wowie sbeen a while

heyyy I haven't updated this in a while! Here's what happened since the last time. I was busy with college so I didn't do much for a while and then things started picking up again.

I drew the cover of this chiptunes album here, a compilation of multiple artists by crunchyCo:
get the album itself here: http://crunchyco.com/music/crcompilation.html
its pretty cool stuff. My favorite tracks are the first two and the last.

Made a new gameplay video of Super Banana Nababa, game I started to help out on in october, along with Bisse, Phlogiston and Im9today.
It shows me beating the shit out of the first boss Voodoo mask at Normal difficulty level without getting hit once! He is way more challenging at NIGHTMARE difficulty however, with more attacks that deal more damage and are harder to avoid.
Heres the vid, enjoy.

On related news, the results of the IGF competition are out, and Super Banana Nababa was not selected as a finalist. Ah well, there's always next year! Meanwhile we might finish it and pimp it up enough to snatch up a nomination next time.

Right now though I'm working on an entirely different project, a still unnamed exploration-based platformer in a sci fi theme with a slightly creepy atmosphere, yet with a cartoony feel with the characters. The protagonist is a firefly-like alien (not the show, the insect). Its a lot of work but I think I could finish it almost entirely during January if I don't get stupidly lazy. So far the game is roughly planned out, movement and basic things work, most of the work that's left is in designing the levels and polishing it out. Right now im programming an inventory screen and a map display.

I also have some commission work I need to deal with, but for now I'm taking a little break on things I consider "work", after that hectic college semester it feels good to work on stuff that doesn't have money attached to it for a little while.

Big Building Boom Blues vid and other stuff

Made a gameplay vid for Big Building Boom Blues, check it here:


I am not working on games much right now, lots of stuff to do: college stuff, pixel art jobs to finish...

As far as games go, Super Banana Nababa, a game project I started to participate in since early october was submitted to the IGF on November 1st. I worked on that a lot during october,but not so much since after it was sent so far this month. The game isn't complete but what's there is awesome. Its a little less than halfway done maybe?

Sluggy's other adventures is advancing very slowly, mostly because its not very high in my current priorities, but also because I'm thinking of changing a lot about it, so much it could become barely recognizable from the demo I put here a few weeks back (check older blog post).
I'm thinking about putting together many of the various game projects I started from Sluggy as a base into one big game somehow. The code from these various different games is very easy to put together as it had the same origin. Thinking of doing something weird, like two parallel games that are played simultaneously, one that is exploration-based with a large persistent world and the other with a simple linear level structure. I'm trying to build around that idea, it could be fun but it'd take a long time and I prolly wont really work on it until SBN is all done.

New release of Sluggy's other adventure

yaya! Heres a new release.
GET IT HERE!!

Its not visually very different, but instead the level succession now works differently: you play through all 20 levels now, none of them are secret anymore. Secret exits now lead to the spaceship mini game, and the bonus tokens that lead you there before have been replaced with extra life pickups. Finally,I corrected quite a few problems and bugs, such as the game never ending and your inability to quit playing by other means than CTRL ALT DEL. None of the new sprites I made are implemented yet, but the game is better organized now.

Right now I am helping out Bisse, Im9today and Phlogistion with Super Banana Nababa, which we have to finish before the end of the month, so I wont be working much on Sluggy in october. Also someone paid me for some pixel art and expects it for next week, so yeah.

What is next for sluggy, in a loose order of priority:

• Add sound to the game. Its been silent for way too long! Ill handle those with a mic. Ive done a few of them already but I havent put them in yet.
• Redesign a few levels that are boring, adding new enemies while im there
• Implement the few new enemy sprites when theyre done
• Add three new bosses. I had been working on another project a few weeks ago, and made a few bosses for it. Now the project is a little dead, but I feel I could give these bosses a second life in sluggy instead. Plus, their visual styles match with Sluggy's Adventures. Ill just have to tweak around how they work a bit to fit Sluggy's movement. (also the game they were originally made for had a hero that could shoot. As sluggy cant shoot, ill find some other means of damaging them. Probably going to be stomping-based like the other current bosses.)
• Edit the current bosses, make them more of a challenge and more fun. Especially the dragon (currently found at about the middle of the game, its an awful boss.)
• Finish drawing the world map and implement it as a visual interlude between all levels to give the player a sense of evolution and a goal.
• Add music to the game, which I put last because someone might end up helping me out with this, so I wont work on it for now until I'm sure I've no choice but to do it myself.

I am going to start a video montage of some of the game's current gameplay tonight, ill put it up on my youtube channel when its done (and add a link to it here naturally). For now, play the game! Also, feedback is welcome!

Edit: Heres the video!

A little gameplay video 1

Made a lil gameplay video of The Sad, Sad tale of Finnsworth, private eye in space on youtube. I encourage anyone who played the game to make one of their own...


I wonder if someone out there has the skills to play through the whole game...
Do you...?

DO YOU?

More drawing for more fun

Drew another pic today, fun fun fun
It looks like a monster I drew for a mobile game a while ago and also looks a lot like a boss I made for Sluggys' adventures. The boss is functionnal and pretty hard, its the kind that jumps around and belches lazer and whatnot. Its pretty hard. I didn't make it for that game originally though, so ill have to change its code around a bit for it to work with the different physics in Sluggy.

the pic on deviantArt:

Weeeee by ~FrankieSmileShow on deviantART

the drawing video:

Drawing fo' fun'

Recently made a digital painting, here it is on deviantart:

Tar Monster by ~FrankieSmileShow on deviantART

A video of me drawing it:


it was fun.

Its a boss idea for Sluggy's adventures, basically. He propels himself around by shooting tar-ish stuff. The tar doesnt damage you but pushes you back. As the fight goes on, tar is building up in the bottom of the stage, and its too thick to swim in, so its as if the ground slowly grew higher or something. Its still at the idea stage though, I'm not sure about how itll work yet.

New anim for dat guy

New animation for that guy, a walk cycle.
Did that during a programming course last Friday (Sorry programming teacher you are not reading this are you? Of course you aren't!)

Another small update, that's the basic sprite of a boss for Sluggy's Adventures. I like him.... hes gonna be a pretty dynamic boss, the kind that runs around, jumps and shoots.