Tehehehe

Smashout Blog

We have a new blog up for Smashout. You can find it here.

Check with the blog cause we will be posting new releases there all the time for public testing. In fact there is a new one up there now (3.0).

Sins of a Solar WoW

So I've been getting really into PC-gaming again. I started my wow account again after winter break when a friend of mine was just talking about it. I realized how much I missed WoW. I'm not the biggest MMO fan but I really love the action-rpg aspects of the game. I think what truly drove me back was the experience that was trying to love Hellgate: London. The game was such a let down that I wanted to go back to an level grinding game that I actually liked. So now Raj is getting back into WoW too and I've joined him on Uldum as a lvl 21 hunter named Atax (alliance). If you are interested in playing again, look me up!

The other game that has brought me back to my PC is Sins of a Solar Empire. This game is one of the most amazing RTS games I've played in a very long time. Once I got it figured out (which was still fun in its own right) the game exploded into a wave of Krispy-Kream style goodness. For those who don't know, Sins essentially crosses Galactic Civilzations turn-based style games with real-time games like Homeworld. The game is slow-paced but since its not turn-based there is some amount of "reflex" required to make it work. The slow-pacing allows you make actual strategies that evolve during a session then having to be fine-tuned to the point of perfection like other RTS games. And as a bonus, the when your fleet warp jumps...its totally BSG. In fact, I got so nerdy into it that I did something rather stupid. I had my headphones on and for the most part, the apartment was dead silent. My fleet was jumping to defend one of my worlds from the enemy fleet. The moment we dropped out of hyperspace, I yelled at the top of my lungs "LAUNCH THE FIGHTERS!" Laura turned and stared at me for a good 5 minutes. While it was silly as hell, I give the game a lot of credit for even making me do that.

Roflpotamus

Watch. Seriously.

Smashout

Hey ho everyone. I'm going to make more of an effort to prevent MONTH LONG abscensces from my blog. So here we go. The start of a new leaf.

First, as my Dad always does in his lecture, a joke.

And now for my opening statements.

So I am in month 2 of my Final Project. At Full Sail, this essentially 5 month long class is the culmination of your education. In theory, all of the skills and tricks you learned all collide into one massive mash up of programming (and in theory a little design). We spend the first two months doing prep work and then that last three in hard core production. The experience is pretty intimitading to even think about but so far my team is doing well.

The game we have planned on making is called Smashout. For the most part, it is a Peggle-esque game with a little pinball and break out thrown in for good measure. But hey! No more talking! Give it a shot:

Download Smashout Proof of Concept Here

This is an early iteration of the game. The rules have not been fully implemented. Here are the controls:

Use the LMB (left mouse button) to click and drag on the large multi-colored blocks. This will rotate them. Use these to deflect the small ball. Try to break all the small blocks (bricks) without losing the ball 5 times (if it falls out the bottom you lose it). Hold down the RMB (right mouse button) to slow the ball down and give yourself more time.

Any and all thoughts are welcome. I won't post all the rules to the game just yet. Just see if you can complete the objective I've laid out here.

If you win, I'll email you a cookie.

And so it came to be....at GDC

Hey everyone. Yeah yeah, its been a long time. Shouldna left ya without a double beat..all that crap. So lets cut to the chase.

GDC was pretty amazing. I didn't end up attending a lot of presentations when I went. I focused my efforts on a job. The "dream" was get a job offer while at GDC but of course I would of just been happy with making some really good contacts. I don't have a good way to word it, but I walked away with a job. After hitting the Job Fair hard for two days, I ended up in an interview with WMS Games in Chicago. They develop high-end video slot machines. The interview itself was pretty crazy. There were four guys in there asking all kinds of programming and personal questions. After it was all said and done, I stepped outside and was looking at some of their machines they brought with them. I was about to leave officially but one programmer pulled me back for a second and asked me what I thought about the machines. I told him it was something I would definetly be interested in doing. He asked me to step over to the Recruiter who was there and he made me an offer on the spot.

I really don't know how to describe the feeling. I told them I was extremely interested (and I've accepted the offer at this point). I called Laura a few minutes later and I remember just saying "I just got a job." She started crying.

The craziest result of all this was what happened with the Full Sail staff. The Recruiter went over to the booth and told them about me and suddenly the whole staff knew about it. So I got congrats from teachers I hadn't talked to in months.

I've decided to stay and finish out school (I've gotten this far after all). I'm now in Final Project and I'm with a team putting together a breakout/pinball style game.

Damn. It all paid off, didn't it?