Re Situating

Well in short I've had quite a hellish month. I learned the hard way what it means to live with a disability to say the least. The worst of my experience took place in the private healthcare system and the powers of the state have redeemed my thoughts of myself and others who may suffer with a mental illness. That's really all I want to say about that. I now know that I have potential beyond myself as long as I'm willing to be vulnerable and trust my experience. Currently I'm not in the right frame of mind to work on games there aren't enough people close to me in this town to make a living off of that. Hopefully the federal government will come through and provide a bit of upward mobility. There is a bit of hope when I look back and see how long this disorder has been holding me back. I have the paperwork to prove it. Here's to retroactive disability pay and the closing of a chapter of my life that I would love to run away from as fast as possible. My days in the Cove are going to wind down. My future as a performing artist have just begun. 

Two All those who want to profile and pose.

How alive are you today?

If you ask me... not bad at all...

I just get distracted.. no headphones are bad enough..


THAT:S IT!!!! But can i find it in less than 10 minutes?

I'm starting to like the look of these lines of text though. Just keeping up the good fight.... ~~~~~~~!!!!!

Internet Experience [ FIXED ]

I've been in this google ecosystem for many years ( like a lot of us. ). It's hard to explain but I have a deep faith in that company. They continue to be fair and flexible with my code and I respect that. They're going to need that Ad money to get deeper into the tech industry. Chrome and Gmail have really changed the game since 1996. As a developer I'm only starting to appreciate these core services built on open source projects that have taken the world over in the last decade. I've tried many plugins in my day but there is nothing quite like minimalist everything.


Before you see what I've managed to do with it just check it out in the chrome marketplace.[ Here ]

In short is a client side CSS mod tool that accepts wildcard domains. This means that you can append CSS on your end while not really messing with the back-end meta sphere that is commonly known as Big Data. The coolest thing about the internet as a tool is researching and refining your user experience. Personally I'm done with being bombarded by my ad filter after 10 years of a googleID. Most people tell me that they don't notice what I've modified. On the real we've been joking about FBPlus , the truth is anyone can do it with a little effort. Hopefully this blast will boost the plugin somewhere down the line. But I'll be at real peace when I can afford the donation to mirror the heartache that is relieved by this plugin.

Without further ado check out how I've modified these core social services ( with respect to the EULA of each service. ) :

DFTGBA hahahah 

Treasure Trove : Copperas Cove

I've been in this town for about a year and a half now. Normally I move every 2 years or so and it just so happens that the hidden treasures of this West Fort Hood area come to light as I'm preparing to find a new adventure. What was at first a thinly populated Christian community has turned out to be quite the sleepy little town of passionate musicians looking for a forum in the shadow of Austin.


> Click to enlarge dem fotos <

Recently I've been drumming at a church downtown 3 days a week after skimming through the local barren tri-city craigslist for months. The man on who posted the ad for a drummer was ... we'll call him Mr. Bim :








After a few months of getting to know each other through music he invited me to his place of work. The boss had heard about me and was willing to show me his collection of musical instruments that he was putting up for sale. Generally a wide range of tried and true articles were discovered. Roland Drums, great little PA, other effects and components, guitars, amps and the like...

All of which were carefully configured and arranged for someone who clearly loved to play.


Here we have a really fantastic quality accordion. American made. Near perfect condition but sadly going for about a quarter of it's sale price. This is understandable. Ask someone why they stopped doing what they loved for so long and there is probably a cloud of life events surrounding the demise of that passion.

Indeed the best surprise was yet to come. Mr. Bim had a pretty good read on me over the last few weeks. He lead me from the sun-room into the main house of the shop owner and lead me to this unassuming organ in the den : 

bimmmmmmmm

From the only modern American organ company. Wurli and Hammond have pretty much left the business. Here we have a customized cadillac organ of sorts... I'll leave the rest up to imagery.. 

bummmmmmm

BinnnnnnnGG!!!!! 

BANUUUUUUUUUH!!!!

 Of course.. it's just a thing. But I learned something really valuable from this visit. The personal story ( that really doesn't belong here ) about men who express that familiar inclusion through song. Extravagence of the tools aside. In this home that is slowly shedding it's instruments a love had grown up and died with these planks and speakers and lights as witnesses. Let me put it this way. You can get that guitar, shoot, baseline price for a TOOL of this class starts at around 2kUSD... But you can't get that SOUND until you've loved it as long as Clapton has. Until it can break your heart.

Recovery, Getting ready to move again.

And so I've pre-emptively moved the HTUR content away from this blog so we can prepare for the closed beta. I'll be elsewhere indiegamerinos.. [^ Contact TAB ^]

Top secret project has begun!

Final stretch

Crunch time after lunch time. Lots of Gospel in this project.

LD29 : PostMortem

I'm still aiming for the jam. Source updating stops in 5 minutes. [ Come back for more tonight, I'll post the alternate link to possibly enter as a jam game .. I just need some food and a few hours.. thanks.  ]

- AC

[Mini-Project] Quell your impatience with Nintendo stencils :

Ehhh.. I'm not in the mood to tag and do funky things to all the pictures. BUT! Speaking of tagging let me show you how I made this :

Just you wait... [ Pic related ]  

They make me want to dance.

Let's just say that pain is beauty :

We call em piss ants in these parts [ Video Unrelated ]

Games - 'Everything Is Working' 7"

Word to the hayseed handyman.

Nobody ever regretted an education.  Kinda...

Good Answer

In summary, GDP is a misleading figure if you are looking to explain exchange rates. In reality, a huge number of factors affect exchange rates like imports, exports, interest rates, economic stability, foreign investment, economic growth and inflation.

How about we pay workers what they're worth? 

AdventureTime : Cove Terrace Car Show

Just quickly want to thank everyone at Cove Terrace today who was nice enough to chat with me. 

Cool Clubs: 

Evangelist Piracy

I've been volunteering my musical passion/experience at a local church out here in central Texas for about two months now. It's great to gain a broader understanding of people in the area and fun to compare/contrast the local culture with that of my hometown. 'Red-State-Bilbe-Thumpin'' folks are as nice as anyone else. One thing ties Americans together that is a pretty underrated statistic. Around 1:3 US Citizens are active bit-torrent users. That's right. I live in a country where nearly every other person is a 'pirate' , even in the church. While this is a regular point of controversy  ( file-sharing's impact on commerce versus availability of access to the world of information/tech. ) one thing that unites this taboo is evangelism. When people have the option to consume within autonomous  logistics or 'unlimited free trial' two interesting things emerge. First is apparent reach of content becomes far more clear. Check any magnet tracker and upon browsing anyone can discover what the most popular show around is. Second is elimination of buyers remorse. This side-effect is more interesting to me. Many software companies discourage piracy by offering freeware to introduce possibilities of a tool to customers. But those who gain working experience and learn from this 'unlimited demo' exchange make more informed decisions when purchasing software, invest more into that ecosystem, and tell every person they can how great that tool is. The grey area of actively seeking new tools and being gifted bootleg ware is as old as portable media. In response to this global culture of peers organizations like Adobe have completely restructured their licensing strategy by doing things like adopting the subscriber model or even F2P ( ie. Wix ). To me it seems the more information that consumers have the better the market will respond to the needs of what a 'legitimate' channel is. Have you been compensated for the number of software sales you've inspired? We don't talk about it.

Over Vs. Through

I'm really glad to have met so many interesting folks through the internet. Particularly during the growth of new media I've made some real friends. It has become difficult to get to know people over the internet however. I know some people who have really made it work and I'm adjusting to it but to me the difference in that open society is like getting to know someone over a cup of coffee opposed to through the experiences at the coffee shop. 

-'Nah mean? - AC 

Unreal Grip #1

Howdy folks. Spring has sprung and new projects are always on the rise. I've been spouting off about new projects for a while now and I feel like now is a good time for a new series.  I just got the UnrealEngine4 toolkit and have plans to do a big game with a good sized team by the end of the year. This is a crunch year. All of my skills and efforts will be put forward to make the most of this engine. The MSI has just finished downloading. Are you ready? 

Finally the third.

I've decided to take on a remix contest every month this year. Here is the installment for this month in picture form. I had to take a picture : 

You can listen to this and other remixes that I do this year on this playlist : 

The internet is mostly derivative and not creative.

I've been into making stuff for a while. I spend a lot of time checking out other peoples work and leaving comments or critiques. But this isn't very common in our digital culture. I'm concerned about these lone wolf type of people who hunger for recognition but offer no feedback. It doesn't create a collaborative community or audience that is receptive of new art. If everyone put half as much time honestly reviewing and researching this sea of derivative work as they did contributing to it, the internet would be a far more welcoming place for innovation. Real community in this regard doesn't happen often in many places online. This gamified media outlet has strangers compete against eachother for numbers of view and downloads, has created a whole market for fake attention. It's piss easy to tell where the love is and where the hacks are. Don't take my word for it. Spend ten minutes a day and find a new artist and try and get a grip of what they do. Then do the thing that you can only do in this space. Contact that person. Find an email address or username and let that stranger know how their work effects you if it does. I'm not saying pick at random but find someone who connects with you and reach back. It's rare to experience this global communication in that critical grey area between AWESOME and GTFO! 

- Peace , AC 

Clear Swimmer

First painting in a while. They get better with time and look bad on camra.

Prediction

New Super Smash Bros. Game will launch at the end of May. 

You heard it here first. 

- AC

People Can Tell.

At what point will you not be able to distinguish me from a botnet slave? For now , I think people can tell what is real and what is a scam. The time of BladeRunner has passed. I have a strong sensation of people really hoping for freshness. I have a lot of hope on the road toward 2020. In elementary school I had a TrapperKeeper with a punk kid eating potato chips in zero G with the subtitle " Hanging out in the year 2020". The chance to see that is as possible as me not getting there. But I have a thought for the future. And I persist with the belief that my effort is valuable. I can't describe how, but I want tomorrow to be good. There is too clear of a picture of the worst thing that could happen. And it's troubling to me that a dream of hard times is easier to  describe than a wish for happiness. For peace and connectedness , a certain identity with our crises needs to be present. In my country at least, someone really pulled the rug out from under the Hippies. It's of course not that simple or easy. But to be the change you wish to see in the world, as Gandhi put it , is a very important start. Hard times are inescapable in that duality. I will not suffer with you. 

HTUR Updates.

Meowdy. 

Been working on the new parry system in the game. I think I'm going to dumb down the controls when I've implemented the new enemy behaviors. This weeks challenge is to get the slaves to react to the state of the car they are riding in as well as get this parry system idea off the ground. Been spending quite a lot of time on visual feedback and .. for the most part I'm pretty happy. I think it's my favorite thing to make when working on games. The little ques that let you know when you are doing something. Those are often times really interesting problems to solve so far in my experience. I've also started to get into the TIGSource fourms because it's been my favorite indie gaming site for years now and I feel like I can make a contribution or two. 

Umm. Other than that. I don't do enough! So .. I'm going to have to do more. Got a strong paw for common chat words in my typing ability. 

Happy new year? 

First post of the GMT -8 year!

I can feel a surge of regular updates coming. I want to do all the LudumDares, Publish 2 games. Sell 100 digital downloads of music and 1000 of an indie title. Make an Aristocrat effect and run a test app on the Monome. I also want to hack something and make 10 new friends. Start a sentence without using I as the first word [x]

-AC

Keep on keepin' on.

I've had a couple of serious snags in the last couple weeks of HTUR development. As always the development version of the game is the top hit of the games tab over here ^^^. 

In the last week I went from gung-ho to nearly defeated and back. I know what it is that I have to fix but generally it takes a while to figure out how to do it in a way that isn't completely broken or hacked together too shamefully. The next little stretch ... huh 'little' ... is about 5 pages of features that all support a new parry action in the game. I feel like I'm going to have to make the game easier overall. It's not the worst move but sometimes you just have to change perspective a bit. Umm. ramble ramble ramble. I'm up early so I'm going to get back to it. 

{Peace}

Ludum Dare Once Again!

So I've basically vowed to tackle this well known game jam every time it rolls around for the foreseeable future. It's about two hours before the theme is announced and I am hyping myself up for what will be I'm sure another great experience. One thing that has happened since the last LD is I've been getting involved in more projects and becoming a better developer in general. If I make at least 3 games a year then I'll be rather satisfied. The main reason for entering this event is to have a new little project that I can throw up on this blog every few months. I like what I did with the notebook while I was working so I'm going to keep doing that. Still going to block out time. Still going to avoid the creeps. I'll be back on Sunday with the AAR. - Peace! 

I complained very much about the chromebook.

Then.. I discovered Chrubuntu. Long story short. It's super badass OS. My only regret is that the hardware itself can't handle what the OS has to offer. Things like the wine layer in particular just don't support the small processor to memory ratio that this thing is packed with. But.. for $150 Chrubuntu ( linux ) makes this a heck of a whole lot more of a machine. I'm still trying to work out just how I'm going to get back to full on work. In the meantime I'm doing a lot of reading on the CLI thing. I have music and sound editing covered ( to an extent ) I have a pretty nice IDE ( gedit is the best thing I've seen so far ) of course Gimp and Blender work like a charm. Alls I really want is a solid game framework that I can grow with. I am running tests on Cocos2d-html5 because I think it's the way to go. In the future. Apps will download you. Shoot .. they already do.

I'll keep you posted. ... person.

Angrycrow's Best of Ludum Dare #27

Well the results are in. The judging is over and the competition was grand with over 2200 games that were submitted by teams and solo developers. I was particularly impressed by the number HTML5 games that were submitted. I think for the next competition ( in December ) I'm going to take that route. Without further ado here is my list of best Ludum Dare #27 games ( in no particular order .. actually in the order that I played them) 

Potato Lagoon LD27 48h

Every 10 Seconds A Skyscraper Window Washer Falls To His Death

Rude Bear Radio

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5333420/exposure.swf

v2 - Parchment

Clocked In

Play Duel, a free online game on Kongregate

Play QuickHunt, a free online game on Kongregate

LD27

LD27

NodeNetOS

Time Surge by Solifuge | Ludum Dare 27 | Ludum Dare

LD27 Jam - Time Surge | HitchH1k3r's Guide

Unity Web Player | Argentum Form

Bored to Death - LD27

Created with GameMaker:Studio

Time Flies Straight

10 seconds to Smerf

LD27Game

ekun.nukenine.com/ld27/

( also this was the coolest thing that I've seen for this compo. Real good interface. I just wish that it had more of a checklist feature because there are so many things. It get's hard after testing a few hundred games to remember if you've played something or not ) 

Ludum Dare 27 Game Browser - itch.io

That's all folks! See you next time! 

Never give up.

I've been doubting myself a bit lately. It comes from a range of sources. But I have to believe that what I do is right and that I'm doing everything I can to grow and to make things better. At this point in my life there are few things that are as valuable as my friends. Mainly artists and developers that I have grown up with over the last six years or so. They give me crucial feedback and the occasional reality check. The over-arching theme is to 'hang in there' because if you chip away at that rock for long enough you will make a hole. If you hit your head against the wall enough you will make a dent in the dry wall. That sort of thing. It's kinda hard to describe to non-creative people how this feels. Fortunately I'm surrounded by a solid community of support and honesty. It's important to make clear to yourself the things that you are passionate about and be open to as many things as you can stand. Never stop learning and perhaps most importantly, never settle. This isn't really about the American dream where anyone can make it if they just put in the work. It's more than work and it's more than America. The world at large is connected via electronic communication. It's like a huge mixer. Always up to you how you conduct yourself at the party or whether you get too drunk to stand. I put some effort into making sure that my presence is honest and polite. I care less and less each day about being known. I'll put in the footwork when I reside in a place that has more pavement to offer and preferably more than 3 cross-walks. This is the waiting place. There are about fifteen weeks left in the year and I'm doing what i can to continue. Reminds me of Super Metroid. Often times when you're on an adventure you may find yourself stuck. But it's almost impossible to get stuck , at the very least you can reset the game real quick ( most of the time ) and work your way back to the frontier. Anyway. This ramble has gone on for quite a while and I have more things to take care of. More to make. Even more to do. Never give up folks. 

Spark of Life OST for sale! Three bucks for four songs! Please share!

Thank you!

On the legacy of Art in human history.

I was up late last night. I had this idea rolling around in my head since then and I've recently discovered that it's best to just let the brain-twisters out so you can free up the core(texes) for other things that are less... esoteric. Anyway. It all started with the idea of how communication and art forms are related. Imagine that you're an early homo-erectus kind of creature. Somewhere in the vein of 1.5 to 2 million years ago. The main form of communication is body language and perhaps grunts. Soon enough these gestures become a language that you may call acting. Hundreds of thousands of years later this language becomes more refined. Along with language comes visual art, you tell everyone to get together in the cave and tell tales via shadow puppets. Audio images are culturally established at this point and so a new art form takes place. A quick note about these methods; they seem to have a relationship to each other in the same way that you could say a child class inherits from a parent class in OOP structure. Where... a picture or a word can be a gesture but a gesture is not by definition a picture. This tradition of imagery evolves. Finer arts emerge and at some point writing is invented. Writings are words but language is not explicitly writing. Eventually as we skip through generations hybrid forms of Art emerge ( sculpture, architecture, poetry, theater and so on ). Another interesting aspect of this tale in human art history is how quickly these forms synthesize and take shape. Let's start with the photograph. Compared to cave paintings the siblings of the photograph combined much faster than any previous forms ( save technology, we'll be there in a flash ). So.. remember. Film or motion pictures are pictures. But a photograph is not a film. The art of audio/visual/text imagery matures in the 1960s ( see 2 million years, no sweat ) and at that point the videogame hits the scene. A hybrid of most previous art forms ( including games ) but using technology as an interface. That pretty much brings us to present. In the last 40 years of this industry there have been many in-corporations of older art that draw from the entire spectrum of human art history. But now we get to the frontier and 20/20 hindsight is useless. A video game is in some way a film or a book or a toy. But neither of the latter are by definition the former. So what could possibly lie ahead after this medium matures? Some say virtual/augmented reality ... I remember in particular the PS2 ad where they illustrated the PS9 ( or Play Station for all you non-gamer folk ). Aside from naming this future art, how can we imagine it's content? What will the videogame breed with? My wildest guess is interdenominational. That's correct. Essentially, contrived quantum points of view where reality itself is the clay. It's very dangerous and there are many steps between here and there. There is no way to tell how or when this kind of thing will happen. But my guess is that we may be able to communicate with each other on an almost psychic level and tell tales that way. Would it include technology? Probably at first. But. Imagine if that standard of expression were to survive ( along with humanity itself for that matter ) another 2 million years. What then? 

As an Audiophile.... I kinda need this.

MINI PROJECT : Slyly Teach your kid cousin some drawing rudiments.

So... I had a small party celebrating my birthday and that of a few others in our small community here in Copperas Cove. And my kid cousin Mallory accidentally left her sketchbook at my house. At first I left it alone and had it set out on the table where she left it so that I would remember to call her mom and have it picked up. After a couple days I decided to flip through it and see what the girl had been doodling. She had trees and animals and little drawings of princesses and trolls. Curiously there were some blank pages between her drawings. Eventually I took it upon myself to impart some of my knowledge to her in her sketch book. I covered a few techniques that she could learn with a number 2 pencil and I included a chunk of my kneaded eraser that I happen to carry with me at all times. In a matter of hours I had created a bunch of little tutorials and worksheets that contain beginner to intermediate rendering techniques and I threw in some math terminology as well. I took my time and underlined some artist vocabulary that she would need if she were to take this little hobby into high school. This is my first attempt at making a drawing tutorial for an eleven year old and I liked the project so much that I decided to share my mini project with the internet. Enjoy! 

Well Played Google.

So.. I've been thinking about this for a little while. Google has won. Many times. I assure you that Facebook's golden age is over. I've been getting a lot of things together in order to end out this year. Cleaning up inboxes and the like. I noticed that I was running low on my Gmail inbox space. That never ending well of storage that we all couldn't believe was 'free' later capped at 15GB. This was well planned. Let's say I have over half of that space full. I will soon need to upgrade my googleDrive storage. I didn't expect that time to be so soon. I thought the free space would last me a lifetime. Now.. I humbly face defeat. I am more than willing to pay 5 dollars a month for something that, by the time I need it, will probably cost me about 5 dollars for a one time purchase of a usb stick anyway.  So you got me. I am going to be sweating fivers through my thirtys. Why not let us all join in? Flippin Brilliant. 

I've been curious about the Google 10 year plan for quite a while now. And now I see that I'll have to do the same in order to make some of these things happen. Good on ya. 

Waiting. For ... Amazong approval.

Yo. So I'm going to let the spelling errors ride on this one. I uh.. Am about ready to launch the kickstarter. One thing that I learned is that the overhead for prizes is much more money than I ever needed for the actual computer itself. But I was able to budget all of it out. Time was probably the hardest thing to budget. I made the video with my smartphone , a chromebook and... just a bunch of practical effects... It's all good. And I am real proud of it. I have a couple of other small projects that I'm going to handle while I wait for the chance to get a new computer. Until then I'll be on this chromebook trying to figure out if I can make video games with it. Because. There seems to be a good amount of online audio software. Since I have to wait I'll give up the picture of the kickstarter page. It's about a week away from going down. So keep out an eye!

5AM , I'm still editing.

The video length is coming out to be near 5 minutes. I think I'll save the credit roll for the blooper reel. And I don't know when i'll be able to re-upload a bunch of stuff and get to that. But I'll do the best that I can. Some things really work out. Others were kinda close. But my goal of having this project up and running by Friday / Saturday is going quite well. It's been a hell of a week. And instead of posting all my notes because that takes a ton of work. I'll just kick back and silently move on to the next project. Then the next one. And of course that other one. And the one that I came up with along the way. I guess there is some good news. The Spark of Life OST is finally complete. I'll post a playlist here! 

Getting Ready to Sell Some Soul.

I've spent the last 4 days working on my KickStarter project. I want to get a new laptop you see. So.. As part of the prize pool, I will be giving away some select art pieces from my past. Uhh.. and I wanted to see if the Picasa SlideShow embed tool still works. One thing that I've learned in this process. It's amazing what a smartphone , a chromebook, and five dollars will get you. When the time comes, you'll know what to do. 

In cat face.

About to wrap the shoot. You'll see.

Giving up.

Been smoking for about eight years. I'm turning twenty six next weekend and I think its time to put that vice aside. A tiny little gift to me. Been working hard this week. Gotta finish this solar cycle on a high note. I am quitting the underground art business. Angrycrow and I are about to take flight. 

Ghetto Rig

This is my camera stand. I'll upgrade it a few more times before I show you how to make one.

Coffee Stain Art Week #9

This week using the Abbey Road mug: we have what appears to be two suns and the hero grasping at power with two powerful gauntlets.  What do you see?

All I Ever Wanted.

There's a song in there somewhere. 

So... I'm planning on making a move or two. I guess if you aim for Saturn you'll probably make it to Mars. Seems like all I ever wanted is going to happen before I know it. We're getting to the point where we're going to have to come up with some new dreams. It's almost too much to handle. Soon come. This has been the most interesting year of my life so far and it's just beginning to finish. The next Solar cycle is about to start. The first act is near complete. But will he get the girl? 

That's the song. 

GAMES TAB REVENGE !!!

Thanks to the typo rule you can now play the less buggy version of my #LD48 entry at the games tab! 

http://sotgdc.blogspot.com/p/portfolio-stuff.html

Please let me know what you think! I'm real excited about this one. If you don't know where the games tab is and you just want to play click HERE

- Peace! 

Coffee Stain Art Week #8

Using the Abbey Road Mug:

Here we see some other form of sealife. Or an ION CANNON weaking havoc on some prawn aliens. What do you see? 

LudumDare 27 : 48 Hour Entry : Development log and how this project changed my life.

I've wanted to be a game developer since I was four years old. I remember playing 1942 for the NES at my cousins house when I was a kid and have been glued to the video game culture ever since. I went to college for game design and have been making games for a living ever since. It hasn't been easy but I am quite blessed to be able to do what I love to do every day. My buddy Slugger turned me on to Ludum Dare when we were still in school and I didn't man up to take the challenge until LD21 came around. Me and 2 friends ( Cislunar and PooLatka ) got together for a weekend and did our first game jam ( Hipster Park in the GAMES tab of this site ). We were really proud and transformed by the experience because of the intense work that it took to get three people to communicate and work toward our goal in under 72 hours. I've worked on and with several games and game engines since then and this time around, in the middle of my HTUR ( also GAMES tab ) project decided to go solo on the next Ludum Dare 27 as a sort of 48 hour amnesia exercise to test out some of the things I've learned since the competition a few years back. 

I'm going to start with the development log because the competition is still on and I haven't digitized my notes yet... Actually. Let's start with the notes. During the project I dealt with the Pen and Paper approach almost exclusively. So here are the images from my notebook, I'll transcribe my terrible handwriting so you can see the major events during the development cycle : 

So it gets a bit rushed and more messy near the end. For those of you who can't read it ( most people ) here's what went down : 

8PM

The theme : '10 Seconds' is announced. LudumDare website is down from all the refreshing at the start point so I find the theme on twitter and get to work on brainstorming.

855PM

I pick the first concept that makes me laugh uncontrollably " 10 Second Pay Toilet Adventure ". Immediately get to work on fleshing out the flow of the game. The game idea gets very deep very fast. Different settings Hazards and actions come in to focus. During this process I nab an idea from HTUR where I decide that the level is going to move around the player. I make a Component list and a rough list of the art assets needed.

1030PM

The concept phase is coming to an end. I come up with the idea of context based actions and decide to make little quick time event mini games for variety. Here I make my first list of things that I want the game engine to be able to do by the end of the first night. ( Starred )

11PM

Started unit testing, Also implemented the camera look and had some time to figure out how the toon shader works. 

1125AM

Begin Scripting .

1211AM

Make Interact Icons.

1258AM

Finished Context Icons.

116AM

Mouse context implemented.

135AM

First BUG : FIXED @ 1140AM.

234AM

Started working on player movement through the world. Build myself a little test level.

305AM

First problem with version control ( or the lack of ) and I have to go back and fix a mouse Down error.

319AM

333AM

Debugging player movement

340AM

Made a 2d chart to help me find the cleanest way to lerp the world around the player from move node to move node. 

353AM

GOT IT!

416AM

Move on to the 'Sign" object so I can label different things the player can interact with. 

457AM

First Asset : Urinal 

507AM

Event Manager Skeleton made.

517AM

555AM

2 Assets complete!

607AM

"HOLD" minigame prototyped. Started planning for other game events. 

636AM

Event Manager prototype completed.

643AM

726AM

HOLD minigame complete! 

733AM

TIMED minigame prototype started . made a chart for budgeting time in 4 hour chunks/sprints.

815AM ( 25% of time limit )

another minigame started. Completed @ 952AM

10AM 

Toilet asset completed. Went to work on the animation and the other stall assets. Originally I wanted to have the player turn around but rotating the whole world didn't work the way I wanted it to.

...

130PM

Finally the 'sit' action works but the art doesn't make any sense.

205PM 

JAPANESE SQUATTER TOILET SOLUTION!!!

225PM

Re-modeled the toilet to be more like the Asian style. No world rotation needed! 

318PM

Almost finished stall sequence. Found a bog where the player can jump through walls.

408PM

Fixed movement bug and stall action bug @ 446PM.

~430PM to ~8PM considered sub actions or things that you can only do once you've used the restroom like... using toilet paper. 

830PM ( 50% of time passed )

Back to work, , Make another chart to re-prioritize the remaining chunks of time. 

840PM

Set up milestones for 4AM.

856PM

!!!

959PM

Basic X-Level complete.

1021PM

More art assets are made.

1041PM

Found Bug with multiple stalls.

1141PM

Basic art is ready to go. 

1142PM

1149PM

1222AM

Begin work on REPEAT mini game. 

1244AM

Repeat minigame out to testing. I decided to go nuts and found a great way to fix the implementation of the Event Manager.

103AM

Decided on a song to play that I cannibalized from another project. Did some brainstorming on the full paper towel ball minigame. Started first round of polish. 

122AM

141AM

Testing paper towel minigame. 

153AM

ITS PERFECT!

308AM

TRASH CAN GOAAAAAALLLL! Working! 

314AM

Ball game is done. 

316AM

Back to the multi Stall bug FIXED @ 515AM

524AM

Restructure of Event Manager. make notes on game rules and the requirements for the next milestone.

550AM

Notes about some level design concepts. 

633AM

Begin scripting game rules 

710AM

Structure in place for game rules. Found some new bugs, went after em.

800AM

World structure in place.

802AM

810AM (75% time passed)

Breakdown of the last 3 chunks/sprints left. First is game rules. Second is Feedback design. Third is polish and testing and posting. 

943AM

Timer started, FINISHED @ 1035AM 

1035AM

Most of the GUI is blocked out. 

1052AM

Finalizing GUI.

121PM

EventManager OVERHAUL ( breaks many features of the game while I'm at it ).

158PM

Made list of things to finalize by the second to last chunk ( 4PM ). Around this time I was pretty loopy. I made 3 new stages for the game and spent most of the remaining time fixing things that I had previously overhauled to death. The move was a good one. But I had to re-tread much of the code to get things like End of Game functionality to work. I spend the next hours fixing what I can and breaking things along the way. I took a couple more breaks. But I didn't have time to make notes on what I was doing. 

815PM ( 100% time passed ) 

THE SUBMISSION LINK IS STILL OPEN ( probably due to the halts at the start and end of the competition ) I make my submission entry and start winding down after submitting a not perfect beatable but still broken game. 

1000PM

(Much needed at that ) 

SO... THIS IS WHERE THE REALLY INTERESTING STUFF STARTS TO HAPPEN : 

I wake up, Thrashed from the excitement of the event and immensely proud of what I was able to output in such a small amount of time. But during the night my brain must have completely reset. I used to say "Make stuff for the sake of stuff existing". But this morning ( Monday after the compo ) I felt quite different. Obviously after a weekend like that I wasn't in a rush to get back on my computer and go back to work on HTUR. For the first time in my life I realized that across the table from me, my mom was watching this crazy person dance around the house when he hit milestones and as she describes it ; " A concentrated injection of who I am " unfolded in front of her eyes. I was hyper-focused , organized, excited and hard at work. I didn't see myself in this process. But it made me realize that a large part of who I am is how other people perceive me and not just me in my own head and how I get through my different creative efforts through techniques that I've picked up in a life of art and design. I became curious about my outward appearance during my early childhood and I started asking my mother about traits of my personality that have survived my experience. We took out some old photo albums and for the first time I saw my sisters as people. And I saw the photographs as context for me to build memories around ( during that time I of course came up with a couple of other mini projects to do ) . We spent all day talking about my early childhood with her and I was able to re-form a whole new sense of self. It was like hearing your favorite song for the first time. When I took a break from that conversation and sat down to play some piano it was an entirely new experience. I still knew how to play "One Note Samba" for example. But now, instead of simply playing the song as well as I could, I could hear the song for the notes and the melody that it was made up of. I could play with the experience of HEARING the piece instead of just executing technique. The jazz standard found a new life in my performance. It became more dynamic , I had access to the feel of the tune. I could play with the pace and the volume , begin to make breaks in the main idea of the song and start to experiment with my own ideas while still considering the position of the observer. 

A week prior to this I was on the phone with TheUrchin on the topic of our project HTUR. He's always been an influence to me as an artist since we first met. He talked about this thing he heard or read somewhere , basically he said that most of the time when we make art it's for the sake of the finished product. ("Make Stuff for the sake of Stuff") But he said that was kind of backwards. If you instead put your ability and concept aside and place the USER/CONSUMER/AUDIENCE at the center of your creative process then you will make something that speaks with people. You'll have a whole new range of levers and buttons that you can push and tug to invoke the people who experience what you've produced. "Ten Second Water Closet" was my first project where I didn't realize it but I focused mostly on rewarding the player for being adventurous and for playing the game. Often times , in games at least , there is a need to balance out rewarding experiences with punishing experiences. But I didn't put any time into the hazards that I had planned for the player. And the result was very pleasing. 

The PRIZE of Ludum Dare is that by the end of the 48 hour competition, you have a game that you can do whatever you want with. You've already built it so you know all of its ins and outs. AND ITS YOURS. You can sell it, post it on kongregate or make a mobile version and give it away. In my case I ended up with a cute little FPS ( First Person Shitter ) that was built on a really smooth point and click game engine for unity. I can re-purpose that code for anything in the point and click genre. I intend to complete the game and put it in the GAMES tab on this site at the very least. Just another mini project I guess. But never again will I say "Make stuff for the sake of stuff". I learned that I am not completely defined by my choices and specialties. The other half of my identity is in my impact on the environment. And if I have to comment on content creation in the future. It'll be more to the tune of :

"Make stuff for the sake of enriching the life of the audience"

Thank You Ludum Dare. You have changed my life. 

-Ben 'Angrycrow' Nix-Bradley 8.27.2013 

LD48 hour Game! ( Ludum Dare )

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1710407/LD27/LD27.html

I was so close ! 

I think I'm going to keep tuning this one. it got complicated real fast! 

BUT I HAD A GOOD DARN TIME. 

Play it! Let me know what you think ! 

Thanks! 

Get ready! #LD48 is going down (LD27)

I only have a few words for this. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TXK_2Igx-WY#t=507

Expect updates while I get things going. 

After a little reading.

I realized that the internet has a very interesting effect on kids who will grow up reading it. I've been checking out a few articles on different sites all day. Writing and language used in each market or hobby is very interesting to me. For example. If you look at the writing directed toward a younger audience, There is a lean language for kids. Then there's the writing of news and mainstream entertainment. Where the target is broader and catches/propagates colloquialisms/memes that are very current. There is always a slang of today and the internet makes that turnaround very rapid.  So then from that point there is a spectrum that spreads into each interest. Some places already expect you to speak the language. Other places understand the gap for new readers and will even go so far as to bring them up to speed. This is probably painfully obvious but I am impressed in particular by the Scientific/Technological community ( in most cases ) and the understanding of the language for documentation and references. The pillars of the internet between those two fields stand on a foundation of explanation. Where usually conversations about music don't require as much context because the knowledge of history needed to enjoy it is practically nothing. I guess the only loss is that I didn't enjoy learning in school to this extent. What do you wager that this is the case for many people? How will society be different as this research behavior becomes a gene?

Coffee Stain Art Week #7

To each his own numbering device. 

This week we're using the UVI mug. 

There appears to be a dragon ascending over a sea of froth into the sun and beyond. Kissing a falling serpent on the way down. Sorry for the late post. Been busy on HTUR. 

Tell me what it is that you see?