CodePaLOUsa was amazing, I really enjoyed all of the talks I attended, but the people I met were even better. I would love to have time to write a more extensive blog post about it, but for now it’s back to work! Check back soon to hear about my experience in more detail.
Month: February 2014
Updated my portfolio
So today I updated my portfolio, I realized that I had not included my video production examples. The videos had been on my vimeo page for a while but I only had a vimeo icon link. I added full descriptions and embedded videos, go check them out if you haven’t already. Refine Hands & Feet is the newest, and I am particularly content with how it came out.
Stuff I need to learn this week
Google Packaged Apps w/ PhoneGap (Cordova)
A big goal of mine For Two Scoop Games is to get our games packaged and up on both the Google Play and Apple iOS App stores. Because of the engine we have developed being based on HTML5 Canvas (JavaScript) it is cross-platform without any extra effort, but to avoid the varied nature of mobile browser quality, I would prefer to have our games as ‘apps’ . This is where PhoneGap comes in, I have succeeded in getting a game packaged with PhoneGap, but the canvas performance by default is low. A friend has suggested Google Packages Apps and I need to do my research and get this working!
PhoneGap
WordPress SEO plugin
SEO is something that would really benefit me to learn more about, both in my day job and for my games – is art, art if nobody ever sees it? Is a game, a game if nobody ever has the opportunity to play it?
WordPress social integration
For Two Scoop Games I would like to sync posts or more ideally post similar updates to all of the social networks at once.
HickoryStock Game
So this one might take some explaining… a few months back I had the idea to work on a small game as a sort of interactive birthday card for my dad, the idea for the game comes from a story he told me about a game him and some friends created when he was a kid. My dad grew up in Brooklyn in the 60’s and didn’t have much, he and his friend Mario would visit the junk yard and find random things to make stuff out of or play with, and one that always stuck out to me because of how ridiculous it sounded was HickoryStock. 
The game is played by trying to fling a high-heeled shoe filled with cement into a hole in a wall using an umbrella. If that wasn’t bad enough they suckered a kid at school into playing as the goalie… not sure how they convinced this kid…
So here is the game, the basic idea is get the shoe through the hole, but each time the hole moves randomly to make things a little more tough. On the title screen I included a character my dad used to draw and threw in lots of misspellings because my dad’s bad spelling is an inside-joke in our family.
I showed him the game on his birthday and he loved it. I am glad that even if nobody ever really plays it – I got some good practice making games, and had a chance to make something our family can laugh about.
Here is a video of the game in action:
Scurry Game Devlog 4 – Motels and Skeleton beetle
Poor guy all dead and stuff…
But then he’s back, leaping though the air and scurrying across store shelves which are now laden with cool power-ups and also treacherous traps…
Watch out for roach motels, run through one of these and you will end up as a set of walking bones…
…and shortly after crumbled to a pile of dust. 
but don’t worry, you can try again right away!
Play the current version of the game here: http://scurrygame.com
Scurry Game Devlog 3 – Lots of new stuff!
So it has been a while since I have posted any news about the game that Eric and I are working on. Scurry is coming along great and I have lots to show.
We have added a title screen, complete with twitching antennae.
Here are a few shots of gameplay:
A lot of the work has been Eric getting everything setup to scale and fit any screen size properly, detect desktop or mobile browsers, and have working audio on many devices.
I on the other hand have been working on the artwork and animations, I am excited about how it is all turning out, and we have a roadmap for completing the game with two types of levels and 4 levels total. It will feel really good to finish off our first real game.
Play the current version of the game here: http://scurrygame.com