All over the place

Whoa, I totally missed the update last week in more ways than one. Moving office is tiring... Ofcourse this means I am again behind in where I had hoped to be which is annoying but I've no one to blame but myself. This week I finished colouring the bad guys for flash game #1, next up is backgrounds then AI/gameplay I think. Still managed to pull off two more Mabinogi drawings too, and I am planning to participate in another Mabi-related comp in the next week or so:

As a reward for the second one I received the cutest version of my character ever (drawn by Emeris)! :P

Seems everyone on Mabinogi NA is getting premium service for the next month or so as well so hopefully this means my guild can finally setup a stone in-game somewhere. I don't think I've spoken much about my guild here have I? Well, we are a small group called Dragonarm and we traverse many games. You can find out a bit more in an old interactive movie I did here - Dragonarm: Chapter 1. :)

Also, if you enjoy Neverwinter Nights my brother made this campaign for our guild but it's free for anyone to download and play. Be warned it is designed to be played in a (large) group and uses the hardcore ruleset. Porting in a high level character to solo is possible but could be frustrating if you use a mage as it isn't geared for that.

As for the mysterious book I'm considering trashing what little work I've put into it and starting again (changing first POV character). Sigh.

Lastly, Junior Masterchef has started up showcasing another load of talented kids in the kitchen! It's really good stuff. For those who feel this isn't mature enough for their tastes may enjoy this hilarious Nigella Lawson mix instead (warning: not for kiddies :P).

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 13% (enemies all coloured)
Mysterious book - 0% (restarting)
Mabinogi: Forum Signature comp -due Oct 8th: 1% (have an idea, need to study reference)
Mabinogi: Keenejl art comp -due Oct 20th: 100%
Mabinogi: Emeris silly sprite -100%

Artistic Deviation

Managed to pull off two Mabinogi related works this week, unfortunately the Mighty Mugg one is not one of them. Simply didn't have enough time nor motivation to win the chance to "build" a mighty mugg. Especially as I'm trying to concentrate on flash-based art where as that one specifically was looking for real world works.

Both pieces were for player-run things and I used them as exercises in changing the cutesy anime style of Mabinogi into "altered" versions.

Really happy with how the second one turned out, especially as it was a last minute thing I decided to do. Also worked on Flash Game #1 briefly, but still no word from Mike at Newgrounds about API's for flash 5 which is a bummer. Must follow that up this week. I intend to hammer out game #1 to at least half way by next week because it's really getting in the way of the second one I have in mind. :P

The mysterious book laughs at me again, as instead of having any progress I've been playing Left 4 Dead 2 with my brothers. Incredibly fun game. I wonder how Dead Island compares to it? I'm sure Juris (one of my guildies) is finding out right now.

Speaking of artistic deviations, what about Scarlett Johansson ey? The incredibly stunning actress has been in the news recently as she has supposedly set the FBI to track down whoever it was that hacked her phone as she doesn't want you to see her "comprimising" pictures. Ironically, the majority of people now looking for said photos would not be doing so had that article not been published in the news. Also, I would be more concerned with what other data could have been pulled from the phone. Pictures are a good distraction, but birthdays, addresses, private messages and the like are more useful to creative minds.

Were you looking for a link to those leaked Scarlett Johansson photos? Try google. :P

Tribute to Equilibrium

Alright! Using a trial version of a later flash I've managed to upload my "Tribute to Equilibrium" movie up on Newgrounds where it is doing around about as well as I suspected it would. I've PM'ed Mike over there who is working on a mini-ad thing that should hopefully work on Flash 5 but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out.

Why Equilibrium? Well, because I liked it! It's certainly my type of movie - a solid story with a good amount of action and a high body count. It helps that Batman (Christian Bale) and Ned Stark (Sean Bean) are in it too. There's also a really adorable puppy. If you haven't seen it yet then I highly recommend it. ^_^

Also in other fan-based things, there are two on youtube that I found very well done - Portal: No Escape, and Fallout: Nuka Break.

I'm continuing to work with Flash 5 while looking out for anything that remotely supports AS2 - seems Flash MX 2004 is the closest but it's not longer available from Adobe. I did see they have a semi affordable "subscription" version of the latest flash, but that means I should really have all my stuff (or a bunch of stuff) done ahead of time since I only want it for the AS2+ component. I'm just hoping porting AS1 stuff to AS2+ is not time consuming. Also was researching Bandcamp a bit, as it may be a good place to put up some of my music later on. :)

Lastly, the mysterious book now has one page. At this rate, its going to take forever!

I guess it doesn't help that I've been concentrating on Mabinogi this week, training up my brother's dragon. :P Which reminds me, there are two art comps over there that I should really participate in too. Really need to get back into creative mode in the next few days!

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 9% (no change, was lazy this week :P)
Mysterious book - 1% (going slowly, now I have one page)
Salvage mission 2: "Equilibrium" - 100% (Done and up on NewGrounds)
Mabinogi: Mighty Mugg Contest -due 13th Sep: 0%
Mabinogi: Fan Contest -due 18th Sep: 2% (have an idea of what I'm gonna do)

Bumps in the Road

Focused on the salvage missions this week; unfortunately I could not find the source fla for my "Hellsing: The Anderson Alternative" clip that I did ages ago for my old Hellsing Crucifix site, so for now I am cancelling it back into the void. I did have better luck with Equilibrium though as I still had the source for that. I figured it would be a good test of the Newgrounds CPMstar API as that is the only one I have found that you can put with movies but was severely disappointed when I found that it is not compatible with Flash 5 (more specifically, AS1). Due to this I've held off on uploading it until I get my hands on a later version where I can plug it in. I think there are later trial versions I can download but that's going to be a once off thing. :(

The mysterious book now has a 3 paragraph prologue as it continues to laugh at me. :P

Lastly I did a mini-project to make a sig for one of my guildmates, Niamh!
Turned out quite nicely I think... :)

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 9% (few backgrounds props drawn)
Mysterious book - 1% (woo, 3 paragraphs? Lol)
Salvage mission 1: "Hellsing" - cancelled (fla lost)
Salvage mission 2: "Equilibrium" - 95% (all set, but need to upgrade base flash to test API stuff)

Weak One

One week has gone by and I think I've only spent 2-3 hrs on flash game #1 which is a very weak performance on my part, largely thanks to learning more piano pieces and taking advantage of the recent events in Mabinogi. 5x EXP = 5 days of playing condensed into 1! I suspect I'll be a thrall to it's whims while it lasts... :P

Most of my focus will be on "flash game #1" which should end up to be a pretty small and wierd game. To that end I'll ditch the other two from the status list for now since they're not going to be changing till #1 is out of the way. I'm also tossing up the idea of salvaging some of my old flash movies and trying to monetise them somehow, if that's even possible. Would be great if I can as all the work is already in there, or possibly a compilation work of the best bits or something but I'll have to see how that goes. Unfortunately most monetising stuff I've looked at is aimed specifically at games. Also, I would need to add new sounds to the ones I have in mind either way.

Lastly, the mysterious book laughs at my futile attempts at starting a prologue. -_-

Apologies to anyone who stumbled across this page looking for flash stuff as I have none yet to offer, but I'd like so recommend Astromiau, or the mainsite of Vinnie Veritas (aka Kite-Ride). He makes a lot of Frame by Frame movies which are great to watch in any language. :)

Project Status:
Flash game #1 - 8% (most main chars animations done)
Mysterious book - 1% (no change)
Salvage mission: Hellsing - 0% (need to find fla, add sounds and music, possibly fix some stuff)
Salvage mission: Equilibrium - 25% (found fla, just need to find free music for it and alter credits a bit)

Repurposing - Not so Random anymore

Rather than continue with the "review" type site as my previous posts were leaning towards, I think I'm better off time-wise (both mine and yours :P) in using this as more like a creative journal. Hopefully it will also encourage me to be more productive!

So, just what thingies have I got in mind? At the moment a book and a few flash games, all of which are just distant goals in the horizon at the moment. The main difference to the other stuff I've made before is I'm actually going to try earn money from these, and I'm going to track how well or how poorly each attempt goes. Why these mediums? Generally my flash stuff always gets positive feedback and my forays into writing have won me little prizes here and there on the various MMO's I've been on, so I'm interested to see how well it does in the "real" world.

They're mostly planned out and really just need me to get on and doing them! At least I've got a logo for the flash stuff.

Yeah, well - it's better than nothing. :P

I'll be with-holding the actual titles until they are closer to completion, simply because I may decide to change them later on... and I like secrets! ^_^

Project Status:
Mysterious book - 1% (planned)
Flash game #1 - non DRM related. Small - 2% (planned - and now I have a logo. Ho ho ho. :P)
Flash game #2 - DRM related. Largish? - 2% (planned)
Flash game #3 - mysterious, even to me :P - 0% (rough idea only)

Wandering a Nuclear Wasteland

Fallout in Vegas? What a stupid idea! That was my initial reaction when I first heard about it, despite me truly adoring Fallout 3 and all of its DLCs. However after receiving it after my birthday I soon found myself well and truly sucked in, so much so that my Mabinogi adventures went on the backburner for awhile - with a pet thunder dragon card waiting to be used! After one month of the wastes, I'm glad to say I've come out alive, though towards the end there I was going a bit nuts with the to and fro quests.

While the main quest line can probably be finished in a few nights, the abundance of side quests and locations to discover really got me hiking all over the Mojave, which was the part I loved. In general the surroundings seemed less hostile that Fallout 3 (even in the most difficult setting with hardcode mode turned on), which was a bit disappointing - save for some deathclaw infested areas and hidden boss caves. Everything else was pretty much ok and entertaining enough, but I wasn't as invested in the protagonist is this one (who is a courier that finds him or herself taking a central role in a large scale upcoming war) as opposed to the Vault dweller from Fallout 3 who leaves the vault to find his or her dad. One of my friends described it perfectly - New Vegas is like a big expansion to Fallout 3. It doesn't really build on anything gameplay wise.

The Honest Hearts DLC is even more of the same, centered in Zion valley where no nukes hit it becomes very cowboys and indians and that whole sense of post-apocalypse is almost removed entirely. When I went through it, it was also bloody easy with only one yao guai boss causing me any problems. It also features a pretty big opportunity to stuff the whole thing up right at the start, when I accidentally started shooting someone who is mandatory to the storyline. At least there are nice scenic views, and a mini collectible story in some some of the caves which is very interesting but all in all it's a pretty weak DLC.

Dead Money however, for me is -right- on the money. This story driven adventure has the best written characters, scary opponents and a real sense of dread and foreboding throughout. There are instakill devices and traps a plenty, and with the very air you breathe slowly killing you - you cannot afford to be too cautious. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it, so much more than the base Fallout New Vegas game and is actually the highlight of the entire experience for me.