Ikaruga Pumpkin Carving: Halloween Harmony

I originally had two separate pumpkins planned for tonight, but I ended up taking a lot longer on this one and didn't have enough time before the trick-or-treaters would be bombarding my door this afternoon with fabric-softener-riddled pillowcases and fancy costumes that just begged for me to give them extra candy out of adorableness.

This sucker took about 6 hours from gutting to cutting. Though it needs no introduction, this is a depiction of the two playable ships in the 90s shoot-em-up Ikaruga. The game itself is based upon a balance between black and white, which I tried my best to replicate in the carving.

Out of the ~100 people that came to my door, not one of them recognized the fighters, though I really can't blame them, especially with less than 100,000 people [in the world] even owning it on XBox Live.

It's one of my favorite games ever, takes only 20 minutes to play from start to finish, and I've never beaten it, despite having put in hundreds of hours. Clearly, I do like a challenge. Below you'll find a YouTube video of it rotating, along with some other detail shots. Happy Halloween and eat that candy slowly!

How My Grandfather Won The War: The Game

After roughly 7 weeks of working on a Flash game from conception to completion, I can now finally show you my entry in the 6th Casual Gameplay Design Competition hosted by jayisgames.com, a game I lovingly refer to as How My Grandfather Won The War.

The game is hosted along with the other entries for the competition, and voting is open to anyone and everyone. If you happen to like my game, I wouldn't mind at all if you helped out and gave a helping vote. So, click below to go to the competition page and check out all of the unique games. My entry features a picture of a red airplane, which is placed randomly in the set of thumbnails.

--> Competition Page

And because I always make sure to post something visual, here are a few screenshots from the game:





So, in summary, I had a lot of fun making it, and I hope you enjoy playing it as well. If it seems a bit difficult, just keep on trying, and I'm sure you'll make it through. Afterall, the game takes about 5 minutes from start to finish.

Many thanks to my testers for helping me make the game playable (but not necessarily easier).

Oh, and voting is awesome, so go support indie games.

Enjoy!

Network is the Name of the Game.

So, during the first week of August, I traveled down to New Orleans to take part in SIGGRAPH's first ever gameJam! competition, willing to spend 24 hours in a chair to create a game out of thin air (with the help of my wonderful teammates of course). The experience was fantastic, the food delicious, and the game... experimental. We spent about 3 hours just coming up with what you do in the game, constantly throwing out ideas that had been done before. Our final result was something special (which is what you get when you toss out things you know were successful elsewhere). The good news is that we won the Committee's Choice Award, which effectively granted the three of us passes to next year's SIGGRAPH in LA. As for the bad news, there is none. Awesome, right?

I would be apologizing for the 2-month tardiness of this post (the competition itself taking place exactly 2 months ago today), but I was waiting for something special. That something finally arrived in my mailbox this week, which greeted me with some fantastic postage in the corner. I'm too used to Liberty Bells and Homer Simpsons on any packages I get, so this was a wonderful treat.


As far as what was inside, that would be September's issue of Animation Reporter, "Asia's leading Animation industry magazine." And inside on page 18? That would be my first ever appearance in a magazine, an almost full page feature on my team and our game Network. It was part of a larger feature that covered both the gameJam! and the FJORG! competitions from SIGGRAPH 09. A lot of my Ringling friends were featured in there, along with their own interviews, so go check it out!


And since you've been wondering this whole time, yes the game is playable right now. So go play and enjoy!

Also, there may or may not be a two-part behind-the-scenes video of the experience at gameJam... Okay, there is.