Marvin Cooper Back on Track
May/100
Since I’m done with university work for the summer, Marvin Cooper development is back with a vengeance!
I’ve been a whirlwind of development the last 3 days, getting a lot of stuff done.
"We find it very reasonably priced. For inedible slop."
It’s great fun working on it again.
New Games!
Apr/100
Full releases (for once)! The links supplied go directly to forum posts on Draglide – the lovely, friendly community forum that I’m totally not shilling in any way at all.
PORTAL TERROR – (Download)
The innocent town of Wilbershire is under a siege of unspeakably vile, nasty evil.
First the entire town was lifted from the Earth and plunged into space. Now, to make matters worse, mysterious portals are opening at random and spewing out hideous monsters!
SAGE – (Download)
Simple Adventure Game Engine (SAGE) is the ActionScript 3 adventure game engine I built in a week.
BLOODY MARY – (Download)
A network toy/proof-of-concept that allows you to control characters remotely (and in real-time) via a database.
TAXI GRAB – (Download)
A game of blatant insurance fraud. You control Ethel, a hideous old woman, as she attempts to shove herself into the path of oncoming taxis.
Megabyte This!! (the arena FPS based on Cube 2) is coming soon. Have fun!
Taxi Grab
Feb/100
So here’s a relatively low-poly (2k or so) taxi cab to be used in a little game I’m making called Taxi Grab (named after a Jethro Tull song, of all things).
Taxi Grab!
The idea is that you play an old lady trying to make insurance money by flinging herself in front of oncoming taxis. It’s only a small task for my degree so I’m not spending a huge amount of time on it, but I like the idea anyway.
A virus!
Feb/100
Two updates in one day! You lucky, lucky people.
I just finished modelling what I imagine the viruses to look like. I don’t know if they will end up like this in the final game, but here we are anyway.
Evil Virus!
New Walk Cycle!
Oct/090
Okay, I psyched myself up and did a new walk cycle for Marvin (completely scrapping all the animation I’d done already).
I’m actually quite happy with this one – looks like the game is back on!
Gaahhh.
Oct/090
Trying hard to get back into the workflow, but every time I attempt to do some more character animation I’m reminded that I suck at just drawing people, let alone animating them.
Consider this an impassioned cry for help. If you can animate characters and want your name shown prominently in the credits of the game, please let me know.
I’m Not Dead
Aug/090
Just a quick message to let you all know I’m not dead, and neither are any of the projects.
There are very few backgrounds left to draw for Marvin Cooper now, and I daresay once I get back to university I’ll be motivated enough to work even more frantically.
That is all.
Cell Block
Whoops
Jul/090
I have accidentally been dossing about for a week, and have got almost no work done. I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but I blame board games.
To rectify the issue, I spent a great deal of time today on background art (as I should have been doing). At last count there are a wrist-aching 35 or so left to draw.
Here is my take on one of those ‘before/after’ doo-hickeys.
Landing in an Earthquake Zone
I certainly seem to have got the hang of the art style, at least.
Elsewhere, my internet has decided to become glacially slow (for broadband) of late; to the point where most sites take a good minute or more to load, and even then they don’t always load completely, leaving me to mash F5 until I see what I want. It’s a real pain in the neck.
Fun, Fun, Fun
Jul/090
I’m quite enjoying the transferring of my drafts into digital images, although I’m never quite sure of the final result. From what I’ve had said to me, no-one particularly loves their own work, and they certainly seem to look better if I leave the computer and come back a little later.
I hope others aren’t as prejudiced against them as I am.
Docking Bay
For those of you wondering what the hell that ‘P’ stands for, Marvin works for the ‘Pioneer Project’. And yes, this is the shuttle has had a little ding on the way in there. Unfortunately for the poor thing, it’s only the first of many.
Reception Area
There’s a quite elaborate system of colours to show you where things are (inspired by a similar thing in Half-Life). I think it looks quite good.
Accursed Sun!!
Jul/090
Well my house has been like the inside of a kiln for the last two days, meaning I got a lot less work done that I would have liked. Nevertheless, there are now only 7 backgrounds left to do for Marvin Cooper.
I think once I start drawing these up ‘for real’ I’m going to have to heavily modify a few of them. The more I do, the better I seem to be getting at picking interesting angles. This is great for me and it means that I’m drawing some good-looking backdrops for the game, but it also means that a number of my earlier efforts now look very ‘flat’ and boring. It’ll be a case of keeping the features of the environment, but rotating the whole lot in various degrees depending on the situation.
A cargo lift shaft
A confrontational corridor
It’s been a difficult decision, but I’ve come to the conclusion that to get the very best out of this game I’m going to have to go ‘all the way’ with as many things as possible. With that in mind, I’m going to be aiming for a resolution of 1024×768@32bpp and fully animated characters & objects.
It’s definitely the most detail I’ve ever tried to put into a game and I will approach this monumental task with a great deal of trepidation, but if I can pull it off I’ll be very pleased indeed.
