After being asked twice yesterday by two people I haven’t seen in a while, and after checking its veracity on a scale this morning, I have apparently lost some weight (10 pounds!) without even noticing it. :-O

I have to assume it’s because I have cut back almost completely on my Guinness drinking (for health reasons) and have also been eating a bit leaner (though far from starving myself) to keep my budget low.

Either way, it’s a surprise to me! Though I wonder why I still have slight love handles if I’ve supposedly lost the weight I gained over the last year? Who knows… hehe. ;-)

So, even as I identified stop-gaps in my production process that I wanted to work on for my MA quite a while ago now, I’ve found myself amidst one of them. Indeed it has turned into a bit of a blind-spot, even as I was laying out and planning the project. Basically, I am beginning to be concerned with the amount of work necessary to complete The Human Trap. With seven levels and the design and animation for each, not to mention audio… well, it’s quite a bit to be getting on with. At first, I believed that working with my code-collaborator would ease things along, sharing some of the workload and helping to maintain inspiration. But since my buddy is too busy to help lately, I am faced with doing it alone. As usual, as well, there are often unaccounted for tasks that appear during any production that expand the work schedule.

Regardless, after reflecting on how to best move forward knowing that it’s a mighty challenge, I have decided to create a series of benchmark goals - focusing on completing exemplary levels, one at a time, to best take advantage of the time and resources I have. Do what I know is needed and easy to do now, and focus on completing one level at a time.

One of the goals for this project is to add some kick-ass work to my out-dated portfolio in preparation for finding full-time, long-term work in the Fall. The biggest goal still remains to create the full online experience and have it well exposed, etc. That goal has not changed, but I realise that I need to focus on smaller baby-steps to help get me there - especially if I am navigating these shoals solo. This is also necessary to minimise possible panic and freak-outs because of a “potentially” unmanageable workload - something that often set me back as well, thinking about things too much instead of just going about doing them.

So, I’ve been working on background graphics for The Human Trap to get my level design mojo flowing. I finally just had a break-through on the first, introductory level setting and had to post it. It went through many reworkings and reductions, and though it is a bit removed from my intial idea it definitely has the feel I was looking for. Since his home is a stetch of ‘pasture’ in the Realm of Myth, I was going for otherworldy, surreal and strange in varying proportions - without going over the top and being crazy colour saturated. I like to think I’ve achieve it in a subtle yet pervasive way. :-)

The Flying Long Horse isn’t posed or anything, and there’s no proper shadow (which I am hopeful to include later) but he does sit well, almost canteringly gallevanting around the landscape. Anyway, here’s the image.

So I’m still knee-deep in Dink and Nipples game development. I don’t have anything new to post content-wise, but I am desperately trying to get into graphics-mode soon. So there will be some new things to lookie-lookie at in the foreseeable future.

I’ve finished an initial draft of the GDD (game design document) for The Human Trap. Mostly it was just transcribing the mess and plethora of details from my notebook into OpenOffice. It became an obvious pressing need after a meeting with Toon to recap what had been settled on so far and realising that I had to have one reference where it was easy to see what had been decided. So, overall a natural progression into the GDD, which is nice. — I enjoy writing up proposals and documents, so it was nice to tap that off. If I get to polishing it up soon I will post it online here. My main emphasis at the moment is design so the documentation is being done where necessary. While working independently there is less need to polish the docs up since I am the one funding and doing the work.

The biggest milestone on my list of things to do is level design. The overall gist and sway of the story has been detailed; the major characters have been illustrated; the game-play and interactivity have been outlined… and now it’s the level specifics that have to be set down. The player has to lead Dink and Nipples through four different stages to reach the final level. The levels in each stage are already outlined, but the actual level construction and obstacle-puzzles need detailing. The more puzzle-logic levels were the first ones fully detailed - being the easiest to do on paper. The more side-scrolling, full landscape levels are turning out to be irksome.

I had intended to sketch out all the elements for these levels on paper before moving into production and prototyping, but I’ve hit a wall. How do you get from the overall idea for a level to the final level design, one where every rock and leaf has been placed? In traditional tile-based side-scrollers, you use a level-designer. (Basically, a little application where you place the graphics on a canvas.) Since the level design for The Human Trap is not tile-based - it’s one large, non-repeating graphic element - I can’t go that route. I have decided to forego laying out entire levels on paper for now and instead will start making a mess and mashing things up graphically first. I need to get some inspiration going to fill in those spaces I am not sure how to fill at present. I also know I will inevitably come back and draw it all out on paper when I have progressed far enough to get an idea of what each level will look like. It will also give me an idea of what, where and how the obstacle puzzles will present. Incidentally, here’s a nice thread on the indiegamers about ‘game planning vs doing’.

In a related stream, I’ve also been trolling around online looking for online game, casual game and flash game development forums and resources in an attempt to find an active game community in which to post. I’m partially looking for comments and feedback on what I’ve got so far for The Human Trap, but also just to see if I can contribute anything as well. Since I have a smaller group of design friends here in BKK than home in Canada I’m also feeling the yearn to talk about design work in general. Thankfully I’ve found a few good resources that I am going to explore. Here are some of them, general as well as specific, if anyone wants to see what the online casual games world is like:

Kongregate
Jayisgames
Game|Life
Indiegamer.com Forums

I’m also considering and doing initial fact-gathering about potential marketing options for The Human Trap. The two main objectives for this production are to get a kick-ass project under my belt, and to see where I can take the game online and online in possible revenue-making avenues. I need to allow for certain possible options in the future, BUT! for now I have to get down to work. ;-)

So there was an earthquake just the other side of the northern Thai border in Laos yesterday at just about 4PM measuring 6.1.

I first heard of it when the boss at the one school I teach at comes into class, utters something mostly unintelligble and says ‘the school is closed, everybody go home.’ My class only had 10 minutes let anyway so it wasn’t a big deal, but I was glad to leave for home a bit early anyway. ;-)

Later on I found out the quake was so far North that only tremours were felt in BKK. Though  that was enough to make the building managers on Silom worry enough to evacuate the buildings. hehe. At first people misunderstood and believed a 6.1 quake had happened on Sathorn Rd itself - real near my work. I just remember sitting there after I got a call from Kaywood, wondering why I hadn’t felt anything? I may have been involved in my class, but not enough to miss a quake of that magnitude. ;-) Regardless, my buddy Toon was happy cause his evening class was cancelled. ;-) It also made me laugh a bit thinking about Hiromi and all the earthquakes Japan gets in comparison.

So I have one more assignment left in what will be my second semester at Northumbria. I actually start my third semester this week. So, three more months in two classes and I hand in my final thesis (18,000 words) in the third week of August. :-O :-D I can’t say it’s gone fast, but it definitely is a surprise to be so close to finishing! *Fingers crossed* that I get my degree. I am optimistic.

Then I will be back home in Ontario for my folks’ 40th wedding anniversary and hopefully one, if not two, actual weddings of some cousins. Four happening this year in total! I so wish I could go to all of them.

So, with the MA near completion and my shifting back to Canada for a bit in the closing months of this year, my future prospects are looming closer. Still quite a bit uncertain what I will do, but my highest priority is to find a good job. I may even focus on Canada instead of straining to stay abroad. Though I will look abroad and if I do get an offer outside of Canada it may take precedence. But, being in Thailand for over 2.5 years already has me yearning for home and more ‘normality’ in my cultural interactions. hehe. Regardless, if I end up back in Vancouver or Toronto again, I do believe I would be happy, or at least content. ;-)

Been busy with school and some web design jobs so haven’t been working on Dink and Nipples that much lately. Have a lot of level design to do, which is a lot of slogging and tedious work at times.

Anyway, I am alive and kicking. And appreciating the cooler weather that an early rainy season seems to have come to BKK earlier this year. Here’s to staying dry. ;-) Cheers.