Mattrified Art

A Change To The Blog...

2010-05-28T21:57:00.000-04:00

So, I've decided to change this blog dramatically and create a new one -- Mattrified Games. I plan on making a new website and on the accompanying blog, write articles about gaming and my side projects.

Why did I make this change? Well, I moved recently and one thing I noticed during said move was that I have a lot of crap -- plain and simple. One of the heavier things was a collection of over 20 sketchbooks and binders with old drawings. I'm not talking 6 months old; I'm talking almost 6 years old! I can't bear to part with all of these concepts and stories, but they are just collecting dust on my bookshelves and my excitement for them as fizzled -- Mattrifizzled. So, I came to the decision to archive my favorites into this blog; to archive them so if I want to come back to these for some reason -- reminiscence, concept a new character, even if I just need a good laugh -- I can.

Now, I have a DeviantArt page, and I thought about just posting all these drawings here, but some of them are just sketches and poor ones at that; I'd rather flood a blog with said images than an art gallery where I'm trying to put decent art. Also, last time I uploaded something to DeviantArt, it was kind of a pain.

Anyway, I know the anatomy is off, that the characters' names are dumb, that the cartoons are flat as if I hammered them that way; I don't care. I'm not looking for critiques. This is more for me but if you stop by, feel free to leave a comment, and who knows, once I get all the sketchbooks scanned and posted, maybe I'll post new stuff here.

PIGDA Lightning Talks 2010

2010-03-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

Tonight the PIGDA -- or the Pittsburgh Chapter of the International Game Developers Association -- held an event they like to call: Lightning Talks. Lightning talks are similar to the microtalks given at GDC -- short talks, five minutes in this case, usually all relating to a certain subject. Of course, these revolved around video games. My talk was about publishing XNA games onto the Xbox 360 and the intricacies involved. It went pretty well. I talked a little fast, missed a few key points, my jokes fell rather flat -- actually, I didn't have much time for jokes since I had to talk so fast -- but overall I think it went well. I discussed things like the the peer review process, how to not be a deadbeat developer, and that in reality, unless you have an awesome team behind you, you probably won't make tons of money. I definitely want to do one next year; maybe on a subject I know I can talk more about like fighting games...then again, five minutes might not be enough for that.

In other news, I hope to update my website soon. I may get some consulting on the best way to update my website from a talented friend or to just simply create two -- one primarily for my website and another for my portfolio, inspired by the portfolio talk I heard at GDC. Also, Battle High: San Bruno for XNA is coming along well. I took some time off to focus less on programming and more on design, story, and character relationships. I hope to have a demo up of some kind submitted to the XNA playtest forums and to the other teams members before the end of April.

GDC Review 2010 Part 3

2010-03-15T20:23:00.002-04:00

So, after day 2 of GDC, things had turned around, and I was really beginning to enjoy the convention. Day 3 set my hopes back a little into a state of "meh".

GDC Day 3

Talk 0.5: Five Ways a Video Game Can Make You Cry
This talk was only a half hour as opposed to an hour, so I'm dubbing it Talk 0.5. Anyway, the speaker discussed five ways games make us cry such as nostalgia. I liked this talk. It was to the point and fitting. Also, I will never see Grave of the Fireflies because of this talk because it looks way too sad.

Talk 1.0: Paint-by-Gender ~How To Add Pink Gameplay To Your 'Blue' Title (And Still Keep All The Boys Happy)
This talk was interesting. The speaker gave nine ways to make a game more attractive to female players like sprinkling in non-violent gameplay and having non-stereotypical female characters. It was a short talk and was mostly just the speaker talking about the results of her mod; also, some of her slides were messed up -- sometimes girls would be represented with a blue bar instead of a pink one but were always on the left. Again, I found it useful and enjoyed it.

Talk 2: Make 'Em Laugh ~Comedy in Games~
Now I love comedy, but I have a strange sense of humor. This talk which was a panel with three designers (or writers or something), one of which was Tim Schafer, who people deem as some comedic, gaming god. THIS TALK BLEW! I was so bored; I literally fell asleep twice and had to fight not to. I should have went to the talk about implementing the rewind effect in Braid. I didn't learn anything special; it was just the three giving their insights to comedy in games. Part of the problem was that one of the driest speaker, Rhianna Pratchett, spoke a lot more it seemed. True, I was tired, but I survived those first two talks with no problem. Anyway, I was disappointed with this talk a lot.

Talk 3: Getting Noticed ~Why You Need an Online Portfolio and How to Make One~
This talk was about getting a nice portfolio out there. I think mine right now is a bit below average, and I need some things to make it better. The only thing I disagreed with Jacob Minkoff was his notion that you should have no Flash elements on your site. I think the Flash elements in mine are acceptable, subtle things that can show off some of your skills. This talk also helped me decide that I think I want to be a gameplay programmer who can do a few other things, like design and 3D modeling. This was a good inspirational talk too, discussing that failures aren't always a game over.

This was my last talk of GDC. The rest of the day I spent exploring San Francisco's downtown. It reminded me a lot of Pittsburgh except with angrier drivers and more homeless, crazy people. I liked S.F., but would never want to live there.

I learned a lot about GDC and would like to go again. As to when, I'm not 100% sure. The first day sucked, the second day was great, and the third day was just okay, giving me an overall feeling of satisfaction but not complete, invigorating, delight. One thing I definitely will remember for next year: always sit in the middle of a row, because if you don't, you'll probably be asked to eventually anyway...

GDC 2010 Review Part 2

2010-03-15T13:48:00.001-04:00

I forgot to mention Day 1 ended with the Indie Game's Festival and The Game Developers' Awards or something where everyone ejaculated how amazing Uncharted 2 was. The IGF kind of inspired me to want to be a bigger part in the Indie Game's Community, but the hosts were not funny, but they aren't actors or performers, so I should cut them some slack, but alas, I have no slack to give. I do, however, have a greater appreciation for Mega 64 now though.

Anyway, I woke up the next day with low hopes, but fortunately this day multiplied a lot of my negativity by -1.

GDC Day 2

1st Talk: GDC Microtalks 2010: Ten Speakers, 200 Slides, Limitless Ideas!

I went to this talk with a lot of my co-workers, since my boss, Jesse Schell, was going to be speaking. His was a good follow-up to his DICE talk and humorous. Some of the other talks were good, some were fogettable, and some were just stupid. I don't feel like going everyone because quite frankly I can't remember. I liked the one after Jesse's about Games for Change though and remember this one and I remember not liking the Ian Bogost's and with its poetry. The Red Wheelbarrow? Really? Maybe I'm just not a good -- or pretentious -- enough of designer to have gotten it. Anyway, I liked the microtalks overall, so Day 2 was off to a good start.

I skipped the Sid Meier's Main Keynote to meet some XNA people. Fortunately I was able to this time. I only met two, but it was better than zero. ZMan or Andy or whatever he goes by, plays a big part in the XBLIG community and gave me some tips so I don't become a deadbeat developer, which right now, I would say I am.

2nd Talk: What Color Is Your Hero?
This was more of a panel discussing diversity in game characters and I really liked it. It wasn't the most exciting and just threw some numbers around, but I like what the diverse panel had to say. I've always been a fan of games that have non-stereotypical but diverse characters. Even though I'm white, I would like to design more Hispanic, black, and Asian characters that aren't just stereotypes, and though this may require a good amount of research, I think I'll be happy with the results.

3rd Talk: The Next Generation of Fighting Games ~Physics & Animation in UFC 2009 Undisputed~
What I liked about this translated talk was the fact it lived up to the title, word-for-word. Anyway, it was a very technical talk, all of which is now in the back of my head, but the speaker kept saying that this is the new standard. They did a UFC game though, which to me, a huge fan of fighting games, isn't quite a fighting game. It is, but it's more of a sports game in my opinion because of the realism achieved in it. I didn't have the courage to ask, but I wanted to ask the following: "You say that this will be the new standard for fighting games, however, do you believe that these techniques are still applicable for fighting games where the animation is more theatrical and the physics are less realistic?" I'm curious to what he would have responded with, however, he answers to any English questions didn't seem that great and were more confusing the the talk as a whole. Again, despite some discrepancies, I enjoyed this talk.

4th Talk: The Game Design Challenge 2010: Real-World Permadeath
This was the game design challenge in which three game designers are given a theme and must design a game around it. This theme was permanent death, making a statement that game's have devalued life as a whole. The first game, Last Game and Testament, was delivered by last year's winners, Erin Robinson and Heather Kelley. It was a game that would replace will reading. It was okay, but one of their goals was to take the morose and stress out of will reading, but to me, a scavenger hunt and guessing game, though it may remove some of the morose nature, adds even more stress. I know that if my mom had to do something like that after her parents died, she'd be extraordinary upset and unable to do such a thing well unless it was done a month or two after the funeral.
The second, delivered by Flower's Genova Chen was called, Heavenville. Essentially it was a Farmville knock-off involving dead loved ones on Facebook. This concept appalled me actually. He said it gave more value to human life, but it just gave human life a monetary value, which to me doesn't progress from the current state of games where enemies are killed for points. Not only that, but deceased friends and loved ones become similar to stock and are traded similarly. A co-worker of mine said it would be interesting for people when they are still alive, but regardless, I didn't find his game amusing at all.
Third was Karma, presented by Kim Swift from Portal. This was my favorite, but it essentially was a grief counseling game. It was very safe, but I thought it was the most useful, which may not have been what the challenge was about.
Anyway, Kim got 3rd, Erin and Heather 2nd, and to my dismay Genova got 1st. Genova is Chinese -- I believe -- and his English is not perfect, and a part of me sometimes wonders if his lack in English speaking skills is what gave him the extra humor needed to make Heavenville appear funnier than it was. It sounds strange to say, but I just think if someone else had delivered that, it wouldn't have went over as well, but maybe I'm just trying to rationalize why such a disturbing idea won. I still liked the challenge as a whole, but am now flabbergasted a reality show doesn't exist that is just like this challenge.

So the day ended, and I was quite pleased with Day 2 and was no longer regretting my decision to go to GDC. Next post will be about Day 3.

GDC 2010 Review Part 1

2010-03-14T18:40:00.003-04:00

So I went to GDC this past week and had an...okay time. I think I left for GDC with high expectations. I was taking part in so many new things -- my first flights longer than an hour, the first time renting a hotel room with someone who isn't a relative, my first time several thousand miles west of my residence, my first convention of any kind really. I had hopes that I would be learning so much about my industry and come back feeling invigorated to start anew and fresh. Now, I feel some of that, which in turn made the entire trip somewhat valuable. I have a new desire to participate more in the Indie Games communities as well as redo and revamp my website and some great material for my lightning talk coming up near the end of March.

Anyway, here is what happened and how I felt about each talk of my first day. I was going to do one long post, but felt that splitting it into three would be better.

GDC Day 1

1st talk: Don't Dread Threads
This first talk consisted of two Intel programmers explaining the importance of threading for game development. It was more for game engine development though, and since I am more of a gameplay programmer, I found it a bit over my head as well as advertisement like for various Intel tools and services. Nevertheless, after this first talk, I was rather pleased and excited for future talks to come. Unfortunately this excitement wouldn't last long.

2nd Talk: From Metroid to Tomodachi Collection to WarioWare ~Different Approaches for Different Audiences~
This was Nintendo's Keynote by Yoshio Sakamoto, the producer and designer for the Metroid series. This talk should have been renamed, "Nintendo Producer Plugs His New Metroid Game." First of all, it had to be translated, which wasn't too bad but something I felt like mentioning. It was mostly his biography and then maybe fifteen minutes of his design approach, which was very individualized and in retrospect maybe that is design approach from person to person is inherently different. What annoyed me the most was just talking about Metroid: Other M and how they worked with Team Ninja and blah, blah, blah. Ironically, when he showed the first gameplay clips I thought, "This looks a little like one of the newer Ninja Gaiden." Anyway, I did not enjoy this talk very much.

3rd Talk: Broadening a Genre While Retaining Its Soul
This was the talk after I had lunch and it should have also had a different name like "League of Legends Post Mortem" Like the previous talk, it made a few interesting points about how to make a game within a niche genre more accessible to casual players, but the rest of it was mostly going through League of Legends and what they did, what they fixed, etc. I just felt, by the title, giving more example of when this is done in other genres would have been more useful. He did mention some other titles, all of which I agree took similar approaches to LoL (which always seemed humorous to me in his slides). I did, however, like it more than the Nintendo talk, so props to Tom Cadwell for that.

4th Talk: From Fantasy to Franchise ~How To Build a Universe Worthy of Devotion~
This talk was funny because I did not know the speaker -- R.A. Salvatore -- or of his work. I guess he wrote a bunch of D&D, fantasy-based stuff. The talk was pretty interesting. Like the prior two it gave a few tips about the title but was then mostly just silly stories of his early MMO experiences. I liked the talk though, but it was probably one of the least memorable at the same time.

Overall: One other thing that happened is around 3:30 I tried to meet some other XNA developers. On the forums, we were going to meet around the Microsoft booth. They didn't really have booth this year though. On the Expo Floor they just had a 360 Booth. By 4:00 though, I discovered a lobby bar which is probably where everyone met. Because of that, and my lackluster talks that day, I was regretting all the money I was putting into GDC. I was tired, had explored the entire Expo Floor, and wanted to go home. One of my co-workers explained that picking good sessions, which I had failed to do, was like black magic and no one ever was 100%. Another said that maybe my expectations were just a little too high. She was right in the end, and Day 2, which I will write about next was a vast improvement.

Convextrix.approved = true;

2010-03-05T10:20:00.003-05:00

Something magical happened last night. Alright, not really magical, but magical in my eyes. The game I made for XBLIG, Convextrix, got approved last night! I was very shocked. It went up to 50% quickly and then seemed to inch towards that 100% and then BAM! -- it was approved. It can be downloaded to your 360 here: Xbox Live Marketplace Link. You should; it's only a dollar (please). It's just a simple, fun, little puzzle game, but I'm excited I got something published that I did all by myself -- with some good advice from others of course.

It was a good learning experience, and now knowing the process makes me definitely feel more comfortable and confident for releasing games in the future and has motivated me to definitely keep working on games in my spare time. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it, even if I don't make a single cent. Also, March 25th, I'll be giving a Lightning Talk -- a simple 5-minute talk -- on the process of submitting a game for approval to XNA for the Pittsburgh Chapter of the International Game Developer's Association, and now that I actually have a game approved, it'll make my talk seem more legitimate.

Finally, on a side note, I started my new art blog: Mattrifizzled Art. It's going to be more of an archive of old art and stories from when I was still publicly educated. Some of it will be interesting to see; some of it will be hilarious. It's more for me than anything but if you want to check it out, I can't stop you.

Just Another Day...Kind Of

2010-03-02T10:20:00.004-05:00

Well, I just moved to a new neighborhood in Pittsburgh. That was an enjoyable experience. There was one causality -- Sagelucious, the monstrous green couch, perished, leaving me couchless. I will remember you... Thanks to all my friends and my parents for helping! I hope you enjoyed the Qdoba!

Anyway, I've started work on Battle High for XBLIG. I'd say I'm about 1% done with it. Alright, maybe not that low, but we are thinking of adding four new characters, and that is probably going to take some time. I have all the sprites for the original 8 characters now though and just need the main game to work.

Also, Convextrix, the game I'm trying to get released on XBLIG is 75% approved. So far five people have passed it. I'm still confused on how this enigmatic peer review system works. It seems the more posts or experience you have on the board, the higher a person's approval percentage will increase when you pass it. I plan on reviewing and playtesting more so people playtest and review my stuff more.

Finally, I am preparing to go to GDC next week already. I'm a little nervous. Just the mixture of going to San Francisco, flying, going to a convention -- it's a lot of firsts, but I'm sure, just like the my recent move, I will be fine.

Convextrix Submitted For Playtesting

2010-02-04T13:39:00.002-05:00

Short post today, but I submitted my XNA game, Convextrix for playtest submission on the XNA Creators Club website. In fact I just checked and already have one response, which is pretty good. Supposedly I have a lot of silly little things going on with saving and loading, which is a pain in the butt to begin with, but they all sound like things I can fix relatively easily.

I'm not sure what "Code 4" means, but I'm assuming it means the game has crashed. Anyway, I'll keep updating this blog as I get more responses and get closer to uploading the game for review.

Game Details Page
Game Forum Thread

Global Game Jam 2010

2010-02-02T15:09:00.010-05:00

Well it ended as quickly as it came...and sometimes as quickly as...nevermind, but the 2010 Global Game is over. For those of you who don't know, the Global Game Jam is a yearly event (this has really only been the second year but I take it they plan on doing more) where game designers, programmers, artists, etc., join to try and make a game in 48 hours using any platform they want with just a few constraints. This year, the theme was Deception and our local constraints, words that we had to weave throughout our game, were: Plain, Rain, or Spain.

text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 150px;" src="http://www.globalgamejam.com/sites/default/files/uploads/2010/2569/dr-laser3_0.jpg?1265091453" border="0" alt="" />

The game my group, R-Squared, created, entitled ¡Dr. Láser! ¿Adorará Ella un robot? It means: "Dr. Laser! Will she choose a robot?" Or so I think...I don't know Spanish but my teammates did...supposedly. The idea is that you control a special neuron transmitter within a cyborg's brain -- Dr. Laser -- who must destroy more dangerous ones that want him to act out his robotic tendencies to...well shoot lasers. You can read more and play the game at this link. I was the leading, and ever-grouchy, programmer. What can I say, I get grouchy after only 3 hours of sleep on a hard, carpeted floor. We used WildPockets. The cool thing about the game is that it talks to a flash movie to do some cool things that WildPockets can't such as play nice music. I like WildPockets but I feel it has a long way to go...but it's way better than it was a year ago and if singularity is true...well it'll be amazing next year. Will we use it again? Not sure.

Anyway, despite all the stress, lack of sleep, and having "Porque" screamed into my ear, I had an enjoyable time.

Convextrix Progress

2009-12-16T22:24:00.006-05:00

Convextrix is a game I started in mid-July of this year. The goal was to create a simple puzzle game for XNA and get it uploaded onto the Indie Games section of XboxLIVE. I've been making a lot of progress lately, and feel I am about 80% done. Right now I am focusing on art. I need to download FL Studio for music, create sound effects, and rework the interface. The most exciting feature I made was the ability to save and load, which sounds trivial but it was that easy -- but it was a little easy. Here is a video of what I have so far:

GameMaker Fighting Game Tutorial

2009-09-16T10:27:00.006-04:00

I've decided since getting a few requests from YouTube users about my GMK fighting game engine that I'm going to make a set of tutorials for it in the near future, probably early 2010.
This is what I'm referring to:

The following list consists of the tutorials I plan on attempting:

Character Movement and Player Interaction
Player input (Special Moves, etc.)
Sprite Setup
Interface and Basic Effects
Chain Link Combos
Special Attacks, Throws, and Super Attacks
Putting It All Together (Winning, etc.)
Dynamic Loading and Alternate Colors
FX 1: Blood and Fatalities

Those are the main 7 for now. I'll probably put a post up, asking people that if they have any they'd like to suggest, to add them to the list.

My real goal is to get a better understanding of all of these fighting game aspects and then possibly try putting them together in my own XNA fighting game engine.

I'm getting closer to finishing my XNA puzzle game, which now has an magic, monster creating theme to it and is a little more complex than what I first wanted, but I think it coming along well.

In the upcoming weeks, however, I'm going to start a new WildPockets project. I'll probably update my site once that gets up and running.

XNA Creators Club Membership

2009-08-26T11:25:00.004-04:00

After working on the puzzle game discussed in my last post, I decided to finally get a membership to the XNA Creators Club. It's like $100.00 a year and will renew annually unless I cancel it or something. At first I was skeptical, but I was able to get the game working on the Xbox almost immediately! It was quite surprising how few steps I needed to do. I just had to right-click on the project and make an XBOX360 version of it. There's a few extra steps I had to do like making sure it will fit onto most televisions better but other than that, it worked great. My game has a memory leak though; I'll need to fix that.

Anyway, I'm going to work on the puzzle game I mentioned in the last post. It's not going to be as simple, but it will help me flex my 3D modeling muscles again, so that'll be enjoyable. Also, I'm going to try and port Battle High: San Bruno over to XNA. Converting almost 800 sprites onto one sprite sheet is getting a bit tedious and problematic though.

Also, I need to really update my website with something, even if it's something small. I may start porting a lot of my really old Gamemaker games to XNA or WildPockets.

That's the end of this post...

Simply Simple: A New XNA game

2009-07-21T23:19:00.006-04:00

I started a new XNA game recently. It's pretty simple; you get three blocks and you have to use them to touch other blocks of the same color, but as you gain points, more blocks are required to cause a "bust". I need to add a few more things to make it more complete, but I'm going for a Tetris feel. There's no real goal, just gaining points and seeing how many levels you can pass. I may add power-ups, more block colors, and something that expands the grid after so many levels, but simplicity is key. If / when I decide to release this game as an Xbox Community game, it'll probably be super cheap. I hate the fact you have to pay for those, especially because some are SO bad.

I also need to do an art pass, but it'll probably be something simple, very, very simple. Below is a simple, simple screenshot of my simply simple game:

Did I mention I wanted this game to be simple?

Battle High Updates

2009-05-26T17:04:00.005-04:00

Right now, I am working on three separate projects in my spare time, each with their own issues. I'll be writing three blogs for each one.

The first one is Battle High: San Bruno, which seems to be really picking up. As the resource management programmer I got stages, characters, and music to all load into our game dynmically (as opposed to at the beginning of the game) using some unique Gamemaker .dlls like sAudio.

My next task is to attempt getting palette swapping to work again...The reason it didn't work the first time is that it took WAY too long to do, and I didn't like the process, but I'm going to try it again and see how it goes and possibly change my approach.

If you like 2D fighting games, you should check out BH:SB, and to do so, you can go to the following links:

GameMaker Page
Battle High Forum

New Website Is Almost Done!!!

2009-04-28T14:44:00.006-04:00

My new website is almost done. I have a one more interactive Flash element to create. Then, I have to figure out the best way to display images. I'm thinking of making my own lightbox-esque thing using CSS, javascript, and dynamic html.

Overall though, I hate web design. First of all, the aesthetic nature of it is subjective, so while I may like it, a bunch of others will hate it and back and forth. Then, there's this whole need for efficiency, but making hundreds of HTML pages that are relatively different except for the information on them, is anything but.

My one friend has been bothering me to try Drupel, but I doubt I'm going to bother. I'm too lazy to make a database server side. My webspace isn't even mine; I'm using a friend's, a friend who somehow has an infinite amount of space.

As soon as I finish this website, I'm going to get back to work on my three main projects:

Battle High: San Bruno (Gamemaker Project)
Sorting (XNA)
Three-Dreggle (WildPockets)

I'm also going to be making tutorials and other things for a friends website...if he ever builds it, and I am definitely not going to be helping with that...