit that I like Director despite its little niggles. Its just a really easy way to make stuff happen on screen. The language is similar to BASIC which is one of the easiest – I mucked about with a BASIC-based consumer app in my spare time called darkBASIC – but it’s not the best choice for professional games development.
I can vaguely recall studying PASCAL and Visual BASIC at college, and JAVA at uni, but they didn’t have the same appeal. Making a calendar in a DOS window was a challenge! I like to dabble with programming but I don’t have the smarts to be a coder..oh well!
I’m (very) slowly working on a few experiments in Director since I messed up CW2. I hear about the resit around July so I’m hopefully future-proofing incase I’m asked to make something completely different. I can’t wait to get into 3DS Max though and make some 3D stuff with Director.
Nice to hear from you, me wonders if you’ve had a chance to watch any CB?;-)
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
No, not yet…I have all these borrowed DVDs and I keep forgetting that they’re there. I will try and watch it soon, promise!
I used to like playing with TADS but I get bored easily. Might try it again sometime…now I don’t have any coursework to do, I get really bored. I should just do more overtime really.
Me and Tom are hoping to stay in London sometime over the summer, so maybe we’ll be able to meet up.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
CB is yours for as long as you like, no worries=)
I hadn’t heard of TADS (atleast I don’t think so) but faithful Google tells me your talking about the Text Adventure Development System? Sounds good, I might play with it soon!!
Ah great, Habboi mentioned a barbecue…;-)
June 8th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I did. I’ve been away for a week playing on the PS3 I bought in anticipation for MGS4
I’m game for the barbeque sometime laters and I’ll gladly meet up at a station as it would be unfair to say “Hey guys come to my house which is really far away!!!”
Dan are you still at UEL? Or did your home contract run out