Satan Sam.co.uk

Fun times will be had tonight!

Ys Seven (Limited Edition) finally arrived after weeks of waiting. A boo at Xseed for not publishing this in Europe, but a cheers for publishing what I hear is a very good action RPG.

I feel some pride with the Amiga console – it was the first real games console I really stuck with. My parents bought me one at aged 7 and it survived as a regularly used machine until I was 15. There were some real classics on it but its talent lied in the music department. The soundchip was fairly advanced supporting modular music – an improvement on Midi in that musicians could use their own sound samples. It wasn’t until CD-Audio came along that game music was improved. Which is a fairly awesome legacy.

So hopefully, without running out of game soundtracks, I’m going to upload a new ripped soundtrack every week.

In the first episode we’ve got… Turrican! A platform shooter series developed by Factor 5 from 1989 to 1993 (the 3 main games), Chris Huelsbeck was the musician. It was the Amiga’s answer to Metroid. The download contains the soundtracks for Turrican 1, 2 and 3. Couldn’t think of a better way to kick this off to be honest!

DOWNLOAD (180MB)

Not so long ago I discovered Ludovico Einaudi, a pianist who unfortunately only has 1 Audi. Various songs from the first album I found (Una Mattina) inspired me to make a game that would fit to his music (though ultimately to write my own soundtrack to it). I just got hold of another album – Nightbook. Coincidentally on this album there’s a track called The Tower.

Many things have still to be decided upon and tweaked by some things that won’t be changing;

• 960*640 resolution.
• I’m basing the minimum specs on my weakest computer. So I’m hoping for a minimum of 2ghz C2D, Ati x1600… basically if your computer is also 4 years old you should be okay.
• Pixel art slapped around by shaders, visually similar to the Wake menu.
• Mouse control, might squeeze in Xbox 360 controller support too.
• Each level consists of 7 “arenas”.
• Dark/authentic setting, something I’ve never really tried before.

Still working out the story. Still dealing with WIP graphics. Still sorting out the formulas for upgrading/selling (aka how generous I want to be with them).

Considering;

• Co-op and versus matches. Still trying to come up with a way that can incorporate such play but to still fit in with the flow of the game.
• Online highscores. It’s just a matter of isolating areas for this kind of thing.
• Achievements. It’ll probably use a similar system to Dissidia rather than the typical Xbox/Live/Wake method, something that runs off stats to unlock things rather than having a shiny popup.
• Story. I’m torn between dialogue heavy moments and no dialogue at all, in a post-apocalyptic kind of thing.
• DLC. I’m not entirely sure what to add here but I’m personally a fan of events like L4D2 etc, where the developer releases a challenge every week. Or I might just release new weapons and levels as time goes on. This is something to consider much later down the line.

I’ve basically got until September 2011 to do whatever I want, to live out little goals until I’m back in the education system. I’ll be doing small courses up until then but mostly I’m my own man. A king of Europe!

For a week or so now I’ve been working on a little tower defence game. It’s not the big one I was planning those months ago, no sir it’s smaller. The name is Tiny Tower for now. Originally it was a little gameplay demo but it seemed to work, so I’m adding onto it to produce a full game. Also got an iPhone version in sight along with a few other iPhone/PC games for next year.

It won’t be a bog standard TD game either. Something a little different, like all TD games. Inspiration was mostly taken from Ludovico Einaudi and his brilliant music.

The reports of Boss Baddie’s death were greatly exaggerated.

Found a backup of photos from my Motorola ROKR, circa 2006.

One of the testers said these were brilliant so lets remove that post-processed veil;

Tormishirt is from Tormishire, where a few shops have that prefix. TormiSLR is the camera shop. Hugo Boss because I’ve sworn by their aftershaves for years (ever since I bought a guitar from the now lead guitarist of Twisted Wheel that was soaked in the stuff). Pineapple being named after the clothing range. But with an S.

These are unforgiveable to be honest. Sparks & Mincers had a much ruder name but we had to change it thanks to our own censor.

References to both mine and Pineapples fave shows.

Because what is a cruise ship without parody computer shops?

And here’s a little trick for ya. In the Wake settings add this under the display options category…

nopost=1

It’s a leftover from testing but it buggers up the main game.

Wake can now be bought on this very site for a minimum of £1

I’ve got a can of coke in the fridge so lets make this snappy.

This time next year chances are I’ll be worrying over starting my masters course. I’ve applied to study on a smaller, prep course for the big one but that starts next year.

Since I got back off the holiday (and during!) I’ve had loads of ideas for games that will probably never get made. Let’s have a look!

Really wish I had the scope to work on these kind of projects again.

FIRST BIT: Follow me on twitter. I’m sneakybison. Chances are I’ll follow you too.

So far I’ve heard back from 2 out of the 3 universities I’ve applied for, even got an interview with one on Wednesday! This is all part of this real life thing that’s taking over game development. Couldn’t have happened at a worse time too – I’ve written a full design doc for Wake 2, Lunnye 2 was trundling along quite well and I really really want to make a game that completely abuses the weather system in the Tormi engine.

Engine test! 

I also really want to finish Tormishire. When we stopped work on it last year I was halfway through adding a whole new section between the 2nd and 3rd boss. See we had what we called Level 3. *It is a vertical level, you know the sort, where one slip up sends you back half an hour. It is topped off with a difficult platform bit where you had to float above spikes with precisely timed jumps. Well! Before that I wanted to bulk it out and add a mine system. This was inspired by the (relatively new) Titan cave found nearby to where I live and what I imagined the Speedwell Caverns to look like, from a romantic POV. The 2nd boss doesn’t die, just gets really annoyed and drags the player to a randomised location in these mines. The player then has to find a bunch of keys to open doors to break out to the bit above I will now mark with a *. I thought this music in this area was lovely, muffled tribal beats with occasionally fading in warm synth-y bits, emphasising the lonely feel of the ancient darkened ruins. Once you break to the upper levels the music goes back to the standard fare.

 
This is part of it.

That was our connection this morning. Since then the BT man came round and hooked us up to the new BT Infinity service. Now I’m cruising around at;

It’s a wonderful service! Never thought we’d get a speed this fast up in t’hills of middle Englandshire.

Monday night at 10-11pm, fellow Brits should pray for clear skies and look towards the north east. Noctilucent clouds will be visible. They’re basically ice particles way, way up in the upper atmosphere.

I might take my camera and get some shots. Either way I’ll be wearing my bestest robes.

Side view!