GBGames
Check it out! The squad car is chasing the getaway car! This is actually about 200% of the size. You can control the squad car, but I also set both cars to follow the border of the game screen so I can see what it looks like when it runs on its own.
Oh, uh, what happened to the roads? Yeah, they’re coming.
After getting some boilerplate code down, I took a break to have lunch:
Peanut butter, cinnamon, and raisin sandwich, plus some blue corn chips and hummus, washed down with Tutti Frutti flavored Jaritos. Also, some carrots (not pictured).
I spent lunch and the hour after trying to nail down a specific direction to take this project. Here are my design notes:
I’m still hoping to get basic game play by dinner today. We’ll see how ambitious a goal that is.
I woke up this morning kind of groggy. I had to sleep on the couch because my cats left me a smelly surprise on my bed. I guess they didn’t like being locked out of the office. B-(
It snowed a lot last night. It’s very white out. I need to drop off my laundry at the laundromat, and I also want to go to the pet store to purchase Nature’s Miracle enzyme cleaner. Darn cats.
Anyway, breakfast!
I’m afraid I probably won’t do well in the food competition this time around, but we’ll see.
I’ve also been thinking about my project. Perhaps it won’t be a simple puzzle game because then I would need to design puzzles. I was thinking it could be an action game in which you play the role of the getaway car trying to outrun the police, but then I would need decent AI and it might end up being a clone of Pac-man. I’ll think a little bit more about this game.
I liked the idea of the police strategically blocking certain roads so that the criminals can’t get away. Road Lockdown is my current name for the project, but it might change. B-)
From this mock-up, you can see the red getaway car of the criminals as well as the squad cars blocking the roads. I think I’ll keep the road images for the final game, and the cars seem to have come out fairly nice, I think.
I think I’ll go to sleep now. Tomorrow morning I have a lot of coding to do.
So the theme is Roads. According to the voting results, it was the only one with a positive number of votes overall, and yet the IRC channel is erupting with people surprised that it was the theme that won out.
What are some ideas?
– Building roads between cities to facilitate commerce.
– Managing traffic congestion.
– Planning/Acting on The Road Ahead for your life.
– Maintaining a small town’s roads.
– Transporting materials along a long road.
– Find your way without a map, searching for a lost road.
– Strategically shut down certain roads to guide a getaway car to the police.
There are plenty of ideas, and I’m sure I’ll come up with more.
It’s Halloween, and that means things that go bump in the night and candy and scary costumes. Or these days, sexy costumes. No complaints, though. B-)
Anyway, what’s your favorite scary video game?
I have to include Alien vs Predator 2 at the top of my list. The first few marine levels were really tense, and there were no enemies! It was just like being in one of the movies.
Resident Evil 4 was pretty scary as well, but I seem to have misplaced the first disc so I can’t play it.
And who can forget playing Eternal Darkness? Insanity is creepy!
ZombieGames.net has a collection of quality indie horror games. I enjoyed playing The Last Stand 2 and a few of the Boxhead series of games. The latest one is Boxhead Halloween, in which you need to save civilians from the zombies.
[tags] halloween, scary video games, indie [/tags]
I recently learned about a contest that MMORPG.com and PotFlix.com are holding called Spoof Your Favorite Online Game.
MMORPG.com and Potflix, the newest video challenge site on the net, team up to offer gamers a fun and one-of-a-kind gaming contest! Whether you are a newbie or a certified gaming addict, you can join the Spoof Your Favorite Online Game challenge and win a XBox 360 game console!
Simply make and submit a video of your online game characters dancing, grooving, or doing silly stuffs. You can even dub your voice into your game’s cinematics and create a funny skit.
Contest will run from October 1, 2008 to January 1, 2009 11:59 PM EST. Video entry with the most number of votes from web users will be declared the winner. Owner of the winning video shall take home the prize pot.
If you have a funny idea for a video about an online game, register and post it at PotFlix.com.
As of this writing, “Revenge of the Nerd” was just barely winning:
It’s barely beating out TF2 Engineer Singing Mercenaries 2 Song.
Will anyone put up a video involving Vendetta Online?
[tags] video game contest, games, videos, xbox 360[/tags]
It be Talk Like a Pirate Day again! When you be fraggin’ your buckos, be true t’ the day and yell out a good “YARRR!”
What game is a pirate’s favorite game to play?
Arrrrrrmadillo Run!
What other games do pirates like to play?
Darrrrrwinia was a close second. Arrrrrrrkanoid clones, too.
What’s a pirate’s favorite resource to gather in RTS games?
Gold, of course.
[tags] talk like a pirate day [/tags]
Yesterday I wrote about Chrome’s evil EULA terms, and posted a link to Tap The Hive about the news.
Well, it looks like Google fixed the EULA language.
Here’s an official response from Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome:
“In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don’t apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.”
And the new EULA terms?
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
So it’s safe to use Google Chrome again. Probably about 10% of the population can breathe a sigh of relief now, and the remaining 90% can go on wondering what the big deal was, although I think that says more about a general misunderstanding of copyright than anything else. But that’s another post on another day.
What I like about Google is that the company occasionally acts like a startup. They occasionally say “Whoops! We made a mistake! We’ll fix it!” And they make bone-headed mistakes like copy-and-pasting legal language that doesn’t really say what they wanted the EULA terms to be…something indie game developers do all the time. Google moves quickly for being such a large company.
Now if only they can take their belief “in access to information for everyone” and apply it to AdSense/AdWords. Why do I have to be left in the dark with so much of the data not provided?
[tags] google chrome, eula, business [/tags]
So with all of the excitement about Google’s new web browser, someone decided to actually read the EULA and determined that it sucks:
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
So by agreeing to the EULA and using Chrome, you are saying that while you still own the copyright of anything you create, such as a blog post or a file you wish to upload, you are also granting Google a license to those works.
If you use Chrome to upload your latest game build to a server, Google now has the right to redistribute it at no cost. Yes, you still have your rights, but then Google essentially claims those rights as well at no charge.
Is Google serious? The sad thing is, yes, Chrome is probably much faster and much more secure than other browsers, but if most people can’t agree to such terms, such as people at work, at school, and in certain professions, then what good is it? Why does Google need all of these rights? When they do finally make Gnu/Linux port, count me out. I’ll wait for a non-evil version, whether by Google or by someone else. For now, I’ll stick with Firefox. Last I checked, Mozilla doesn’t insist that it needs to mooch off of my business in order for me to use it.
[tags] google chrome, eula, business [/tags]