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  •   My Tweet Archive

    6/06/11 - 19:28

    After looking at my rapidly growing library of tweets coupled with a definite twitter addiction I’ve decided to add a new section to the blog which will contain an archive of all my tweets. The reason? vanity mainly 🙂 That and the fact that I’m sure the up to the date info will be tasty food for GoogleBot to chomp on.

    After making the decision to put my tweets in an archive section, I went searching for a solution. Alas, none could be found which would fit my idea – most of them seemed to just grab your tweets and automagically place them as a post on your blog. I didn’t really want that, as my blog articles tend to be a lot higher quality than my quite spammy twitter feed.  So I decided that I would use a Page, and roll my own.

    I haven’t really done any coding for WordPress, with the exception being minor tweaks to things – so had no idea where to start. After reading the codex and about 30 mins of web searching, I searched for two plug ins that I would need. The first most excellent Tweet Tweet – which really does all the hard work.  It grabs all my tweets and saves them to a local database.  Quite a bit of a time-saver there.  The second was the incredibly useful WP exec PHP which allows php code to be embedded and run in pages.  I had all the tools I need, so got coding.

    After battling with the almost mysterious URL re-writing WordPress ships with, along with several heart stopping moments when I thought I had borked my install to such a degree I couldn’t get it back, I had the My Tweets section completed.  All in all, about two and half hours work.  But now I can sleep soundly at night knowing that even if Twitter deletes all my precious tweets, I’ll still have a back-up of them 🙂

    If anyone is interested in a tutorial or some code or something, drop me a comment and I’ll see what I can do 🙂

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      Terraria sucks

    2/06/11 - 20:04

     

    Terraria - My humble Home

    Terraria - My humble Home

    Time. Installing this indie platformer sandbox game onto you hard drive is much like installing a black-hole in your machine, with none of the nasty matter sucking, just time vanishing into it’s retro looking event horizon.  Hmmm, methinks that perhaps that opening sentence sounded better in my head.

    Brought via steam, I must admit, I didn’t get Terraria at first.  After spending a good ten minutes working out the difference between the hammer/axe/pick I constructed my first little shack for the Guide – an npc that starts in the world with you which seems to garner a lot of hatred from the Terraria community.  Well, I thought to myself, that was kinda boring, lets see what else there is to do.

    Six hours later and I look up at the clock and see that a LOT of time has passed as I smash my first dark orb.  This game is very, very good at sucking you in.  Rather than the Minecraft just one more cube mentality, for me it was the next crafting recipe which had me hooked.  I had the wiki open in the background, and was constantly alt+tabbing to see where I needed to go, what I needed to hunt etc;

    I haven’t tried multiplayer yet, due to actually needing time to work with Project: Cards, however, even with just single player, my steam stats are currently look like this :

    Terraria Playtime

    Oh dear, so much time :S

    And with all that time played, I have two islands, full of NPC’s in epic looking tower constructions, several bosses down and out, full molten gear and a light saber I refuse to upgrade due to being able to pretend I am in Star Wars.  And I still haven’t defeated one boss, and therefore still have dungeons to explore.  Awesome.

    So how did this happen?

    I think the beauty of discovery is something which Terraria does very well and it very much draws you in.  I had no idea that there were floating islands, until randomly climbing up  a hill I saw a single vine tile hanging from the sky.  Thinking it was a bug, I built a tower up to investigate, only to find an entire island, suspended in the sky with a golden house glinting in the sunlight.  Awesome.  The next few hours were spent building various sky bridges, and discovering yet more floating islands.

    Something else that Terraria  excels at is the feeling of a living world – something Minecraft does with growing trees, but Terraria does with EVERYTHING.  Mushrooms grow, vines grow, creepy corruption grows, glowing fungus grows, meteorites smash into the ground – the world itself feels very dynamic.  The NPCs even add to this, arriving when certain goals are met and even dying when I summon the boss in the wrong place ( ooops! ).  The pretty beautiful day/night transitions and a constantly changing phase of moon also contribute to this feeling.

    I really love the dynamic feeling of the environment, and lets talk about the environment – it is pretty dang epic.  There are multiple biomes for you to explore, both above and below ground.  The underground biomes themselves are found through spelunking – going down preexisting tunnels and then adding some of your own.  As you dig down, you will find gems, monsters, water and lava ( which both are effected by physics ), chests and pots – not to mention a hell of a lot more.  The pots are an interesting thing, digging down into a vine and cobweb filled cavern, and seeing ancient looking pots sitting around gives you the impression that you aren’t the first to the island.  It is this element of exploring I really love.  Once again, similar to Minecraft, there is no story.  You are just here, invent a story to why you are here and to explain whats happening, it makes things even cooler imho 🙂

    Now the crafting, possibly the most dangerous thing when it comes to time sucking – the crafting tree is pretty huge.  Pre-requisites require you to craft near an object ( crafting table, hellforge, anvil etc; ) but aside from that all you need are the components.  No leveling up a crafting skill by producing thousands of pointless items that you are just going to sell to an NPC anyway.  When you have all the items you need to craft, and are standing in the right position, the recipe simply pops up in the GUI with the components needed and a description of the object.  Simple 🙂

     

    You were slain ...

    You were slain ...

    You can craft armor sets fairly easily at first, when you stumble upon enough ore – each armour set consists of a helmet, a chest and trousers – and you get set bonuses for wearing all matching armour.  Later game armours consist of more exotic materials – ore mined from hell, ore dropped from boss monsters.  As the armour gets stronger, strange and rather cool character effects start to happen – a full set of armour giving you a spooky shadow image, or molten lava dropping from you with every step.

    This brings me to the bosses.  There are three I’ve encountered so far – I won’t say to much for fear of spoilers, but when a boss appears – you know about it.  The music changes to a retro chip tune of boss epicness – followed ( usually for me ) by an arse kicking.  The bosses are spot on, and even once you get the hang of killing them, they still cause an acceleration of your heartbeat in excitement – the encounters are fun as well as ( often ) deadly.

     

    Underground

    Underground

    I could literally type another thousand words on Terraria – seldom does a game make me rave enough to want to talk about it, yet alone type up a review.  I know a lot of people are calling it a 2d Minecraft, but really, it is so much more than that.  It does have a similar feel to Minecraft, but rather than the ‘look at the cool stuff I can build vibe’ it has a ‘look at all this very unique content to explore’.  Even though it is still very early in the games lifecycle – it does feel very well polished, and with a promise of a lot more to come content wise, I can only hope to imagine what the next few months bring us.  Interested in buying it? Click here for the steam page!

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      Indie Games

    1/06/11 - 17:39

    As well as spending my free time writing games, I do spend a lot of a time actually playing them. Recently I have noticed 90% of the games I have been playing have been indie games – mainstream ones don’t really seem to hold much appeal anymore. Sure they tend to look fantastic, but they just seem lacking. Maybe the freedom indie folks have without publishers means that can actually mix things up a bit. Maybe focusing more on game play than looks makes the difference. Maybe I’m getting old and indie games seem more acceptable than the stuff the young ‘uns play 🙂

    Anyway, the mainstream games I have played lately have all seemed to be very similar in nature – even those that have the occasional new game mechanic, it just all feels the same. Indie games, on the other hand, seem very different. They tend to hook me with one specific feature and/or story line element and then get me addicted by the rest of the offering. Sometimes not even that, Revenge of the Titans hooked me purely with their fantastic art direction 🙂

    I’m quite happy to see an increase in mainstream acceptance of indie games.  Minecraft, I think, has been the major game changer in this. It is the one the media has picked upon most, and the one even non-gamers have heard of. Selling millions of copies while still in beta probably had a large part to do this. On a shallow level, graphically, you can’t compare it to any main stream game – its seems generations behind what is available in any modern mainstream title – no splashy reflective water effects, no models with more polygons in it than I would dare to count, no textures which are bigger than my screen. It has simple, clean, retro looks. The look isn’t important here ( though I will admit during sunrise/sunset standing at a high vantage point there is a certain beauty about an organic world made of cubes ) – the game play is what counts. No need for a story. You aren’t a brainwashed government trained killer, or a survivor of a plane crash or even a gangster trying to prove your name. You are there. You exist. You are given a world, and left at it. What you decide to create or do is your choice. Just a quick youtube of the word Minecraft will show you some quite simply amazing things people have created with it. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. I can’t imagine trying to sell a game concept like this to a big company – ‘Well its made of cubes, and you can build stuff’ would seem like quite a large risk to any one. No story or flashy hooks, just simple clean fun.

    I applaud Valve for their obvious love of indie games – steam as an awesome platform for game distribution and has such a huge audience that it allows a large spotlight to fall upon indie games that otherwise might never be seen. Hell, even their pretty epic Portal 2 release was quite literally powered by indie games 🙂 Another big advantage of steam for indie developers is the nervousness of people buying things online. I know that the internet is meant to be becoming safer for online transactions, and if anything does go wrong I can always contact my bank – but still seeing a webpage for an indie game asking for my credit card details ( personally ) is a bit a turn off. At least when I am buying through steam, I know that the trust between Valve ( who lets face it, are huge ) and the indie developer ( who lets face it, tend to be tiny ) must be pretty good – therefore it encourages me to buy. That and the convenience of steam generally is a huge motivator. I do worry about the day steam closes down and I loose all my games, but I’m hoping that never happens. Maybe burying my head in the ground a bit there, heh.

    Anyway, this random little discourse was just meant to be ‘In between development posts I am going to post some indie game reviews’ but, alas, it seems to grown somewhat 🙂

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      Project: Cards – a short story

    29/05/11 - 21:54

    Inko and I are currently working on teaser trailer for Project: Cards – which will show the basic story of the player and the first few battles that they will take part in.  The following is read audio which goes over the top of some awesome concept artwork Inko has come up with.  Currently, it is my not very dramatic voice over the top of it.  Hopefully we can find a cool voice actor before we put the trailer live – if you have a cool voice, feel free to comment and offer your services 🙂

    I awoke from the dream. Well, I had thought it was a dream – but it seemed more real than the unfamiliar world which I could see through blurry eyes. Visions of myself leading a mighty army against the forces of darkness. The God of Courage charging along side me into the melee. The clashing of sword on armour, the smell of blood and sweat. The God of Courage laughing with mirth as another foe was slain against his sword.

    In those few moments of waking, the confusion of the dream and reality made me pause before suddenly awareness dawned on me. I had been chosen.

    I was in a clearing, which was not where I had laid my head down to sleep I was surrounded by lush greenery and a small brook bubbled to one side.

    As I crawled over to the brook to wash my face I saw my reflection – there was a small mark on my forehead , a mark which had appeared over night, a mark which was his mark – the mark of the God of Courage.

    I knew from that point on, my life would never be the same again.

    Suddenly a screech filled in the air, and turning around I saw a terrible sight, a dark skinned goblin approaching across the clearing. A cruel looking dagger was in its hand, a look of hatred and murder in his eyes.

    Power suddenly filled my body and with a battle cry I leapt at my armed attacker, catching him unawares as we fell to the wet grass. I felt more alive than I had ever before as we tumbled for control. The collision had caused it to drop the dagger, which lay a few feet from me. After a savage blow to its head, it gave me the time I need to grab the dagger, and with a victorious yell I plunged it’s own weapon deep into its neck.

    Dark blood erupted from the wound as I watched it die underneath me, my heart thumping from excitement when suddenly I felt something even greater enter me – a raw power I had never felt before. I let it consume me, screaming a wordless cry as I felt something starting to form in my blood soaked hands

    I do not know how long I just knelt there, the goblins body cooling underneath me, my eyes staring into nothing before my suddenly my consciousness kicked in and I looked at the object now in my hand.

    I had seen one before, I had seen many in the dream, I recognized the strange paper thin crystal material instantly, the runes carved into it both familiar and alien. It was a card.

    I held it in the air letting out a shout of pure joy – this was the start of my adventure.

    A few uneventful days of walking lead me from the lush forests into a land that was obviously worked for crops. With the card held in a pocket near my chest, I walked through fields of wheat toward what I presumed was a farmhouse on the horizon. The birds chirped as the sun beat down upon my neck. Ever since I got the card, everything had seem more in focus, more real. The world around me was more beautiful than ever.

    As I approached the farm house, I sensed something was wrong and as if to confirm my gut feeling, smoke started to billow out of the windows of the small building – it was being raided!

    I broke into a run, racing toward the smoke, as I got closer I saw a bandit pull a woman from the burning flames, bringing a knife to her throat – but before he started to slash it he caught site of me running toward him – throwing the woman to the floor as he smiled cruelly and let out a shout, causing many other bandits to appear from inside the building and joining him.

    The energy hit me again, joyful at the thought of battle, I laughed as I instinctively channeled it into the card I had pulled from my pocket, feeling it start to warm from the energy I was instilling into it. I closed my eyes, and as I raced toward the bandits and threw the card at the ground infront of me.

    The second it hit the ground, the world seemed to explode. I was thrown backwards in the opposite direction I had been running and the ground erupted from where the card had landed. I looked astonished as I saw a head emerging from the ground, a head which was the size of a boulder, and had the looks to match. Two more explosions erupted from the ground as two giant hands emerged infront of me. I watched awestruck as a monster made of rock started to pull itself from the ground.

    My monster. My creature.

    The bandits where charging, weapons out, hoping to defeat my summon before it had chance to attack. They failed. A single slap of its giant hand I saw one bandit thrown clear into the side of the building, hearing a sickening snap as he back broke killing him instantly.

    I got to my feet, and with my creature, we both started to attack the bandits. My stolen goblin dagger easily cutting flesh, as my creature smote others down with every wave of its giant hands.

    I could feel every time one of them died, the now familiar energy filling me as sword clashed against sword and as their life force left their body and entered me.

    As the fight concluded, I looked over my slain foes, while the sole survivor of the bandit attack sobbed in fear. I didn’t hear her cries of sorrow and thanks, I was watching my hands with glee – as I watched three more cards fade into existence in my open palms.

    I needed the cards, just as the cards needed me. I watched as my mighty creature faded from reality, instinctively knowing in which card he resided in.

    With the battle lust now leaving my body, I helped the woman up – consoling her, familiar words leaping into my mind now that my addiction for cards had been satiated. Hearing her sobs, seeing the pain in her face – I swore to myself that I would never see anyone in that much pain again. The God of Courage had chosen me, and I would defend all people against evil.

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      Been a while

    29/05/11 - 16:40

    Wow, the rudimentary mistake of the blogger – letting real life stuff prevent me from blogging, ah dang it!

    I’ve mostly been working on Project: Cards recently – it’s on ModDB now and coming together you can check out the site here : Project: Cards.  Also, I’ve just moved from the god awful servage.net hosting to godaddy – who already seem a helluva lot better than servage.net ever was.  I’ll post about my woes with them later.

    As the site is in transition and I’m moving things around – some stuff may be broken.  If it is feel free to let me know 🙂

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