Archive for the 'creative' Category
I really have to write to this blog some more. It’s not that I’m short of ideas or thoughts more that I just don’t have the hours in the day any more.
I recently took a week’s break at the coast with the family and really enjoyed the clarity and countless ice creams. On a few [...]
Bored one afternoon flicking through an old magazine online. Loved the type and layout so thought I’d crank up Photoshop and have a go.
Font is Delicious and Delicious Heavy.
Further to my last (admittedly over critical) post I decided to explore a form of adventuring that I enjoyed in my youth. The Fighting Fantasy series has always fascinated me since it is so simple and so creative. It allows the creator to conjur up some incredible scenarios and locations with just words. Images help [...]
I’ve been thinking a fair bit about a new project. In fact I’m a compulsive thinker of new ideas. Even whilst I was trying to bring Hoth Strike to a tidy close I was off in cuckoo land dreaming of a fantasy universe with fancy map and character editors. I still love the idea of [...]
Like any other game designer I take my inspiration from all manner of sources. Hoth Strike is a fairly easy one to research since the movie The Empire Strikes Back is one of the top grossing movies of all time. There is literally a truck load of material out there. Obviously I also have the [...]
Animation, it has to be said, has never been my strong point. I enjoy drawing the sprites and working with limited colour palettes but actually making the damned things come to life was always somebody else’s job. So imagine the headaches I’ve been having trying to bring this bloody walker to life.
In the movie the [...]
It’s been a couple of months since I updated this so I figured I should write a little something about my IFM follow up.
I currently call the game Mutant Mayhem which I admit is purely naff but the thing is you need a name for your game when you start out or it just gets [...]
Whilst there are still a number of things to address with Invaders from Mars (not least my ability to actually play the damned game), I’m happy that there is enough in there to provide a fun and challenging experience. So naturally I’ve got one eye on a new project.
As I’ve written before I’m considering slowing [...]
I implemented the high score table and ran it through the same “text ticker” code that powers the pre-game dialogue. I also used some custom markup to define colour and spacing on the characters. To avoid swamping of the score table I took the decision to allow only a player’s best score to be registered. [...]
I’ve very much come to the conclusions that the key to turning a series of well met challenges in to something that is fun lies with meeting the player’s expectations. In order to do this we of course need to set those expectations.
With Invaders from Mars I decided to set expectations by identifying each alien [...]
