It's a Party for the Tardy

Sunday December 28, 2008

Hello again! It's another late post and the last one of the year. Holiday madness and a full couple of weekends have played havoc with my schedule. For this latest and belated update I have my annual list of my favorite games of the year. My top five for 2008 were:

#5. Civilization III. One of the best turn-based strategy games ever.

#4. Sword of the Stars. Space exploration and combat on a huge scale.

#3. Command And Conquer 3. 3D RTS with lots of varied units and depth.

#2. Unreal Tournament III. It's hard to go wrong with a good twitchy FPS.

#1. Forged Alliance. The sequel to Supreme Commander is pure addictive RTS goodness.

And that's it for this final report of the year. I'll be back with the first post of 2009 soon.

The loops of the week are a set of electronic percussion parts.

The picture of the week was created using Project Dogwaffle.
Click on the image for a full-sized view

The DVD/Movie of the week was The Squid and the Whale.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!

Great games for a lazy Friday

Friday October 17, 2008

Hello Again! It's Friday and I'm here with my weekly update of all things technical and artistic. The topic for this week is games and I'm going to share my current obsessions and time killers. MechQuest is a browser role-playing game with anime style graphics. I like pretty much any game that lets you fight it out with giant robots. The game mechanics are easy and the game can be played in short sessions that don't demand too much time. There are 2 RTS games that have been consuming my spare time at a ridiculous rate. Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is a great game with a long lineage. The campaign is cool, but nothing is quite as much fun as starting up a skirmish against a few bloodthirsty computer opponents. The other RTS addiction of the week is Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. FA is notable for sheer scale and numbers. It's quite possible to have hundreds of units engaged in separate actions across the entire map. Give them a try the next time you're looking for some fun and action.

The picture of the week was created using Bryce.
Click on the image for a full-sized view

The loops of the week are some weighty drum parts.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!

Consequential Clones of Gratifying Games

Friday June 20, 2008

Greetings! We're on the verge of summer and the topic for this hot evening is games. I'm going to focus on a couple of free/open source clones of classic turn-based strategy games. I'll start the session with FreeCiv, a very faithful reproduction of Sid Meier's classic Civilization II. I like the tough AI, wide range of options and depth in FreeCiv. I don't like the long time it takes to play but that's common of most good 4X strategy games. The graphics are clear, but 2D and a bit understated. You really don't need 3D gob-smacking graphics to enjoy Freeciv, just a good brain and lots of time and patience. The other freebie find of the week is Empire Allegro Advance; A Windows clone of the popular Game Boy Advance title Advance Wars. I like the cartoony graphics, the low system requirements, and the fact that it comes with a map editor and source code. I don't like the slightly cheesy vibe of the project and the fact that it is too easy to beat the computer opponents. I'll have more of my favorites on display here in later posts. In the meantime, give them a try and have some fun!

The picture of the week was created using Project Dogwaffle.
Click on the image for a full-sized view

The loops of the week are some more beat-sliced drum loops.

The PC game of the week is still Future Pinball. My favorite table is the recreation of Bally's Wizard from 1975. The last electro-mechanical tables from the mid 70s were the best IMHO.

The movie/DVD of the moment is “Juno”.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!

Polished and Portable PC Gems

Friday May 30, 2008

Friday Greetings! It's another nice late spring evening and I'm back with more of the good stuff. Tonight's topic is computing and I'll focus on portable applications. A portable application is a program that can be that can be installed and carried around on a portable storage device and used on any Windows computer. What this means is that you can take a small suite of your most used programs on a handy USB flash drive or portable hard drive and have them ready to work wherever you go. PortableApps.com has collected a number of free/open-source programs with a handy launcher application. The set includes portable versions of Mozilla Firefox, the OpenOffice.org productivity package, and ClamWin anti-virus. Being the artist/musician/geek that I am, I was also interested in graphics, games, programming and music applications. For 2D drawing you can use GIMP, or Project Dogwaffle. For 3D graphics, Anim8or and a few different portable versions of Blender are available. For music you can use the brilliant and free Audacity sound editing application. For games you have a fair selection of low calorie, limited resource options to choose from. Programmers can use the Decimal Basic programming language to create small applications. As an exercise I put together a bunch of portable stuff that took up only about ½ of a 2gb flash drive. It's perfect for computing and creating away from home. Give it a try!

The picture of the week was created using Project Dogwaffle.
Click on the image for a full-sized view

The loops of the week are some fat bass parts.

The PC game of the week is the classic puzzle game Bejeweled.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!

Classic Computer Trek and Leap Year too...

Friday February 29, 2008

Hello and happy leap year! Once again we have an extra day on the calendar to ponder our fates and to celebrate the good stuff. The topic for tonight is computer games and the history thereof. Any regular reader of this blog will know that I'm very keen on space games of all types and the game I'd like to focus on is one of the earliest. Star Trek, an unauthorized computer game based loosely on the TV series first took flight in the early 70's. The first versions of the game were written in BASIC and were text only. The Star Trek game put the player in command of the starship Enterprise, defending a small number of star bases against a horde of Klingon enemies. The game was turn-based and required more strategy then quick wits and reflexes and favored any player who was good at doing polar to rectangular coordinate conversions. It would take later generations to add graphics and real-time action to the mix, culminating in games like Atari's Star Raiders. You can still find a number of free versions on the web including some vintage 70's and 80's programs that run on emulators. One of the demo programs included with the Euphoria programming language is Langwar; a game very much like classic text Star Trek with the names changed. For the real lowdown check out the Star Trek page on the Games of Fame site.

The picture of the week was created using Project Dogwaffle
Click on the image for a full-sized view

The loops of the week are a group of deep bass synthesizer samples

The web site of the week is the Language Guide, a site with descriptions of several major and a few obscure computer programming languages.

The PC game of the week is still Dark Star One.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!

Friday December 21, 2007

Hail and TGIF! Cold winter weather prevails on this penultimate Friday for 2007. The topic this week is games, and I'm going to give my top 5 PC games for the past year. This list is purely subjective and based on what games I had access to and played the most. In ascending order, my favorite games of 2007 were:

#5 Star Wars: Battlefront 2
A good mix of FPS action and the Star Wars universe. It also has a nice space combat component that adds some variety to the campaigns.

#4 Toribash
This is the only online game that I've really devoted much time to. I'm up to the green belt level and playing every chance I get.

#3 Dungeon Siege
It's not the most original concept for a PC game, but it is exceptionally well executed.

#2 Civilization III
Get Civ 3 if you want a deep turn-based strategy that will keep you playing for hours.

#1 Supreme Commander
2 words: insanely addictive. I literally have to limit my SC sessions lest I end up wasting more time than I have. The good news is that my addiction pretty much under control. The bad news is that the “Forged Alliance” sequel is out.

And that's my annual game roundup for 07. Keep watching this space for more of my weekly picks and pans.

The picture of the week was created using Bryce.
Click on the image for a full-sized view

The loops of the week are some angelic choir samples.

The song of the week is the “I Want You to Want Me” (the live Budokan version) by Cheap Trick: a bit of classic 70s pop/rock.

The book of the moment is Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. Another bit of late 70s coolness, responsible for growing neurons even as it blew minds.

The PC game of the week is Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. This game is huge in scale and time consuming but I've managed to stay alive thus far.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.

Bye for now!  

Friday July 13, 2007

A slightly belated Good Evening to all! I've been away doing a bit of reorganization, and preparing more content for the game project. Yea, yea, it's an excuse, but life if full of those and I'll try not to exploit them too much. The topic for this week is audio and focus will be on sounds and a short musical loop for our computer game project. Last week I went over the creation of some graphic elements, and in keeping with the theme and genre (simple puzzle game), I'm likewise going to stick to only a few choice sounds and a very brief bit of background music.

I used the Audacity sound editor for the sound effects. Audacity lets you generate a number of different tones, including saw, sine, or square waves, plucked string sounds, or random noise. You can then trim the sample down to a suitable length (I made mine about half a second), and apply a few effects and export it as a WAV. I made 3 samples to use as sound effects in the game and saved them as WAV files.

Click on the picture to get a full-sized view.

Right click on a name to download the WAV file.
---- Blip ---- Boop ---- Bump -----

Now let's see about a quick musical piece. My favorite “all in one” application for making music is Orion Pro. I created a series of patterns, little one-measure musical snippets, for 4 different chords; C, Em, Am, and F. I assigned 4 different software synthesizers to the each of patterns; A drum machine, vintage additive engine, bass emulator, and plucked string. I slowed the tempo down to about 110 BPM (beat per minute) to give it a less frenzied pace. Effects were applied, and the patterns were strung together (sequenced) into a short song of roughly a 1 minute duration. This rough mix was then exported using the “Stream to WAV” option.

Click on the picture to get a full-sized view.

We're almost through now. I used Sound Forge Studio to do the finishing steps on our song file. The main steps were adjusting the volume level using the “dynamics” and the “normalize” functions. I also applied a small amount of “reverb” to the song and exported to OGG (OggVorbis) format.

Click on the picture to get a full-sized view.

Right click on the song name to download the OGG song file.

----- Chroma -----

The name of the music file is also the name I've settled on as the title of our demo game. Chroma. That has a nice ring to it. And that's it for this week. Next time we'll have a look at the initial programming steps in Euphoria.

This game project has turned into something far larger than the original scope of this web log, and I'd like to know if my few but loyal readers find it the height of tedium or think I'm onto something. Would anyone want to see a more detailed version as an HTML document, going into the nuts and bolts of each of the steps I've briefly covered in the blog? How about a regular feature on a separate web page that exclusively delves into the in and outs of game design and implementation using free/cheap tools? Gimmie feedback folks and tell the old gray cat where next to go!

You Would Be a Pet Bird

You're intelligent and witty, yet surprisingly low maintenance. You charm people easily, and they usually love you a lot more than you love them. You resent anyone who tries to own or control you. You refuse to be fenced in. Why you would make a great pet: You're very smart and entertaining Why you would make a bad pet: You're not interested in being anyone's pet! What you would love about being a bird: Flying, obviously What you would hate about being a bird: Being caged

What Kind of Pet Would You Be?

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it. Bye for now!

Friday June 22, 2007

Greetings! The topic for this week is graphics and the focus will be on creating graphics for a computer game. Last week we started the the project and made some initial decisions about the type of game we'll make. The game we're working on is a simple puzzle game, so the graphics will likewise be clear yet limited. To begin with I created a gray background using Project Dogwaffle. Start by creating a new blank 32x32 square buffer, then use the “bumpy toy” tool from the filter/render menu. Then shift the picture, apply some noise and brush strokes, smooth it using “median”, and finally emboss it slightly. It takes a bit of effort, but if done carefully you can create an image that tiles nicely.
Click on the picture to get a full-sized view.

Now that we have a basic background we'll create the game pieces. It was a relatively simple matter to use Bryce to render a series of shiny colored balls. Create a sphere, then change the attributes (size and position), and material. Then move and rotate the camera to frame the ball and save the pic as a BMP file
Click on the picture to get a full-sized view.

Those graphical elements should suffice for our simple game. Next week we'll continue the game creation thread and make some sounds and music for the project.




The loops of the week were created using Orion Pro
Right click on a loop name to download it.

----- Bass 1----- Bass 2-----
----- Drums 1 ----- Drums 2 -----
----- Synth 1 ----- Synth 2 -----

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it. Bye for now!

Tuesday June 12, 2007

Belated salutations. The entry for this week is late cause I’ve embarked on a long needed but all-too-brief trip to Australia. I’m currently in the city of Adelaide, which is located in the state of South Australia (closely adjacent to the grand state of bliss). What a remarkable world we live in when one day you can be enjoying the warming rays of a near-summer sunny day and the next gazing out on cold, crisp evening in early winter. It was a rather last-minute decision that leads me back to the southern hemisphere, but I’m here to scout out firsthand info on a possible (or highly probable) relocation here from my current gray cat’s loft.

The topic for this week is programming, and I’ve decided to forgo the usual structure of this log to document the creation of a small computer game over the next few weeks. We’ll go over everything from basic design through making the graphics and audio, to coding in weekly installments that should prove bite-sized and highly digestible. It will also be a learning experience for me, since I’m no seasoned pro when it comes to rolling my own games. Each week I’ll go over is some detail what steps to take, what tools I’ve used, and how far along in the overall project we are. The usual music, graphics and programming entries will relate to the building of our game. It’s a rather ambitious project, but most good things in this life make you sweat a bit. Will this be fun stuff? Of course! Some work? Yep! Shall we proceed? Make it so!

The first choice to be made in the game is what genre or type of game we want to make. For this project I think a puzzle game will offer the best mix of playability, challenge and relative simplicity to program.

The next step will be the choice of platform, or what type of hardware and computer OS we’re writing the game for. There is also the possibility of designing our game to be cross-platform (playable on many different platforms) though that has some special requirements. I’m limited to the choice between Windows XP, Suse Linux, and Palm OS. While I’m tempted to make a nice Palm game to play on my PDA most of my programming experience is in creating Windows applications so for let’s make this project a Windows game. We can approach the prospect of porting the game to another platform or platforms later.

Now that we have decided on a platform the next choice will be which programming language to use to create our game. Your choices may vary, but on my PC I have Java, Dev C++, FreeBASIC and Euphoria installed. This choice is a bit simpler, because I’m not versed in Java or C++ (yet), and of the 2 remaining choices I’ve far more experience with Euphoria. For this series, I’ll take the easier path and save the trailblazing into new programming realms for later. Euphoria is also nice because I can use my Euphoria header for the SDL graphics/multimedia library. That last bit of geek-speak will be clarified once we get to the actual programming phase of the project.

And that’s about it for this installment. Next week we’ll do the graphics design and start formulating the rules for our game.

That’s it for this week. The picture of the week and the loops will return next time.