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.
Megabyte This!!
Feb/100
I’m proud to announce the development of a fully-fledged multiplayer FPS – “Megabyte This!!”
We’re using the superb Cube 2: Sauerbraten engine, so hopefully we can tear out all of their content and perform a complete conversion into what we’re doing. I’m working on it with a great group of guys, and we hope to have it done and dusted by April at the latest.
At the moment we’re doing level plans and generally getting our stuff together so we know exactly what assets we have to make before we can start churning out ‘real’ content. Personally I’ve been really enjoying just diving into the engine innards and, as well as tossing out all the (admittedly marvellous) content the Cube 2 guys have put in, fiddling with configuration and generally making the game our own.
The game concept is pretty simple – arena deathmatch (although we’ll also have CTF and perhaps a domination-style mode). Originally we had this enormous, sprawling idea about a computer virus that gradually gains sentience as it battles through various systems, avoiding anti-virus and destroying data and the outside world without really knowing it. It’s a great idea that we still really want to use, but for now time constraints dictate that we don’t spend time on AI and scripting. So multiplayer-only it is.
The backstory is still in there and flavours the whole game (virus vs anti-virus), but the context is now a sort of sequel to the un-made game, where the virus has multiplied to the point where it is in all-out war. Hopefully next year we’ll get a chance to revisit the original plot and make a prequel!
Content/previews coming soon!
Back to Work (Again)
Jan/100
Well, once again university work had to take priority over my own whims. Marvin Cooper development stalled.
But fear no longer! I’m back, and there’s lots of exciting stuff happening in the near future!
I’m working on a small, Flash-based game with my buddy Brendan (http://www.sketchperception.com/).
He hasn’t actually gotten around to giving me a full (or partial, for that matter) design document, but from what he’s said I know we’ll be wanting a nice rain effect. Accordingly I spent an hour or so last night coding a ‘weather manager’, which can be supplied with a location (and density, speed & wind) within which it generates some pretty looking rain.
I deliberately left the class ‘open-ended’, so it should be easy to go back in and add generation capability for any other kind of precipitation. For now, though, rain it is.
Other than that, I’ve also got at least two highly interesting projects that will come out of my degree course (although they’re all still in the pre-production phase for now), and a whole new idea for a website!
I’ll keep the blog updated as and when cool stuff happens.
Oh, and don’t worry about Marvin. I’ll get right back on that as soon as I am back at that computer.
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.
Enlightenment
Jul/090
I’m feeling particularly pleased with myself after discovering a ‘magic trick’ for better-looking background art. Once I’ve exported the background from Flash, I drop it into The GIMP and open up the fabulous ‘Lomo’ colour correction filter (found on GIMP’s plugin pages).
Normally this would render the image in a manner which makes it look like it was taken with a cheap camera (motion blur, warping, colour changes etc), but it also has a purpose of very quickly creating a good looking vignette and highlight – much faster than doing them ‘by hand’. With this in my arsenal, I think the existing backgrounds are looking even more atmospheric.
See what you think.
Mysterious planet surface
Marvin's Room
In other news, writing dialogue for each area is a pain. I think I’m going to leave it until I’ve finished drawing all the background art, so I know exactly what is in each room.
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.
Proper Backgrounds
Jul/090
The backgrounds for Marvin Cooper are starting to take shape, and so far I’m very happy with how they’re turning out compared to their plans.
As I said previously, I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the earlier background drafts due to their somewhat uninteresting composition; I am glad to say that I think I’ve solved that in the ones I have done so far. Have a look and see what you think.
Shuttle Landing Spot
Shuttle Cockpit
I’m pleased that the shuttle seems to be taking shape as the memorable ‘friend’ I wanted it to be from the very start. It’s the least I can give it, considering the amount of punishment it suffers throughout the game…
Brand New Logo
Jul/090
Brand Spanking New
You’re looking at the very first image of the Marvin Cooper logo on the main menu background. Obviously I have yet to add any menu parts to it, but that can wait for a bit.
In case you haven’t guessed by my production of actual computerised artwork, I have finished all of the planning for the visual aspect of the game. All backgrounds, characters, items and interface designs are done and dusted and I’m really looking forward to translating them into ‘proper’ images.
While I’m not drawing the backgrounds (which I will do first), I’ll be scripting all the dialogue for the game in an object-by-object and character-by-character manner, so there is (hopefully) something unique for every action on every item. The other major point for scripting everything is that it means I can divide off all of an individual character’s lines and send them to be voiced. Of course I have yet to pick anyone to do voices, but I think I’ll take dibs on at least Marvin himself or Dillbury. Perhaps both.
I was thinking a good faux-review snippet would be “An abundance of facial hair!”. There is indeed a good ratio of characters-to-facefuzz, and if that doesn’t draw people in, I don’t know what will.
