Lord Raven's site

3 Days of Membership Remaining

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:24:23 +0000

Tayoko's post reminded me that I am circling the drain on my own memberships (this and my LostRealm account). I am unlikely to stumble upon a job in the next three days, and I cannot otherwise spare the expense, so I probably will not be renewing them myself.

I am, however, interested in doing a little sprite-work, drawing, or programming for anyone who may be able to renew one or both for me. There are some examples of my work spread throughout my blog(this is one such post) and my deviantART account, but you could also check out my game, Dream Forge. Thanks for reading =)

XNA Project Investors?

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:25:39 +0000

Last weekend, I finally decided to give XNA development a shot. I settled on the FlatRedBall engine and decided that I ought to stick to something simple for my first project, just to get a feel for the process and the engine's functionality. So my first "game" barely even qualifies as one; I'm writing a Rooftopping simulator, based aesthetically on my other blog's logo. There are no enemies or objectives, it's just straight up side-scroller platforming on an infinite series of rooftops.

It has only been a week, so I'm pretty satisfied with my progress: the game is mechanically complete, and all that's left to be done is adding more variety to the rooftop pool used by the map generator. You can check out some FRAPS footage of the results thus far here.

I also chose this project because I have been planning a much more elaborate game that will use a lot of similar mechanics, and now that Rooftops development is winding down, I feel much more prepared to take on the next game.

The only problem is, I can't deploy to my 360 or the Indie Games channel on Live until I buy a Creator's Club membership, and I cannot honestly spare the $100 fee at the moment. So I am looking for potential "investors," who could spare a little cash; if this game sells (or the next game, I suppose), I would gladly repay any investors two-fold before I take any money myself, but there would have to be sales. Any takers? Leave a comment or come find me in Dream Forge =).

Oh, and I'm still open to sprite work or programming jobs.

Programmer, Artist, or Whathaveyou for Short-term Hire

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:33:47 +0000

Well, it appears I have found myself in the same position as some other BYONDers, wherein I discover that being unemployed, in fact, does not pay the bills. I've been on the job market for a couple of months now, but mid-Missouri is not the greatest place for my degree (CS), and out-of-state positions seem less interested in shipping me out just for an interview when they've got their own local talent pools. I have an interview Thursday, but I don't think I can wait that long; if I don't acquire some money soon, I will be forced to relinquish my server this week.

For now, I've decided to pimp myself out a bit; I can program, pixel, or tutor you in technical writing (I'm nationally certified), but I am not looking for a long-term commitment, as I may not be able to maintain such activity after I find a job. I do not have a strict pricing model, so I am willing to take some bids here. For examples of my work, you could check out my ever-unfinished RPG, Dream Forge, or visit my other, even-less-trafficked blog. If you have a proposal, just comment or come find me in Dream Forge; I'd rather not have a bunch of people adding me to their MSN or something unless I am actually going to be working with them.

Oh, and I think I've finally hit the point where accepting donations is socially acceptable, so I've put up a PayPal link. This is for people who want to see me live, but don't want to distract me from Dream Forge development (we almost have combat now!). Maybe if DF ever reaches a point where a subscription feature would be desirable, I'll let the donors have it first. Or maybe, if I suddenly come into a bunch of money, I'll just donate back to you people. Regardless, something good will probably come of it.

Thanks for listening =).

Looking for an Animator

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:21:50 +0000

A brief combat test session in Dream Forge yesterday allowed some players to confirm my suspicions: my combat animations suck.

I like to think I'm pixel proficient, but I do use a pretty convoluted pipeline for large (potentially 3x3 tile) animations, because BYOND doesn't seem to like me copying and pasting partially transparent graphics from another program. So I'm looking for someone who is a little more comfortable with creating larger animations like swooshy effects.

Barring that, if anyone could give me some tips on how you approach these sort of animations, that would also be helpful.

I am not really offering much in exchange, except the opportunity to help give Dream Forge combat--something it has been lacking for years.

Also, please do not come by the game just looking to help test combat; that is not how the tests are being conducted.

Thanks for reading =)

Could I Borrow a Shell Server Really Quick?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:30:55 +0000

Ever since 4.0 was released last year, I've been having some problems keeping my RPG, Dream Forge, up and running on the Linux shell server I rent. Initially, I received memory leak errors attributed to a portion of the code that had not changed during my conversion to 4.0 (the game was stable before making the change). The game would run for anywhere between one and five hours before crashing with a memory leak error. I fixed that particular error awhile back, but the game has continued to crash on a similar schedule--just without any errors at all.

Today, I finally ran a trace and got a bunch of messages with memory addresses and stuff that I haven't even bothered to make sense of. This might very well still be a memory leak, but it's unlikely that it is still being caused by the previously offending code because that was a player-specific process, and I didn't advertise the game during this tracing period. More disturbing for me, however, is the fact that after running the trace, the game has begun constantly crashing with stack traces even though I'm not running it with the -trace flag. Do I have to turn it off somehow?

Before I post a real bug report, I'd like to test the game on another server to see if the problem is duplicated. Two of the things mentioned with trace enabled are "User block limit reached" and "Disk quota exceeded." I've never received either of those messages prior to today, but maybe I need a heftier server? If anyone can temporarily offer a Linux machine and host for several hours to see if a problem arises, please page me; I would greatly appreciate it.

If anyone has other ideas about the problem or things to test for, those thoughts are welcome, too.

Samurai Showdown style sprite

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:14:39 +0000

I was playing Samurai Showdown 5 the other day (IMO, it is inferior to 4), when I randomly decided to draw up one of my own characters in a similar art style.

Some references:

http://www.panelmonkey.org/sprite.php?id=380&theme=3
http://www.panelmonkey.org/sprite.php?id=609&theme=3

I was thinking about animating an idle state or something, but I wanted to make sure everything looks right before I continue. Unfortunately, I know not everything looks right. The stance I chose places the left arm and shoulder in an awkward position that still looks wonky to me. I've also redrawn the arm muscles several different ways, and they never come out quite the way I'd like. I have a couple ideas of how I might improve them, but I'm not certain whether they'll work out, so I thought I'd go ahead and get some external feedback.

I probably need to work on the rest of the picture as well (I just noticed that I even missed some of the transparency on the background...), but I'm most concerned with the arms and muscle structure right now. Thanks for looking =).

I might need a little help.

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:55:27 +0000

This is a copy of what I posted on the Lost Realm Guild Hall for those who watch this page only:

Though I am loathe to admit it, I may need a little help on Dream Forge. The scale of DF is such that I cannot (and I never did) plan to finish it on my own, but I didn't want to go so far as asking people to outright manage different areas of the engine's development (discounting area construction).

I don't mean to make it sound more ambitious than it is, but the idea behind DF was to make something a little different and maybe push BYOND's limits a bit. I'm not asking people to devote a lot of time because I can't guarantee that time will be rewarded with a finished project, but if anyone's got an avid interest in the project or a little talent they'd like to share, we'd be glad to have an extra hand and mind.

The guild forum here is rarely used; the official forum can be found here: http://lrforums.redomo.net and you can probably find my MSN and other means of contact if you dig around there. The new help thread can be found here: http://lrforums.redomo.net/viewtopic.php?t=35

I'm not looking for people to offer icons in exchange for GM or player houses or even game progress, I want to find people who might be interested in the game world itself and contribute because they enjoy the game--these are the people that make me want to finish.

Membership Renewal

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 06:55:35 +0000

I've got about 3 days left to renew my BYOND membership, and I know I originally bought memberships for several other people. If any of you (those for whom I initially paid) also want your memberships renewed, talk to me. This is just a reminder--partly to myself, really--that I need to know soon so I can extend memberships before they expire. I'll try to remember to contact everyone in case someone doesn't see this, but I'm araid I'll forget about it myself =/.

Lost Realm Guild

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:16:40 +0000

Last night I posted an official opening for a Lost Realm guild, but I know that the people most interested in joining would be more likely to if they saw a post on this page (because only 2 or 3 people have LostRealm listed as a friend). I didn't want to fill the front page with a bunch of similar posts so I waited before announcing it here; the following is exactly what I posted on the guild page:

Well, we've decided to set up a Lost Realm guild on my LostRealm key. Our official forum has been down for some time, and our webmaster, ZeroCrash, is unfortunately sans-Internet at the moment (pray for his soul). He has assured me that he'll be back online any time now, but we've been forumless for too long so we've decided to start a guild and utilize this forum until our usual is back online. After we've got our website back, that forum will become more development-oriented while this remains more casual.

The guild is open to just about anyone. One of the devs will have to approve each application, but that's really just a formality to keep out known troublemakers. If you've played Dream Forge and enjoy it, go ahead and join; if you disliked it, feel free to stop by the forum and tell us why. I only ask that you not join just because you can.

I'm not sure what we'll do with the site design here; maybe we'll mess with it, maybe we'll leave it this way. If someone really wants to hook me up with something undeniably bad-ass, just email me or something.

Thanks,
Lord Raven

Cartridge Classic (8k) Ideas

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 04:41:26 +0000

The 8k Cartridge Challenge is a contest of creative and ingenuity.
I like contests in spite of being a less-than-competitive person because any contest worth having should bring something new to the table.
And I love new.
Unfortunately, a lot of BYONDs up-and-coming developers are perfectly satisfied with old. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the classics as much as the last person, but there are some games that don't need to see a daily remake. Hell, there are some genres that never needed to see a game to begin with. I would especially dislike seeing a serious contest entry like that, so I've decided to stockpile some of my numerous ideas for those who might otherwise have created "DBZ Ultimate Smack Down," "Sw337 IconZ ChatterZ," or "XZero69s MegamanX and Zero whoop-ass up" for lack of any better ideas.

Before you read this list--or afterwards, you rebel, you--check out the three 4k challenge entries I posted earlier this summer. Most of those games could see some significant additions at double their size. In particular, Porn Site Tycoon could utilize several html and cgi libraries; you'll have plenty of space to generate entire web rings with plenty of pop-ups and sneak peaks. People hoping to implement a DBZ Fangame (not a simulator) should note that if their only .dm file looks similar to this:

"
#include < ssj10goku69x/Dragonball Zeta/Dragonball Zeta.dme >
"

it will probably be disqualified, so don't bother hubbing your personal copy of DBZeta as a library just because "everyone has it."

In fact, the 4k to 8k size increase should do a DBZ Fangame little good, as it only takes me 4 bytes to create something just as productive:

"
shit
"

Seriously, if you can stick to the sarcastic theme of the original DBZ Fangame Simulator concept, you may be good to go.

Now back to my new material.

1. BYOND Appocalypse
Ok, "Castle" clones may be getting tired as well, but this is an example of breathing new life into a genre--not that there is anything wrong with the original.

This game takes place in the distant future, so far into the future, in fact, that BYOND 4.5 has been released, and with it, detatchable command panels and display windows! But more importantly, a feature that will change the face of GMship forever: the ability to edit the game AS YOU PLAY! Naturally, the ability to implement new security commands and filters without rebooting can be countered only by an assault consisting of no fewer than 90% of the BYOND community at once. Astonishingly, in an act of maturity beyond their years--so much so that it could only have been the result of reading someone's blog--an unprecidented alliance of spammers, cheaters, and n00bs comprising roughly 92.3% of BYOND's most zealous players has formed for just so fiendish a purpose. One by one, BYOND's top non-anime-themed games have fallen to this ragtag legion. Now they're coming for yours.

The war is actually being fought on two fronts. The top half of the screen would act as the game. You attempt to keep your loyal fanbase from giving up and leaving by using your admin commands to keep the intruders at bay. At the same time, the bottom half of the window is your admin.dm file. You need to maintain it and add new code snippets to defend against new threats. Strangely enough, errors will sneak into your code when you least expect it and you need to find and repair them. For example, double-keyers may assault your game and you don't have any multi-key blocking implemented. So you figure, "IP ban," but lo! a "usr" has slipped into your Ban() proc, rending it useless.

The in-game editor could be enabled for the rest of your development team allowing for a co-op mode. The disadvantage is that error messages would then be shown to the world instead of kept private, meaning the above Ban() example would produce lovely red spam to further annoy your loving players. Overall, I think this game allows for some nice twists and has a strong BYOND theme to score points with the judges.

2. Risque: The Game of Global Demographics

Anyone with a life loves bored games! Too bad they don't play BYOND; if one of you makes this game, those people will really be missing out, life or no. Risque is again set in the future--though not so distantly as the above title--when the world is being taken over by media syndicates. The game is played on a world map divided into 4-6 major continents (eg "Oceana"), each populated by several grossly disproportionate countries (like "Djibouti") that have apparently crowded out their neighbors.

Players choose a syndicate--each represented by a different color--and amass "armies" of media outlets in different countries which they use to force out opposing syndicates. The media outlets of the future include newspapers (1), radio & TV stations (3 & 5), and Internet implant providers (10). In the future, these implants will hook our brains directly to the Internet and allow us to "view" websites by tapping the signal between our eyes and brain; these providors not only sell and insert standardized implant models, but also include their own front-end starting package and provide signal amplification for subscribers in the local area.

As much as we'd love to see it happen, these syndicates aren't going to resort to open war; they're going to beat each other out using demographics. You see, in spite of the media's best efforts, the people of the future still have different tastes. All media is sorted into 6 categories ("News", "Sports", "Drama", "Sitcoms", "Virtual Reality Shows", and "Porn," perhaps) each of which should have its own cute symbol and color (a newspaper, a football, and a Playboy bunny for example). Under each country's name you'll find each symbol listed in order of importance from left to right and the dice will have a different symbol on each side. When a player attempts to dethrone the syndicate controlling another country, both players roll the dice to see who's trailers and pilots score higher in that country (based on that country's rating of the form they rolled--if a player is showing Playboy bunnies all around, he/she probably wins the country); additionally, special cards earned through taking over countries are also marked with a media type and can be played to produce that many more points in the battle.

The losing side must make funding cuts by removing a number of media outlets equal to the score difference of that battle--and the intruder must decide if they have the funding to continue the campaign. These cards may also be used to produce extra media outlets.

3. Cario

Not very well named, but definitely in-step with the whole Cartridge Classic thing, Cario is exactly what its name suggests: a street racing game with Mario style graphics and Mario style lack of actual theme. Basically, you drive a vague but distinguishably sporty car through a world populated by unrecognizeable threats. You can drive forward and in reverse, but your car never turns around because the steering wheel is stuck. Yeah, the goal of the game is to find the car-tuning schmuck who pimped your ride in the first place and get it fixed. Unfortunately, every time you catch up to where he was last seen (at great peril to your own life, being forced to drive only in one direction and all), you just end up running into his little good-for-nothing toady and a smug, "I'm sorry, but your tuner is in another underground tuning garage."

The player should be unable to jump because that would be unrealistic; instead, there should be strategically placed ramps that the player can drive off, but won't go far unless they get a good running start or have an engine upgrade. In fact, if they have a tire upgrade, they should be allowed to charge up and peel out for even more air without requiring as much of a run--when this upgrade wears out, the car simply reverts to its original tires. As all good drivers keep a shotgun in the glovebox, collecting shells will allow the player to do drivebys. A special flashing grill upgrade should also allow you to plow straight through some obstacles for a short period of time.

Enemies could include just about anything from state highway maintenance workers to moving cones , roadsigns, and deer. You can't just run into these things as it would damage the car further, and you can't swerve, so you're going to have to ramp and drive on different levels, or use one of the above powerups.

This game requires the complete absence of organized plot as well as poor graphics, making it the perfect option for most of BYOND's developers.

I have more ideas written down, but this already looks a bit long, so I'll keep them for now. I may post some example screenshots in the next couple of days.