No Name Games

How much do I really know about Adobe flash?………about two hours worth of joggling program tools around. Well, it’s not much, but I designed and put this animation together for my website: rezenstudio.com. I never thought I’d develop any animations, but I guess having a passion for art has driven me to expand in other areas. I do intend to learn and understand this program and hopefully develop more assets very soon.

I thought I would show off a bit more concept work done by one of our artists for our new game…  Enjoy!

This is just some of the new concept art, hope you like it!  Stay tuned, more to come

I am a decent game programmer, but when it comes to actual game design I still have a lot of learning to do…  So I have been looking around the net trying to find some good sources on how to make a quality game design doc, this is what I have found so far.

http://mysimplemindedworld.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/10-game-design-commandments/ I found this article to be pretty interesting, basically it’s a set of do’s and don’t s when it comes to designing, or just well making a game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991019/ryan_01.htm This is a pretty in depth article on game design

http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/creating-a-game-design-document/ brief view on game design

http://digitalworlds.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/the-process-of-game-creation-the-game-design-document/ Gives a nice general idea

http://www.pagtech.com/2006/07/04/how-to-write-a-game-design-doc/

When I go around telling people that you can indeed play games on a Zune about 80% of them say “What is the Zune?”… It tends to frustrate me a little bit simply because everyone is so “I *insert apple product here*” happy… Don’t get me wrong I applaud Steve Jobs for doing what he does best, make his products look sexy and be very appealing. But damn it the Zune is being left in the dust! Sure Microsoft created it in response to the Ipod, but they don’t seem to be really backing it at all. It’s really good media device, and better yet with the latest update to there XNA platform you can create games and applications for it!

At the 2008 GDC they made the announcement that you could make games for the Zune along with the much bigger XNA community games announcement, but still it does not seem to get any type of love or real support. I am not going to say it is the best tool out there, and the way you have to load games on it could be improved, but the fact is that it’s still a viable platform which is being ignored.

With the launch of the new xbox experience (Microsoft revamp of the xbox live interface) they allow you to download lots of community games (games built with Microsoft XNA game framework), which allows for just about anyone to make a quick buck and to get some exposure… Which is great. But why not do the same for Zune games? It would help boost the user base of everything Zune, and allow for Microsoft to expand the visibility of there growing gaming platform.

The Zune already has Wifi capabilities all Microsoft would have to do is simply allow for wireless syncing of the Zune to the Xbox 360 and allow users to transfer Zune games to there Zune. Why they have not done any of this or really pushed the Zune as a gaming platform is beyond me! Considering Apple is already semi-attempting this with the Iphone and Ipod.

Now as for the actual quality of the Zune games, well there is a community out there who likes to make Zune games but you have to do a bit of digging to find them.  The two hottest places to find Zune games would probably have to be http://www.zunerama.com/zune-games-directory.php and http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-completed-games-174/

Now I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to say I want the Zune to dominate all, and take down the Ipod and all that madness, I am simply trying to express my feeling on why this gaming platform is being ignored, it’s almost like Microsoft have distanced themselves so far from this community  that it is now like an underground thing or something.  Not entirely sure why it bothers me so much, I mean everyone is going to keep using a Ipod or Iphone, because that is what they have been told to use by the mainstream media it’s just a shame that Microsoft would release a product that clearly has possiblities and just kind of put it on the back burner, there pulling a Google!

I found this very interesting article that discusses the transition from programming in AS3 (Action Script 3.0) to working in Cocoa (Objective-C).  Basically from creating Flash applications to IPhone applications…  And I must say, the difference between the two languages is pretty dramatic…

Creating a function in AS3 would go like this this.helloWorld(); and in objective-C it looks like this [self helloWorld]; Wow, for anyone who wants to jump into IPhone development who has come from a C#, C++, Java, or AS3 background…  That’s a pretty big difference.  Now for a seasoned programmer who can take in new languages like it’s nothing this really isn’t a hurdle, but once again Apple making it hard to work with the Iphone… Oh my… I am starting to sound like a bit of a Windows fan boy.

http://www.insideria.com/2008/12/actionscript-to-cocoa—protot.html

Before Flash dominated the web game scene Java based games were all the rage!  It was everywhere!  Nothing could stop the awesome power of the “Applet”…  But then Flash came and well Java popularity died off from the client side of the web, Sun Micro Systems began to focus Java on the server side of the web with JSP, and what not.  BUT With the release of JavaFX they are trying to make a come back and reclaim what they had lost so many years ago.

Here are some links to games made with JavaFX so far

http://a.stritzinger.googlepages.com/launch.jnlp just double click the file and it should start installing it

http://blogs.sun.com/chrisoliver/resource/spaceInvaders.jnlp just double click the file and it should start installing it

A lot of the demo’s out that are showcasing JavaFX are for making RIA’s with them, because really Sun Micro Systems is trying whatever they can to catch up to Flash, in the RIA space.

The games so far are not bad…  Not bad at all considering Java has such a rich feature set, but only thing they need to get down is make it easier to launch the games, currently the only way I have seem them do it so far is through “Web start launcher”.  I am pretty curious to see if they can truely make a come back!

Last night while some of my classmates were diligently finishing their computer graphics assignments, I was blissfully pissing time away playing a flash game on Kongregate called Sonny. A friend from class started up a conversation on GTalk regarding implementing multiple mouse object selection in GUIs. Digression ensued:

Before pushing out a release of new software there are certian bugs that should always be checked for and this one just so happen to be one of them…  “Unable to save a SharedObject” It basically means that you will not be able to save data to a local machine using a shared object in Flash… And since a lot of Flash games tend to save user data locally… This could be bad news for any new flash games targeting Flash Player 10… Or possibly for people attempting to play Flash games that have some sort of saving mechanic after upgrading to Flash Player 10.

Inverse kinematics: “is the process of determining the parameters of a jointed flexible object (a kinematic chain) in order to achieve a desired pose. Inverse kinematics is a type of motion planning. Inverse kinematics are also relevant to game programming and 3D animation, where a common use is making sure game characters connect physically to the world, such as feet landing firmly on top of terrain.” Id say Wikipedia sums it up pretty clearly
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It’s funny how you see this sort of thing a lot in games, and in flash cartoons… but never really hear it talked about that much. The example below is something I snagged from a blog where this guy creates a demo which shows you exactly what Inverse Kinematics is all about! Give it a go.. It’s some pretty fascinating stuff.

http://dynamicnetcreations.com/blog/?p=44

As of Flash CS4 Inverse Kinematics functionality is built into the IDE and you can do it from with in code to.

Although this tutorial is for a much older version of flash…  the concepts still remain the same, and I am sure you could apply this logic to just about any other language.  So if you are interested id take a look at http://www.gotoandplay.it/_articles/2004/12/inverseKinematics.php

Well I figured it be more interesting if we gave our next game project some sort of..  presence, so why not give it a code name This is by no means the offical name, just the code name while we get the ball rolling!  Kind of rolls of the tongue a bit to, PROJECT DEAD BOLT!!! yes… I think I like it, don’t you?