Hamumu Games, Inc. Hamumu Games, Inc.
 - Home - Games - Blog - Halloween - About - 
<< < 50 51 52 53 Page 54/125 55 56 57 58 > >>
  I Met An Alien Last Night 08:27 PM -- Tue January 12, 2010  

On Christmas, with Christmas money, I ordered Ratchet & Clank: Tools Of Destruction. Everybody knows, I gotta rock the Ratchet any chance I get. It's been so many years since the last one! I replaed all of the previous ones at least twice and it probably wouldn't have been long until I went for another round, but luckily I have been saved by this new one (of course, there's another newer one, but that's still new, I can't afford that).

It finally arrived this weekend, which is crazy slow, by the way. I played on Sunday for a while, and then the weirdest thing happened. On Monday morning (morning would've sounded lame in the title), an alien creature that looked like my wife said "Why don't you play Ratchet, so I can watch Law & Order?" Now, ignoring the logistics of how one enables the other (trust me, it does in this house), this whole experience was incredibly odd and unlike any other in my life. I was in the middle of writing a work email, and told her I would play when I finished. It was some pretty involved serious work I was doing, but how can I turn down a demand like that?

And so that is how I spent 12 hours yesterday finishing Ratchet & Clank 5. I've never binged that hard on a game before, I was just really trying to tear it apart and be done so it could stop haunting me. Unfortunately, having reached the end doesn't mean I'm done. With any Ratchet & Clank, there's Challenge Mode to play! So I'm partway through that now, but the great thing is that once it's done, I'm really done. Don't have to play anymore. It's not like WoW that will never end. Let me tell you, Ratchet games rule.

And they are chock full of design ideas to steal. I just hope all the little things I thought about as I went along don't fall out of my head because these guys know how to design addictive fun. One thing is for sure: an upcoming Hamumu game will feature (as Happyponygate was planned to) tons of destructible objects that spew out riches. That's always the kicker with Ratchet. It never gets old! If you have played Ratchet games (and Spyro games before they got bad), you can see large portions of them that were stolen to make every Hamumu game. I don't remember the specific inspiration for the Madcap Modes that are in a couple Hamumu games, but if it came from somewhere else, it was still heavily informed by the bliss of Ratchet's Challenge Mode. And it will return in future games because I loves it!
15 commentsBack to top!
  Sigh... T'map! 07:11 PM -- Thu January 7, 2010  

After extensive endless streams of begging and demands that went on for years and years, I finally gave in and added a Site Map to the site. Or I think I did. I don't really know what they're like and I'm too lazy to find a site that has one and look at how they are done. Nonetheless, this map shows you what lurks behind the big juicy candy buttons atop the screen, so if you ever wondered and didn't have the energy to click on them, I hope you have the energy to click on the words "Site Map" at the bottom of any page.

I'm also "done" with the index page for the site, so many months in coming. Don't look for it, the temporary dud one is still there for now. But after a little more examining and simmering in its own juices, it will be going up. Probably tomorrow. The most exciting thing about it is the adventuresome depiction of an imaginary box for Supreme With Cheese:


(Semi-imaginary - that actually IS the artwork from the original DVD case version of Supreme. You may have one at home if you are a long-time fan!)
8 commentsBack to top!
  Cupcakes And 3 Days 07:21 PM -- Wed January 6, 2010  

Let me just throw down that this is really cool, and I guessed like 95% of them right due to my general awesomebility.

This year, all 6 days of it, has gone swimmingly. I plowed through my "first 3 work days=newsletter and putting things up" business, even got to take a reading break when the newsletter went out. That means tomorrow, gasp of all gasps, I have to get to actual work! I'll mostly still be doing site work, because I have to finally put up the front page which has been sitting 90% done for all of December. It's time this site got done (except in the sense of totally working, because there are still a fair number of issues I should be hacking at every so often). So once I have that up... do I have to actually program game code in some way? Do I even know how to do that? Do I know what I am working on? Do I even work here? Who's that guy? HEY, GET OFF MY COMPUTER!
5 commentsBack to top!
  Robot Still Wants Kitty! 07:44 PM -- Tue January 5, 2010  

I'm just about done with the updated Robot Wants Kitty. No links at this juncture, it's in a secret little chatroom beta. If you were cool and in the in-crowd, you'd be playing it as I type this! It's got some new tiles, a new monster, a greatly enhanced boss beast, a new powerup, a new area to get that powerup in, lots of little tweaks and balances, timekeeping, a record time list, and chat announcements every time somebody wins it. Tomorrow it will also have trophies for winners, a legitimate page on the site, and hopefully some more fixes due to the chatroom complaints.

So look forward to the exciting new kitty-collecting challenge tomorrow!
5 commentsBack to top!
  Dumb New Year! 07:21 PM -- Mon January 4, 2010  

Here we are at last in a new year, and today is the first official workday of it (I got the 1st off as part of a remarkably long winter break). I did a lot, I think, and stuff is moving ahead. Here's how the new year is going to work:

- Each month begins with the first 3 workdays being spent on monthly business. That's putting up Action Photos, Fan Art, Add-ons, the T-Shirt Of The Month, and of course the Monthly Newsletter to tell you about all that stuff. Besides that, I intend to add one interesting new website feature each month (not this month - I need to spend the previous month making this interesting new feature!), and release a new Behind The Dumb (maybe or maybe not this month, we'll see. Again, I'm supposed to spend the previous month making it). It makes for a busy first three days!

- I plan to release two games (of notable size... plus however many Ludum Dare type games) this year. That's the plan, anyway. Exactly which two games those are is quite hazy, ask again later.

- I plan to work very hard during the week and take the weekends completely off except for answering emails!

- All that stuff I listed for the beginning of each month - There's officially a goal to successfully get those out every month. It's also a goal to Journal daily (or at least to sit down at an official journal time and decide I have nothing to say, which should certainly encourage more entries anyway), draw something on paper daily, and read 10,000 pages worth of books, because I don't think I've touched a book in a year or more. I've started with Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World which I got for Christmas. I also have some exercise goals.

And one other thing, not so much for the coming year as the coming days: I'm working on a Robot Wants Kitty update that I plan to release with the newsletter in 2 days (and at that time give it an official page on the site instead of having it all hidden away). In theory it will expand the adventure a bit (not too much - part of the fun is that you can finish it in a short time) with one new ability, a new enemy, maybe a new boss, and a little bit of new terrain to get that new ability. And some alternate routes perhaps, to increase the speedrunning intrigue. It also fixes quite a few issues and improves balance, adds time-keeping (with a penalty for dying), and hopefully will integrate with the site to share your top time on your Dumb Page and offer a trophy for getting the kitty.
6 commentsBack to top!
  Downtime Warning! 08:58 AM -- Wed December 30, 2009  

Hello all. It seems we are ending the year with a bang, and hopefully not a bad one, as the server undergoes an OS upgrade tomorrow (December 31st) at 9AM PST. That's 12PM EST, and whatever it is wherever else. This procedure should only take 1-2 hours of downtime, but the reason I chose to have it right in the middle of the day rather than an off-time is that it could also really badly break a lot of things. I want to be available and ready to fix them all (or tell the smart people to fix them). This is a really major procedure that is very scary, so let's hope the site survives it! No, it's not adding anything new or interesting that you will notice. It'd be nice if it sped the site up a bit or something, but I wouldn't expect that either. It's just a necessary thing to keep up with the times. And then it's a new year full of new surprises and an actual newsletter every month and actual games being released and actual t-shirts.

Hamumu.com will be down for up to 2 hours at 9AM PST on December 31st for an upgrade!
8 commentsBack to top!
  Dude, Seriously 11:37 AM -- Sun December 20, 2009  

I know, it's been very very quiet 'round here. Go play Robot Wants Kitty for a quick holiday distraction. That was my entry for the Ludum Dare 16 contest (theme: Exploration). I think it's fun! I'll be spicing it up with a few little improvements and a website integration (get a trophy for getting the kitty) before the new year rolls around.

But that's what I'm trying to say: it's the holidays and nothing is happening around here except slacking and tons of non-business things that keep me very busy, so don't expect anything much going on for the next week or two!

In fact, dude, I will be at a dude ranch for the next few days. Seriously. I don't know how that will be, but dude.
5 commentsBack to top!
  T-Shirt Time! 01:57 PM -- Fri December 4, 2009  


It's priced as low as Cafepress will let you price stuff ($18.99 for this color), so I ain't making no money bucks. I'm just hoping some people will enjoy dressing up as Bouapha. It has no words, no ads, no accoutrements, just a straight-up Bouapha shirt, as accurate as you can be with the color options at Cafepress. If you wear this, pumpkins will fear, and people will wonder what your problem is. There are several other interesting shirts, clocks, and more up there too, if you haven't seen those.

I was thinking about this design way back, I believe I even had a journal up about it somewhere back there, but I just decided to, as Wil Wheaton says, Get Excited And Make Stuff. I'm thinking of doing a T-shirt a month, so get your Bouapha Pumpkin shirt now, because it may disappear on January 1st (not the actual shirt, just the ability to purchase it)! I thought it'd be fun to just have whatever fun little Hamumu shirt idea up there, and if you want to grab it, go ahead. They're not hard to make, and there's no risk since it's print-on-demand. I would commit to a T-shirt a week, but I know I wouldn't keep up, so that's a bad plan.

Also of no interest, I was going to try doing a shirt at Zazzle instead, but the only green they had was wayyyy off! Cafepress seems to be doing the job nicely.
10 commentsBack to top!
  It's Been A Long December... 01:15 PM -- Thu December 3, 2009  

Okay, it's only the 3rd of December, but the Counting Crows know what's up because it's already been long! I got home from a Minnesota trip for Thanksgiving to find myself ill with, I am pretty sure, H1N1 (the symptoms match, and really if you get sick nowadays, and have those symptoms, the huge pandemic is probably the most likely bet). Today I am feeling cured, but that's a good 3 days of my life shot, and shot very very slowly... lots of sitting and staring at the wall. And today I don't intend to do much either, it's recovery time. But hey, it's time after that big break to figure out where we are and what's to come! I feel at a loss for what I should be doing at the moment.

In the grand scheme of things, I think December will be spent primarily getting the website to something more like 100%. There are quite a few things I need to upload too (worlds, fan art, etc). There is also a Ludum Dare 48-hour game development contest coming up next weekend, December 11th. I really want to participate in that one hardcore-style... it'd be nice to make something new just for fun! So that's December.

Then the new year means back to Loonyland Tactics, and Behind The Dumb, right? I'm not that excited about either one. It's mainly the need to comb my hair that makes me hesitant to do Behind The Dumb. Tactics is suffering from "really old code I forgot about that's overly complex and ugly" syndrome, as well as "how did I make that art?" and "I was excited about turn-based strategy at one point...". Feels like hard work. I think I am going to try to scale back Behind The Dumb into more of a 'video log' than an entire television show (of sorts), so it's a bit less overwhelming. Actually, much like LL:T, I can't remember how I made Behind The Dumb either!

Beyond that, what's to come? I'm so confused by all the new ways to make games (for me, mainly Flash and Unity), all of which feel more awkward to work with than C++. But they open up new opportunities that make it seem ridiculous to keep making Windows-only, downloadable games. Seems like some soul-searching is in order! After the Great Pumpkin's Field adventure, I'm deeply intrigued by the idea of MMO gameplay and how it doesn't seem that hard to achieve. So who knows... a small project would sure be nice to stick in between, though. I really think there will need to be an extended period of just plain learning some stuff first. Maybe mini-games made to learn with.

In addition to that though, the site itself is a key part of the Hamumu world now. I have several features I want to add, to keep it exciting and more involving, fun stuff to do. I'm kind of hoping to add 'something of interest' each month, but how you define 'something of interest' is up in the air. Doesn't seem too crazy to think that I would add the first one this month. Though I suppose that would entail actually creating it.

So that's what should go on, sometime... maybe. Or not. It's all potential.
14 commentsBack to top!
  Clones Are Fun 04:59 PM -- Thu November 19, 2009  

To wit: Torchlight (PC game) is quite enjoyable! But that's not what I'm blogging about! First off, look over there on the left - the clone of my twitter posts has returned! And speaking of returning, let me return to what I haven't gotten to yet, which is what I'm really here to blog about, and that is...

The new Costume Party tile "Cloning Tank" (which incidentally is, as of this writing, mentioned in the Twitter feed)! It's pretty nifty. It's actually invisible right now, but here's a screenshot of the effect it has:


When you step on the Cloning Tank, it begins recording your movement for 8 seconds, with a visual effect I have not created yet, some kind of laser scanning you as you go. Once the 8 seconds is up, a clone pops out of the tank, exactly duplicating what you did over those 8 seconds. Interestingly, it can even do impossible things, like walk right through a wall if that wall was not there when you recorded. At the end of 8 seconds, the clone vanishes, and a new one starts from the tank again. Any time you step on the tank again, the clone vanishes and you begin recording fresh. There can be any number of Cloning Tanks in a level, and any of them can be recording or playing back at any given time.

It's actually really cool and it's something I just had to create because it got stuck in my head while I listened to a podcast review the newest Ratchet & Clank game (there is something like this in the Clank levels). The same concept is taken more extreme by Chronotron, which I played last year when I went to PAX.

This thing has a million uses, in part because the clones are invulnerable, but absorb bullets, so you can use them to provide covering fire, or just hit buttons like shown in the picture. Originally the tile was a Holodeck (and you can see the clone is transparent like a hologram... but we'll just say he's made of clone goo), but I decided Cloning Tank made more sense because they were solid, and making them not solid would've been more complex while making them less useful.

It's just tons of fun to implement crazy little new things in Costume Party. They always work really quickly and easily. This thing took maybe 2 hours total to get fully tested and working (well, I'm sure it has some horrendous bug hidden in it, but it's tested to beta level anyway).

So when can you experience the madness yourself? Data not available. The Sci-Fi Pack to which this item belongs is not something I'm developing, I was just madly driven to create this particular tile. Still, I have a ton of ideas for that pack, and maybe it will continue to burst forth tile by tile when I can't stop it. I really do want to get that Portal costume done...

And yes, the weird fruit calzone made from leftover pie crust was a really tasty breakfast.
14 commentsBack to top!
<< < 50 51 52 53 Page 54/125 55 56 57 58 > >>
Copyright 2021-2025, Hamumu Games Inc.