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Blog Details for "Videogame Biscuit"
Videogame BiscuitVideogame BiscuitI'm an amateur game developer. I publish the progress of the games I'm working on, finished games, reviews of tools and books and anything game development related Articles
Where to get ideas
2007-07-14 14:52:00 In my case, most of the ideas just pop in my head at the most unpredictable moments. Since I tend to forget them too fast, I always carry a small notepad and a pen with me. It has happened that I was walking down the street and suddenly took out my notebook and started writing something down! I try to write down every possible idea, even if I think it's junk. Chances are it turns out to be useful after all. More About: Ideas , Where
Gridblaster progress 07-14
2007-07-14 14:10:00 I’ve completed the background tiles for the new level. Here’s the result: I think the result looks quite good, and this was my first attempt! For the first level, I had to restart three times before I came up with something I actually liked. More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
Dev.Mag
2007-07-08 13:49:00 While not exactly a book, I think this is definitely worth putting in this category. Dev.Mag is an online game development magazine. It’s based in South Africa and launched in 2005. All issues can be downloaded for free on the website; free subscription by email is also available. The magazine covers a wide range of topics, ... More About: Books
Gridblaster progress 08-07
2007-07-08 13:36:00 With the first level finished, I did some work on the second level this week. I had to think of what I was gonna put in it first, that’s why it took a few days. I also decided to change the maze blocks a bit, so all levels won’t look the same. I changed the ... More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
Girdblaster preview video
2007-07-04 22:14:00 I have made a short in-game video of Gridblaster, to show what the action looks like. I used Cam Studio for capturing the video. Although it did the job quite well, the quality is quite low. I had to reduce the framerate and the resolution to make it possible to capture the video. It should ... More About: Video , Preview , Blaster , Aster
Gridblaster progress 07-01
2007-07-01 21:05:00 Here’s another progress report on Gridblaster! The first level (out of five) is more or less completed. I finally figured out how to use fonts in the GUI Builder (wich was, as I expected, very easy) and added two more elements to the grid. The block with the green cross sends upgrade globes into the maze. ... More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
POV-Ray and Moray
2007-06-25 16:33:00 Sometimes a 2D game uses images that are made with 3D tools; these are called “pre-rendered images”. Two tools I sometimes use for this are POV-Ray and Mora y. These two programs are usually used together. POV-Ray (Persistence Of Vision Raytracer) uses text scripts for describing 3D objects and scenes, wich is of course not very ... More About: Tools
Girdblaster progress 06-24
2007-06-24 14:33:00 In my previous post, I mentioned moving barriers in the maze. I had already made special blocks with holes in them that the barriers moved through, and now I have completed the barriers themselves. Here’s what they look like: I have put three sets of barriers in the level. Each set moves at a fixed time ... More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
Gridblaster progress 06-22
2007-06-22 20:06:00 I’m working on the first level (out of five) of Gridblaster, and here’s a screenshot of it. As you can see on the full size screenshot, I have added a complete background. I have made it quite dark so it doesn’t interfere with the rest of the graphics. It took me quite a while to build ... More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
Plasmaball trail
2007-06-18 22:23:00 Yesterday I explained how I created the plasma balls that are used for the weapons. The ball itself is only half the job, it also needs a trail of glowing sparks! For that, I created a green glowing ball pretty much the same way I created the plasma ball. This time, however, the shape is circular, and the center is pure white. For this tutorials, I assume that you have at least some basic knowledge of the Torque particle engine. I won’t be explaining the very basics such as creating an emitter and loading particle sprites. This effect has only one emitter, so I’m just gonna use the default emitter. To start, I did the following things with the emitter: load the green particle for the image; set type to POINT; set orientation to FIXED; uncheck all checkboxes, except “Fixed aspect”, “Intense particles” and “Rotate emission” Next, I set all the emitter graph parameters. I’m just gonna put the screenshots of the things I changed h... More About: Ball , TRAI , Trail
Plasma balls
2007-06-17 13:36:00 Here’s how I created the plasma balls the player and enemies in Gridblaster shoot. I have created it with The Gimp. I started by creating an image with a black background and creating a drop-shaped path. Next, I converted the path to a selection (right click -> path to selection) and blurred it with a radius ... More About: Plasma , Balls , Ball
Bryce 5.5 FREE now!
2007-06-14 21:43:00 Okay, this tool is serious overkill for sprite based games and you probably won’t really need it, but it seems that you can get Bryce 3D 5.5, a powerful 3D rendering tool, for free! It’s available for both Windows and MacOS. Tools like this have a place in 2D game development, and that’s for creating pre-rendered ... More About: Free
Another Gridblaster screenshot
2007-06-14 21:30:00 Although I didn’t intend to use a background when I started, I experimented with it a bit today and here’s a screenshot of it. It’s nowhere complete and I don’t know if I will be using this background, it’s just an experiment to see how it looks with the player and enemy sprites and how ... More About: Screenshot , Blaster , Cree , Aster
Audacity
2007-06-12 20:51:00 Even if you don’t plan to record or mix audio yourself and just use third party audio files, you need an audio editor tool. You’ll always need to do things like trimming files, adjusting volume and tone, sometimes add a few effects or create loops. Like with all my tools, I prefer free or open ... More About: Tools , Audacity
Gridblaster progress 06-09
2007-06-09 21:43:00 I did some more work on Gridblaster. The enemies enter the maze and the player can shoot them. When an enemy is hit, it returns to the start position outside the maze and changes shape. After four changes he is destroyed. Also, the player explodes when he collides with an enemy. Scripting the collisions wasn’t too ... More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
Status display
2007-06-07 20:22:00 In the previous screenshot of Gridblaster, the status display was added to the game. I made it with The Gimp and here’s how I did it. It’s actually very easy. I started by creating a vertical bilinear gradient. I set the dark color to #899C89 and the light color to #B5CDB5. Next I added the inset ... More About: Display , Status , Stat
The Gimp
2007-06-07 19:56:00 No, this is not about the leather-clad freak from Pulp Fiction. The Gimp , or Gnu Image Manipulation Program, is a graphics editing tool similar to Adobe Photoshop. Originally created for Gnu/Linux, it has been ported to Windows and MacOS and is released under the Gnu General Public License. First of all, I’m gonna make one thing ... More About: Tools , The G , The Gimp
Gridblaster progress
2007-06-05 18:26:00 I posted the first screenshot of Gridblaster a few days ago, but I wasn’t really satisfied with the way the building blocks of the grid looked. They looked a bit boring, so I decided to try to come up with something else. I fired up my drawing program, got to work and a bit later ... More About: Progress , Blaster , Aster
Masters Of Doom
2007-06-03 17:10:00 Masters of Doom is the history of id Software, the creators of classic games like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake. More specifically, the book focuses on the two main driving forces behind the company and the most famous and influential persons in the gaming industry: John Carmack and John Romero. The book starts with the ... More About: Books , Masters , Mast , Aster
First screenshot
2007-06-03 12:39:00 Here’s the first screenshot of Gridblaster. I have placed the blocks in a grid and put the player in it. The controls seem to work fine, the player can move between the blocks without bumping into them. I don’t know about the blocks. I thought they looked good when I was drawing them, but now that ... More About: Screenshot , Cree
Torque Game Builder
2007-06-03 12:29:00 I use Torque Game Build er for developing games. TGB is a full-featured 2D engine and development tool created by Garage Games, aimed at sprite-based games (although it has some 3D support). Programming is done with Torque Script, a programming language that resembles languages such as Java and C++. If you are familiar with these, Torque Script ... More About: Tools , Builder
Gridblaster?s first graphics
2007-06-02 17:13:00 Here are some of the first graphics of Gridblaster. I’m also working on the code and I’ve already got a player moving through a maze of blocks. Well, it’s not actually a maze, it’s just a grid. At this point the level I’ll be using for testing and developing will be just a grid, but ... More About: Graphics , Graphic , Blaster , Graph , Aster
Introducing Gridblaster
2007-06-01 17:00:00 Here’s my first upcoming game: Gridblaster. If you are, like me, old enough to remember the Commodore 64, you may have played a game called Crossfire. This was one of my favorite games. You moved through a grid of blocks, with enemies outside of it. The enemies would enter the grid, move around and start ... More About: Intro , Blaster , Aster
Ready to rock!
More articles from this author:2007-06-01 16:22:00 Okay, here we are! Hosting all set up, Wordpress up and running, a cool theme installed and ready to get started! In case you wonder what this blog is all about, read the “About” page. I will update this blog several times per week with updates on the games I’m working on, reviews of game ... More About: Rock , Ready 1, 2, 3, 4 |
