Gears of War!

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I played Gears of War. Now before you throw your rotten vegetables at me, let me say that it was one of the best multiplayer experiences ever. My personal favorite weapon was the shotgun, perfect for headshots and finishing off opponents. The amount of blood and gibs that gun makes is insane! I also like the chainsaw, as it was fun cutting my friend into a million chunks of gore. We were Doom deathmatching on his new 360 and I totally kicked his ass (Me: 20 frags, Him: 2 frags). He told me that he would "own me in Gears." He thought that just because I never played it I couldn't win. Man, was he wrong! I completely destroyed him! I told him that he was in the presence of a deathmatch king, and that he could never beat me in any deathmatch. We never played a second game, I think he was too damn scared!

John Karlgren, You're Awesome!

John Karlgren, the creator of the kickass shooter Action Cyborg, has given me another opportunity to help evolve the already cool game into something even bigger! A few days ago, I sent him an email asking if he needed help with Action Cyborg while he works on his new game. Not only did he reply with a "yes" but he also sent me the source code! It actually started about 6 or 7 months ago when I sent him a PM on GameDev telling him how cool his game was, now I'm sort of a part time developer of the game! Hopefully, he likes what I do with the game. Unless he knows you're extremely interested in his game like me, I wouldn't bother asking him about the source. He told me that he wasn't going to open-source it for a while. Also, please don't ask me about it either. I promised not to give out the source to anybody.

Doom Archaeology

On Sunday, June 17, John Romero, the legendary game designer behind the early id Software games (Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake), released all of the early songs from the Doom soundtrack that were never actually used in the final game. Thanks to his love of preserving video game history, the world knows a little bit more about the origins of Doom. Thanks John for keeping the Doom fanatics happy for 14 years!

Here's a link to the songs: http://rome.ro/media/doom_unreleased_music.zip

Modding, Scripting, and the Undead Engine

After giving it much thought, I've decided to rewrite the Undead Engine. I have a bunch of new ideas for it, like making it mod friendly, giving it an all new scripting language, and developing a level editor so that I won't have to hard code the levels in an array.

Though I think it's fairly uncommon for indie games to be mod friendly, I think that it's a good way to let the gamers know that I actually do want them to have fun with the game. Not only that, but it will make it easier for me to make and distribute updates and patches. The new scripting language that I mentioned has a BASIC-like syntax and the way it functions isn't much different either. Hopefully, that will make it easier for non-programmers to make mods too. Because BASIC is, without a doubt, the easiest language to learn, I'm confident that even the layman will be able to program a good mod in a matter of days. The new level editor will be similar to the Action Cyborg editor. I originally had plans to make the editor more like Mappy, but I scrapped that idea due to the fact that it's features are too generic and most don't really apply to my game. I also want it to be easy to use for modders and amateur level designers. If I could combine a script editor and a level editor into one SDK, I think that would be the ideal editor for the game. All of those ideas are still works-in-progress, but one thing that I am making a lot of progress towards is my new engine.

After getting extremely frustrated with my old engine and it's ugly, unorganized code, I decided to completely rewrite it from scratch. All of the levels were hard coded into a single header file, making the source bloated and hard to work with. Interactivity was a major issue when the levels were hard coded. It was almost impossible to make something work properly when the whole level is stored in an array. To change or move something, the computer would have to find the tile in the array, remove it, replace it with a different tile, and then redraw the screen. That's can slow the game down to an unplayable speed. The levels are now stored in a separate file and are loaded only when needed. Interactivity is no longer an issue since the level isn't stored in an array, and be customized to my liking.

Okay, so that was it for my daily thoughts on code... I guess it's time to go back to work on the game :)

Suck It Down, Paris!

After a quick trip to the controversial game developer Running With Scissors's website, I found two kickass comics about little Miss Paris Hilton.

Here they are:
http://www.gopostal.com/chrisholm/

Stupid Game Engine!

Here's something that's confusing me: If I have a working fully-3D engine for my "Macabre" project, why the hell can't a get a simple sidescrolling engine working for my platformer game "Project: Undead"?

Let me see what I've got:

Map Rendering - Check!
Sidescrolling - Check!
Keyboard Input - Check!
Collision Detection - Uh oh...

See, for whatever reason, I can't make the player stop when he/she reaches the end of the map. The sprite just keeps on going and going, just like that little freakin Energizer Bunny. Why? Who knows why! Is it a conspiracy that my computer set up just to made me angry? I'm beginning to think that it might be the case :)

And speaking of game engines, the new "id Tech 5", shown at yesterday's WWDC Conference by John Carmack, looks amazing! Good ol' id Software has done it again! Now let's see if they can make a kickass new IP with it. Over the past 17 years, they've only had four IPs: Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the WWDC video: http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/d7625zs/m_99427722_650_ref.mov

Good Luck, Karlgren!

John Karlgren, the creator of the awesome shooter Action Cyborg, has began work on his latest project, a top-down-RPG. If it's as cool as his other game, we're in for a pretty sweet ride. Though he says he's not a good coder, I think the guy has lot's of talent. If he wasn't so involved in his band, Terror Punk Syndicate, I would suggest that he goes indie and make some cash off of his game. Best of luck from Kevlar Games, John!

Mobile Goldmine

So there I was, minding my own business, when a buddy of mine showed me Zuma on his cell phone. I watched him play the game and all of the sudden it hit me: If cell phones are getting good enough to play games like Zuma, why isn't every indie and their mother making a cell phone game. After all, the market is young and open to new innovations. Back in the early 1990's, an artist and a programmer could change gaming history, just ask John and Adrian Carmack! Now, I'm beginning to see the same thing happening with cell phones. Who knows, maybe there's hope for indies after all! Maybe, some day in the near future, an indie will create the next big movement in mobile gaming which, like early PC's, isn't even considered a proper gaming platform. Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D changed everybody's opinion on PC gaming. Fellow indies, we need to act now before this gravy train leaves the station!

P.S. Just to clarify, this post wasn't directed towards most indies. Actually, it was directed at the portals and publishers, since they're the ones footing the bill and doing promotion for indie games. There isn't much an indie could do on a cell phone without a portal/publisher...

Action Cyborg Level...

My first Action Cyborg level is finished! Woohoo! IMO, it's damn good for a first try...

Check it out: Download

P.S. There's plenty of secrets to be found in the level, so there's a bit of replay value. Brownie points for whoever can find them!

EDIT: The level has been placed in the new sidebar labeled "Downloads". Have fun!