Design Work - Cyclops Concept 01

Hey there!

I've been trying to stay busy lately with more and more game development and what-not and as a result, I've been making more of pretty much everything.

Currently, I'm working on creating 3D environment assets for 'Blade Born' by Talos Studios.
Our other games 'Corruption Kings' and 'Root Canal' are basically on ice for now until we can revisit and possibly restructure them.

But, that doesn't mean I can't continue working on some of my solo/side projects!

One of my more recent ideas I spewed forth is a more classic, yet comedic barbarian RPG with strong fantasy elements in an isometric perspective. Think Diablo or Fallout 1&2 for a general idea. Depending on how well my test builds go, I'll either be making the game in 3D using Unity, or as a 2D game using Construct 2 or Game Maker Studio.

These concepts are for the cyclops' in the game. I wanted to step away from the classic look they're given with the oddly placed eye and nose and make something that really stands out as a new, unique take on the monster race while still feeling organic.

Hopefully I can get this project off the ground here soon, but in the mean time, I'm going to continue fleshing out my design document and art bible for the game and as I do, I'll keep updating with monsters and shtuff.

Until next time,
Dave

PS. If you're a bad-ass programmer that wants to team up on some side projects, hit me up and maybe we can churn out some cool stuff!

Symbiotes, Robots, and Bears.

A little gift for my lovelies.

Hey everyone out there!

I haven't updated in a while, and I wanted to remedy that! And to do so, here is a lil' sketch I did of Marvel baddie Venom! Enjoy!

Now, if you don't know me, you might not know I have some health issues; namely my heart.
Nothing too bad, but enough to screw with life every so often. This time, it was looking like I had a valve going out. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. The valve is still weak but instead of getting cut open again, I'm just taking a pile of pills and "taking it easy" for a bit. Speaking of Valve and valve-related things...

Though that did slow down my whole "make a game a month" plan.
Which might be a good thing, considering more and more of game ideas that I thought were totes original are coming out as beautifully polished indie games. (See Matador reveal trailer below; its gonna be amazing!)

Matador is an upcoming perma-death-adventure (read: rogue-like) by Stellar Jockeys and gausswerks featuring isometric action and giant gun wielding robots and one life before starting it all over again. What's not to love about this game?! Can't think of anything? Then you must be a bad enough dude to vote for it on Steam Greenlight. They seem like awesome dudes, so give 'em some love!

Now some of the last news from me. 

Even though my "make a game a month" plan has kinda fell through, some of my friends have agreed to help me press forward with a lovely little game I had pitched years ago. Its an action-y, arcade-y little shin-dig where you enforce the law with massive, fuzzy claws of justice! *Cough cough* bearcop *cough*.

Originally I was going to produce and finance this game (completely tapping me out every month), but once these medical issues reared their ugly head again, I got a new pile of debt really fast. My friends agreed to help in their free-time and have already helped so much.

Once we get a good alpha, we might shop it around to get those who worked on it the money and recognition they deserve.

Until next time,

Dave

(Psst, I heard you like making games. If you want to make games with me, send me a message.)

A special gift from me to you...

That's right, I made all of you a happy little zombie game for the holidays!

PLOT: Returning from his one hard day of work every year, Santa notices something isn't right at the north pole... his elves have started wearing hot-pink leggings... and they're ZOMBEHS!!!
Santa must dispatch these holly-jolly undead creatures with his red-hot coal luncher... to the FACE!

Enjoy some bloody holiday cheer on your platform of choice!

Windows!

Mac!

Linux! (32)

Linux! (64)

All you have to do is extract them and play! Woot! 

So, the game isn't very long, but what do you expect for free? It took me about 3-4 days spread out over about a week and a half to make. Its not the most polished game, but I wanted to give you all a fun little gift this holiday season. 

Anywho, happy holidays from me to you and hope you enjoy this game.

Until next time,

Dave

Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un - Update!

So Andrew Talarico, the lead programmer for Pocket Prison, has been putting the finishing touches on the game for the last couple of days and we're just waiting to see if Apple accepts our little game on their devices!

In the mean time, enjoy these screen shots of the game!

Kim is happy for food!

Quiet contemplation of his surroundings...

These shots are from the PC version, which we'll be sharing with the world to enjoy free of charge! It's coming out really soon! Woot!

Until next time,

-Dave

Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un

Hey there internets, haven't talked to you in a bit!

Wanna know why?

Me and the guys have been working on some games and stuff, one of which is a digital pet/prison game where you have to care for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un!

(Start Screen! Woot!)

I know what you might be saying. "Isn't that in bad taste?" or "Aren't you afraid of back-lash?"

Well, maybe yes, maybe no.

Now, we don't want to offend anyone and certainly aren't trying to stir up any trouble, but we do want to bring some awareness to the treatment of prisoners around he world; not just North Korea, but everywhere.

Mostly, we just want to spark some conversation about some world issues.

If the game is well received, we intend to create other versions with a wide array of world leaders.

Pocket Prison: Kim Jong Un will be first released on PC and if Apple lets us, we'll be releasing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices soon!

That's some exciting stuff, huh?

Screen shots and other goodies will be coming within the next couple of days!

Until next time,
-Dave
(Lemme know what you think!)

A little gift for everyone out there!

Hey guys!

Since I haven't updated for a little while, I figured I would share a little game that I made over the course of about 3 hours, including time dicking around and watching YouTube videos...

The download link is just right there below!

Windows Download!

Also, the team and I have been hard at work on a couple of games, all of which are kinda secret at this time, but for one of the projects, we'll be looking for voice actors pretty soon and sending out test scripts for those we want to test out. Totally cray-cray, right?

Here are some hints as to what we're working on...

-A 3rd Person Action Adventure

-A "Pet" Simulator

-A collecting/fighting/cooking RPG game?

So yeah, life is freakin' bananas right now when it comes to game development, but Manscaper 3000 is just a little gift to say sorry for being absent for so long.

Until next time,

-Dave

(Woot.)

Secret Project - Preview

Hey everybody!

As some of you may know from previous posts I've made, the team and I are working on another game that should be leaps and bounds ahead of our last one.

Here is a lil preview image I'm going to share!

Who could it be?!

Here is some info/hints about the game.

• It's built in Unreal Dev Kit
• It's being released for iPhone and iPad
• It'll bring awareness to certain issues around the world
• It's a simulation (of sorts)
• Some of you will love it
• Some of you will hate it (but most of you will love it)

I think that's all I'm willing to share at this point. We've got this thing pretty well under control and should be coming out early this summer. In my opinion, this will be the first game to put us on the radar as a contender in the games world.

Speaking of our games, Jake put up a good post-mortem of Super Monster Dance Party over on his blog that sums things up pretty nicely about some of the issues we faced with it's development as well as some of the persistent bugs that remain in the game. From my perspective, we accomplished our goal for the game which was to release it. It may not be the best game out there, but it has pretty kick-ass music and its safe for kids to play. 

Aside from that, it was a little awkward just like so many other firsts in life. Don't get me wrong, the team did awesome, but like Jake says in his post, we learned a lot from the experience. The best thing we gained from it was game dev cycle knowledge and for me personally, really learning what it takes to complete a project. 

Anywho, what else was there? Oh yeah, I completed (some more) work on a character that I came up with nearly 2 years ago called Donkey Punch... yeah, a bit juvenile for someone whose nearly 30, but hey, who cares?

Check him out!

Donkey Punch WIP

He's still a work in progress right now as I need to skin his revolver, add detail to his hat, add in his teeth, and of course rig him for animation, but I don't really know what I'll use him for...I mean, I didn't touch the model in over a year and haven't really considered what I was making it for, but I guess practice is a thing, so there is that...

If you have an idea for what (PG-ish) thing ol' Donkey Punch here can be used for, let me know in the comments down below.

Until next time,

-Dave

(Been thinking about it more and more and I think I might finally set up a YouTube channel. Maybe with 3D modeling tutorials and first impressions...)

Super Monster Dance Party - it's coming...

It's official, our game is in the final stretch!

Super Monster Dance Party is coming!

Here are some screen shots from our programmer Jake Vermillion's blog featuring actual game-play screen shots! WOO!

Flo-Bros wrecking things up with mad fresh beats, yo!

Selectin' dem levels like it ain't no thang!

So are you as pumped up as I am?!

...

No? Well, you should be! We got DJ SynthR (Matthew Le Blanc) providing the awesome music for our game! This guy is phenomenal so go check out his web site!

 Now, there are still some kinks to work out, but we're right on schedule for an April 30th release!

Our little team worked our collective butts off for this little game and got it turned out in under 3 months, so I just want to go on the record saying that I'm very proud of the Pixel Jargon team. They all go above and beyond in all our endeavors, always find a way to get something done, and never even thought of quitting. 

If you want more news on Pixel Jargon and Super Monster Dance Party as it happens, check out our Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

-Pixel Jargon (Facebook)  (Twitter)

-SMDP (Facebook)  (Twitter)

But seriously, you really should click those and like and follow us, cause that's what cool kids do...

Until next time,

-Dave

(Fuck yeah.)

Mew-Genics Update!

So Team Meat has finally let us have a touch bit more info on Mew-Genics than just those tantalizing teasers on their dev blog.

In a blog update that happened over the weekend, Edmund has posted, "I think most would describe Mew-Genics as a cross between The Sims and Pokemon with a sprinkling of Animal Crossing and a dash of Tamagotchi , but at its core the game really isn't like anything we've seen before." as well as going on the talk about some crazy, unpredictable things happening in a single play session of Mew-Genics.

Stolen right off the Team Meat Blog. They own it.
Image from current Beta and are subject to change.

Now, to me; a fan of Team Meat and of unique games, I'm stupidly over-excited for this game.
And while they have no release date set, they're saying it will be released this year on various platforms, including Steam and some mobile devices, maybe more. But I'll be wasting more time not working on my own game development when this comes out, regardless.

One other thing that tickled my fancy was from a teaser image they had released very early that alluded to how many different cats or cat-combos would/could be in the game.

Dat's alotta cats...

When I first saw the staggering number, I thought "good gravy sir, we may never see the same cat twice..." And with this update on the Team Meat blog, we find out they under-estimated how many cats there would be...

So yeah, the new numbers says there are 25,418,658,283,290,000,000,000,000 different cats in the game, and that number is still growing... and that also just covers their physical appearance, not their different states, personality, animation sets, or other stuff! That shtuff is bananas!

If you love you some animal training, cat pageants, underground cat racing, genetic modification, and cats (everyone loves cats on the internet, right?), then I'm pretty sure you'll love this game. 

Edmund and Tommy are done teasing us at this point and are going to pound away at this cat-lady simulator so they can release it and thus make the world a better place to live in.

Until next time,
-Dave
Seriously, who doesn't love cats?!

Super Happy Monster Dance Party - Update...Again!

So I know you're all eagerly anticipating our latest little game SUPER HAPPY MONSTER DANCE PARTY!, but I am here to inform you that you might never play that game...because we changed the name to SUPER MONSTER DANCE PARTY!
...
Just seemed easier to say, don'tcha think? Comment below on what you think of the name change. Heck, if you all think it should go back, it will. :)

Aside from that, we're well on our way to getting this bad mam-ma jam-ma done!
David Fuson has been hard at work putting out pixel art left and right to make the game, Jake Vermillion has gotten nearly all the features working (as in you can play the game right now, just without graphics!), Corey Farmer is hard at work composing music and Dan Langford is doin' some supplemental sounds and stuff for the game. We also have Ben Mjedle helping us out as an "on-call" creator of art assets if we need him.

This weekend, I've been finishing off some of the sprite animations in Construct 2, but I've mostly been hacking my lungs out with a horrible cold. Like a metric ton of phlegm coming from all the holes in my face, but the game must go on!

Until next time,
-Dave
Woot!

Super Happy Monster Dance Party - Another Update!

Since I know you're all as excited for this game as we are to make it, I'm gonna give you a little insider info on whats happening in "SUPER HAPPY MONSTER DANCE PARTY"'s development!

Jake Vermillion, who I think is some kind of machine, has been hard at work creating cool new features for the game, including a wicked sick scoring system, multiple difficulty level, and there is rumor of an infinite-mode(!) that lets all of you good folks play for as long as you can! Now that's some serious added value right there!

David Fuson, the artist on this project, has made 5 kinda unique monsters and has started work on 5 really unique monsters, including what will be the games super scary and super secret end boss!

Corey Farmer, our musical maestro, is composing a crazy cool party sound track that any monster can groove to! We're gonna have fist pumping and foot jumping songs that'll make you love destruction!

Dan Langford, the announcer in our game brings a dry yet hilarious humor to the scoring system with witty commentary and unorthodox encouragement to the player!

Me, I'm that one guy! I don't do much here accept organize, advertise, encourage, and help where ever I can! Think of the rest of the group as a giant rocket powered death machine careening towards it's goal. I'm taking the role of the guidance system, that's all this time around.

Alright, enough talky talky; CONCEPT TIME!

BOOM!

Now back to talking...

This game will be a Pixel Jargon production and be released on Android devices first, followed by whatever you guys want it on next, so just let us know and we'll try our best!

I'll be updating you all with more for this game and for "Fisticuff Gentleman" as we work on things so stay tuned!

Until next time,

-Dave

Woot! Makin' Games!

Super Happy Monster Dance Party - Update!

Ah snap son! My fellow team members/colleagues/co-creators/friends work crazy fast!

So I just came up with the idea for "Super Happy Monster Dance Party!" Friday afternoon, I shared the idea with my friends when I saw them around 6pm that evening, and by 8pm Jake Vermilion (Programming Lead)  already built up the engine, David Fuson (Art Lead and Character Designer) has already pounded through a huge chunk of the art, and Corey Farmer (Composer and Music Lead) has already started working on concepts for the music!
What we have invested so far is what? Maybe 4 hours?! And we'll have a working prototype with some final art already in by about Tuesday?! Great googly-moogly am I impressed with my friends!

Below is a little more of a teaser of the characters!

So would you look at that? Those big gooey beasties are a thing of beauty! And

If we keep up at this pace and don't hit any major problems, we might have this fun little game on the Android marketplace in under a month!

Stay tuned for more updates on game projects, reviews, and hidden gems from the indie world!

Until next time,
-Dave
Gosh dern, I love game development!

Super Happy Monster Dance Party! - A giant monster rhythm game!

Oh wowsers...

I knew that I had a passion for game development, but now I think it might be an addiction to me...

While working on "Fisticuff Gentleman" (my awesome game of Victorian insults and face-punching), I took a little break from doin' stuff and accidentally started another game all by my lonesome that is rather quite awesome.

While some might not consider this too big of a problem, this will be the 4th game I'm actively working on at the moment and if I'm including some of my friends games that needed to be placed on hold, we're looking at a solid 7 game projects.(!) For this project though, there are 2 people I'm going to harass until they help me make it so it can be published and share it with folks and maybe get some money to help make even more games!

But that's not the point of this post. Really I wanted you all to see the early mock-up/concept I've made and share this little beast of a game with the world!

Looks like he's having fun!

"Super Happy Monster Dance Party" will be a simple one button rhythm game for mobile devices where the player must touch the screen in time with an indicator in the center of the monster or screen or where ever. As the player does better, the monster will dance more enthusiastically and more destruction and chaos will ensue! The city will crumble and armies will assemble as our monstrous buddy boogies down!

Anyway, I hope you out there on the interwebs likes this idea, because its gonna get made, yo!

Until next time,

-Dave

Seriously, game development is my addiction. I think I need someone to help support my habit lol.

Fisticuff Gentleman - Another Update!

Welcome again ladies and gentlemen to the latest update for "Fisticuff Gentleman"!

Since my last update like 2 days ago, I've been working on animations and asset creation, so the image below is a mock-up of the game, but it should give you a good idea of whats going on.

Classy as hell, am I right?

Now when it comes to game play, I'm pretty dang sure I'll just boil it down to a single-stage fighting game with story driven fights. For example, we start with the Fisticuff Gentleman escorting Ms. Lady through the park when they're approached by an uncouth man making advances at Ms. Lady. Then, Fisticuff Gentleman challenges the man and boom! they fight. Once the player wins the fight, the story continues until Fisticuff Gentleman needs to defend Ms. Lady's honor again.

Pretty straight forward, huh?

Check back often as I will you all updated on the progress!

Until next time,

-Dave

My favorite color is grey...

Fisticuff Gentleman - Update!

Hey there!

So you know how I kinda announced a little project called "Fisticuff Gentleman" that I had just started working on about 2 days ago? Well here is the first update!

Like an 8-bit Downton Abbey, huh?

There you go! I have a scene set up to help establish the art style and scale of the game. I decided to create an artificial letter-box as well as using speech cards for dialog in order to help re-enforce the old-time aesthetic. The other thought I had was to apply a film grain over the entire game when it's complete, but that sits in the realm commonly referred to as feature creep. That's what happens when features that sound cool might need to be cut in order to meet deadlines, ie if the feature will take 1 week to implement but you only have 3 days to finish, that feature will be cut due to creep.

Oh and I figured out what I'm going to do with this game! So I originally called it a beat-em-up/fighter, but I think I'm going to change it up a little and make it into an interactive story/fighting game and save the beat-em-up version for a possible sequel with multiplayer. But for now, here's my little check list for development!

• Fully implement main character animations
• Get melee system to work properly
• Implement health system
• Create and add enemy sprite and animations
• Create and add Lady animations (sprite done)
• Create speech cards for in-game dialog (story WIP)
• Get someone to make me some old-timey music to rock out to while punching faces
• Test level out (Note: Must be fun! If not, start over.)
• Share with world!

As you can tell, I'm not that organized, but I get stuff done!
Check back in a couple days and I'll probably have more of the game to show you!

Until next time,
-Dave
Who knew making a game all by myself would be so much fun? Well, fun for me...

World of Wander - Kickstarter

Hi there my tens of readers! 

I'm back again to talk about a game/project on Kickstarter that has caught my eye, and this one is called Worlds of Wander!

Now, Worlds of Wander is a game making game (?) that lets you create and play 2D platform games in an intuitive way on all major platforms (tablets, Windows, Mac, and ubuntu) so you can create and play where ever you want! You can also share your creations with the community and play other users games to boot!

The project is being created by Tom Hall's Pieces of Fun based out of San Francisco, CA.

You might be asking yourself who this Tom Hall guy is, and that's okay. I mean, he's only been a successful part of the game industry for 21 years with such games under his belt as the Commander Keen series, Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, DOOM, Rise of the Triad and Anachronox, and even more titles that brings his total to nearly 50(!) games! So yeah, he knows a lil somethin somethin about making games.

I grew up playing Tom Hall's games and I'm not blowing smoke here, but those games and the beautiful experiences I had with them are some of the key inspirations for me wanting to get into game development. Included with Worlds of Wander is Tom's spiritual successor to Commander Keen - Secret Spaceship Club!

So yeah, if you want to make some fun games and play fun games, give it a look see and consider giving Worlds of Wander a hand in getting this bad boy funded!

On a side note, if MMOs and Pirates are more your style, check out one of Tom's other projects, then check out Pirate 101! 

Until next time,

-Dave

Fisticuff Gentleman - Teaser

Hey there!

So I've been relatively absent from my blog for a bit and as some of you may not know, I love to make video games. And for the last couple of weeks (maybe even months), I've been working on prototypes and little things that make me giggle like an idiot. These things take time to build, ya' know.

One project that I'm lovin' that I literally just started working on was inspired by a little joke in a conversation I was having with a buddy of mine. I call it "Fisticuff Gentleman"!

watermarks aren't part of final design
pretty damn dapper though, right?

"Fisticuff Gentleman" is an old-school beat-em-up/fighting game where your play this dapper chap (see above) and you must protect a young woman's honor by hurling eloquent insults and bone-crushing fists into the faces of your opponents!

I'm making "Fisticuff Gentleman" in the Construct 2 engine since it's a great tool for non-programmers and programmers alike!

I'll be releasing the first level as a stand-alone executable as soon as it's done and if enough people like it, I'll keep going and eventually release it on Android devices and as a complete stand-alone for PC.

I'll update again later this week with a screen-shot of the gentleman in action!

Until next time,
-Dave
If you want me to work on a game with you, let me know in the comments! 

Snowman Builder Game Development

Hey there everyone!

So as some of you know, I'm a full time student and part time social media intern.

Well, my internship was initially slated for "a couple of weeks" before it was stretched to 3 months.
And then 3 months came and went and now I've been an intern for nearly a year!

In that time, I've helped develop and maintain all of their social media outlets, develop and publish contracted author's posts to their blog, completely re-worked their children's site, along with create hundreds of art assets and photo-manipulations for web advertising across all of their sites. It's been a lot of work!

Recently, while being tasked with updating their blog and site regularly, I was also given the task to create a new game for their Kid's Zone site and have a release to go along with the holiday season. Now, as anyone who has tried to make a game knows, this is no small task. And on top of that, it needs to be developed to work with mobile devices as well!

So the game that I came up with that will fit in the tight dead-line and should satisfy the requirements is a simple snowman builder game made with the Construct 2 engine. I've made some progress getting it to work the way that I want, along with creating assets needed for the game.

Check out below! It's a screen-shot of what I have built up so far!

Looks pretty sweet, huh?

Anyway, I just felt like sharing this little guy with my tens of readers! I'm using the Construct 2 engine to build it up and I'm using a personal license that I got until the company I'm interning at can get me one of those fancy business ones! 

Until next time,

-Dave

(Yay for developing simple kids games all by myself while under tight dead-lines! Woo-Hoo!)

Maia: A game by Simon Roth

Video owned by TotalHalibut via YouTube

For those of us who played games like Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital, we have warm and cozy spots set aside for those games. But does that new generation of gamers know the joy that can be held from designing a facility and managing it while trying to cope with the goals set ahead of you?

I've snooped around, and I haven't seen much along the lines of those amazing classics. Some claim to carry that torch, but they just don't really add up to them. We need a game to fill that void. A game to give us near god-like control to build and manage. A game with humor, dark and fun. That game may very well be Maia.

Maia is a sci-fi space colony management game in the style of Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital with elements of Dwarf Fortress tossed in. It is about keeping your colonists safe from a hostile alien world as well as managing their needs and making sure they don't go crazy and start murdering each other. It looks amazing but it needs your support to make it the rest of the way on Kickstarter. 

Are you willing to help?

Click here to check out the Maia Kickstarter.

Until next time,
-Dave
(If Maia gets made, I'm gonna control a robot in it and harass all the colonists)