And now, part 2. This part I’ll call… Spiderphobia (versus the more correct Arachnophobia. Correctness is wrong) Spiders, spiders, and more spiders. So the game concept I decided to toy with is one I like to call “The Spider”. The concept itself is most similar to the rope platformer Umihara Kawase, a slick game a former employee introduced me to (thanks Gary). In indie land, the closest similar game to that would be Wik....
And now, what’s been going on. As mentioned previously, things started out as my long overdue PuffBOMB remake. So, a physics engine was built, based on what I’d learned from various tech demo’s (which I’ll post at a later date). And it did cool stuff. Good ‘ol verlet physics action. What you can see above is “characters” composed of spheres (circles), connected by springs. Cool stuff. The 3 circle thang is a potential collision model for the PuffBOMB hamster, and the Balloon like thing is exactly that....
Slamdance was last week. PuffBOMB was a finalist for the PopCap award. A game by the name of Odyssey took the award. Congratz to them. The rest of the results can be found here. It’s a shame, but I couldn’t make it out this year. That, and I’m still getting things off the ground here at Syko. I had heard from my “contact” there would be some PuffBOMB action at the festival, but so far my search for evidence has come up short....
Not bad for a game originally created for a 48 hour competition. The 2006 PopCap Casual Game Award Finalists: Cloud – Cloud Joboo’s Gems – Gem Jocks Ocular Ink – Pistachio Productions The Odyssey – Liquid Dragon Studios PuffBOMB – Sykhronics Entertainment Press release can be found here. In the unlikely circumstance that someone who’s actually attending reads my blog, I’d greatly appreciate any photos of the game at the event....
Again, for my amusement. PuffBOMB in the German gaming magazine, Bravo Screenfun. December 2003 issue. The game was later republished on the October 2005 coverdisk, but didn’t make the screenshot page....
For my own amusement, PuffBOMB in UK PC gaming magazine PC Zone. January 2006 Issue....
I’ve brought with me this horribly bright colored monster to burn your cornea. Hurah! Right. Things are back and working in the Mike camp. Back to the grind and all. I’ve also recently finished a drawing pad, after slightly over 3 months. Doesn’t sound like much, but looking back it’s been taking me up to a year to fill one up. So IGF finalists have been announced. Funky. So many great games have been coming out later in the year, I’m not surprised PuffBOMB didn’t place....
Yep, I died. No, wait. I’ve been busy pulling a prototype together. I’m afraid I don’t have much to say just yet. I have a pretty ambitious goal to meet by the end of this month, and I’ll gladly talk about it then. I even brought on some help, as I think timing is crucial. If this works out, we should see some PuffBOMB action in about a year. I like consoles....
I’ve been trying to come up with a 3rd character to go along with the hamster and the robot for PuffBOMB. When I started redesigning the game, I wanted at least a male and a female character, but ended up with 2 males (3 if you count a butch hamster that I’d recently replaced with the robot). It seems I have something. What you see to the right is a concept for the potted plant girl character....
Oh don’t be scared baby, I’m still here. Yes, it seems I’ve been neglecting posting. On the plus side, there’s been some major progress, but equally major distractions. Since apparently leaving a job clearly means “2 month vacation”, there I was back at Big Blue for a week. All was good though. I was asked to help a struggling project meet a milestone, and that seemed to go well. Twas also nice to hang out with the guys there again, a fine group I must say....