Happy First Birthday, CRPG Addict!

February 17, 2011
Cool People
0 Comment

The CRPG Addict, who turned his inability to stop playing RPGs when he “grew up” into an absolutely fantastic blog, is one year old today!

Actually, it’s his blog that’s a year old. I think he’s in his mid-thirties or so. He divulges surprisingly little personal information; indeed, all I know about the man is that he loves himself New Orleans and a vodka gimlet.

ANYhoo, head on over and check out the holiday celebrations, and if you haven’t been reading his blog, please start. It’s the best one I’ve found in ages.

Holy Crapledo!

February 11, 2011
Inaria
5 Comments

Inaria now has $140 of funding on 8-Bit Funding! I never expected that much!

Putting Inaria on 8-Bit Funding was absolutely the best thing I could have done for the project. It really motivates me to know that so many people are willing to donate just to see the project finished. I expect to get a lot done this weekend. Plus…anyone know of a good chiptune composer? I might actually be able to pay one now!

Gameloft

February 9, 2011
Game DesignGames
0 Comment

Okay, game producer Gameloft has been in the news in the past for ripping o…er, copying other people’s games. I don’t mean copying in the physical sense, but in the “look and feel” sense. But things have really come to a head with their recent trailer for Starfront: Collision:

A bit on the nose, dontcha think?

And yet…I like Gameloft. I like the fact that they are cheeky bastards. If you want an iPhone/iPad/Android version of your hit game, you can go to them and they’ll make you one. And oddly enough, it’ll probably be pretty good.

But if you don’t and you just leave that money on the table…well, they’ll pick it up. And I’ve no doubt that everything goes through the lawyers to make sure they aren’t infringing.

It would be different if the games were krep, but they aren’t. By all accounts, the games have high production values and are fun to play. Plus a lot of them have multiplayer, which is not trivial to do on handheld devices.

So kudos, Gameloft! Keep doing what you’re doing, and maybe game companies will realize how much cash they are missing out on by not entering the handheld market.

Maybe then you can make the real version of Starcraft II for the iPhone.

So Where Ya Been?!

February 8, 2011
CareerPTFSD
0 Comment

Sick. Quite, quite sick. And also not working. But not because I was sick.

There was some kind of snafu with the paperwork at GM. I didn’t start last Tuesday; in fact, for about a week I didn’t know when I would start or if I would start at all. But that’s apparently all been worked out and I allegedly start tomorrow (I’ll believe it when I get my badge).

I know, I missed a PTFSD update, but because I’ve been tracking my weight daily on a spreadsheet I can give it to you now.

Previous Weight: 357.4
Current Weight: 357.4
Delta: none

Wow, that was eventful, huh?

My Last Day at Somanetics, Plus PTFSD Update

January 28, 2011
CareerPTFSDUncategorized
3 Comments

No more working on medical devices for me. I loved my time at Somanetics and I’ll miss everyone here, but Somanetics has been bought and the parent company is closing this office. On Tuesday I start my new job at General Motors.

Perhaps now I’ll be able to spend more than 18 months at a job.

PTFSD Update:

Previous Weight: 354.4
Current Weight: 357.4
Delta: +3 Pounds

Blech. I tried to do better this week but got hit with a lot of temptations, “Oh, there’s donuts for the Linux guys,” “Oh, there’s ice cream for the Linux guys,” “Oh, I got KFC for dinner.” I succumbed to all of them.

But Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen my salvation.

That’s a Marcy recumbent exercise bike. I had been thinking for a while about getting a treadmill, but ones that could support my current weight cost well over $1000. And then I read in The 4-Hour Body about a guy who got his exercise on a recumbent bike – it allowed him to relieve the horrible boredom that always eventually makes me stop exercising. With a recumbent bike, you can read, watch TV or even play video games while still keeping your heart rate in the cardio zone. And this one is supposed to be excellent – not just for the price, but excellent all around. The biggest plus – it’s magwheel-driven, so it’s silent.

Once it arrives (which will take a week since I picked free shipping) I’ll add a new entry to these posts detailing how many minutes of exercise I got each week.

Name That Game 75!

January 27, 2011
Name That Game!
3 Comments

Okay, this is another “I have a point to make so that actual naming of the game won’t be hard” posts. Here are five “classic” top-down RPGs.

Can anyone look at the terrain tiles of these games and tell me what I noticed about them?

Getting Serious

January 26, 2011
Inaria
1 Comment

Inaria now has a funding target of $500 on 8-Bit Funding. Should I make this goal, I’ll use the money to get better artwork and some music for the game. Help out if you can, and if you donate $5 or more you’ll get a free copy when the game ships on March 6!

Okay, THIS I can PLAY!

January 26, 2011
Games
0 Comment

Blizzard is rolling out four new Starcraft II custom games. They are all in beta, but you can still play them. One of them is called StarJeweled.

The gameplay is pretty simple…you gain energy by making Bejeweled matches, then you spend that energy on spawning units or using special abilities. The game goes on until one side loses their base.

Notice how the team I’m on has WAY more energy than the other team. Notice how their base has far fewer hitpoints than ours. And notice how we won the game!

Okay, you can’t see that in the screen shot, but we did! It was my first multiplayer Starcraft win ever. Of course, it didn’t count because it was a custom game, but still.

Also, notice how, once again, what Blizzard calls a “beta” is equivalent to what any other company would call “a month after launch”.

PS on a completely different topic: I am moving PTFSD updates to Fridays, which will put them right before my “off” day (Saturday) I think this will more accurately represent my gain/loss for the week.

A Recent IM Transaction

January 21, 2011
FamilyGames
0 Comment

Megan: Are you on Steam?

Anthony: No, you can play something.

Megan: Good, ’cause I’m $70,000 in the hole.

Inaria! (Sung to the tune of SEGA!)

January 19, 2011
Cool PeopleInaria
0 Comment

The good news: Inaria got a mention in Jay Barnson’s roundup of upcoming indie RPGs! Welcome to everyone who is visiting this site because of his mention!

The bad news: It’s the worst-looking game there.

I don’t know what to do about how Inaria looks. The free sprites I found are nice and colorful, looking like 256-color VGA art. On the other hand…that amount of detail makes my own stuff look like ass. As if to emphasize the point, I followed a link from a commenter (DIntent) back to his blog (The Lame Brain) and found out about another blog called Tilting at Windmills.

(Before I go on, I just want to say thanks to DIntent for the kind things he said about me on his blog. He’s writing an old-school RPG too, called SPARK. Check it out.)

But Tilting at Windmills is a blog written by a guy who writes games for…the TI-99/4A. And his biggest project so far is an RPG. (If you don’t want to follow that link to find out what a TI-99/4A is, it’s a vintage computer about as powerful as the Apple II, made by Texas Instruments.)

Check the screenshots out on this page. If they don’t give you the warm fuzzies, then you either hate classic RPGs or you HAVE NO SOUL, and I’m betting the latter. He did all the graphics himself, and just like Daniel Remar, the self-imposed limitations made it possible for him to do them himself effectively.

Perhaps I should do the same? This would also allow me to add some limited animation on the characters (right now there is none because that’s not how the sprites were designed).

Sticking with graphics, I also recently resized the main screen up from 512×384 to 640×480. I did this because I wanted to expand the visible tiles in the world window from 9×9 to 11×11. I originally did this to support 11×11 “arena” maps where combats take place (just like in Ultimas III, IV and V).

But now that I’ve added that feature, I’m at the crossroads. Single or multi-character? My dungeons are now just underground maps filled with NPCs and items; there’s only one “puzzle” and that’s in how the dungeon is laid out.

I think what I need is more special tiles. Hidden doors, triggers, traps, teleporters…I need all these and more especially if I stick with a single-player game.

So I think that’s what I’ll work on next, along with the graphics. Don’t be surprised if the next version of Inaria looks radically different.