sweetie balance

i made this as a demo for a pitch with rountrees. in the end, most of the budget went to tv, so i didn't get to make any games for them (well, yet - the budget will be back yet!). still though, it's an almost complete mini game. it just needs engineering for cpu use, some original sound, and something doing about the way you can cheat (see if you can work out how).

• sweetie balance

move the mouse left or right to tilt the packet. keep the sweetie on the packet, while collecting the berries. i've marked some circles to give you an idea of where you should move the mouse. i had a lot of fun adding lighting effects. there are 2 types of light on the packet, sparkly sugar on the sweetie, a light spot on the berries, and the foil ends of the packet glint when they are raised. i also like the flash that engulfs the berries whenyou collect them

a special prize to whoever guesses the tune!

new steam part 1

isn't it a shame how so many technologies get superseded by advances in science, before they've really finished being engineered. so many game systems with games unmade etc. well i was thinking about steam engines, and i'm not convinced we've really done the best we can with them. i'm not going to go into how steam engine work - if you don't know, then this won't interest you any way.

• new steam

the movie shows the valve system that controls the direction the steam travels in (actually, which part of the drive piston is connected to the high pressure supply, and which to the exhaust - but it's easier to think of the steam travelling through the engine). a modern steam engine would have this system controlled electronically, just as the timing in modern cars is becoming electronic, so the shape of the device is purely for efficiency.

there are two levels - blue and red (magenta denotes a passage for steam on both levels. the red level is the hot, high pressure steam level. the blue level is the exhaust. at the top are two pink connectors the marry with either end of a piston. one one stroke the piston fills at one end from the red layer, and exhaust at the other end to the blue layer; the valve is switched; the piston is powered in the opposite direction (giving one piston two power stroked); then the valve is switched again.

in 'new steam part 2' i will demonstrate a piston designed for better cyclic efficiency

flash 8 fun

when flash 8 first came out, i couldn't wait to get my hands on the new filters. here's a couple of tech tests i made to play around with blur a lighten

• hemaroids - left mouse button to shoot
• lens flare - around the sky, and beyond the horizon

i think hemaroids is the start of what could be a great little game

pup world

once every few years blue peter train a new dog. to coinside with their most recent or such projects, i made a game for them. take control of a young puppy and guide him around the streets. avoid distractions, and complete the tasks in time

• pup world

the engine is based on turd heroes, but introduces z scaling. the bbc were so pleased with the game as it was being made, they extended the budget so i could tweak the balence and add a couple more levels

a pretty little butterfly

i made this a couple of years ago. i love this kind of stuff - things living in a website. it's getting quite common now for things to move over the page you're looking at, but not usually with this level of disney magic

• butterfly

the background has been mocked here, and published into the swf, but it was originally a html page. let the butterfly settle, then disturb it with your mouse

virus

okay, it's not actually a virus clone, but it's similar. you control this space craft (called a 'lump of lem') to a safe landing, then get graded on how well you did. it uses a physics api called math engine and is written in c++

about half way through university, my attitude changed to one of wanting to just get a decent grade by completing the tasks in hand well (instead of faffing about adding things that i liked to projects, but got me nowhere). it was an important step towards the style of working you need to do to survive the private sector. this program sticks in my mind as one of the first projects post that point. that's why the graphics are so poor. the only thing i did extra to requirement, was add the grading system - which was quick to do, made the game more fun, and probably got me some extra credit.

i haven't got the game any more, so you'll have to settle for these pictures.

these pictures were all bmps when i uploaded them - it took ages. i'm hoping blogger will convert them all to jpegs or pngs so they'll be a little smaller on the way down.

the lem still someway from landing, as seen through one of the bird cameras. you must try and land in the middle of the landing pad, at a slow rate and in a reasonable time to get the best grade

this is the best grade you can get. all of the tests are within the parameters. x and z are ground position, dy is impact velocity, and t is time taken

turds

here are four games i made for codemasters. they wanted some retro (read: 8/16 bit sylee) games for a brand they were launching called 'turds'. two of the games are based on the frogger and kong engines i posted a while back; the racing game is based on 'craft rally'; heroes was a new engine for a side scrolling beat 'em up.

the games were available for purchase and download, as well as playable online with adverts. the are the downloadable versions. because of codemasters's terrible financial state, don't expect the scoreboards to work.

• bogger
• pong
• dung beetle rally
• turd heroes

it was sonic the hedgehog that got in to playing games, but codemasters's micro machines game was early inspiration for my programming games. it's wierd making a clone of the game that got me in to programming for the company that orinally dveloped it!

NOTE - you will have to rename the extensions to 'zip'