So it has come to this…
April 24, 2012 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
I am seeing a trend here these past few years, and quite frankly I am tired of falling into this routine. Something has got to change. Here is a quick synopsis of what has taken place since I have last posted.
- PAX Prime was a blast. I met some great people there, some from the XNA peeps that I follow on the Twitter, others just out of the blue. I got to hang out with a very talented voice actor (Bob Ball), an awesome guy from an indie game news site (Dave Voyles), and the almighty Zman aka Andy Dunn even though he thought I was from Seattle and has met me many times. I also got to meet 2 of the 3 McElroy Brothers… It was epic.
- I’ve ran a handful of 5Ks, and will be running at least 5 or 6 more this year. (Ok, probably not run, more like fast jog until my legs/lungs give out…)
- I released XBLIG Companion for the Windows Phone. I am currently working on the iOS build, and my good friend Gordon is working on the Android version.
- I went to PAX East, again had a blast. I got to meet up with Zeboyd Games to check out the new Penny Arcade Precipice game they have been working on. Got a sweet temporary tattoo of a Dapper Potato from Shelldragon of Ska Studios. Met and hung out with the Doucette Brothers aka the 2 masterminds behind Xona Games.
- And lastly, I have set forth an intricate plan that in theory help spring me in a better position to do what I enjoy doing. More info on this plan will be revealed when the time deems it necessary.
Everything else is either a blur, don’t remember, or not newsworthy…
Currently I have been juggling a few tasks. I have been slowly getting the iOS version of XBLIG Companion in a testable build, working on a Dream Build Play entry, and getting to know Unity3D better. With the way things are going, I might be doing another quick weekend jam for the DBP entry like I did a few years back. This time though, I may stream my desktop for fun. My first real attempt with Unity3D is coming along nicely, and should have most of the gameplay functionality done within a week or so if I can control my urges to play other peoples games.
There will be more updates, hopefully less sporadic than it has been.
Until next time…
Pre-PAX Planning…
August 16, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
PAX is almost upon us, and this year I am going to attend. This will be a first for me, and I am so excited, words can’t even describe it. To have some fun, and to see if I can spread the word of my upcoming game I have been working on, I am gathering some shwag to hand out via twitter from @EatStudios. All you have to do is follow, and watch for important tweets on how to win this fine shwag.
Speaking of the upcoming game, I have an artist busy making some polished art to setup a demo, and will be posting more on Eleventy-Aught Twelve Studio’s website when it is done. I have a good feeling this game will be more awesome than any other game I have made thus far.
Next week during PAX, I am going to try to blog nightly while I am there. Give some insight through the eyes of a first time PAXer… Already know that I should bring enough hand sanitizer to fend off the plague.
Until next time…
August already and stuff?!
August 8, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
August sure has snuck up on me it seems. It feels like just the other day I released Manic to the WP7 Marketplace. I have been working on a new game that I’m going to be releasing to the WP7 Marketplace and the Xbox Indie Games. I have the base gameplay built, and now creating stages. I will be posting some pics/vids once I replace my not so flattering developer art. All I will say now is that it is a 2d physics puzzler.
Anyways, if you frequent my blog, you might of noticed that things have changed slightly. I recently changed back over to WordPress because most .Net blog apps I tried, I did not find any good themes, good features, or the projects just died. Hopefully everything got ported over, if not drop me an email. Since porting back over to WordPress, I am going to try to blog more, considering that there is a sweet app that I can use on my iPad to write and publish posts. I am going to try my best to post at least once a week.
Until the next time…
Prepare to Become MANIC!!1!1one!
April 28, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
Manic is released to the WP7 Marketplace now for your enjoyment! There is a few bugs that were not caught, and an update is awaiting for approval. Manic comes in 2 flavors, the orignal called “Manic”, which costs a cool 99 cents American… and the other is “Manic: Patient.0″ which is a free, ad supported version.
Here is a little snippet of what Manic is all about:
Manic is a fast paced game of skill that bombards the player’s fun gland with seconds of gameplay at a time! Each minigame you play has very simple objectives, and you only have seconds at a time to keep trying to not fail at those objectives.
Do a market search for Manic, and you should see them, or use these handy dandy links to open them in your Zune software!
If you enjoy them, please drop a review on it!
Until next time…
Manic… IT’S COMING!
April 9, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
I am finishing testing Manic, a sweet, sweet fun filled game for WP7 devices. Hopefully testing goes smooth, and it will be uploaded to the marketplace later this weekend, or first of this coming week.
This update is short and sweet. Until next time…
Holy Bloated XML Batman!
February 21, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
This weekend, I started to plan out on how to save the world data in chunks for my upcoming ProjectCube game. Just for fun and the simple fact it was easy to do, I tried saving a copy of the data using XNA’s IntermediateSerializer. I knew it would be more bloated than something I could come up with myself, but wanted to see just how big it would be. After getting a test project setup and pouplated, I let it chunk thru the generating and saving of the level data for a region. A region in ProjectCubed consists of an array of 32×32 chunks, each chunk being 16x128x16 cubes. If you do the math, that is a grand total of over 33 million cubes (if every spot on the region is a cube.)
After it ran and saved the file, I just laughed and thought “Yea, I’m not using this.” The file it saved was a whopping 780ish MB. Just for that small region, which ProjectCubed will be comprised of more than just 1 single region. After widdling away, and coming up with a nice and compact format, I took that 780MB file and got it down to a whopping 32MB. This is much more managable.
So in conclusion, IntermediatSerializer is great for something quick and small, not for a huge datastructure.
High Resolution Texture Test
February 18, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
I replaced some of the textures for the cubes with a higher resolution one. Before was using a 16×16 texture for the cube faces, and now I have had my artist friend whip me some 64×64 textures, and I must say, it looks awesome! Up next will be spliting the world in a loadable format and load a set number of regions depending where the user is at. For now though, let your eyes enjoy this sweet, sweet eye candy.
Updated Website, Hello Disqus, and Ramblings
February 8, 2011 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
Got around and updated the site to the latest and greatest version of Graffiti along with replacing the comments with Disqus. I have to say, I really like Disqus so far, and was pretty simple to add to the website. All original comments are not lost, they just won’t appear anymore (there weren’t many, so it’s not hurting much). I do beleive I will be integrating said commenting system on my other sites in the near future.
Nothing really new on the project front just yet, been busy getting other stuff square away before I hit the ground running. I am going to at least try to get a nice demo or partially done first “chapter” of the story for the project wrapped up and submit it to DreamBuildPlay this year.
For those you think I have abbandoned my Platformer series of articles, don’t fret. I am planning on converting them over to XNA 4.0, and release the last few along with them within a few weeks after the updated versions. The plan for that is “as soon as I get to it” or probably towards the end of February or early/mid March.
Until next time…
New Project In The Works
February 7, 2011 by UberMonkey · 1 Comment
The other day I started to dabble with 3D aspect of XNA. Ran thru placing a model on the screen, and making a few simple shaders. Things were progressing very nicely, and thought, you know what? I have a pretty slick idea using very simple 3D tech. So I whipped up a new project, and started to work on a simple Voxel engine. This is no ordinary voxel engine that is used back in the day. This is very similar technique that MineCraft uses. This project I am envisioning is not like Minecraft, just using similar terrain system. I will provide more details on this little project, but for now it is just called “Project Cubed”.
On that note, enjoy a sweet, sweet vid.
Goodbye 2010… Oh HAI 2011!
December 30, 2010 by UberMonkey · Leave a Comment
As 2010 starts to fade, a bright now year is just around the corner. Since it is a new year, most people start planning out new resolutions to hopefully accomplish in the new year. I’m not going to bore you with the list of mundane personal resolutions. Instead, I am going to list off a few regarding game development, and hopefully look back next December to see if these get accomplished.
- Ship at least 2 games. Be it to XBLIG or WP7, but will be 2 different games. If I make one, and release to both, I am counting that as just 1. This year, I released 1 to the Apple AppStore, and nothing to WP7 or XBLIG. My goal is to at least double what I did this year for 2011.
- Finish my secret platformer, Project RCC. This game is semi big in terms of my other projects I have created/started. I have started a few of the tools, and have a rough draft of the story and some dialog. For 2011, I want this game to be pushed out to XBLIG and maybe a port to WP7/iPhone.
- Curve my developer’s ADD. I like to start new projects on a whim, and maybe finish a portion of them. I have started to be better by writing said project ideas in a notebook to work on when I have the time. I need to be more focused on one project at a time than spreading myself out too thin.
I think this is a good list for me to keep myself focused at the task at hand. On that note, catch ya in the new year.