I spent a lot of time in the arcades as a kid. There were these Sunday sessions where you’d pay a whopping $12 and got about 4 hours of free play on all the machines in the building. It was an institution for myself, my brother and friends. I toyed with the fancy light gun games of the time but I spent a large majority of my time on the most crowded machine. Street Fighter 2.

Fifteen or so years later and I’ve got Street Fighter IV to chew on. I went into it saying to myself “hey, you know SF, you’re not bad at it at all. Those hours in the arcades and the weekends of hiring Super Nintendos just to play it have given you a pretty damn good idea of what you’re doing”.  Turns out I was so so wrong.

After watching this video, I discovered there’s a whole other level to SF that I’ve missed completely. Apparently most of this stuff is somewhat applicable to SFIV as well. Cross ups, meaty attacks, two in ones, reversals; all in the list of this secretive underlying level of play that I was oblivious to. I understand now what defines a “good” player more so than I did before.

So diving back into SFIV, demoralised and downtrodden over my discovery of this new higher level of ability, I expected to get my rear end handed to me on many occassions and I did. Even though I play Ryu a lot and you spend 90% of your time holding the opponent at bay, but I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent with my neck bent at an odd angle, spread eagle with a large Russian wrestler’s sweaty mits wrapped around my midsection.

Seems practice might be the only way I’m going to get there, but for the moment online play is just a wash for this aged warrior. Any tips?

I just got internet in my new flat, so I’m sorry if I hadn’t been in touch lately. John’s sent me an email to be a bit more active on the blog so I thought I’d drop a line or two. Anyway, just in case you were wondering why the Sonny 2 patches are taking so long to get done, I thought I’d just show you a little bit about the other half of my work.

Apart from making Flash games, I also like making films (even though I’m still learning, and am not very good at it yet). Just about to finish the second term of the first year of a film degree, and they teach us stuff like how to use the cameras, and how to write scripts and all that jazz. The script writing lessons are actually very useful, because I’ve had so many people complain to me about how awful the Sonny storyline and dialogue is, so maybe for the next RPG, I can make it a little bit more exciting

Well I’ve got to run down to buy some eggs now, and Tesco is about to close, so I’ll just wrap it up here. Below you can watch a short film I just finished. We also submitted it to a contest. You can find it here. Would appreciate it if you drop us a vote!

Anyway… Eggs, then back to work.

<3
Krin

Very cool post by a developer who worked on Call of Duty: World at War about the development of the Zombie Nazi defence minigame that’s unlocked once you finish the campaign. As it turns out, The Last Stand was one of the primary influences!

“A few hours after talking to the producer about doing the extra content, I was talking to one of our designers about tower defense games and the proposal to make one. He mentioned a game called “The Last Stand“, which is a flash game where you play as a survivor fighting off zombies…. So, I played a few rounds and had a huge epiphany. “Zombie Nazis!” I thought to myself. You could do a lot of the same stuff here, but make it more interactive and more intense in the first person.”

Read the whole post here - Nazi Zombies, Ray Guns and Magic Chests

It’s cool that casual games are influencing the mainstream “hardcore” games as I’ve always felt that we’ve been piggy backing off their side of the industry. Thanks to Victory over at Newgrounds for the heads up.

Thanks for all the nice comments/messages, the wedding went very smoothly indeed after a few little bumps the day before :p

I’ve now got  a Mrs Tony, and had a very nice day, thanks all!

Also, one of my friends thought it would be funny and/or clever to get me Ninja Throwing Knives as a present. It wasn’t. It was just plain awesome.

Now I can dispense justice Ninja style…

I’m writing to you all from a hotel room in Wales, which, as you keen Geographaticians will know, is in the sunny old United Kingdom. It’s 2.38 AM and I’m about to get into bed, it’s quite late I know, especially since I have an early start tomorrow. Becaaause…

I’m getting married in the morning!

Alot of you will have spoken to or commented on the profile of Morbid Giggle on Armor, who has been my Fiancee officially for a little over a year, and tomorrow we’ll be tying the knot ready for a life of Love, Hugs and Computer Games. Afterwards we’ll be jetting off to St Lucia (after a short weekend in London) courtesy of the best free online games site in the world.  Dan, The Armor Games’ head honcho, as I’m sure you know, surprised me with a big chunk of money for what looks to be a dream honeymoon in St Lucia, which is far more than we were expecting to stretch to, and once again proving that this is the best job in the world.

So, I’ll be back in a weekish with my new wife, the best girl I’ve ever known, and also the best at sifting through Shift Level submissions to find the great ones :p

P.S.Work on Shift 4 is progressing very nicely, get ready for some twisty fun very soon

P.P.S. During my bachelor party my friends decided to ambush me with plastic wrap and duct tape me to a parking meter before shooting me with a waterpistol in the middle of February. Who needs enemies, eh?

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!

Hi Guys,

Good news! Sonny 2 is on the verge of completion and I think we can have it out by next Friday It will be exclusive on ArmorGames for a while, because we want to fix bugs as they pop up, and also add some extra Zones and content as time goes by. I’ll just go over some of the new features that will be availiable in Sonny 2 so that you know what to expect.

Three Unique Classes
That’s right! This time, each class will actually have their own ability trees. The character skills and stats are also made more versatile, meaning there is more than triple the amount of character builds that you can play with.

Loads of New Armor and Items
We’ve axed the class restriction on most items, meaning that you can use almost any item you find with your class now, and build your own set of viable gear that is tailored to your ability spec. Better than grinding for just that one set, right?

Difficulty Levels
Three modes of difficulty will be available, meaning you can choose if you want to just glide through the game to see the story, or test your strategy against very challenging bosses and enemies.

Local PvP System
Now you can challenge your friends by battling your characters against each other. You have to be playing on the same computer, but the system allows you to export your character into a text file and load it in any computer.

And that’s more than that, but I’m getting sleepy and I have to get up early to go to Hyde Park tomorrow. I have to finish shooting a little film, and the park is best lit during sunrise.

Talk to you folks later!
<3 Krin

Coming very soon, a collaboration between myself and Dim SuperFlashBros, Drastic Plastic is a fun game where you get to PUNCH stuff! Sometimes other robots! In fact Mostly other robots!

Above is the awesometastic splash screen drawn up by Dim for our isometric Robot Slugathon with a hint of Rockem Sockem goodness :D.

So, long time no update, eh? Well here’s a few bits and pieces for you. I’m pleased with how Tentadrill turned out, did you guys enjoy it? Along side Drastic Plastic, I’ve got SHIFT 4 in development stages, me and my regular artist Chris are making headway into that, hopefully for pre Christmas release (fingers crossed!). He’s working on the game’s intro cinematic - that’s right, this one is going to have an intricate plot full of twists and intrigue that will rival Dickens in grandeur and scope… Just kidding, this is SHIFT we’re talking about! While it does have a nice little plot running through it, SHIFTs always been about the gameplay, and the evolution of it between each installment, and I’m so glad you’ve mostly supported the ride and changes it’s taken on board. You guys are the real heroes of the SHIFT tale…

I’ll try to start making more regular updates this Month, yesterday I got an email from Dan about a super duper secret development that I think will be very exciting in the coming year :D.

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!

Continuing the IGF theme, I’m going to talk about one of my favourite web games. This game won Best Browser game in 2007.

Samarost 2!

Designed by Amanita Design (from the Czech Republic) the game mixes incredible artwork with simple point-and-click and physics based puzzles. Its a mixture between Creatures, Monkey Island and Where the Wild things are.

Yeah, you know that book. It has the same spooky alien feel, anyway.

The story is basically - man gets dog stolen, goes after dog, rescues dog, then on the way home gets stranded on another alien planet/shell/possibly living creature.

Its very satisfying to play. Instead the of the character interracting with the objects on screen, you simply use your cursor to play with everything you can see to manipulate the world around you. You might need the character to weigh something down, or carry something, or you might not. Its all part of the puzzle.

This game is a big inspiration to me! But the art is far beyond anything I could ever do. I don’t even know how they did it!

-Dim