supercheffing.com Blog

Been working on Dim Sum Robot #1.  I spent a bunch of time implementing enemies and then I decided it didn’t feel right at all, so I took them out.  Messing with menus, sound, and balancing now; will hopefully be finished by Friday.  I am so bad at writing music, I’ve been stumbling around all week hoping I hit something that sounds listenable.  I think I finally have something not horrible, we’ll see.
Here’s one of the former enemies.  I think part of the reason I didn’t like the feel was because all the little food carts were a bit too cute:

Maybe if the cart was perpetually on fire, and the guy inside was actually a werewolf that ate all his customers.  That’s a different game though!

Happy new year!  Gonna be a big one
Working on a new game for about a month now, have some videos to post!

http://www.vimeo.com/2585118

http://www.vimeo.com/2699145

You run a dim sum stand and feed people, getting them the delicious dumplings as fast as possible.  They give you tips sometimes!  Or try to arrest you.  And you fight with other food stands.  Unfortunantly for them, they aren’t robots.

It’s in Flash and it should be done later this month!  I am so excited about it, have to get back to work!

Promise (empty?) to myself that I will post a game right here by this time next week.  Maybe new, maybe just finish something old.  Dunno yet.  Ha!

Just read an interesting article on insomnia.ac and thought it was worth linking, given current projects and all.  It’s about space control in 2D fighters and raises some interesting points.

If you enjoy that article, I think Sirlin’s Super Turbo tutorials are great as well.  They give a more in-depth explination of space control along with in-game examples and go beyond just fireballs.

Haven’t made a whole bunch of progress on the engine – I’ve been thinking about systems before I start, and I was at the zoo all day.  I might get to work on it some tonight or later tomorrow.

So I’ve almost finished this crazy banana-em-up.  I even have a title screen.  What I don’t have is a score screen, a game over screen, an instructions screen, etc, etc, etc.  I coded the game in a week and the interface has taken me a month.  Go figure!  Hopefully I’ll have it out to potential sponsors before I leave for school, though.  In the meantime, ogle at the title screen!

I was going for a chlidren’s storybook-type look, and I’m actually really pleased with it.  I also decided to keep going on the cat game past 3 hours because I have a few interesting ideas I’d like to mess with.  Since I haven’t posted anything playable (do I even post at all anymore?), here’s a little gameplay demo.  And I mean little.  Click to start, then arrows or wasd to move.

Link!  I think my best is around 106.  Have fun!

Also, Bootleg Demakes.  I’m ecstatic about this one.  Rock rock on.

Friday I was reading about some 3D Actionscript stuff and I had a really great idea for a game, right out of nowhere.  I wasn’t really even thinking about making a game before my Halloween project, which will be a bunch of fun hopefully, but inspiration struck and now I’m teeming with excitement about this new game.  I spend hours upon hours trying to come up with new game concepts, but they always hit me when I’m not really even thinking about them.  I guess that’s pretty common, but it’s one of the best feelings in the world.  I’ll have to squeeze this one in before September, but I think I’ll be able to, especially if I get some help.  Can’t wait to talk to some people about it!  Maybe I’ll be entering IGF this year after all.  I was going to stay away after the crash-and-burn that was last year’s attempt ;p

Last week I pixelled a monkey for the banana shmup.  Banana shoot-em up.  Banana-em-up.  It’s getting really close to finished now.  Hopefully everyone’ll be able to play it soon!

A gameplay shot.

Muchos busy the last few days, but this just made my day:

Iron Chef Japan

It’s back May 5 on Fine Living Network!  I was so sad after Food Network took it off the air earlier this year, but I will finally get to see it again.  And, judging by this list, it looks like they’ll be starting from Season 1, Episode 1.  I’ve never seen those, so I can’t wait!

I still haven’t gotten to play James Blake.  Maybe after the Oaks.  After that last match went one and a half hours, I’ve been a bit cautious about playing.

Yesterday I won my second major and moved up to 43rd in the world at the close of my first season.  I started season two and qualified for the Australian Open.  I was ecstatic until I looked at the draw: I would have to play the #12 player in the first round.

So today I decided to play for about a half hour, because I was sure this guy would make quick work of me.  I was immediately broken and dropped the first two sets.  I thought it was over, but no, these are five set matches now!  So, in the third set, I finally started serving well and hit some aces.

The fourth set went to a tiebreak and I was losing at one point, but I somehow managed to come back.  Fifth set, deuce, match point, and I won!  Final score: 2-4, 3-4, 4-2, 4-3, 3-1.

And this took an hour and a half.  That’s longer than most real life tennis matches take me.  It was worth it, though.  Next round: world #6 James Blake!

Like Doeo!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/raitendo/doeo

I’m a pretty big Doeo fan.  I’m a pretty big fan of twitch games in general.  I’m not going to play a Flash game for more than 15 minutes most likely.  It doesn’t really make sense, but it’s true.

That’s a problem for me.  I can either choose between 15 minute playtimes with Flash and make something that virtually anyone will be willing to at least try, or I can make a game with SDL or something that people would probably play longer, but most would never download.  What a tough choice!

I think I’m going to go with Flash for this next one, even though I don’t really feel like a programmer when I’m using it.  Is that a bad thing, though?  Did Godard stop making films because he didn’t feel like a writer?  No!

So a Flash twitch game it will be.  And it will be episodic.  And it will be grand.  Those are some pretty lofty promises, and who knows if I’ll pull it off?  I haven’t in the past!  I guess you’ll just have to keep reading to find out.

I won my first major in Top Spin 2 yesterday and I’m in the semifinals of another.  And now I’m ranked something like 75th in the world, and Nike made me their standard bearer.  I want to switch sponsors to Lacoste, though, because I love that little crocodile.  Not an alligator, according to Wikipedia.  I had to check.