What you see above you are two copies of the same game. Normally I might only purchase one copy of a game as the consumer’s desire has not yet caused me to feel unsatisfied without acquiring multiples of the same object. In this case though, I suffer some form of “collector’s” obsessive compulsive disorder.
The true fault lies in my, still horrible, comprehension of the Japanese language. Typically, when I buy I game, I expect the sales clerk to merely retrieve the game and hand me the complete package after an exchange of some monetary details.
I shift into panic gear when the man behind the counter starts asking me questions. “Uhh, hai!” is all I can exhale while a drop of sweat starts to collect on my forehead. The man smiles awkwardly in return as if saying, “you really want to buy this?” I mimic his smile with my own uneasy version and accept the yellow bag containing the game – with no box.
“SHIT, he told me there was no box for the game! I don’t know the word for box!” The collector in me is punching at my tear ducts. I hold the yellow bag to my chest and quickly shuffle outside where I proceed to vent by knocking my bike over.
Thus my journeys and trials in Japan ‘o’ land continue. While here, I have a good mind to continue blogging about about life and other wonderful things that interest me. It has been a while since I have contributed anything of value to this blog (ever?) No time like the right now to get things rolling again.
So how does this epic tale end? Where does that second copy of Drill Dozer (Screw Breaker here in Japan) come from? On the advice from my girly friend, I made a second trek to the retro game store I originally intended to go. There I found multiple copies of Drill Dozer, in boxes and for half the price I payed at RipOff Gamez. I could not resist humoring the collector within and purchased a fully boxed second copy.
The most troubling part of this whole ordeal was the calm I experienced at the end. Am I really that anal?
+peter
After finally finishing up and presenting the alpha version of ‘game-concept-number-1′, it has been brought to attention that in-progress updates have been sorely lacking. In order to end the post drought, please enjoy the image while new content is being contemplated and created.
-steph
Filed under: Gaming as Usual, Glitch Feed Game Development, Totally Random
How do I put this lightly? No, I DON’T want to get drunk tonight and I have a variety of reasons why I shouldn’t! Starting off, this is a Wednesday night, as in I have school all day tomorrow. Thursdays equal academic death. I need sleep to prepare for my collegiate suicide. Parties and sleeping usually end in humiliating pictures and dry erasable penises.
I guess the threat of phallic shapes on my face are not enough to keep me from doing what I know is wrong. I guess knowing what I am about to do is wrong is also not enough to stop me from doing it. Thus the strawberry red margarita hits my face and I begin my descent into sugary debauchery.
At least my intentions were noble. Work more on the game, that was the plan. Steph and I had our little cave rigged up and we were pumping out code like it was coming from an assembly line. She handled the camera and controls while I tinkered with level assets. Development was running smoother than something that was really smooth. It came together in more graceful prose than iambic pentameter. She was William, and I was a knock off Shakespeare.
Sketch number one: basic gameplay in a side scroller perspective. Also defined as, platforming fun with moving platforms. Woo!
Look, you have to start somewhere! Despite the seeming simplicity of the elements we are using, their is still the possibility of a very complex and engaging experience, we at least hope. That is what we tell our investors.
The concept behind this single level focuses on transition and creation. I believe that an unchanging “world” would be very uninteresting to the player, thus as the player progresses they will find themselves playing a role in the metamorphosis from a stark “schematic” level to a thriving world.
This is where you come in. We are very interested in seeing how other visual artists might imagine this second “world.” Steph and I had visions of a gritty city, laced with paint splatter and subtle suggestions. We are not going for ultra realism, rather the more stylistic the better.
This will then be implemented it into the final stages of the level. The world you have designed will be created around the player, slowly building itself out of individual elements to completely replace the first world all together.
If you are interested, email myself at peteralt at umich dot edu. I hope to have this entire project completed in a couple weeks. (LIES!!!!)
(more…)
Probably the greatest way to wake up in the morning is with a UPS truck parked at your front door and a man clad in brown with a cardboard box tucked under his arm, peering through the your window.
After years of procrastination, I finally forced myself to buy it. What had held me back till this point, I really don’t know. I might have been distracted by something, something not really worth it. Maybe the price point seemed too high and I had to wait till it plummeted like an asteroid to a paltry 10 pieces. Yet there it was, and the only thing standing between us was a drafty door and the insurmountable cold.
The weather here in Ann Arbor is horrible. Imagine death and then subtract a couple degrees. As I type this, it is -13 degrees outside (celsius). The notion of glancing out the window into winter’s sarcophagus fills me with such fear and loathing, that merely opening the door to the abhorrent “outside” would only happen if something life altering were about to take place. That time was nigh!
I scrawled my name on the man’s little “signer ma-thinger computer” thing.
“I guess this kinda looks like my signature.” I quipped.
“I wouldn’t know the difference.” the brown man trumped (I realized afterwards that comments of this nature probably stopped being novel about 3 hours into this man’s career.)
I closed the door and locked the demons of winter outside. It was now just me, my box and my gigantic smile. Then a house mate came to spoil the curiously sensual moment.
“Get anything good?”
“Just a video game…”
“Cool, what game.”
“Oh, just some old one.”
He couldn’t understand, he wouldn’t! Even if I tried to explain the importance of the object that lay in my possession, he would probably nod it off and go back to whatever ex-frat guys do in their spare time, beer pong with stuffed animals or something.
Now alone and with the steadiness of a caffeine addict, I unsheathed my pen to repeatedly stab the box till the tape gave way, opening to reveal its holy splendor!
Filed under: Gaming as Usual
This is not entirely relevant to Glitch Feed, but I’d just thought I’d share…
The EECS department at UofM just had their bi-annual game competition. Participants work all semester on developing their concepts and present them at the event. While most of the games focus on coding ability, I joined a team as a texture artist. I can’t say that the game was anything shocking – it was a spin-off of Mario Kart – but it did give me much needed dev. work. Compared to the other entries, our game not only played flawlessly, but it also looked stellar. As a result, the game WON UNAMIOUSLY!!!
Mad props to Dan, Josh and Allan!
~Steph
Some of you will hopefully recognize this image. If you don’t, go rent Blade Runner this very moment. I don’t care if you do not possess legs or have pizza hanging out of your mouth. Go get that movie and watch it!
(waits 5 hours)
Okay, now that we have had that taken care of. The images you see above and below are not in fact from the movie Blade Runner, but rather a map for Unreal Tournament 2004 by AngelH@rt, titled DM-2019-XS.
The map is not a gameplay map, rather it is a simple exploration map. I spent at least an hour exploring all the little details of this map (and there are many) and I have yet to see them all.
I officially dub this a work of art, and anybody in the mood to disagree can go on a date with the front bumper of my ‘soccer mom’ van. Look, you can fly around in a Spinner! Why would you avoid such an opportunity?
Check out this link here to read the release thread and find a download link.
- Ru Su Ta
I am addicted to surfing the internet. I know more about the game world than I should. I would not be surprised if it started to have adverse effects on my health. If I spent half the time I spend surfing doing something productive, well, then something productive would have been accomplished.
Instead of brainstorming the different ways I could be productive (that would require work) I shall tell you about one of the fruits of my non labor.
While there may be a handful of more advanced engines available to modders, the UT2k4 engine remains one of the most well documented and accessible engines available. It is always nice to see the aging engine getting some more support from sophisticated mod teams.
Drawn to be Alive is a French mod that started off as a class project and has turned into something wholly worth any game players attention.
Tell me why you wouldn’t want to be a little paper doll?
I don’t think you can.
-roos
Filed under: Gaming as Usual
So here is the first official “content” post within the greener pastures known as Glitch Feed. I promise I will update later with actual game dev content.
In preparing for this blog, I have kept a library of bookmarks that cover an assortment of topics, ranging from game design to other stuff (so, its a pretty big library). More to come, yay.
As gamers we must constantly sift through the garbage of crappy games to find the few jewels that really define the medium. Joystiq.com recently posted (recent as in November last year) a top 10 [sic] list of the most underrated games this past generation.
It brings a bitter tear to my eye when I already know that many of these games, while being absolutely amazing, failed to raise even an eyebrow from the gaming masses despite their critical acclaim.
While I can identify all of them, I can really only claim to have played a couple, which makes me worry about the possibility of my gaming license being revoked.
See the complete list here at: Joystiq’s top 10 hidden gems of this generation.
Has anybody played any of these? Fill the rest of us in using the neato, gee wiz comments feature!
-rooster
