Author Archives

Game Development — 3 Comments 23
Jan 09

Fast Beta Test Tomorrow

Hi everyone,

Tomorrow, 1/24/09, we’re going to have a less than (<) 24 beta testing of my new platformer.  It’ll appear around 1 pm Pacific Time and run into the evening for launch on Sunday or Monday.  We need your help and the beta will be open to everyone!

Check the Armor Blog tomorrow for more details if you are interested.  No need to sign up, only need your feedback.  Just trying to iron out bugs.

Thanks!

-John

Game Development — 13 Comments 15
Jan 09

I Love Teasing You

teasing

I only tease because I love, and I only love because I am not a robot.

But the above image is just a taste of what’s to come in the coming days of the John/AG vs. Bomtoons mix tape. We’ve been working hard to bring you a lovely platformer full of testosterone-pumped mafia brutes and wavy landscapes that redefine the meaning of “rolling hills” (I chuckle at my own puns).

3 fun-filled levels, 3 lovingly adorable mafia killers, and maybe a boss here or there. It will be a nice little platforming romp for all ages (3 and up, choking hazard for young infants or toddlers).

Coming soon! -John

Random Musing — 4 Comments 8
Jan 09

Happy New Year!

newyear

Hey there!

JayIsGames just put up their Best of 2008 voting and many games from Armor Games are nominated!  If you have a bit of free time pop over there and cast a quick ballot for the games you think are the best of the best for 2008.  It was an amazing year for casual and Flash gaming so it’ll be a tough choice (it was for me).

VOTE NOW!

Second, the blog got a bit backed up with comments since early January and these comments have now been managed.  Thanks for your patience!

Third, we have several fun projects coming up for 2009.  Among them several new website features, new games, sequels, and of course… well I can’t spoil it all.  I am personally working on several projects including a platformer and that ever-so-sneaky RPG (it’s still in production!).  The game is looking phenomenal with some additional artistic help from an artist so I can’t wait to showcase it this month (or early next).

Happy 2009 everyone!  And don’t forget to recognize 2008 by going to JayIsGames for voting!

Game Development — 7 Comments 17
Dec 08

A HOLE BECKONS

In some damp, musty forest on the edge of a kingdom stands a hole marked only by a flag and young oak tree.  What it means we will know fairly soon…

forestimage

Random Musing — 8 Comments 19
Nov 08

Perfect Parking Spot 2

Yes, it does make a difference and it does matter.

About a year ago I wrote an article about the perfect parking spot.  It illustrated a parking spot of the kings, one that exemplified all that I strive for in perfect parking.  Good spot, good location, nice sunlight times; it was a match made in heaven.  However, after the honeymoon things started to go downhill.

  • I wrote this article before Winter happened.  Later that month my parking spot cushion (the area I stepped out into, a little dirt patch) became a muddy graveyard of sticks and dirt.  I forgot to take a picture, but it looked something like this:

  • Sometime in later Winter someone started to TAKE MY SPOT.  They didn’t know it was my spot, but like my own creature-of-habit tendencies they pulled into that spot every day, and I had to adjust.  The problem is that a second set of offices share the same parking lot area and these spots are closer to them then they are to our building, so they take it.
  • In Spring these birds started to appear and hang out in the tree that acts as the primary source of shade in the afternoon (to cool the car).  Bird droppings soon became more annoying than a seatbelt that couldn’t be cooled fast enough, so I gave up on the spots under the tree.
  • In late Spring I moved to another spot under another tree that was less populated.  Around the end of Spring the tree started dropping little sticky cherry-like fruits that left marks that were super hard to scrub off.  I had to move again.

  • In Summer crows started to hang out in the parking lot, so trees or locations around larger trees were becoming dangerous locations, and these birds dealt critical damage to car cleanliness.
  • By this time the ratio of distance traveled vs. accommodating elements was becoming a serious issue.  I was now walking across the parking lot or having to park in some random spot which I didn’t like.  It became a serious manner.

However, this story ends happily, as I finally found a good parking spot.

I managed to find a parking spot that was marked “Reserved.”  I noticed no one every parked in it, and even though it was “Reserved” for someone, that someone never used it.  And everyone else seemed to avoid it too since they didn’t want to take that person’s reserved spot.  So I decided that it was “Reserved” for me.  I now park in it daily.

I am fairly certain that next year I’ll be telling you how this parking spot fails, but in the meantime it’s the best I can do.  I know it’s such a small difference in my life, but every day I get off work and I know my car is going to be the first thing I deal with.  So I like to know that when work is finished I get to step into a cooled-down, same spot, no mess, close proximity parking spot.

Or maybe I should just walk.

Game Development / Game Releases / Site Updates — 30 Comments 12
Nov 08

The Making Of: Dark Cut 3

Dark Cut 3 is finally out, but I wanted to take some time to talk about what went into making this surgery simulator game.

First let’s talk about graphics.  The game’s subjects are usually pictures of myself using several different angled pictures.  I then doctor them to the point that they are relevant to the time period and subject.  For example, the picture above is the picture of me on the submarine with a metal pipe through my shoulder.

  1. I first take the base image:
  2. I then crop out my entire body very carefully and make sure I remove a lot of the excess junk in the background.  While I am at it, I change the hue of my shirt to be a bit more naval.
  3. After this long and arduous process I move into creating a background and floor.  I do this by finding textures of these (free textures are available on the web for free) and building that old metal look.  I also draw a splat by using a splat stencil and drawing a splattered line by hand down the wall.
  4. Next I add just a touch of lighting across the entire background.  To keep the character in focus I left him (myself) in the brighter light.
  5. And finally, I add the minor details.  Notice the buttons are gold to bring out the colour, and that there is now a large metal object protruding from my shoulder.  This is done through drawing by hand around the wound area, and actually finding a piece of red meat from a cow to cut away at on the shirt.  Red meat is the best way to create that “exposed arm” look because it provides a really nice texture and colour variation.  So yes, in every Dark Cut surgery you are looking at raw animal meat where wounds are located.
  6. Now that the image is done, we’re not quite done yet.  We have to recreate every step of the surgery as an image.  For example, the before and after of a stitched area of skin, or the before and after of a poll being removed.  This accounts for about 22-30 images per surgery, and careful planning must be made to ensure that continuity works.
  7. After the art is all done, I have to make different splatters and textures for blood that hit the screen.   This is done using a combination of Photoshop filters, blends, and brushes.  Here is an example of one:
  8. After I cut out the tools and other goods, I import all the art assets into Flash.  I think assemble each of the tasks into groups, and code away at making tools function against the artwork.

The artwork complete, the coding complete, the surgery is done.  Now for Dark Cut 3 I had 5 major surgeries and 3 mini surgeries (called treatments), which meant this process was repeated several times.  It takes about a week to complete a surgery from camera to Flash.

My composer, MaestroRage, is instructed before all this process takes place to compose tracks for this game.   For Dark Cut 3 he composed several beautiful tracks based on the theme of each surgery and the content.

Around all the surgeries there are additional tasks at hand.  Making the menus, preloaders, buttons, finding sound effects, and working with a musician is a lot of work and getting it all to come together within a couple of months is quite a lot of work.  But once it’s all put together it’s a photo-realistic experence and it’s (hopefully) a lot of fun!

Office News / Site Updates — 16 Comments 21
Oct 08

Hedgehog Launch Retrospective, Contest

We recently had a contest for Hedgehog Launch that had an interesting outcome, and I thought I might share it.  A few users discovered methods of “channelling” which is not only brilliant but totally needs to be explained, along with a breakdown of my game, which I thought might make an interesting article.

If you have never played Hedgehog Launch, it is a strategy/skill/luck game in which the objective is to shoot a hedgehog into space in as few days as possible.  Players can reach higher ground each game by buying upgrades, and you are awarded cash based on your ability to collect coins and hit springboards while in midair.  At the end of each level, players get an additional bonus based on the length of the time and the height of the launch.

How This Works

The game seems infinite in each direction, but because Flash can’t create infinity the game has to create a world as you go.

The game breaks up the world into 1,000 pixel areas (called Segments) horizontally in each direction.  Every Segment is an area where a number of coins and platforms are loaded.  Each time your player moves across a Segment, a new Segment will be added.

In order to keep Flash performing up-to-speed (it lags when too many coins and platforms are around), the game will only generate a new Segment only when you are traveling into a new one.  That Segment is generated after the one you are entering, so if you kept moving forward you would always hit more Segment.  In addition, it will destroy a Segment behind the one you are exiting, as it is far behind you and probably forgotten at this point.  This way the game won’t have millions of Segments loaded.

So to make things easy, there are a few Segments always active… the couple in front of you, the couple behind you, and the one that you are in.

Now players have figured out that this loading system can be manipulated to an advantage.  Even though the Segments are invisible and hard to distinguish in-game, they can be guessed and found.

So by running back and forth over the Segment boundry, they can easily manipulate the game to generate a ton of content in a Segment over and over again, essentially creating a wonderful wall of coins and platforms.

By default, the current values are assigned to a single Segment:

  • 10 Blue Launchers
  • 2 Green Launchers
  • 2 Yellow Launchers
  • 40 Bronze Coins
  • 20 Silver Coins
  • 5 Gold Coins

Which means that these players could generate nearly 100+ gold coins in an area quite easily, especially if they used the parachute.

So easily I could classify this as a bug, since I should have been destroying Segments far earlier (like after you leave one), but as this glitch is far too subtle for the common player to find I haven’t even recognized the problem until now.

Which brings me to my apology to DragonSoul and SP3000.

When these users presented videos of massive amounts of coins and platforms in very small areas, I asked, “How is this even possible!?”  I dismissed it as a “variable hack,” which is a method of hacking in which you take the Flash file and edit some variables (like how many coins and platforms are loaded) and then have a shopping spree.

But after watching the videos again, I noticed that the users indeed manipulate the Segment loading, which was completely in-bounds.  An additional email from DragonSoul confirmed the tactics used, and in the end, once again, DragonSoul and SP3000 took first and second place, respectively.

I’ll be sending the top three prizes, so I’ll be emailing you guys soon.

-John

Office News — 12 Comments 20
Oct 08

Hedgehog Launch Contest Winner!

*UPDATE*
We have some additional video verification going on from protested scores, stay tuned (John, 10/21)

Whew, Summer was busy.  So busy that we forgot to judge the contest!  Fear not, here are the results!

Congrats to Jordon for his $2,940,000 run!

After verifying all the entrants, it was determined that some of the gamers here decided to tweak a few variables ;) .  There are limits in the game to how many of specific platforms appear in certain areas, and for some users videos they had to be disqualified due to the game rendering too many platforms of a certain type.

Congrats to the runner-ups as well!

Jcat – 1,900k

EDM – 989k

Silverfire – 937k

Gabriel – 858k

Now that it’s Fall we’ll have more time to do some more timely contests, so stay in touch!  We might have some level editing competitions, maybe another Compulse competition?  We’ll see!

Random Musing — 32 Comments 24
Sep 08

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, & 42

I feel like John Locke from Lost in a way.  I have to keep clicking the button on the computer every four hours to postpone, and if I don’t postpone it my computer will die.  It’s true.  Let me tell you the story.

I got back from vacation on Monday, and found my computer not working.  It’s a Vista machine, and it’s under two years old.  It wouldn’t boot past the loading screen.

So I restart the computer, thinking it was just a glitch, but it fails.

I try to run in last-best configuration, it fails.

I try to run in Network-Only Safe-Mode, it fails.

I try to run in Safe-Mode, it fails.

So that is the entire list.  I unplug everything, try to recover from DVD, it all fails or glitches.  I run several checkdisks and that sort of thing, and the computer doesn’t respond.

Finally, after trying to recover from DVD for the ninth time, it works.  Randomly.  My computer glitches out, displaying random coloured RGB pixels across the entire screen making my monitor look like it had dead pixels, then it restart and started working.

I traced the problem back to an automatic update of the OS by Vista.  The way this works (which is set to be “on” by default) is that the computer gives you a few minutes to hit the “postpone” button on the automatic update or it will restart the computer and start the upgrade.  Your only options are to postpone it for a few minutes or a few hours, and there is no option above 4 hours.  So the minute I wasn’t at the computer, my computer decided to automatic upgrade without me, and managed to crash.

So after the crash I turned off Automatic Updates in the Control Panel.  However, Vista doesn’t approve. It still feels the need to bug me about updating or “I’ll do it automatically for you!” still!  I cannot seem to get rid of the option for Windows to auto-update, which means I most likely will wake up in the morning with another failed update/crash.  I’m sitting here trying to Postpone the update over and over again.

What happens when I go home and leave the update to itself again?  What happens if I turn the computer off?  Will it Automatic Update on load like it did last time?  There’s no good answer, every answer is a threat to all my lovely documents and I have no control over it.  The only way to guarantee my computer would survive the night would be to press the “Postpone” button on the computer every time it pops up, all through the night.

My computer controls my life :( .  Let’s hope for the best tomorrow.

Random Musing — 24 Comments 21
Aug 08

Glitches Are Features… right?

I believe it was Will Wright, creator of the SimCity, Sims, and Spore franchise that was set on the fact that glitches in gaming were “features, not bugs.”  It’s a funny way of thinking about it, but it’s really hard to explain this to the everyday viewer.  Quite honestly, I can barely understand it either.

A recent video from EA games does a very good job explaining this phenomenon.

Wow, this was just about the most well-played response to a fan video ever.

Anyway, when I program my games the random user #44,349 always tends to find a random glitch or error in a game.  They send me an email telling me how much they [loved, hated] the game and how the [glitch, bug, error] made their gameplay that much more [terrible, awesome, exciting, blah].  These bug reports are really helpful, and we’ll fix them.

So whenever you do see a bug on an Armor Games game, try hitting up the author.  We are usually down to earth with the community so if you send us an email we’ll usually fix the bug (sometimes even credit you!).  I know that the first 72 hours I usually get a bug report that is so perplexing I could never understand how someone would arrive at it.

And yes, it’s a feature, not a bug.   So [deal with it, enjoy it, tell us about it].

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