Tuesday, October 16, 2007

THE BRITISH THRONE

American biographer Kitty Kelly made an impressive research about the lives of the world’s oldest surviving royalty, the British monarchy. In 1994 she started a controversial compilation of “The Royals”, a blow by blow account of the British royal family since the creation of the House of Windsor in 1917. The book was praised in the US (and even managed to become number one in the New York time

Friday, October 5, 2007

EUROPE: The Grand Continent

When I was still in my fourth grade, my father brought home a glossy, life size calendar featuring some of the best european countries. My 10-year-old mind glued on the breathtaking sight of Veyvey,which I found out, a milk dominated farm in Eastern Switzerland (home base of Nestle Food Company better known as Societe de Produits Nestle in their local tongue). The magnificent sight features cows

Friday, September 28, 2007

Today was a bad day...

Ah Jesus F**cking Christ a virus wiped out my entire hard-drive this afternoon and before you could even say "System Recovery Software" the wife had gone ahead and wiped/reinstalled the lot by the time I'd gotten home from work.
Can't blame her, it was my own fault for downloading files from the wrong sorts of sites and BAM! couldn't even get into Safe Mode to stick my Flash files on a CD.
It wouldn't usually bother me much but I'd been working on The Damned again and had practically finished the entire game. I was literally days away from uploading it to the safety of the server.
Geez, Level 2 was looking brilliant. Not only did I have zombies with location damage all over their bodies - arms exploding, heads flying off at random angles and calculated velocities, but the magnum weapon was working well; enemies exploded into chunks of blood and guts at close range. Like a different game and much improved. The real killer is that I had painstakingly redesigned many of the 'death scenes', cutting footage from zombie movies out and adding my own little personal touches. Took weeks. Gameplay was far more exciting, the zombies came flying at you from out of the darkness but could be illuminated from a distance for a brief second with a round off the beretta. I'd also created a 'Salems Lot' style monster that crawled along the walls towards you following a circle radius. Ah man, they looked awesome but I don't have a single screenshot- it was all for naught. A labour of love, lost.
Fuck..
Not only that. An update of the SORF engine with enemy AI and extra moves. A prototype I had made for a potential remake of Green Beret, written in AS3. It was looking pretty sweet, had the guy running around the tile-engine and he would execute a slash Strider-style ie- as fast as you could hit the key.
Oh well, adapt, overcome. I'm pretty bitter but there's nothing like a clean slate to spur on the imagination.
I'm too down to go back to work on The Damned so for the time being I might get into the fighting-engine. I figure codewise it won't be the biggest stretch to get a decent little mini-game up and running in no time, so keep your eyes peeled here for that in the near future. Later dudes.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy for www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/

If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at dozz.mbahkonyek@gmail.com.

At www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/ and how it is used.

Log Files
Like many other Web sites, www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/ makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons
www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/ does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

DoubleClick DART Cookie
.:: Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/.
.:: Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/ and other sites on the Internet.
.:: Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include ....
Google Adsense


These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/ send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/ has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. www.konyek-trendwedding.blogspot.com/'s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Nexus/Sirius Continued...



Been working on the Nexus demo a lot recently.

Check out the updates. Elevator now works. Choose a floor (1-5 are explorable) and tap D to operate the thing. You can now enter rooms and use the UP array to search through the junk in them for objects.

When you leave rooms the doors tint to red to let you know you've been in them. At a later stage that'll change so they'll tint only when you've searched the entire room.
Don't bug me about stuff in the game being wrong. I'm not asking for beta testers here, and I'm fully aware that some doors tint before you've entered them, rooms not existing and levels doing funny things. Cheers.

Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. That's the new working title since I can't go completely ripping off Nexus now can I? Truth be told I've thought of a few little changes I'd like to make to the original game anyway. So, it's now not a blatant Nexus but inspired by Nexus. I hope to retain the atmosphere of the first game but evolve it with a few added extras such as a couple of new weapons and some other stuff I've been mulling over.

So, how would you set up a world similar to mine?

myMap = [[16, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12],
[11, 9, 8, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 0],
[5, 4, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 0],
[14, 15, 14, 15, 15, 14, 15, 14, 14],
[12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12]];

This is the array that represents the rooms for each level. So we've got 5 levels at present (elevator levels higher than 5 don't exist). The numbers in the array are used to reference the tiles that are used in the background.


//GLASS CAVERN
floor3 = [[[0,0],[10,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[1,0],[1,0],[0,0]],
[[0,0],[1,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0]],
[[0,0],[102,0],[102,0],[0,0],[2,0],[0,0],[0,0],[102,0],[0,0],[0,0]],
[[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[3,0],[3,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[0,0]],
[[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[1,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0]],
[[0,0],[101,1],[101,2],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[1,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0]],
[[0,0],[0,0],[1,0],[0,0],[3,0],[0,0],[0,0],[0,0],[10,0],[0,0]]];


This 2d array is for the main tiles on each level. It's 10x7: 10 tiles per screen, 7 screens per level. 0,0 would be an empty space, 2 is an elevator (for now), and anything from 3-100 is a graphical tile with no properties (so 1,0 is a barrel). 100 and up is a door. Each level uses a different door mc, so we need 101,102 etc. the second part of the array represents the room number. so [101,10] would work as say "Use tile with linkage tile_101 for the graphics and 10 we'll keep for later so we know what room it leads to".


myMiddleMap2=[{roomnumber: 1, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room1", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [13,0], [14,0], [1,0], [13,0], [14,0], [0,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 2, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room1", roomArray:[[11,1], [12,1], [2,1], [13,2], [14,3], [13,1], [14,0], [1,1], [0,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 3, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room1", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [13,0], [14,0], [1,0], [13,0], [14,0], [0,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 4, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room1", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [13,0], [14,0], [1,0], [13,0], [14,0], [0,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 5, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room2", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,1], [3,4], [13,5], [14,2], [1,8], [13,3], [14,2], [0,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 6, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room2", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [13,0], [14,0], [1,0], [13,0], [14,0], [0,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 8, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room3", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [13,0], [14,0], [1,0], [13,0], [14,0], [30,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 9, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room3", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [11,0], [12,0], [11,0], [12,0], [14,0], [30,0],[10,0]]},
{roomnumber: 7, image:0, entered:false, tile:"room2", roomArray:[[11,0], [12,0], [3,0], [13,0], [14,0], [1,0], [13,0], [14,0], [0,0],[10,0]]}
];


This is the array of objects for our rooms. We can give it as much information as we went, in this case roomnumber, image (no use right now), entered:- has the room been entered, boolean. tile: linkage for the room background mc, and roomArray is another array similar to the maintile array for coordinating object/furniture tiles across the screen. This time the second array number carries special information about what objects can be located when the player 'searches' the tile in question. Anything above 0 is an object. I've yet to incorporate anything such as puzzle pieces or weapons so at present all you'll receive is a "Got Something" message when you search objects in the rooms.

Monday, August 6, 2007

..little Nexus update...

I haven't quit the Streets of Rage engine, nope in fact it may have found a home.
I was approached by a talented artist about 2 weeks ago enquiring about a possible collaboration and it looks as though we may be working on a game together!
It's too early to say much about the project but suffice to say we've both agreed that it will be a medieval Hack'n'Slash a little like Golden Axe but with a lot more gore. There's a lot of ideas and concept art flying around at the moment but little else, so I'll leave the rest of the details for later.
Regarding progress, since my engine has to be custom adapted after we've set the framework for the character sprites and such, I've had some spare time on my hands to work on other projects. Therefore I broke out the old Nexus.fla and have been working on that. Goddamn was there some shitty code in there. But that is to be expected -it was the first game I had worked on since I started using Flash for making games, after all. It's nice to know my coding skill has upped and 1 year ago I wouldn't have dreamed of using arrays of objects to contain all the 'room' information in the base. I've put all my gained knowledge back into it and now things that screwed with me a year ago are working like a charm.
You can check out the update on the right. Now you can walk into rooms using the UP arrow and er..that's it. The doors to the rooms go red when the room has been entered, just like in the original Nexus. (You wouldn't believe what a bastard that was to get working, btw). Just laying foundations dudes.
I still haven't figured out how I put XML in Flash to good effect. People keep telling me they can't live without it these days but I haven't seen what use it would be unless we're talking about loading info on the fly. Saying that, I'll probably eat my words a year from now.
Laters.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

STREEEEEETS OF RAAAAAGGGGE!!! (umm..and spike-out)

SO, here's the story. I was fiddling around with the Streets of Rage tutorial and thought "Hmmm this engine is coming along rather well" and decided to scrap the tute and embark on actually creating a proper game. So here's what I've done so far;-

USE THE ARROW KEYS FOR MOVEMENT- DOUBLE TAP ANY DIRECTION TO RUN

W = BEAT BUTTON Q = JUMP D = POWER


BEAT BUTTON CAN BE USED FOR COMBOS+GRAPPLE ATTACKS/THROWS
POWER BUTTON CAN BE RELEASED AT SET LEVELS TO PERFORM A SPECIAL MATCHING THAT LEVEL (AKA.SPIKE-OUT)










ENJOY!

Yes it's only a basic demo, just a small preview of what's to come- but at least the mechanics at this point are- in my opinion- pretty fluid. Took a lot of fiddling around with keyhandlers and the like to get it working like that. There are soooo many beat-em ups out there that look fantastic, but playwise lack the juice to keep you intrigued. This is mostly down to controls being unresponsive (bad coding) or the characters movements too slow (bad design). So I made an effort to keep things frictionless.

Pretty much everything I'd love to see in a 2d fighting game I intend on having, borrowing the best bits from the best games and leaving out the poo. Floating combos, multiple grapple techniques, power-up attacks, firearms, hitting grounded enemies. God I'm violent. There's only a handful of those in the demo so far, but keep your eyes peeled...


I you can draw real art, (ie something other than crappy little cutesy characters), please get in touch. There's money to be made for a good artist in Flash these days. Companies are beginning to realise the huge potential of advertising within online games and financially speaking things lousy sponsorship deals are becoming a thing of the past and giving way to percentage earnings. In other words, the day may be dawning when we can actually earn what we're worth. As you can see, the current demo uses placeholder graphics and one day I hope to either put in my own graphics, or hopefully get someone who has some real talent on the job.


I discovered a couple of handy coding techniques along the way with this puppy, such as saving a reference to whichever bad guy the hero is beating on after he comes up on the hitTest--bleh, difficult for a moron like me to explain, but in other words, you could do something like. hero.current_enemy._x=500;
In other words you have all of the current enemies properties available from within the player object. It saved me a lot of time. Guess my skills are improving, but I'd still love to know how 'real' programmers manage to code entire games without putting any lines within their movie clips as I completely struggle to figure out ways of avoiding that at times. There's that old coders adage that "It's not the code but the game that matters" but it's a great feeling when you know your coding is clean and organised (and all on one frame!).


Had an odd urge to go back to coding the remake of Nexus once again. I know the project is supposedly abandoned, and I had no intention of returning to it, but I can't help it- recently great ideas for how it could be done just keep popping into my head. I started scribbling down some map diagrams for the base and who knows, I might just break open the old swf and get cracking on it again.

This doesn't mean I'm blowing off Bounty Hunter 2, but the scale of that game is so large I'd be crazy to focus entirely on it when there's other more attainable visions to chase. Go with the flow of your mind dudes, that's all you can do. As long as you never stop a project completely you'll always have stages in the year when you feel like adding a little bit to it here and there.