Latest Posts

By Rich

Tags

64kb, assembly, demo, evoflash, intro, presentation, quicktime

Posted in

Demoscene

1 comment

Proof of Concept – Evoflash 64k intro

9th Aug 2009

1

EvoFlash have released the first ever 64k intro for Flash Player 10 – “Proof of Concept”. It features some new to Flash effects such as a nice looking multi-ridged fractals voxel landscape and bezier curve tweened particles, with a lovely depth of field effect. This is supported by a thumping 36-voice soundtrack. Again remember it’s a 64KB SWF with no external media.

The intro is nicely put together, harking back to the yesteryear of demo style. It’s a bit “showing off” and self congratulatory, as if they are challenging other Flash demo crews to do better (which might be hard, because there virtually are none!). You are bombarded with the technical facts during the demo, rather than left to enjoy the aesthetics of it. But still, it’s great to see and a bit of a benchmark.

Watch it here: http://mediaerror.com/temp/proof_of_concept_by_evoflash/

Anthology of Flash Demo History Video

The coder behind this demo (Jalava) also gave a presentation at the recent Assembly Summer 2009 Convention entitled the “Anthology of Flash Demo History”. This is fascinating viewing and you can watch it online here. That link is to the h264 QuickTime MP4 file, which is just under 630MB. Don’t let that put you off as it’s well worth the download or stream if your connection can handle it 🙂
By Rich

Tags

bug box, FGL, hakoiri, puzzle, sponsorship

Posted in

Games

2 comments

My New Game “Bug Box”

7th Aug 2009

2

A week ago while chatting on a forum RobotJam inspired me by something he said: About how everyone should try and create a “one day game” at least once in their developer lives. As in a proper game, that you then go and and try to sell. And he gave some successful examples of his own.

I thought this was a nice idea. So now, a week later, mine is finished 😉

It’s a simple puzzle game: Just get the butterfly out of the box. There are only 3 levels, easy, medium and hard. It is based on an old Japanese game played with wooden blocks called Hakoiri Shogi.

The core game was done in 3 hours, as you’ll see when you play it (it’s hardly cutting edge technology). Having done that I then set about on the graphics, which took me a lot longer. I bought some of the images from iStockPhoto and then built the scene-up the way I wanted it. The music is from SoundRangers.com mixed with some nature effects by myself. Also big thanks to Eric at Cavalcade Games for doing the great “Level Win” animation sequence for me.

Originally I only wanted the one puzzle (“Easy”). That’s all I had in place and I was pleased I had managed to create a nice little logic game so fast. But then I let my wife play it and she completed it instantly, so I figured it needed more! I added in two new puzzles, the leafy reveal sequence, the in-game buttons, etc. I just guess I couldn’t leave it alone, so I polished it until I felt it shined enough.

Having said that it’s still my absolute fastest game build ever: from concept to FGL in 5 days, working evenings only. Yes I am going to put it up for sponsorship, but I’m realistic and really don’t expect much. My hope is that I could make a few little sales that add-up. As long as I cover my $60 media costs I’m happy.

For now you can play the game only on FGL. My FGL “Friends” can see it right away, as can other devs of a certain level. At the time of writing it’s still pending approval for sponsor viewing. Obviously once it has been sold everyone can play it 🙂
By Rich

Tags

assembly 2009, video

Posted in

Demoscene

1 comment

So who’s watching Assembly 2009 with me?

6th Aug 2009

1

The Assembly Summer 2009 Convention is now under way, and you can watch it live at Assembly TV.

The good stuff doesn’t really kick off for a few hours. But they show lots of cool demos, random interviews and lots of mobile phone adverts until then 😉 Plenty more info on the official site.

I’ve got it up and running on a spare monitor watching via the 1MB VLC stream.

There is some great stuff coming up on the schedule (the GameDev Compo tonight for example). But if you miss it, you miss it, until they re-publish the recordings later in the month. Join me on Twitter (when it isn’t being DDOSd!) to chat about it – @photonstorm 🙂
By Rich

Tags

amiga, Flod, FlodPro, modules, music, soundtracker

Posted in

Flod

1 comment

FlodPro – Awesome Soundtracker Replayer – Sneak Preview

5th Aug 2009

1

Christian Corti has been hard at work on the Flod Replay library, and Flod Pro incorporates the latest version and a whole lot more, wrapped up in a sexy ProTracker style interface! He gave me permission to show you a demo of it, so have a play with this:

[swfobj src=”http://sandbox.photonstorm.com/flod/FlodProSneakPreview.swf” width=”568″ height=”477″]

Click “Browse” and select a soundtracker module (.mod file) then hit “Play“. Some features work, some don’t. The two sliders on the bottom right are for volume and stereo separation. The numbers 1-4 at the top enable/disable the channels. Clicking through the sample names often reveal hidden messages from the composers 🙂

Just check out the replay quality! It’s now playing back a lot of mods better than even ModPlug can, all from AS3 / FP10.

If you don’t have any soundtracker modules to load into it then here is a little zip (655KB) with 5 classic Amiga tunes and the FlodPro SWF. Or you can downloads thousands of tunes from sites like Amiga Music Preservation.
By Rich

Tags

artwork, generative, painter

Posted in

Cool Links

3 comments

ActionScript Painter 2.0

29th Jul 2009

3

Well this is just too much fun! Grootlicht have just released ActionScript Painter 2.0. I wasted a whole hour this evening creating images in this wonderful package. Remember Painter? This is similar. But automated. And made in AS3. It’s a piece of FP10 wizardary and some of the results are beautiful. Here are a few of my creations: