Game Critique #2: Hedgehog Launch

Let me start by saying something's wonky with the view counter.  I highly doubt I have a small following in the Ukraine.  That would be interesting, but statistically unlikely.

Today I continue critiquing games...

Hedgehog Launch
Made by Armor Games

Premise: You live on a small island nation that looks a lot like suburbia.  The government has elected you as the new head of their fledgeling space program.  The catch -- they can only give you $50 to start and they want you to use the national mammal, a variety of hedgehog.

The controls are pretty easy to learn as they only use the arrow keys and the mouse.  You launch the hedgehog with a slingshot and steer it around the sky with the left and right (and later up) keys and try to collect as many coins as possible to fund your upgrades.  Randomly placed platforms are provided to bounce off of and achieve more air-time.  Upgrades include better launcher, more efficient/powerful jet pack, secondary rockets to go higher, parachute to slow the hedgehog's decent, a radar to detect platforms, and cute little goggles for the hedgehog to wear as it zooms across the sky.

Which brings me to what I like about this game.  First and foremost, it's cute.  I was wary at first about the "launching hedgehogs into the air" thing because I don't enjoy seeing small vertebrates getting hurt.  However there is no "splat" at the end of this game (though there may be a shooting star) and for all appearances the hedgehog seems to be having as much fun with this adventure as you are.  Secondly, the soundtrack rocks out, which turns a relatively silly game into and awesome game.  After all, you are playing with jet-packs.

The platform radar is my only real frustration in this game.  It is very handy to have, but doesn't always show platform placement accurately, particularly when near the ground.  It's also requires taking your eyes off the main playing screen momentarily, effecting one's ability to aim at said platforms.  Nonetheless, I found myself missing the platform radar when I replayed the game, so it is a helpful feature.

Hedgehog Launch is also a very short game (takes about 10 - 15 minutes to complete), but that's not really a problem as it lends itself very well to replay and attempts at beating your previous high score.

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Earworm of the day (provided you don't get the Hedgehog Launch b.g. music stuck first): Save Your Life by Newsboys

Brain Full, Can't Blog

I have spent part of my morning and most of the afternoon buried in Chemistry homework.  Having just gotten caught up, I find myself with nothing noteworthy on my mind whatsoever.

Then again, is anything on my mind ever noteworthy?  Probably not.

So in the interest of not loosing my focus and getting burned by acid in today's lab project, I will simply post my usual earworm and leave this post at that.

Earworm of the Day: Shine by Pillar

P.S.  I do have an animation currently in the works.  Hope to have it done by next week.  May take longer.  Depends on how much free time I can afford to burn and how fast I can work.  Fingers crossed.

In-fossa-ble?

Screencap of the skull modeling setup in Maya.

I've been busily working on modeling a fossa skull.  A fossa is a predatory animal from Madagascar that might be related to the mongoose (citation Wikipedia, so I'm not 100% sure of the mongoose thing, but it's sure not a cat).

The image I got off Wikipedia looked like it was a cued up to model from.  I soon discovered it wasn't.  I had to do a slight resizing on the separate components in photoshop to ensure all angles were at the same scale.  That, And I'm reasonably sure the image is a drawing rather than a photograph, though I'm not positive.  It is inarguably in perspective, which means the image of the underside of the skull and the image of the top are hopelessly misaligned.

Thankfully the human brain is not a computer, and is therefore able to make best guesses and fudge things if need be.  And who really looks at a fossa skull that often?  (Aside from those with a zoology degree and an interest in Madagascan wildlife.)

Earworm for the day:  Hold Your Colour by Pendulum (I was coloring something very psychedelic today, so it got stuck.)

Game Critique 1: Elephant Quest

I recently signed up for a site called Kongregate which has lots of free computer games from various companies and is generally all around fun.  It's possible to play games without an account, but having an account allows you to save your games and achievements.

Having had a basic education in game design, I can't help but try to see beyond the graphics and puzzle out what makes these games so darn addictive.  So here's my two cents on one:

Elephant Quest:
Made by Armor Games.

This game is adorableness armed with laser cannons.  You're a small blue elephant.  Your hat got stolen by a big purple woolly mammoth and now you want it back.  To do so, you have to brave a maze of levels inhabited by hordes of strange monsters and complete quests from other elephants to get upgrades so you can face Woolly in the final showdown without getting trampled to death.

Though you will get killed repeatedly, you also have an infinite number of lives.  The rooms can be visited as many times as needed and the monsters are always there exactly the same as before.  This may seem like an annoyance at first, but becomes essential at the end.  Just completing the quests and beating all the rooms is not enough to beat Woolly.  I'm not familiar with gamer terminology, but I believe this is called "level grinding".

The level map is laid out in a easy-to-navigate spiderweb, if such a thing is possible of existing.  The level-up is the real unusual part because it's graphical.  You start at the center and collect the increments sequentially through a virtual maze.  There are 5 categories for upgrade points: intelligence, agility, endurance, charisma, and HP.  Except for HP, the upgrade points can be spent on upgrades like weapons and jump height and little elephant fairies that deal damage to nearby enemies (and they're so very cute).  Complicated?  Yes.  It took me a while to figure out how it all worked.

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Earworm for the day: Emperata Overture

Mashup

I am reading a book on animals that went extinct within human history, and it's got me thinking of Twiggy and the Jackalope again.  Part of the story involves a Rare/Extinct animal zoo at the north pole. There's also an entire army of vengeful dodos, descended from those who escaped their home island long ago.

Of course the Dodo Army is an equal opportunity employer, and has therefore picked up a few other animals over time.  For comedy's sake, one of these is a chicken.  (and yes, I didn't look up the spelling of the name "Meredith" until later.  Note to self: always spell-check the names.)

DoFranklin, DoMeredith, and DoTreena; members of the Dodo Army.

Character detail of DoMeredith the chicken.

All the dodo names are ["Do"(as in dodo) + Some actual given name] and they earn a second name later in life by doing something unique.  For example: DoDonald Cleaver (favors a meat cleaver as a weapon), DoElla Dial-Tone (spent years in the north pole zoo pretending to be empty-headed), DoMaynard The Bard (self explanatory).  Oh, and did I mention that the dodos wear hats?  It's a cultural thing.

"And now for something completely different!":

EY's Spaghetti-Fish-n-Veggie Meal
--or--
Too-Lazy-To-Go-Buy-Spaghetti-Sauce Meal
Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 servings spaghetti noodles
• A cup or so of frozen mixed vegetables
• 2 breaded fish sticks (fully cooked)
• 1 Tbsp butter or margarine (I use butter)
• Handful of shredded cheese (two singles slices work ok in a pinch)
• Enough water to cook the spaghetti, 1-2 Tbsp for the vegetables, and a 1/4 cup for later.

How To:

1. Cook spaghetti according to package directions.  Use a 2 quart pan (trust me, you'll need the space).
2. While that's cooking, put vegetables in medium-sized microwave-safe bowl and add a tablespoon or so of water.  Cooked covered for about 4 minutes on high.
3. Remove vegetables with a hot pad or oven mitt.  Immediately add butter and cheese and stir until mostly melted.
4. Reheat fish sticks (0:45 to 1:00 will work fine)
5. Break fish sticks into smaller pieces.  Add to veggie-cheesy mixture.  Stir.
6. Cover and place in microwave for another minute to make sure everything's melted together.
7. By now the spaghetti should be done.  Drain and return to 2 quart pan.  Dump in the veggie-cheesy-fish mixture and stir.  Add 1/4 cup water and keep stirring.
8. Serve with a side-dish of fruit to make a meal.

Makes 3-4 servings.

Nutrition Facts:  More nutritious than a bowl of ramen, but would never be endorsed by Dr. Oz.  Fish and vegetables are good for you generally, but I would not recommend eating this if you have qualms about fat or carbs.  The fish, cheese, and butter do add salt.  It's college student fare; use your better judgement.

Earworm of the day: Nothing springs to mind.  Have a nice day.

A Day for Videos

So I've gotten into my head that I want to make a pumpkin pie for halloween.  I'm talking buying an actual pumpkin.  It took a while for me to find a recipe that didn't call for a 15 oz can of Libby's.  I don't care if it's "100% pure"; if I don't get orange gunk on my hands and fresh seeds for roasting, it's not pumpkin.  I did find a recipe with an actual pumpkin though.

In Storyboarding class we discussed editing and the importance of timing.  We also watched The TV Show.  I recommend it in full-screen.  For my homework assignment, I brought back my character Jimmy and pitted him against a bunch of frog-things.  (a better quality video can be found here on Vimeo)

I subscribed to Vimeo for my Storyboarding class.  I'm not going to do a compare/contrast between Vimeo and YouTube because I've never joined YouTube, but I've been happy with Vimeo so far.  There's a lot of high-quality stuff on there.

In case you need to get Zorba's Dance out of your head...
Earworm of the Day:  "Faking My Own Suicide" by Relient K

Unexpected Guest

I occasionally have weekends that make Mondays seem like no big deal.  This was one of those weekends.  On Saturday I was nearing melt-down point when in came a small blue parakeet.

Yes.  A parakeet.

I was just finishing my laundry when a bird waddled up to me, chirping for attention.  I'm pretty certain our apartment doesn't allow pets other than fish, so a parakeet was the last thing I expected to find in the laundry room.

After informing the manager of our strange visitor, I took her back to my room and constructed a cage out of a milk crate, a mesh laundry hamper, and a handful of knitting needles.  Having no money for birdseed I decided to feed her Cheerios, which took her a minute to figure out how to eat (I'd imagine it's like eating a bagel with your hands tied at your sides).

I have never owned a bird, and only once had a chance to play with one.  I'm more used to rodents, cats, and dogs. The parakeet, which I quickly dubbed Headpet (for her affinity for perching on my head) flitted about my room and tested the perching potential of each piece of furniture and the window shades; experimented with the noise-making potential of my house keys; stood on my laptop and tried to make sense of my homework; and generally never held still.

Fortunately parakeets are diurnal. As soon as I got Headpet in her makeshift cage and turned off the lights, she quieted down and went to sleep.

On Sunday I made a few phone calls and found an animal shelter to take Headpet off my hands, get her some proper birdseed, and hopefully find her owner.  In some sense, having to babysit a bird should've been another stress on top of a big pile of stresses, yet somehow it came off as a refreshing change of pace.  At the very least it makes for an amusing story.  Sometimes getting knocked off our game gives us a chance to start playing something different.

Earworm of the day: Why Should I Worry from Disney's Oliver and Company

Alien Slang and Cartoon Eyes

So I was inventing some slang for my alien characters today, specifically the ones that have some involvement with their planet's military.  This was way more fun than it should've been.  For example, book rookie:  a person who claims they know how to do something solely on the grounds that they read it in the manuel.  Or drilled: to have removed through a process, such as one runs practice drills to replace blind instinct with useful training.

Then it occurred to me that "drill" in the military sense might itself have originated from slang or metaphor, though I'm only speculating.  A quick google search provided an explanation of why the Marines do drills (the marching kind) and a couple of ads for power tools.  Clearly I need more research.

My Design Interfaces class has started using a new mockup tool called HotGloo.  It's a new experience having a tool that can design and test out website functions without being tied to any particular computer, or wait for a hundred libraries to load like an Adobe product.  Not that I have issue with Adobe.  It's how I make things like this: 

I'm currently working on the rest of the picture.  Points for guessing who's eye it is (hint: he has been pictured on this blog before).  It occurred to me that I could do a short tutorial on cartoon eyes, but I don't have a screen-cap program to make a video with.  Any ideas for a solution?

Earworm of the day:  Please Don't Let Me Go by Group 1 Crew

Beth Redesign

Character expression sheet for Beth's redesign.

As artistic skill improves, so occasionally must the design of one's cartoon characters.

I've pretty much drawn Beth the same way since the day I finally figured out the significance of construction drawing (a very nice tutorial on that here by the way).  For a while I drew her head as an egg-shape, but the trouble was always how long to make her nose.  It was never consistent.

I've changed Beth's head to be two separate circles for the head and the muzzle, which has several benefits:

1. A circle looks the same from all directions, so it's much easier to think of it in 3D.  
2. It helps establish the placement and boundaries of her mouth and prevents me from drawing her nose too big (which has been an issue in the past).
3. Beth's a hamster.  Have you seen a hamster's muzzle?  Hold that thought...

Pocket-sized adorableness.

They got the round nose thing going on, so it fits with her species.  (btw, the hamster in the photo is the real-life Beth the hamster.)

The final bit of the redesign is her hair (er... headfur?).  I've always drawn her with no hairstyle whatsoever, but most of my other important characters had some suggestion of a hairstyle. Beth looked  like an extra in her own cartoon.

I decided on a half-way point between her parents' hairstyles with a lot of extra bed-head thrown in.  Three lines facing forward and two facing back over the base of the closest ear.  This lends itself to more expressiveness, like standing on end when scared or drooping when tired.

Earworm of the day: have we done Raver's Fantasy yet?  We have now.

Head in the Clouds

I have finally picked up a Discworld novel.  This is a surprising development, not because it isn't something I would do (I totally would), but because I'm only getting around to it now.  I started with book one, The Color of Magic.  Thus far it is a very funny, and slightly hard to put down.

Having figured out Harold Washington Library's system for categorizing fiction, I hunted down another two books by another author, Richard Bach, who's apparently obsessed with aviation, but that's ok because his novels are nice short reads filled with a child-like imagination.  The only word I can describe them with is "charming".  Charming in the completely serious, un-ironic sense.  Pure day-dream like flights of fancy.  The series I picked up is called The Ferret Chronicles and it sounds exactly like something I would've written in middle school, with the big exception that Bach actually knows how to write novel and my middle-school self didn't (not that I didn't try).

In other news:  a friend of mine shared this video with me.  Post-its are versatile little things.

Earworm of the day: Take Me Into The Beautiful by Cloverton
(They also have a free download of the song at their website, just a note.  Free stuff is always neat.)