Thursday, March 28, 2019
Elamite Cavalry
Tips For 2D Animation
This week, club-renowned 3D artist Joseph Scheidemandel delivered his best advice for producing fluid, consistent 2D animation! Stop being so good at so many things, Joseph!
His slides are here! You may recognize Joseph's animations from this Spring's game-jam-winning Wulfric and Pip, the only game I know of with a 20-frame animation for throwing a box.
Also, art professor Joseph Farbrook gave us an overview of the classes being offered for 3D art next semester! They're open to students outside of the art department, but only if you get his permission first, so be sure to let him know if you're interested!
Weekly Announcements
- Our final game night is this Friday! We'll be going all-out on this one, with more snacks than we've ever offered, Smash Brothers and Hearthstone tournaments and, of course, the usual smorgasboard of board games.
- We finally have a Discord server! This will be the best way to stay connected with other club members. Share things you've made, ask for advice, or just talk! Click here to join.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
LMH Mixtape #78: Beyond 16-Bit 2
Hey, what's that buried at the bottom of your trick-or-treating pillowcase? No, it's not a copy of Time Lord -- it's another Legacy Music Hour mixtape! And while Halloween is all about celebrating...
The Legacy Music Hour was created by Brent Weinbach and Rob F. specifically for the purpose of talking about video game music from the golden age of gaming (16-bit and earlier). 
The Legacy Music Hour was created by Brent Weinbach and Rob F. specifically for the purpose of talking about video game music from the golden age of gaming (16-bit and earlier).
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Suzy Cube Update: May 25, 2018
#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity @NoodlecakeGames
My apologies! The day just flew right by and I only realized I forgot to write an update about three hour ago! Another packed week, but mostly bug fixes, so let's dive in!
Read more »
Storium Theory: A Shadow In The Light
I've written a bit about this before, but today I'd like to discuss one of the most fun things that I've found to do on Storium - ending a challenge with a Strong ending by playing a Weakness card.
Sometimes, you find yourself with a really fascinating opportunity on Storium. You're writing the final move on a challenge, and it is definitely going Strong - there's only one card slot left, for instance, and at least 2 more Strong cards have been played than Weakness cards, so even if you play a Weakness card, it's still going to be 1 up on Strong.
These are amazingly fun writing opportunities, and I encourage you to make the most of them.
Play a Weakness card...and make it just as Weak as you normally would! Your character screws up, or stumbles, or otherwise expresses his Weakness. It's just that in the end, the challenge succeeds despite him.
Don't have his Weakness lead him to victory - instead, have victory happen despite his weakness.
The other characters' efforts succeed. They win the day. He almost screws things up for everybody...but they'd done well enough before that point that it didn't end up mattering.
This is one of your best possible opportunities to make someone else...or everybody else...awesome.
You can take the time to build up how well someone else did. You can show how the situation is set up perfectly to go to the Strong outcome. Then, you take it one step farther - you show how you make a mistake, how you screw things up...but because things were set up so well to begin with, or because someone else is doing what they're doing and doing it so well, things go right anyway.
It isn't luck. It isn't happenstance. It's the efforts of the other characters involved, acting along the lines they've acted in prior to your move, using the Strengths they've put down before. You nearly mess everything up...but they either save the day, or have already put things in such a good state that your screw-up is a drop in the bucket.
Some of my favorite moves on Storium have been the points where I've had the opportunity to write this way: Where I could show just how good the other characters have been in a challenge by having my character seriously screw up...but letting the group win the day anyway. The other players feel great because you gave them recognition and made them look like a million bucks...and you? You get a really, really powerful character moment out of it.
You can hit your character hard from a moment like this - a moment where everyone else looks good, and he looks bad. You can use it to push him to change. You can inspire a difference in attitude. Maybe it's negative - feelings of inferiority or questioning of his skills. But maybe it's positive - a new respect for other characters, or the discovery of a mentor who can help him exceed his current limits.
So when a moment like this comes up in a story, don't just toss out a Weakness card just to get rid of one. Don't look at it that way. Look at it as a great opportunity to really make other people look good, and to really draw comparisons between your character's failings and someone else's strengths. This is an excellent, amazing chance to develop your character and make other people look their best at the same time. Take advantage of it!
Sometimes, you find yourself with a really fascinating opportunity on Storium. You're writing the final move on a challenge, and it is definitely going Strong - there's only one card slot left, for instance, and at least 2 more Strong cards have been played than Weakness cards, so even if you play a Weakness card, it's still going to be 1 up on Strong.
These are amazingly fun writing opportunities, and I encourage you to make the most of them.
Play a Weakness card...and make it just as Weak as you normally would! Your character screws up, or stumbles, or otherwise expresses his Weakness. It's just that in the end, the challenge succeeds despite him.
Don't have his Weakness lead him to victory - instead, have victory happen despite his weakness.
The other characters' efforts succeed. They win the day. He almost screws things up for everybody...but they'd done well enough before that point that it didn't end up mattering.
This is one of your best possible opportunities to make someone else...or everybody else...awesome.
You can take the time to build up how well someone else did. You can show how the situation is set up perfectly to go to the Strong outcome. Then, you take it one step farther - you show how you make a mistake, how you screw things up...but because things were set up so well to begin with, or because someone else is doing what they're doing and doing it so well, things go right anyway.
It isn't luck. It isn't happenstance. It's the efforts of the other characters involved, acting along the lines they've acted in prior to your move, using the Strengths they've put down before. You nearly mess everything up...but they either save the day, or have already put things in such a good state that your screw-up is a drop in the bucket.
Some of my favorite moves on Storium have been the points where I've had the opportunity to write this way: Where I could show just how good the other characters have been in a challenge by having my character seriously screw up...but letting the group win the day anyway. The other players feel great because you gave them recognition and made them look like a million bucks...and you? You get a really, really powerful character moment out of it.
You can hit your character hard from a moment like this - a moment where everyone else looks good, and he looks bad. You can use it to push him to change. You can inspire a difference in attitude. Maybe it's negative - feelings of inferiority or questioning of his skills. But maybe it's positive - a new respect for other characters, or the discovery of a mentor who can help him exceed his current limits.
So when a moment like this comes up in a story, don't just toss out a Weakness card just to get rid of one. Don't look at it that way. Look at it as a great opportunity to really make other people look good, and to really draw comparisons between your character's failings and someone else's strengths. This is an excellent, amazing chance to develop your character and make other people look their best at the same time. Take advantage of it!
Lemon Amiga Takes A Look At Liquid Kids
Spotting an opportunity, UK based Ocean Software would licence many a Taito title for conversion to the various home computer platforms of the day. All three of the above titles, for example, were snapped up by the gaming giant, and saw release either under the Ocean or Imagine brand.
Among their numerous licenses was a 1990 Taito release by the name of Liquid Kids. A colourful side-scrolling platform affair, this was ported to the Amiga by arcade conversion specialists (check out the quality of their Toki and Pang conversions) Ocean France.
I remember looking forward to the release of Liquid Kids for the Amiga, and then, after months of waiting, reading in an issue of Amiga Power magazine that Ocean had decided the market had changed and that it would no longer be publishing the game despite it being pretty much complete.
A number of years later I recall swapping a few emails with Paul Carrington of Vulcan Software, who'd seen a post of mine on Usenet relating to the unreleased Amiga game. Paul was asking for more information on the title and was considering contacting Ocean with an idea of releasing it on his own Vulcan Software label.
However far (if at all) discussions got with Ocean we'll probably never know. One thing I do know is that the game vanished from trace until 2003 when Galahad of Fairlight got hold of a copy, fixed umpteen bugs, spelling mistakes, disk routines and much more besides.
Finally, after almost a decade and a half, the Amiga version of Liquid Kids was available to Amiga users.
So, why am I talking about a game that surfaced on our favourite platform some 12 years ago? Well, one of the recent Playguide and Review videos by the Lemon Amiga team is this very game, and I had a feeling that this may have been a title that had passed a good number of Amiga users by.
If you're one of these people, check out the Lemon Amiga video below, and then continue down for a Liquid Kids download link.
So, why am I talking about a game that surfaced on our favourite platform some 12 years ago? Well, one of the recent Playguide and Review videos by the Lemon Amiga team is this very game, and I had a feeling that this may have been a title that had passed a good number of Amiga users by.
If you're one of these people, check out the Lemon Amiga video below, and then continue down for a Liquid Kids download link.
Saturday, March 23, 2019
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