Troublemakers released!

The game I have been working on since joining EA Mobile has finally been released, albeit quietly and only in Canada so far. It's kind of a spy/fiction genre social game for iPod and iPad and all I can say is: I don't think there is anything quite like it out there!

Essentially you are an evil-genius type owner of an underground lair where you incubate monsters and put them to work to collect more payouts and get more monsters. I encourage anyone to try it! The international release is scheduled for very soon and has improve graphics. I encourage anyone with an iPad and iTunes account to download. It's a freemium so why wouldn't you, right?

Troublemakers on the app store

Marker

Pinball Attack part 2

Sorry for the recent lack of updates, I have been real busy with my job but I should have more free time in the coming weeks. Found some more information on Pinball Attack! this morning. Great game from Arte Piazza and as I mentioned in a previous post, the final game I worked on (albeit only a few weeks)



What I remember most is that they had several levels with various themes and matching bosses (Water theme, jungle theme) Notable also is that it is not your typical table top pinball but built similar to a vertical scroller with the paddles static at the bottom of the screen.




Enemies like the crab boss have a weak point like the central eye. More on this later!

Castlevania Flash: Update

I fixed a major bug and made changes to Castlevania Flash tonight to make it more playable:

Bug:

As Alucard, press down and jump to turn to a bat. Stay close to the floor and transforming back to Alucard would push you down through to the floor and die. Not anymore.

Changes:

I removed the pendulums in stage A-02-02. Pendulums and platform were never implemented properly. In fact I need a lot more time to do them. I spent hours if not days trying to get them to work last year. I know from a friend who made a 2D platformer before that they are a pain to program so it's not just me apparently.

I removed the stairs going down in stage 9-02-03 to prevent to user from going down. 9-02-03 is the last level I designed so there's nothing down there anyways. I would be surprised if anyone made it that far.

Bats and Medusas are fully implemented. They can now hurt, kill and be killed. Nasty creatures.

Things I want to fix soon: Vertical scrolling. Ever wonder why early famicom titles had no vertical scrolling? It's incredibly tough to make! Every time I make a small change to the characters' falling down state I have to go back in horizontal scrolling to check it and lo and behold it no longer works properly.

Here is the link: http://www.firebell.org/guardiansoft/castleflash/

Megaman PC

Megaman PC is a game I developed with my friend Nathan in 2004. The tiles and enemies were entirely redrawn using a pen tablet to give the characters a cell animation look over the course of 6 days to present to Capcom. This game was also ported for the PS2 and when we played it on a wide screen TV we said we should rename it "Megaman High-res".

Latest download available here

Dragon Quest icons and characters

Put up some tiles from my portfolio. I originally made these tiles for Dragon Quest 4 and Dragon Quest 5. The Nintendo DS limited me to about 128 colors so I original made a color chart I could go back to when working in different shades. Hopefully I can upload more of these later!

Dragon Quest 4, 5 and 6 trailers

So I came across the TV spot for Dragon Quest 6 in Japan. This is the last of a series of 3 commercials that Square Enix made for the 3 DS remakes of Dragon Quest 4, 5 and 6. What I really like about these is that all three are high production value, were filmed in Europe and use Sugiyama-san's amazing Dragon Quest score that he remade for the DS. I watched a "making of" at a developer convention in Tokyo and apparently these TV spots were all filmed in different locations with local actors:

Dragon Quest 4: Czech Republic
Dragon Quest 5: Netherlands
Dragon Quest 6: Spain

The guy playing the hero (older version) in 5 was on location and said they filmed in late October in the North Sea one hour out from the Netherlands and that everyone was freezing cold, especially the girls who had to be covered in blankets when not shooting in their skimpy outfits. Interesting fact: they had the actors speak in their native language and dubbed over or added subtitles after. 4 and 6 are actually in their original languages! Pretty cool stuff. I linked to the first one because it seems to be in wide screen, the other ones are embedded.

Trailer for Dragon Quest 6:

DS Dragon Quest 6 TV CM

Trailer for Dragon Quest 5:


Trailer for Dragon Quest 4: