Grand Opening!

Well, the wait is over! The new Studio is complete and ready! To celebrate we had a Grand Opening Party complete with an amazing catered menu and cocktails. Jeannie Ward, wedding planner extraordinaire from www.weddingjeannie.com , sponsored the event. Jeannie showed true professionalism by arranging such a feat within a short amount of time! Thank you Jeannie! The incredibly delicious hor d' oeuvres were created by Thank Goodness It's Sofia, www.tgiscatering.com , and served by their wonderfully professional staff. All in all it was a great night of food, cocktails, and company!
Here are some photos of the new space...I hope all my new Brides will feel right at home!

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Updates on the game now entitled 'INSANITY'

SEE IT HERE!

UPDATE 08/05/2007

Inventory system is up and running. Some simple puzzles have been thrown in, also included is a simple battle system. See if you can make it through the Belloc Room door. No bugs as far as I know now, so if you come across something please let me know.

UPDATE 01/05/2007
Coming along..coming along..there are a couple of bugs still in there though.
Now has inventory and a battle scene. Look out for the hammer that appears as you leave the wardrobe, you'll need it to fight the Statue.--01/05/2007 AGAIN. -oops completely forgot instructions for the inventory. You can drag items and try to use them on objects on the screen, when you're done with the object DOUBLE-C*LICK and it will return back and you'll leave ITEM mode. There will also be an EXAMINE for objects if you c*lick once on them (without dragging). It's all been coded I simply haven't gotten around to adding the ingame instructions.

UPDATE 22/04/2007
Thanks to those who have favourited the game. I'll keep posting updates every couple of weeks or so for a little while longer, and then the next update will be the finished product.
NEW EDITS:
*Text speed has been slowed down.
*Descriptions now embolded
*2 extra rooms explorable.
BUGS
* Not sure about this one but there is a strange Event bug that sometimes creeps up, I've got some theories but no solid idea exactly what it is yet so bear with me. If you leave the closet and the screen goes blank, refresh your browser. Should work second time round.
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This is a sample of a point+c*lick adventure I'm hoping to finish before July. It has no name as of yet so I'm using the title "House of Hell" for the time being- the same name as one of my favourite Fighting Fantasy books. Suggestions?
The story revolves around you waking up in a dark room. You're covered in bandages and don't remember how you got there. As you make your escape you find out that the house is the den of a man only named THE DOCTOR, an ex-chief of surgery who lost his sanity quite some time ago, and now dwells deep within the house working on crazed experiments involving the surgical creation of vivisects- humans with animal body parts. Going further into the game you realise that all is not what it seems, and that there are secrets to be discovered that will shock you to the core.
Although this is only a demo of the basic engine with some graphics, the story has been fully fleshed out and personally I think it's a great little tale not so different in vein to Saw.
As for the game itself, without wanting to sound over ambitious I'm aiming it to be the scariest Flash game out there. It's made in a kind of similar mould to such games as Exmortis yet differs in that there is more user interaction- certain scenes will require the player to make quick decisions before a timer countdown or hammer the mouse button to escape being prey to some creature.
This demo is seriously limited in what you can do but 3 rooms are available for exploration.

I'm just looking for some early feedback, hoping people can tell me if there's any obvious errors. Let me know what you like or don't like. You know the drill.

Updates can be found here on my blog.
http://ydjapan.blogspot.c om/

walkthrough:
-strike the lock to open it
-unsheath the beast within the cage
-talk to THE PRISONER
-you can DIE here if you don't do anything and let the counter rundown, the RETRY button
does nothing though so you'll have to refresh your browser
-ELSE hide in the wardrobe
-listen to the dialogue between the monster and THE PRISONER
-go through the door into the corridor
-only the BELLOC room can be entered so go through
-talk to the CLINICIAN about the Doctor and ways to escape the house
-examine the fishtank.

That's about it!More to come

Please check in for regular posts regarding the progress of the game.

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We're Moving!

For those of you who may not be informed, we are moving! Thanks to all my fabulous clients and the rapid growth of the Studio, we are heading to a new location. We will gain much needed space for the Salon and Design areas, as well as a larger Showroom. We will still be by appointment and continue our one-on-one Designer service, but hope to create an even more unique experience for all of our current clients and future ones. The new address will be 235 East Colorado Blvd., in Pasadena, just around the corner from our current location. The space is almost triple in size, with twenty foot ceilings, beautiful hardwood floors, and an amazing sky light. Here is a photo of the raw space...



Stay tuned for the final reveal in approximately one month!

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Feedback?

Just to let you know I've posted an (very early) alpha of the new point+c*lick game over at Newgrounds.com, in order to see what folks out there think so follow.
Follow the link to see it for yourself.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/491610

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Just to let you know I've had so many requests for AS3 tutorials that I began to compile a little conversion page for those of you who are starting to dip their toes in the AS3 pool. Check it out on the right in the Tutorial links. You'll find a few tricks for converting AS2 code to AS3, and the tutorial also breaks into overcoming some of the common AS3 issues you might encounter as you start to code (such as pesky MouseEvents).
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Yeah, yeah, "When are some beat-em up tutes for AS3 coming out?". Well, sooner or later I'll definitely write some, so keep the encouragement coming and be patient. I really would like to finish "The Damned" series and also this new game I've been toying with first. After that I promise it will happen.
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Seems like I've now recieved most of the collaborated animation I needed to get is in, so I'll be back on 'The Damned'. In the meantime however the new point+c*lick (still no name, ideas?) is going well. I'll be honest with you, from a coding perspective point+c*lick is frickin' easy. Iit's a lot more code than other games since you basically have to write nasty unique functions for every room/section.

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Had a bit of an epiphany the other night. Why am I bothering making The Damned a single game? If I could split it into 3 parts for each level I could not only stretch the levels out longer, maximise my advertising $$$, I could also get some positive/negative feedback from kiddies and generate some interest for the sequels. Smaller file size, hence a shorter loading time.

I'll rework the levels into say, a 10 level survival challenges with a boss at the end. It'll fit much more into the category of a Flash game that way. Short and addictive. I think seeing responses to the game will help inspire the other team members too, motivation is a sneaky devil; always hard to keep a hold of.

Just waiting on some work from a couple of peeps, after which things will really get moving.

Other news:
The point+c*lick adventure I'm working on in the sidelines is coming along well, I've kind of 'invented' a neat way to get extra detail within each image, well I say invented but really all it is is fiddling around with the layer blends. Does wonders for adding creepy little shadows and other particulars. I've been having some horrific dreams from my mind constantly brewing up nasty imagery of decapitated heads and such- you can't work on something like that day and night without it entering your head when you close your eyes. To be expected I guess.

If this point+click thing kicks off some interest I could quite happily continue with this medium. I actually used to be something of a writer (books and writing them being my second love next to video-games). It would be great to flesh-out some of my old horror stories within the Flash medium.
The synopsis for particular story goes something like this;
You wake up in a makeshift operating theater in an old Edwardian mansion with complete memory loss. After discovering another 'prisoner' in the same room you are told that you are to become victim of someone simply called 'The Doctor'- a lunatic ex-surgeon killer who spends all his time with his own sick and twisted form of butchery, vivisecting captured humans with the body parts of animals. During your attempt to escape you meet several characters, including 'The Doctor' himself. Within the arcane house lies a terrible and dark secret that will shake you to the very core of your sanity.

It's a juicy story, I'm sure you're gonna like it.....:-) Watch this space, I will continue to post the ingame shots as they are produced.

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Silhouettes

One of the most important aspects of a wedding gown is the silhouette. Most of the brides that come to me have a pretty good idea as to how they would like to look on their wedding day, but sometimes there can be confusion with regards to the actual silhouette of their dress. So let's talk about a few of the most popular styles...
The A-line dress is fitted to the bodice and flows out from the bust to the ground in an unbroken line, resembling an Upper case A. The A line is a classic shape and very popular due to it's simplicity.
A ball gown has a fitted bodice combined with a full skirt. This gown is probably the most traditional of all styles, but when changing up fabrics and color, a modern look can be acheived.
The mermaid gown contours the body from the bust to the knees and then flares out to the hem. This is a gown that is sexy and visually dramatic. Here is an example of a mermaid gown...


The trumpet gown is similar to the mermaid except that instead of flaring out from the knees, the gown flares out from the low hip.
An empire gown sits just under the bust and flows gracefully to the ground, just skimming the body. It has a Grecian feeling to it and can be very romantic.
A column, or sheath gown, is similar to the empire except that the column dress fits the body more and shows a woman's curves.
The look of each of these wedding gowns can also be altered through use of fabrics, embroidery, beading and color to create a modern look, as well as by changing the length. Not all weddding gowns need to be floor length, many modern brides are now moving towards shorter lengths such as tea length, which comes to about mid-calf. Basically, there are many different combinations of styles, colors, lengths and looks for brides to think about. The most important thing to think about is this...it's your wedding, choose what you want for your special day!

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