The Realm of Blog

Once again I am addressing my blog with an apology for not blogging. :| I have a good excuse though, I have been working furiously to get QuestLord out the door. And things are looking very good, the game is right on the horizon. The light at the end of the tunnel has become so bright I have to wear sunglasses and I can now see the train station! Until then... Have you heard about this game called QuestLord? You might if you are in the Houston area... I was interviewed by My Fox Houston here in my headquarters!! Front Page! "Yay" Also note, when I say "we" as in "Right now we have about 120 maps" I am speaking of course of the entire QuestLord team. Amy, my lovely fiance who has put up with this entire ordeal of me making this game.(I couldn't have done it without her) And of course my cat of 16 years, Tiny Toons. Seeing yourself in an interview is so much different than doing a self made video. If I sound unenthusiastic I have to cha...

It has come to my attention that most of the viewers of my game are male.  I completely expected this.  From looking at the YouTube video it breaks down as such... Top demographics Male, 35-44 years Male, 25-34 years Male, 45-54 years Now unlike many of my other games I created for the Nintendo market, QuestLord doesn't really allow the player to specify if they want to be male or female.  In fact it completely skips that.  However there is nothing to say that your character you create IS female or male.  That is completely up to the player.    The only thing you see of your player are your arms, and unless you expect a female character to have pink painted finger nails, it is purely up to the player's imagination.  I rather like this idea as it allows for more of the blanks to be filled in by the player for what they want out of my fantasy game.   As for the story, I have always admired fantasy genres that have strong female characters ...

So.  Where were we?  Oh of course!    QUESTLORD! Progress has been coming along at a nice steady clip!  And here is one new way I show that progress.  There is this thing called Screenshot Saturdays, not sure who runs it but, whomever does is doing the indie community a HUGE favor. I made it in time last week.  This week however it appears that I might have missed the deadline, I think the actual day for the Saturday might be on the Tower of London timetable.  So here is the shot that was uploaded at 10:30 Central time and I guess missed the deadline. Here we see the player swinging his/her sword at the Gates of HammerStone.  Testing out the Japanese translation of 'You Missed!'  (iPhone) This screenshot actually made it in the previous weekend of  #screenshotsaturday, And you can see that Lady Telefin tells you something encouraging yet wise in French. (iPad) So the game is progressing right along and I hope to do ...

At Inversion Coffee today, one of the Baristas (who's band I have adoringly seen a few times) made a remark to me about programming... and then said, "That's what you do right?" "Well yea, I do.", I replied. "Yea, you make Apps right?" :) Apparently my facebooking/tweeting/blogging or other social media addictions have earned me .00001% of quasi-fame status here in Houston!    Hey!  I will take it!  Of course I was talking to a guy whose band has been featured in Pitchfork.com, NPR and has recently done tours all over the United States!  So it felt more like a scenario of a much more quasi-famous guy re-inducting what used to be a quasi-famous guy back into the fold. Something Fierce Play this while you read!  Get pumped! Luckily it has been a very rainy morning so their power had been out.  It was quite slow, I realized what is usually a very busy coffee shop became a good opportunity to show a quick demo of my game. So ...

Take forever over here... I guess if I miss a month or two it's ok.  I want to post some substance rather than act like some genius game designer who feels the need to give a self validating blah-blah all the time.  But I am long over due for a check in so lets do this. Ok... As far as developing a mobile/iOS game by myself,  I knew it would not be easy...  I am not talking about developing some arcade clone 'me too', 'lets try to get in on some App money', hackity hack ...  I am talking about developing a game that ' I would want to play '.   Let's be honest.  Most people do not get to do that, especially people in the game business on a corporate level.  I have seen a lot of people I know all the sudden become enthusiast of some kind of sport, or subject matter that, well... was of no interest to them before they got that 'licensed game' to work on or before they had to get stuck on sequel number 7.  And I am guilty of that mys...

Things are erupting at Lava Level Time to announce the official site! www.lavalevel.com !  Company Website! clean, simple and to the point.  As more content comes in (Apps actually ready for purchase) I plan to make the website more fancy.  But not too fancy.  I look at this as more of an online business card. However I will link the facebook fanpage into it as well. Go LIKE it...   That gem of a link is here...  Nothing fancy.  No big roll out.  I've already rolled myself out big enough (haha), and this is more or less a business card of that work.  A lot of the promotional fluff I plan to build while I nervously await Apple approval for my app.  That takes a week or two. On a much more exciting note, last month I registered the name of my game as a .com and parked .net !    I am so stoked for that, and that page will host most of the information about my App I am creating.  including Links to the various s...

Things have been super busy.  Doing my tutorials for the iPhone.  Enjoying it very much, it has taken it's toll on my Flash/ActionScript 3 development.  But I have managed to find time to update my  portfolio site !!! I think I have found that people don't mind visiting my portfolio website when I offer them more activities than when they first visited.  Most of them probably do not constantly look at my prior titles or artwork, however that is a guestimate since I do not have analytics on that.   Holidays are a perfect opportunity for this!  Everyone loves getting a holiday greeting. Lately I have been thinking about creating a public variable to tie the whole sites' activities together.  Basically the player could change that variable in the activities and that variable will be shared throught the game.  I am thinking since I developed such a complex animation system for my character, users could purchase new outfits for him. ...

And the best way to move forward is to learn new things!  Found this a gem of a website called  Codecademy.     Seriously fun and easy way to learn Javascript and it feels like one of those old Atari 8bit games that trick you into Basic programming by making you feel like you are playing a text adventure. I really recommend this to EVERYONE.  Even if you are not really a code person.  You can collect awards, score points and even log in with Facebook.  The company is hiring right now, so if you are good at code and good at explaining it, go check it out!  Who knows I might be doing a tutorial you wrote in the near future!  I sure hope so, it is addicting. I really hope someone rights an Objective C tutorial.  One thing I have learned, JavaScript is very similar in syntax to ActionScript!  :D

Had to put my Hello World up!  Turns out my MacMini comes with OSX Lion which is great because the new version of XCODE (4 vs 3.2) needs that to run.  It is slightly different than the previous version.  Actually a lot different all of these screen shots in my book look totally different than the new redesign of 4.  But everyone says on the forum if you can get passed chapter 2 then you're in. I guess I am in!  Interactivity starts bright and early tomorrow morning!

Like I stated in the previous post... We planned to go to the Apple Store this Thursday to get my MacMini.  Steve Jobs died Wednesday.  What a weird twist of fate.  The first day I purchase an Apple computer, is the first day the creator of Apple is no more.  Named it littleJobs.  Installing Xcode 4 with Mac OS X and iOS SDKs. This little thing is so sharply packaged and designed! Amy, My MacMini and my Alienware which will have to give up the tv monitor. Amy and I had fun at the mall.  Ate Chinese Buffet afterword and bought a nice MacAlly keyboard for 19$ with a phased out AppleMouse. (they were always my favorite)  The installer is so close to being finished... Can't wait to tear through my book of samples.

I would be a liar to say that I didn't get sad.  I would also be a liar to say that I didn't get supper happy, inspired, grateful, cautious, etc.  One of my heroes died.  He was a hero to many people.  So loved and hated. I actually worked at Apple for 4 weeks so I somewhat feel like part of the family!*   I never really owned an Apple!  I have been an Atari guy most of my life.  But like most kids in Spring Texas I learned on Apple II's in High School and had friends that had Apples.  A friend across the street would always tell me about this amazing fantasy game on his Apple called Ultima III! This game really was the big influence in everything 'GAME' for me.  If it wasn't for the Apple then this and a host of other things out of my perception would not be available to me.  Quickly though I went toward the Atari ST route because of it's superior graphics.  That is, until my friend down the street and partner in trouble ma...