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w00t! Here in Blighty we've had more than four consecutive days of sunshine, which can only mean one thing ... it's SUMMER! I have been busy, mostly working on some design stuff and I've programmed an LOD system which can be expanded to work on any type of game. Still needs tweaks mind you, but is nicely scalable. Only downside is the larger amount of art assets required, but it's worth it for the level of visual detail you can get away with close up and the CPU cycles you can save when viewing the distance. For my sins I now have TWO blogs. Oh yes indeed. The one linked by the menu to the left is now my "personal" blog. For game design/art/programming related discussion please pop along to http://theworm.blogware.com and feel free to chip in. The first main post is about why games don't need USPs (unique selling points) and would be better off without them. Don't agree? Then go visit and scream obscenities at my eyes! |
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Tuesday 20th June 2006 - theworm |
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Welcome to our quarterly update! :P I've now got a space on DeviantArt where I'm displaying any of my artwork that I deem good enough to go on public display. There are thousands of artist on there, many are superb and it's very easy to find inspiration if you're finding your creative juices aren't flowing as they should. Films I've seen in the meantime include King Kong, Harry Potter and something else... nope it's gone. Can't have been that good then. Work-wise, at normal work the big game is finally out of the door so we can all relax just a little bit. At the other work I've been doing a project plan for some game ideas and have quickly discovered that it would take me several years to complete most of them. So I've decided to pick a game that's only going to take me one! Good to see it all planned out though. |
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Sunday 5th February 2006 - theworm |
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Haven't updated in ages yet again. A mixture of apathy and busy and the nice weather keeping me outside. Updating now because I'm stuck in a "waiting time". Waiting for a response to something. Can't say more, but you know the feeling: days seem twice as long and everything seems more of a hassle than it used to. Still, should hopefully be over next week, when I'll spill all! Not much been happening to me in all honesty. Started back at art class on Wednesday nights. It's moved from the old, scary Library building in town to the main college campus and there were 15+ there last week. Will go down to 10 this week and then a steady 6-7 after that. Always the way - some people are just "interested" and have a spare £91 lying around (!) But there are a 'core' bunch who will work through the full term, such as myself, and get as much out of it as they can. |
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Sunday 25th September 2005 - theworm |
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Been a while, because I've been tediously busy at work and didn't feel like doing much else when I got home. That and I've been trying World of Warcraft which is very good fun. Used a 10-day trial from a friend's copy and my own version should now be winging it's way to me from Jersey :) I'm planning on doing some concept sketches to put up here. The life drawing has finished for the summer holidays and I'm itching to keep going. What better way to practice to do some artwork for this place! Two new films have been reviewed: Batman Begins and Star Wars Episode III. Oh, and isn't the weather piss :( |
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Friday 1st July 2005 - theworm |
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Just seen The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy. Done a mini review in the usual place. Hooray for Bank Holiday Mondays! I think there should be one every week. It's given me time to put the finishing touches to the new look website and go car-booting. Back in the garden tomorrow! Wow, what an exciting life. Actually I should be putting this sort of thing in my new blog. There, that's that plugged :) |
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Sunday 29th May 2005 - theworm |
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Hello! I've only gone and changed things :) Hope you like the new look. Found and have been using a fantastic free WYSIWYG HTML editor called Trellian Webpage which I personally find really intuitive to use and is certainly much faster than trusty old Windows Notepad! Bye Notepad, we knew each other well... As for interesting stuff I've been doing? Not much really. Apart from setting up my own Blog (see link to the left) as a place to let off ranting steam and cutting the grass in the back garden. Yup, interesting stuff :\ |
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Wednesday 25th May 2005 - theworm |
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Cripes! Only just realised how long it had been without an update. It seems like the days, weeks and months are starting to fly past. Doesn't help I'm spending 8 hours a day at work staring at the oddly calming yet tedious box world of Microsoft Excel. I'll be trying to copy and paste paving slabs before you know it. Thank tits the Election is over. Not saying who I voted for though! Well not here. I will on my new Blog which will be working soon hopefully. Hello blogger.com? I'm also planning a rearrangement of the pages here so that you go straight to the news page and possibly (if I can find the time) a slight redesign. Apart from that it's been a quiet month. Saw The Interpreter yesterday - you can read my review on the Fun page soon. Enjoying the good weather as it comes. Oh, and still doing my art classes. Doing a study of the skeleton at the moment - great fun! |
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Monday 9th May 2005 - theworm |
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The weekend just gone was so sunny I managed to mow the lawn for the first time since last August. It was about 6 inches high and kept clogging up the mower every 2 minutes. Still I got it done and filled 5 black bags. Shame the bastard bin men refused to take them. Just found out that the next 7 months of my life are going to be hell! Got a new project at work that is the mother of all projects and I can see myself staring at Excel until my eyes turn into little rectangles. I like my job but I've been doing it for so long now I fancy a different challenge, so I'm thinking this one may well be my last before I move on. "Who cares? I dont care. A horse's ass is better than yours!" - name the song and artist for a special mention :) |
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6th April 2005 - theworm |
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Just realised I'd been updating the website but not uploading it. Duh me! Got myself a Tapwave Zodiac 2 from eBay last week and "Benji loves it!" It's a PalmOS 5 PDA with an ATI graphics chip, 128MB internal memory and has two SD card slots. There are a handful of official games out for it and I got 3 as part of the bundle:
But of course the real reason I got one is for emulation! There's Xcade (for all your old arcade gamage), ScummVM (for old-school LucasArts point-and-click adventures) and Little John Z (for all your console needs). There is apparently a version of MAME in the works too. There also exists ZDoomZ, ZHexen and ZQuake (get them from the Little John Z link above). You will also need some audio codec files and the original game WADs/PAKs. I've been playing Doom II through it and it's 10 times better than the official version! Higher res textures, proper shadows and much better analogue control. |
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17th March 2005 - theworm |
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Been playing ICO! Bought the cardboard case version of this ages ago (despite not having a PS2) because I'd heard it was good and the other week I finally got round to borrowing a console to play it on. Played it all weekend and loved every minute of it. So much so that as soon as I finished it I played it through again! Brilliant puzzles, slightly awkward combat but superb atmosphere. I'm not going to give a full review of it as there's already plenty out there [Eurogamer do an excellent one] as well as some superb fansites. What compels to to play the game is the relationship between Ico and Princess Yorda. It's the use of the smallest touches: the holding hands to pull her along, leaning over a ledge to help pull her up and her funny head shake when she can't climb/jump something. When the shadow creatures grab her and try to pull her down into those black portals you can't help but leap to her defence. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves games. Note I say loves as this more than likely won't appeal to the FIFA/NFSU crowd. |
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8th March 2005 - theworm |
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Got my Nintendo DS! It's a pre-released UK version courtesy of the Nintendo Stars Catalogue. Bought an 'iron-on transfer' at the same time and still waiting for that to be delivered. Bastards. Anyhow I've played around with Mario 64 DS and it's very faithful to the N64 version if with slightly blockier textures. Plays differently too as the first playable character is Yoshi who goes into the castle to find out where Mario, Luigi and Wario have gone! Yoshi has his usual tongue-swallow attack and can poo baddies out as eggs to throw around but can also swallow Mario caps to make himself look and behave like our favourite plumber. Other than that it's business as usual with a few additional castle rooms and levels and another 20 stars to find. Not mentioning the sub-games which range from the infectious cannon catapulting to the frankly pointless "She loves me, she loves me not" petal pulling game. Overall it seems good, but my main beef is the control method. When you use the stylus/thumb-pad on the touchscreen a circle appears. Move the stylus to the outside of the circle and you start to run in that direction. This would be perfect if it wasn't for the fact the circle slowly moves to follow the stylus. This means you keep having to move the stylus in the direction you want to run to keep up the same speed. Within 10 seconds or so the stylus has reached the edge of the touchscreen and you have to reposition it in the centre. Of course when you do this your character briefly slows down, which may not always be what you are wanting at the time. In the end I got frustrated with it and I'm using D-Pad and buttons - may not be as subtle but at least I've got full control all the time. Warioware Touched!: Dunno, I just didn't seem to "get" this. I haven't played any of the other versions and was looking forward to giving this a go but actually found it repetitive. Glad I got a demo as I now know I definitely won't be buying it. Metroid Prime Hunters: Superb! This is more like it - the default control method is perfect (using stylus to look around, double-tap to jump and D-pad/buttons to move forward/back/strafe, shoulder buttons to fire). I hope however that the final version will have a good-sized single player game. Personally I'm not that fussed about multiplayer gaming in general, so I'm hoping it doesn't turn out to be mostly multiplayer with a few 'training' levels as the only 1-player experience. A bit puzzled on the scoring system in 'Regulator' though: shoot the same number of enemies on the way through but keep getting different scores irrespective of time taken. Generally positive mumblings but needs some deeper games than the launch titles to interest me personally. |
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25th February 2005 - theworm |
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The life drawing is going well. I've always tended to have a very illustrative style of drawing - even, clean lines. Trying to loosen up and put some expression into the lines is the hardest thing I'm finding at the moment now that I know I can nail anatomy OK. Still good fun though. Going to see The House of Flying Daggers tomorrow, so should have a review of that up for the weekend. As usual the local Apollo Cinema, despite now having seven screens has decided not to show it. They're bollocks. |
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2nd February 2005 - theworm |
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I've taken up life drawing in an effort to improve my technique and actually learn some proper drawing skills. Been years since school and drawing reglularly so it's good to get back into it. Drawn several figures, the latest of which even resembles a humanoid. I've also done some homework - a self-portrait. Surprisingly it looks like me, which is encouraging :) Doesn't it always seem like forever until you get your January pay? Nice early one in December, but then there goes Christmas and New Year and it's still four weeks until the next money comes in. At least I got a nice bonus and have promptly spent most of it on plane and train fare for a wedding I'm going to in March and this year's road tax (bye, bye £165). Maybe I should get a classic car and forego tax altogether? Recommended link of the whenever: www.fullyramblomatic.com. Get the excellent point-and-click adventures 5 Days a Stranger and 7 Days a Skeptic here. Totally free and superbly done. Then why not get the (also free) Adventure Game Studio and make your own! |
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25th January 2005 - theworm |
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Already half-way into the first month of 2005. I can feel my cells dying. And on that upbeat note I've mostly been playing The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and Tales of Symphonia. I have also vowed to crack on with 'M' and not get distracted by real life things like DIY and my actual work. I can feel something good coming on :) |
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15th January 2005 - theworm |