Here's your requisite screenshot

There is exciting stuff going on in Karma Riot as well, but I'll save that for another post. For now I'll just tease with this screenshot:

Ooh, new stage! Who's driving those other Karts?

Later

So, what does Phase 1 complete mean? It means that we have a working prototype that I'm ok with letting other people play. I know that's kind of a squishy definition, but using that as my milestone marker has a lot of practical advantages, and it's pretty much as far as I ever get with most of my hobby games. More specifically, here are the things we got done in phase 1:

• Established art constraints and style
• Kart driving simulation, including dynamic object collision response
• Prototype tracks
• Ranking and lap timing
• State machine including menus for choosing player count, speed, and track
• HUD
• Moves (fireball, side bump, and shield)
• Basic sound effects and music
• Kart trail rendering and physics
• A little polish and game balance here and there

But you don't have to take my word for it. One of the other nice things about being at phase 1 is that I put up a new entry on the Games page for it: Karma Riot. You cand download and play the prototype from there, however, you will need wired 360 controllers for each player.

Power slide to victory!

In case you didn't realize this, I'm working on this project with a friend - Paul Spychala. At the end of phase 1 we took a look at the game and decided that it was decent enough to go to phase 2. If/when we get to the end of phase 2, it should be at a point where we can consider releasing it on Xbox Indie Games. To close things off, here are a list of development stats:

• Phase 1 calendar time: 19 weeks
• Phase 1 initial task time estimates: 92 hours
• Phase 1 actual implementation time (combined): 119 hours
• Phase 1 average hours per week (combined): 6
• Phase 2 initial task time estimates: 126 hours
• Phase 2 projected completion calendar time: 20-26 weeks

But that wasn't what made it the best meal. The thing that really drove it home was that this meal was my (self-appointed) reward for completing a game for the 2010 Global Game Jam. I made a game from scratch this weekend and having it done (on time, no less) is extremely gratifying; the food tastes better, the snow is prettier, and I don't mind George sitting on my keyboard and sneezing on the monitor as much.

Global Game Jam 2010

Just to get people up to speed; the Global Game Jam is a one-weekend event where people get together and try to build small games that conform to a surprise theme. Like last year, the Triangle area had a site hosted by Icarus Studios and organized by my friend Mike Lee.

This year, we had an exciting twist; the Triangle area got a pile of snow this weekend. This much (or any) snow is kind of unusual for the area so naturally everyone panicked and shut down. Unfortunately, the places to close included our site. This made development tricky because everyone kind of scattered and had to work remotely and Mike and I couldn't keep an eye on each team's progress and help out as necessary.

Nick Darnell's alternate Game Jam site

Last year, I actually got to the jam late and ended up bouncing between a few projects, which is why I don't have an entry in the games page for it. This year, I was concentrating on making sure that everyone else was discussing things, forming balanced groups, and had reasonable concepts so I didn't actually really participate in the concept proposal or team forming part. I decded to strike it out on my own and try to make a game solo.

Attention Convention

The theme this year was to make a game that centered around the concept of DECEPTION and must also contain at least one of these things: a PET, a NET, or a SET.

The concept that I came up with was a multiplayer game where one player was trying to help a group of underage dudes sneak past security into an adults-only convention and the other player tries to pick the dudes out of a crowd. The first player can purchase changes to their appearance that make them harder to pick out of the crowd, at the cost of risking not bringing enough money into the convention. The second player can net anyone he wants, but netting legal attendees makes the first player have to bring less money to the convention to win.

Net trap gameplay

Instead of going on and on about it here, I'll just point you to the newly added game page for it: Attention Convention. You might notice another recent addition to the games page. I will talk about this next time, muah ha ha!

On one closing note, if you don't recognize some of the words in the story, be careful about learning via unfiltered google image search.

So I took a nice vacation in Hawaii with the family. I've been there a few times already, so this time I focused on relaxing. I did get a decent amount of reading done. You may also find the following books interesting:

• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Super Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

New years

Jody hosted a nice new years party at his house. It was good to catch up with people, particularly Stephen and Leanna Caudle who just had a newborn baby. Everyone seems to be having babies these days, what's up with that?

Video games

I've been talking to a few people about what games I enjoyed playing over the course of 2009. I'll reiterate them here in case you are looking out for something new to play.

• Shadow Complex
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Halo 3: ODST
• Torchlight
• Runman Race Around the World (free)
• World of Goo
• I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES!!!1
• DoomRL (free)
• Defense Grid
• Spelunky (free)
• Cogs

Also, I'd like to point out that I had an awesome year as far as making video games. Sure, I failed at my original goal of submitting another IGF entry, but on the other hand, these are the games I made:

• Orbital
• Comic Game
• Sunny Day
• Daly Homes Inc
• Karma Riot

Ok, so Karma Riot isn't done yet and it doesn't have its own page, so maybe it doesn't count. But still, that's a pretty impressive run, I think. That's not even including other Game Jam games that I contributed to such as Space Fish, Robot Love, and Tether. 2009 was a good year for me with regards to hobby game development. Hopefully in the coming year, I'll actually distribute one of the games I worked on for once.

I still assert that I'm going to have an exicting post about Karma Riot soon, but I'm still not quite there yet, so I'll put it off once again. Happy new years people.

In the meantime, I have some little bits of filler for this month. For one thing, last night I threw together two tracks for Karma Riot so that it could have at least a little sound. They are pretty short and repetitive, but I think the'll do the trick for now:

• Opus 20
• Opus 21

Ninja Turtles

When I was a kid, I loved the Ninja Turtles. I recently aquired a stack of old NES games, and among them was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: the Manhattan Project. Just to give you a taste of nostalgia and to remind you what the 90's were like, here is an excerpt from the back of the box:

Surf's up, dude! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles make a little getaway to the Sunshine State. Until Shredder makes a major getaway with the entire island of Manhattan! His power hungry plot gets even more bogus when April O'Neil becomes part of the heist. What a relaxing Vacation. Not! Those mondo mutants must make waves to get back home to save April and Manhattan, and send Shredder on a one way trip to geeksville.

My how language has evolved.

George the cat

In other news, George got pretty sick recently and had to spend some time in the emergency veterinary clinic. It turns out he has cancer, although it does react to drug treatment, which hopefully keep him healthy for up to a few years. In any case, that kind of sucks and what also sucks is the massive emergency treatment bill and the apparent ongoing cost of drug treatment.

Vacation Time

On the bright side, I'm going to Hawaii with the fam for Christmas this year. I leave in a few hours. See you later, suckas!