I don't know what to say about this. Just your basic 2D shoot-em-up zombie game, more or less, perfected in simplicity. Plenty of blood. A couple cheat codes. A shotgun. Zombie-vampire things (they just look like worm-people to me). A nice little high-score thing. No real loading time, just fast play. Which is nice.
But.
This is not over. Nuh-uh, buster.
We're going to talk about...
CHEATS, EASTER EGGS, ETC. IN VIDEOGAMES!
As you go back in time through videogame history, you see more and more cheat codes, easter eggs, and assorted ridiculousness. It was pretty much consistently high for a good number of years. HOWEVER, NOWADAYS, this brilliant tradition has begun to dwindle. WHY? WHYYYYY - - -
Anyway. Cheats are fun. They completely change gameplay, generally for the better, and almost always in the interest of ridiculousness. You know when you play a game and there's, say, a rocket launcher that's just insane, but you can only fire it once in the entire damn game, and you're like, REALLY? Why would you bother making this if you're only gonna let me play with it once? Well, that's where cheat codes/easter eggs come in. They're the things that grant the stupidness that should exist in every videogame. Easter eggs are most often hidden jokes of various sorts, or special stuff, or whatever. The point is it's hidden, and when you find it it's like, oh damn, awesome. Like, say, in (I think) Halo 2. There's a gun you can find by breaking the map and flying off to a concealed location in the background, which fires massive missiles like bullets from an LMG. Bungie (Halo makers up to Halo:Reach) actually had plenty of easter eggs throughout their games, mostly just hidden jokes, but still. Anyway, in most games nowadays you can't find ANYTHING. Not even an unfunny little inside joke, or a cheat for invincibility. A few game companies (Rockstar, Infinity Ward, Bungie possibly, Avalanche) maintain this tradition, even if only to a very slight degree. But still! People, stop taking videogames seriously. It's a goddamn videogame. Make it fun.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Coding: What I've Done.
Ya ya ya, I did a bunch of Codecademy stuff and whatnot, but that's not exciting.
What have I been doing?
WELL
I'LL TELL YOU!
*cue idiot smile*
Anyway, I've been developing a game I called (for some unknown reason) Hella Jank.
See? I'm serious.
To the point. I scripted everything except the base for a lens flare, and a mouselook script.
That is, about 49 separate scripts by me, simulating ragdolls, atmospherics, lens flares, bloom/coronas, sun glare, vehicular wheel traction, aerodynamics/lift, player movement, aircraft throttle/torque, hyper-optimized destruction, explosion force/torque/damage, bullets, primitive AI, level-of-detail, randomized city generation, sparks, object interaction, vehicular use, 6DoF player falling, weapon use/inventory, depth of field, and an LSD trip, among other stuff. 7 of those were written in GLSL, and the rest were in Python. Just about everything was written in the last 2-3 weeks. The game itself includes a dynamic day/night cycle, numerous land and air vehicles ranging from cars, to air-bikes, to aero-tuktuks, to massive industrial behemoths looming over the city. 2 weapons: machine gun, missile launcher. 2 enemies, both of which attack and can be killed. 12 different building iterations/types, plus 2 types of parks, plus roads and intersections. Varying elevations/hills are in progress. Tuktuks and 1 type of car can be blown into pieces, plus the enemies. Nearly all vehicles rely on a B/W 32x64 PNG for alphas (vents, etc) and colors, to a degree. The tuktuk runs on 3 texture maps, 1 for the rotary engine, 1 for the body, and 1 for the thrusters. These are 16x16, 32x32, and 64x64, and all B/W PNGs. Basically, everything is ridiculously well-optimized and awesome in every way. Sorry, it is, and the fact that if you crash into stuff in vehicles too hard you fly out of your seat makes the game ridiculous and actually pretty intense/immersive. Yeah. Anyway, ego-rave over. Scripts range from about 15 lines to about 100 lines, averaging around 50.
Now, SCREENSHOTS!
AA nice sunset with a tuk-tuk. And an airship. And a massive floating district, but you can't really see that yet.
Blowing up some trigger-happy fools. Ragdolls, check
Popo-mobile, with procedural lens flare. Looks REALLY nice at night with the flashing siren.
City streets with a smaller airship in the foreground. Around 10:00 AM.
Don't go aero-biking around corners at 120kph on acid.
Fleeing police drones in a getaway car. With a machine gun, of course.
What would this game be without exploding tuk-tuks? No, their destruction is not complete; engines and thrusters are done but the body needs more work for its own total obliteration.
What have I been doing?
WELL
I'LL TELL YOU!
*cue idiot smile*
Anyway, I've been developing a game I called (for some unknown reason) Hella Jank.
To the point. I scripted everything except the base for a lens flare, and a mouselook script.
That is, about 49 separate scripts by me, simulating ragdolls, atmospherics, lens flares, bloom/coronas, sun glare, vehicular wheel traction, aerodynamics/lift, player movement, aircraft throttle/torque, hyper-optimized destruction, explosion force/torque/damage, bullets, primitive AI, level-of-detail, randomized city generation, sparks, object interaction, vehicular use, 6DoF player falling, weapon use/inventory, depth of field, and an LSD trip, among other stuff. 7 of those were written in GLSL, and the rest were in Python. Just about everything was written in the last 2-3 weeks. The game itself includes a dynamic day/night cycle, numerous land and air vehicles ranging from cars, to air-bikes, to aero-tuktuks, to massive industrial behemoths looming over the city. 2 weapons: machine gun, missile launcher. 2 enemies, both of which attack and can be killed. 12 different building iterations/types, plus 2 types of parks, plus roads and intersections. Varying elevations/hills are in progress. Tuktuks and 1 type of car can be blown into pieces, plus the enemies. Nearly all vehicles rely on a B/W 32x64 PNG for alphas (vents, etc) and colors, to a degree. The tuktuk runs on 3 texture maps, 1 for the rotary engine, 1 for the body, and 1 for the thrusters. These are 16x16, 32x32, and 64x64, and all B/W PNGs. Basically, everything is ridiculously well-optimized and awesome in every way. Sorry, it is, and the fact that if you crash into stuff in vehicles too hard you fly out of your seat makes the game ridiculous and actually pretty intense/immersive. Yeah. Anyway, ego-rave over. Scripts range from about 15 lines to about 100 lines, averaging around 50.
Now, SCREENSHOTS!
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Film Review #22: McSweeney's (magazine thing)
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/
McSweeney's is basically a magazine-esque ... um... thing, which publishes tons and tons of very, VERY sarcastic stuff, some of which is relevant to the times and some of which is just plain diatribe, gibberish, etc. Some of their stuff is absolutely goddamn brilliant. Hilarious. Collin Nissan is one of my favorite ranters. They also publish books, collections, etc., and recognize quality serious work from a variety of genres as well, everything from classics like Steinbeck or Bradbury to contemporaries like China Meiville.
If I were to complain about something it would be that some pieces simply aren't that funny. They've got plenty of quality, believe me-- but some pieces seem to try to hard, so to speak... Ya know, they just don't swing it. Just not brilliant, which would be acceptable except that there IS so much brilliance.
Anyway, I really like their logo. It's a classic-looking chair thingamajig. <thingamajig is apparently a word; spelled it right the first time too *score*
McSweeney's is basically a magazine-esque ... um... thing, which publishes tons and tons of very, VERY sarcastic stuff, some of which is relevant to the times and some of which is just plain diatribe, gibberish, etc. Some of their stuff is absolutely goddamn brilliant. Hilarious. Collin Nissan is one of my favorite ranters. They also publish books, collections, etc., and recognize quality serious work from a variety of genres as well, everything from classics like Steinbeck or Bradbury to contemporaries like China Meiville.
If I were to complain about something it would be that some pieces simply aren't that funny. They've got plenty of quality, believe me-- but some pieces seem to try to hard, so to speak... Ya know, they just don't swing it. Just not brilliant, which would be acceptable except that there IS so much brilliance.
Anyway, I really like their logo. It's a classic-looking chair thingamajig. <thingamajig is apparently a word; spelled it right the first time too *score*
Friday, February 7, 2014
Film Review #21: C'mon, Let's Go Jay-Walking (minigame)
Lets Go Jaywalking is a free, ostensibly flash-based game online about jaywalking. you try to get as many people out of 25 as possible across a multi-lane highway, with the help of evaporating traffic cones and magical floating speed-boots. As you might imagine, this makes for some absolute chaos, especially given the blood and ragdoll implementations.
The game itself is fun as hell. You can take the .swf (or whatever the hell it is) right off the internet and play it offline, too. Great time killer, and the raw silliness of it just adds to the fun (hey, let's see how much of the road we can repaint with one guy's face...) Yeah, it can get pretty bad.
NOW I'd like to talk about JAYWALKING ITSELF. You goddamn college students. Just because you have the right of way doesn't mean the front of my damn car won't smash you into hundreds of bloody, squishy bits that some poor bastard at Public Works will have to clean up. THE LAW OF BERKELEY ROADS DOES NOT IN ANY WAY PROTECT YOU FROM THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. People, find a college student near you and tell them to get off the road, or Ingemar WILL hit them, and not even entirely on purpose. Stop walking into the middle of the damn street and then stop to check your phone. You are a hindrance to humanity as a whole.
</Rant>
Anyway, you can find the game here:
http://www.gamesbutler.com/game/16072/Let%27s_Go_Jaywalking/
The game itself is fun as hell. You can take the .swf (or whatever the hell it is) right off the internet and play it offline, too. Great time killer, and the raw silliness of it just adds to the fun (hey, let's see how much of the road we can repaint with one guy's face...) Yeah, it can get pretty bad.
NOW I'd like to talk about JAYWALKING ITSELF. You goddamn college students. Just because you have the right of way doesn't mean the front of my damn car won't smash you into hundreds of bloody, squishy bits that some poor bastard at Public Works will have to clean up. THE LAW OF BERKELEY ROADS DOES NOT IN ANY WAY PROTECT YOU FROM THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. People, find a college student near you and tell them to get off the road, or Ingemar WILL hit them, and not even entirely on purpose. Stop walking into the middle of the damn street and then stop to check your phone. You are a hindrance to humanity as a whole.
</Rant>
Anyway, you can find the game here:
http://www.gamesbutler.com/game/16072/Let%27s_Go_Jaywalking/
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