Yes, it does make a difference and it does matter.

About a year ago I wrote an article about the perfect parking spot.  It illustrated a parking spot of the kings, one that exemplified all that I strive for in perfect parking.  Good spot, good location, nice sunlight times; it was a match made in heaven.  However, after the honeymoon things started to go downhill.

• I wrote this article before Winter happened.  Later that month my parking spot cushion (the area I stepped out into, a little dirt patch) became a muddy graveyard of sticks and dirt.  I forgot to take a picture, but it looked something like this:

  

• Sometime in later Winter someone started to TAKE MY SPOT.  They didn’t know it was my spot, but like my own creature-of-habit tendencies they pulled into that spot every day, and I had to adjust.  The problem is that a second set of offices share the same parking lot area and these spots are closer to them then they are to our building, so they take it.
• In Spring these birds started to appear and hang out in the tree that acts as the primary source of shade in the afternoon (to cool the car).  Bird droppings soon became more annoying than a seatbelt that couldn’t be cooled fast enough, so I gave up on the spots under the tree.
• In late Spring I moved to another spot under another tree that was less populated.  Around the end of Spring the tree started dropping little sticky cherry-like fruits that left marks that were super hard to scrub off.  I had to move again.

  

• In Summer crows started to hang out in the parking lot, so trees or locations around larger trees were becoming dangerous locations, and these birds dealt critical damage to car cleanliness.
• By this time the ratio of distance traveled vs. accommodating elements was becoming a serious issue.  I was now walking across the parking lot or having to park in some random spot which I didn’t like.  It became a serious manner.

However, this story ends happily, as I finally found a good parking spot.

I managed to find a parking spot that was marked “Reserved.”  I noticed no one every parked in it, and even though it was “Reserved” for someone, that someone never used it.  And everyone else seemed to avoid it too since they didn’t want to take that person’s reserved spot.  So I decided that it was “Reserved” for me.  I now park in it daily.

I am fairly certain that next year I’ll be telling you how this parking spot fails, but in the meantime it’s the best I can do.  I know it’s such a small difference in my life, but every day I get off work and I know my car is going to be the first thing I deal with.  So I like to know that when work is finished I get to step into a cooled-down, same spot, no mess, close proximity parking spot.

Or maybe I should just walk.

Dark Cut 3 is finally out, but I wanted to take some time to talk about what went into making this surgery simulator game.

First let’s talk about graphics.  The game’s subjects are usually pictures of myself using several different angled pictures.  I then doctor them to the point that they are relevant to the time period and subject.  For example, the picture above is the picture of me on the submarine with a metal pipe through my shoulder.

1. I first take the base image:
   
2. I then crop out my entire body very carefully and make sure I remove a lot of the excess junk in the background.  While I am at it, I change the hue of my shirt to be a bit more naval.
3. After this long and arduous process I move into creating a background and floor.  I do this by finding textures of these (free textures are available on the web for free) and building that old metal look.  I also draw a splat by using a splat stencil and drawing a splattered line by hand down the wall.
4. Next I add just a touch of lighting across the entire background.  To keep the character in focus I left him (myself) in the brighter light.
5. And finally, I add the minor details.  Notice the buttons are gold to bring out the colour, and that there is now a large metal object protruding from my shoulder.  This is done through drawing by hand around the wound area, and actually finding a piece of red meat from a cow to cut away at on the shirt.  Red meat is the best way to create that “exposed arm” look because it provides a really nice texture and colour variation.  So yes, in every Dark Cut surgery you are looking at raw animal meat where wounds are located.
6. Now that the image is done, we’re not quite done yet.  We have to recreate every step of the surgery as an image.  For example, the before and after of a stitched area of skin, or the before and after of a poll being removed.  This accounts for about 22-30 images per surgery, and careful planning must be made to ensure that continuity works.
7. After the art is all done, I have to make different splatters and textures for blood that hit the screen.   This is done using a combination of Photoshop filters, blends, and brushes.  Here is an example of one:
8. After I cut out the tools and other goods, I import all the art assets into Flash.  I think assemble each of the tasks into groups, and code away at making tools function against the artwork.

The artwork complete, the coding complete, the surgery is done.  Now for Dark Cut 3 I had 5 major surgeries and 3 mini surgeries (called treatments), which meant this process was repeated several times.  It takes about a week to complete a surgery from camera to Flash.

My composer, MaestroRage, is instructed before all this process takes place to compose tracks for this game.   For Dark Cut 3 he composed several beautiful tracks based on the theme of each surgery and the content.

Around all the surgeries there are additional tasks at hand.  Making the menus, preloaders, buttons, finding sound effects, and working with a musician is a lot of work and getting it all to come together within a couple of months is quite a lot of work.  But once it’s all put together it’s a photo-realistic experence and it’s (hopefully) a lot of fun!

You guys hankering for some more SHIFT action?

Well first, let me get a few other discussion points out in the open as well…

First, what the heck happened to The Greater Good? Didn’t I say it was almost done? Didn’t I release a level editor? Where did it go!?
Well as it turns out, the game has been compeltely overhauled. The gameplay remains the same, the levels still all work form the editor, but it’s now no longer based on sacrificing cult members.
Stifle your groans, minions! I’m not here to dissapoint. Whats more fun than killing faceless cult members? You guessed it - killing cute little animals with big round eyes and loveable appearances.
How loveable you say? Well the artwork for them is being supplied by Mr Michael Swain, who you may know from such smash hits as the Mastermind series and the blockhead series.
So expect big things in the next few days.

Second Tidbit is another, smaller game I’m working on with Dim of the Super Flash Bros, a side crolling shooter based underwater. The style of the graphics is super snazzy, and sadly this game had been pushed backcause of the revamping of the greater good for the IGF, so poor
Dim has done a tonne of the artwork for it, but while I have the engine running smoothly, it will take a bit more time before completion. But keep your eyes peeled, this ones going to be lots of fun.

Third on the agenda is my return to my favourite game series, SHIFT. Shift 4 is going to be another step forward for the SHIFT series. I’ve tried to build on each one in succession to add more depth to gameplay for you crazy cats, and this one will be no different.

The idea I’ve been toying with is an experimental multi character approach. DId anyone ever play that one game Scoregamites? During the making of it I had tonnes of ideas for a more enclosed game like shift using a similar concept, but without the repitition represented by scoregamites.
I’ll also be incorperating tonnes of Armor games members levels into this version, which is always fun.
And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a neat little promotional poster mocked up by Chris Ignatov, with the clever little logo by Matte Bell. I have big things in store for you Armor peeps.

We recently had a contest for Hedgehog Launch that had an interesting outcome, and I thought I might share it.  A few users discovered methods of “channelling” which is not only brilliant but totally needs to be explained, along with a breakdown of my game, which I thought might make an interesting article.

If you have never played Hedgehog Launch, it is a strategy/skill/luck game in which the objective is to shoot a hedgehog into space in as few days as possible.  Players can reach higher ground each game by buying upgrades, and you are awarded cash based on your ability to collect coins and hit springboards while in midair.  At the end of each level, players get an additional bonus based on the length of the time and the height of the launch.

How This Works

The game seems infinite in each direction, but because Flash can’t create infinity the game has to create a world as you go.

The game breaks up the world into 1,000 pixel areas (called Segments) horizontally in each direction.  Every Segment is an area where a number of coins and platforms are loaded.  Each time your player moves across a Segment, a new Segment will be added.

In order to keep Flash performing up-to-speed (it lags when too many coins and platforms are around), the game will only generate a new Segment only when you are traveling into a new one.  That Segment is generated after the one you are entering, so if you kept moving forward you would always hit more Segment.  In addition, it will destroy a Segment behind the one you are exiting, as it is far behind you and probably forgotten at this point.  This way the game won’t have millions of Segments loaded.

So to make things easy, there are a few Segments always active… the couple in front of you, the couple behind you, and the one that you are in.

Now players have figured out that this loading system can be manipulated to an advantage.  Even though the Segments are invisible and hard to distinguish in-game, they can be guessed and found.

So by running back and forth over the Segment boundry, they can easily manipulate the game to generate a ton of content in a Segment over and over again, essentially creating a wonderful wall of coins and platforms.

By default, the current values are assigned to a single Segment:

• 10 Blue Launchers
• 2 Green Launchers
• 2 Yellow Launchers

• 40 Bronze Coins
• 20 Silver Coins
• 5 Gold Coins

Which means that these players could generate nearly 100+ gold coins in an area quite easily, especially if they used the parachute.

So easily I could classify this as a bug, since I should have been destroying Segments far earlier (like after you leave one), but as this glitch is far too subtle for the common player to find I haven’t even recognized the problem until now.

Which brings me to my apology to DragonSoul and SP3000.

When these users presented videos of massive amounts of coins and platforms in very small areas, I asked, “How is this even possible!?”  I dismissed it as a “variable hack,” which is a method of hacking in which you take the Flash file and edit some variables (like how many coins and platforms are loaded) and then have a shopping spree.

But after watching the videos again, I noticed that the users indeed manipulate the Segment loading, which was completely in-bounds.  An additional email from DragonSoul confirmed the tactics used, and in the end, once again, DragonSoul and SP3000 took first and second place, respectively.

I’ll be sending the top three prizes, so I’ll be emailing you guys soon.

-John

*UPDATE*
We have some additional video verification going on from protested scores, stay tuned (John, 10/21)

Whew, Summer was busy.  So busy that we forgot to judge the contest!  Fear not, here are the results!

Congrats to Jordon for his $2,940,000 run!

After verifying all the entrants, it was determined that some of the gamers here decided to tweak a few variables ;).  There are limits in the game to how many of specific platforms appear in certain areas, and for some users videos they had to be disqualified due to the game rendering too many platforms of a certain type.

Congrats to the runner-ups as well!

Jcat - 1,900k

EDM - 989k

Silverfire - 937k

Gabriel - 858k

Now that it’s Fall we’ll have more time to do some more timely contests, so stay in touch!  We might have some level editing competitions, maybe another Compulse competition?  We’ll see!

Here’s a preview teaser trailer for my very very very soon to be released game; “The Greater Good”.

I’ll be announcing the prize winners also very soon, and the levels I’ve got for this game so far are pretty sweet - even Dan and John got their hands dirty with the editor to make some levels.  Who’s the boss now, huh?

Anyway, here’s the vid.

I feel like John Locke from Lost in a way.  I have to keep clicking the button on the computer every four hours to postpone, and if I don’t postpone it my computer will die.  It’s true.  Let me tell you the story.

I got back from vacation on Monday, and found my computer not working.  It’s a Vista machine, and it’s under two years old.  It wouldn’t boot past the loading screen.

So I restart the computer, thinking it was just a glitch, but it fails.

I try to run in last-best configuration, it fails.

I try to run in Network-Only Safe-Mode, it fails.

I try to run in Safe-Mode, it fails.

So that is the entire list.  I unplug everything, try to recover from DVD, it all fails or glitches.  I run several checkdisks and that sort of thing, and the computer doesn’t respond.

Finally, after trying to recover from DVD for the ninth time, it works.  Randomly.  My computer glitches out, displaying random coloured RGB pixels across the entire screen making my monitor look like it had dead pixels, then it restart and started working.

I traced the problem back to an automatic update of the OS by Vista.  The way this works (which is set to be “on” by default) is that the computer gives you a few minutes to hit the “postpone” button on the automatic update or it will restart the computer and start the upgrade.  Your only options are to postpone it for a few minutes or a few hours, and there is no option above 4 hours.  So the minute I wasn’t at the computer, my computer decided to automatic upgrade without me, and managed to crash.

So after the crash I turned off Automatic Updates in the Control Panel.  However, Vista doesn’t approve. It still feels the need to bug me about updating or “I’ll do it automatically for you!” still!  I cannot seem to get rid of the option for Windows to auto-update, which means I most likely will wake up in the morning with another failed update/crash.  I’m sitting here trying to Postpone the update over and over again.

What happens when I go home and leave the update to itself again?  What happens if I turn the computer off?  Will it Automatic Update on load like it did last time?  There’s no good answer, every answer is a threat to all my lovely documents and I have no control over it.  The only way to guarantee my computer would survive the night would be to press the “Postpone” button on the computer every time it pops up, all through the night.

My computer controls my life :(.  Let’s hope for the best tomorrow.

UPDATE 2: The deadline has passed, and I’m going to have some fun going though checking out the best levels. Thanks for he great response, guys!

UPDATE: Version B2 is now Out, if you want to keep your saves from B1, make sure this new file is in the same folder as the old file. This version fixes the crashing problem discovered by Wurmy - thanks Wurmy! as well as allowing you to restart a preview without going to the editor.

Well well well, long time no speak, Armorblog readers! It’s me - remember me? Yeah I’m that guy who made that Shift game and that one with the tank that blows up when it runs out of fuel - magico tank I think it was called or something. Well anyway, you know how I love making level editors and then having people play with them? Well it’s that time again! Included in this post is the Level editor for my next original puzzle platformer - which I’ve named “The Greater Good”. And I’m after you’re levels!

“What’s in it for me?” I hear you cry, well as well as a credit in the final game due out the end of this month, I’m offering cash prizes (payed via paypal) for my top 5 favourite fan submitted level from my own hard earned Armor cash as well as Armor Games stickers for everyone who get’s a level featured in the final game!

Here’s a rundown of the prizes

$100 + Stickers for my favourite level
$50 + Stickers for my second favourite level
$25 + Stickers for third
$25 + Stickers for fourth
$25 + Stickers for fith
and stickers for everone who get’s a level included in the final game.

The only catch is the time limit! Can you get these levels done and posted on the Armor Forum at this link

http://armorgames.com/community/thread/1957841/make-levels-for-my-new-game-for-prizes

by THE 28TH OF THIS MONTH (SEPTEMBER 2008).
Winners will be announced shortly after. 

Any questions, post them on the Armor Forum thread and I’ll do my best to answer them, but most of the functions of the editor are self explanatory, or are explained in inbuilt levels as well as the Youtube lessons I have produced found at this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMPLSUY0ls
 

GOOD LUCK!

Here are the files
If you have the latest Flash Player, you can use the SWF version, this is a much faster download 

VERSION 2 - greater-good-lck_b1_swf1
If you are having trouble playing the swf version, here is a version with the player built in (Windows only)

VERSION 2 - greater-good-lck_b1_projector1

This blog post is a little over-due, but here are our photos from PAX 2008!

Click Here

Highlights Include
*Sightseeing with my beautiful and amazing wife!
*Getting to hang out with John (Head of Game Developer) and Carlie (Talented Community Manager)
*Seeing Tom Fulp
*Meeting Pixel Jam
*Hanging out with Jerm and Bryan (Winners of our first Gaming Competition and Creators of popular titles such as Marvin Spectrum and Transmigration)
Hopefully next year will be just as fun!

Edmund McMillen & Tyler Glaiel were kind enough to answer a few questions about their newest game Aether.

Q.) What emotions does Aether conjure up when you play it? (Seeing the game is about your childhood)

Edmund: The goal of the game was to put the player into the mind of a lonely young boy who has a hard time relating to others. While designing the game i tried to put myself back in the mind frame of me at 7-8 years old, lonely, nervous and self destructive with great fears of abandonment and alienation from others. Playing and designing the game conjures up those feelings.

Tyler: It was interesting as I was developing the game because it was pretty much about Edmund’s childhood, not mine, and I did not know all the facets of the story as I was working on the gameplay. So, I basically worked out the mechanics of the planets to convey specific emotions, not necessarily knowing which ones would be used for what part of the story. It’s tough to decide if the mood molded to the gameplay or the gameplay molded to the mood, but I think that because the line is fuzzy there, the game manages to build up mood much more than something that is 100% planned from the beginning.

Q.) What inspires your creativity? Is there any one source you tend to draw upon more than others?

Edmund: Creative and driven people inspire me. Working with Tyler was awesome because i could totally ride off his inspiration and get a ton of stuff done in a very short amount of time. People being creative and taking risks with their work always is inspiring to me, honesty in art is also very inspiring.

Tyler: Part of my inspiration comes from looking at what other games do wrong, and thinking to myself, “I could do better than that…” Maybe that’s an egotistical way to think, but it’s an interesting challenge to try and fix someone else’s errors. I also recently played Braid, and before Edmund even pitched this idea to me, I was thinking of how to make a game that has a deep story and a gameplay that fits the story (like Braid). A few weeks later I was working on this. I also took cues from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (and various other songs) for the music.

Q.) What is your favorite game that you created?

Edmund: Aether is currently my favorite game ive created, with Gish a close 2nd.

Tyler: As of now, Aether.=2 None of my other stuff really comes close (even though I do like what I did on Paths, there were some serious difficulty problems. Like technically impossible levels. My bad.).

Q.) Can we expect to see Aether on WiiWare? Seeing the game is set up perfect for the WiiMote.

Edmund: Thats the goal for next year!

Tyler: We hope so. Should be fun to juggle school (college omg) and this.
We look forward to more great games from you two and we hope to be playing Aether next year on our Wii.