Blogging

I am sorta slowing down on this page since i have nothing really to talk about. However, I have been caught up recently with school and work therefor not enough time to play/work on any mods. Ive come here to say that my blog posts will not be as frequent anymore so do not get worried.

Today I found a very interesting video of what we have to do for school. HERE is the video.



Now here is the problem. I have to turn that simulation into a desktop board/card game. How hard is that??? At first it was painful to think about, but as we worked on it it got really more easy and for surely more understandable. Once our project is done I will upload the files here so you all can download and play free of charge*.


*maybe, if ours gets accepted into this museum it might cost ya.

Programming!!!

So in order to make games, you need to know a lot of programming. I mean a lot. So recently one of our assignments was to make a little shooting games with labels. And it turns out that it was really fun to play! Also hard. So I am releasing it to the public. So here it is!

DOWNLOAD!!

On the other note. Today no letter from giggles, but im gathering things together to send to her. My parents would probably be wondering why I am sending a random girl in florida items. HMM. But yes! tomorrow is bad company 2 beta day and I am looking forwards to that.

PEACE OUT! LOVE MINNESOTA!!!

Sick

Today at around 11am, i have been getting these great pains in my head. Yes, a headache, but this time it was so much worse. It HURT. I mean, so bad i was pulling my hair out. So I got home, took some tylenol and talked to my mom. She told me to call in to work and go to bed. So I did, and when I woke up I felt so much better, but not totally. So tonight ill get sleep and as tomorrow I will sleep some more.

The weather here just got worse. We had rain, which is over 32F, and today it froze over. Also to add on to it, snow and 40+mph winds. Gah. Driving was a bitch but I made it because of my sweet aerodynamic car. PFFT that puny thing.

anyways see you tomorrow giggles!

Okay so...

For the past few days, I havn't been feeling that grand. It was a virus that was going around I guess that I got from my mom. Well anyways its sunday and I havn't got much done on anything over the weekend. Tonight I'm going to bed early for school in the morning. Today at work, it was really busy and sucked because our retarded manager did not schedule any people. So, as I am sitting here typing this I will be thinking on some longer posts. I am waiting on that letter giggles, Id better get a return address because I do plan on sending something back. :P

dueces!

blog

today i have none. thank you ;). ill be waiting for that letter giggles.

Promotion! NEW AND IMPROVED!

DOWNLOAD

Yesterday

Was not that great of a day for me. I woke up feeling not so good and stayed up late that night. So sitting in school I couldn't pay attention to my photoshopping and couldn't get that much done. So when I got home I took a tylenol and it didn't feel any better. So I had to work on my payload map for tf2 and I might have gotten that done. So when it came time for me to go to work, my mom was like "if you don't feel good don't go to work" but it was already to late to call in. So I showed up and told them I am not feeling so good and they didn't seem to care. So I worked, and it was so shitty (excuse my french) I wanted to explode. So when I got home I had some waffles for dinner and went to bed. I woke up today feeling the same, but I don't have to work. I will do a new post later tonight, maybe promotion? ;)

dear blogger

Today I have nothing to write about. Except that I have a headache, finished a new version of my map, and stayed 3 hours after school working on my teams board game. Tomorrow is presentations and I have the hope in my lead to do well.

BTW this is so funny. watch all his vids

See you tomorrow if I have something to write aboot!

arf arf!

Today is MLK day which means no school and I don't have work. So I am doing homework and thinking.. Today I went with my mom to a mall where there was a pet store she liked and soon she was holding this little puppy. That thing was so freekin cute, my mom wanted it so bad I felt bad not giving it to her. I told her I would share my cat with her but she didn't seem to want it. So now here I am feeling bad not lending her the money for the dog.

Anyways I tested promotion last night with the gang at CalculatedChaos and had lots of fun. Going to make some changes to that map and then some. I will try to get a new version of turf out by tomorrow. If not, the day after that.

Right now I am listening to the tony hawk pro skater soundtracks on youtube. yea..

Son day

Many things made me happy today. One, the vikings killed dallas! woooo! Second, my team lead FINALLY uploaded pictures I have to photoshop. So now I have something to do. On the other note, last night I got turf tested and good news, Its working out. A few minor bugs set back some stuff such as doors and lack of a defense, but other than that, the new middle was a huge success to stop sniping.

A few problems I noticed was the water. When I added the water back in the older version it was because players had a really hard time dealing with sentries on the over head catwalk. So I added it as a anti-pyro/ obstacle / pathway on both sides to the map. It was working with the older version but not so much with the new version with the added raised catwalk at the top. Players could go from capture point to capture point without peeking outside. So I removed it from going to the point area to the courtyard on both sides.

I also refined the Flag point so players have to "weave" around a glass wall which will help them with sentries. This also will help with better sentry placements as I added two sentry platforms on each side of the point up against the wall and added more cover around the point.

Thats it for today. cya tomorrow!

Explaining Turf.

When I started making tf2 maps I have always wanted to do every gameplay of maps there are. So ctf_turf was what my variation of capture the flag was. Now I always want to do something to switch up the game so that it doesn't seem just like any other map. For turf I wanted to do a reverse 1 Flag CTF on a small map. So I made it and released it. First impressions were none, the map crashed because servers couldn't handle the map that well. So I released a second version that tried to fix, it worked but the game would end real quick and the map would be over in 3 captures. So I decided to have a 2 Flag Reverse CTF and it worked out! But the map had some flaws so I fixed them. It worked but there were still flaws, at that point I thought this maps gone to hell and bleh.

Until now I brought it back for the TF2maps.net tournament because of its smallness and its hope I still have for it. I then fixed a few bugs, added a middle building and switched it back to the old style CTF.

Why is it now different than any other map? Its small. The time it takes you to run from flag to CP is way different than 2fort. Plus this map has a lot more vertical spaces and ledges than any other valve map. Thanks for reading, tommorrow will be a longer post on my life again. BOOORRRINNNG

Time fo battoll

IT IS HERE!

I will post the stuff tomorrow.

TURF 1-15-10

Since I have no drawing this quarter and got that really annoying 6 page paper done I've had some free time. During that time TF2maps.net came out with yet again another mapping competition. I have only entered one contest they started and that was the Swamp Contest. I didn't do that good on it but the contest was rigged anyways. So with a new contest coming up I decided to start up an old map I thought had potential. CTF_TURF was the map I brought back to work on. So here I present, Ctf_Turf alpha 1.



Tomorrow is release. I will discuss to you why this map is different than any other.

Presentations

Today in concept design, we had our presentations. Yesterday after school our group of 5 team members including me got together in the library to discuss our game. As waiting for 2 other teams to present, we found their flaws and took advantage. Finally it was our turn to present. I am telling you it was the best one of our class. I am so proud of our team and how they did. Now we need to get a pre-alpha by next week.

I have 3 current personal projects and 2 of which is for the game team fortress 2. 1 of my projects is pl_promotion. It is a payload type map that is bigger than most valve maps. It will be a 3 stage map with advancing spawns unlike valve payload maps. Another project is for the contest on TF2maps.net's Competition ctf maps. I am reviving my map ctf_turf and turning it into a real ctf map and adding more paths and a new middle area. It should begin testing soon.

And for my most dedicated project is a mod for half life 2 orange box engine. Right now we arn't showing any information as we are trying to get all the code and concepts into the game for testing. Once we start testing we will release some media. But for now we giving any info for you.

This leads me to tf2. I don't have much to do tonight and hopefully going to work on ctf_turf, then playing a lot of tf2. see ya tomorrow!

Illiterate People, Retarded Managers, and Waffles

The title is pretty much how my monday was. A lady couldn't write a check so I had to write it for her. I don't get how people sometimes think. After that my manager was fighting with people because we were so busy. She said we didn't have any back up cashiers on hand and we had to deal with 40+ orders with only 3 people cashiering and 1 bagger.

Bah, I need to stomp complaining and look at the good things in life. When I got home I poped some waffles in the toaster and had some pretty tasty waffles for dinner. Then I went to go study this board game for class. While doing that I was talking to giggles and watching this, after I was tuckered out. When the show was over I talked to giggles some more and went to bed. I woke up with my cat at my feet and went to the living room and continued my day.

Today I seen that TF2maps.net is having a Competitive CTF TF2 mapping contest. This is a game mode that has a class limit of 1 medic and 1 demo and only 2 of everything else. There is only 6 players allowed on a team. I was thinking on plans today when I remember my ctf map "Turf" which was a reverse capture map. I am deciding to switch a few things up, making it a normal map, and adding some detail.

Thats it for today. Ill be on tonight, gonna stay after school to work on my game with my dev team.

The 11th of January in the 201'st decade.

As school started back up last week I recently had that paper due. I was wanting to get 5 pages done to get a worthy paper but as I found this one site that had a lot of information. I ended up with 6 pages of text single spaced and I was very happy. Right now I am sitting in concept design class and we picked out groups. I got a great and dedicated group that seems they will work very hard. I have to work tonight even though I tired as mess. Next class is english which is zZzZ time.

I just got my paper back, I got 61 out of 100. Not bad, many people failed.

The paper from hell..

It wont take me that long, I got all the data I need to write it but I'm just not in any mood to write it. Ive always been a great procrastinator in doing stuff, only because I know that there is something funner than doing the paper.

Recently Ive been getting dizzy in rl. I found out that its because of my new glasses I got on friday. I can see again which is amazing but I'm still getting used to it. Driving is a lot easier now because of the new glasses (now i can actually see the signs lol). I find it hard at work because the check out screen is right in front of me and I have to twist a lot because I have to bag the grocery's as well. This gets me more dizzy because of the new glasses have a more strength in numbers (its more stronger) and the vision now wraps around the corners a bit.

And as promised my storyboarding final:



So yeah, Got a C in that class. 24 Panels with as much detail 6 hours does for you :P

Saturday

Why can it be? A 6 page paper due monday and I havn't started it yet. But I did study somewhat. After work today I plan to work on it so I don't have that much to do. But you know as always ill stumble upon youtube or facebook and get side tracked.

I am not much of a focused reader as we are to read like 3 pdf's from this website on B-17 Bombers. While I prep myself for that, I have been watching youtube videos of them because I seem to learn better by videos (WITH NO NOTES!!). Gah work, see yall tomorrow

Modding

After a year or so when I got counter strike I noticed a really fun looking game that I seen on steam. Turns out it was a mod for half-life 2 and I thought to myself "Gee, I have half-life 2, lets give it a try". Sooner or later I was pumping maps out for that mod. THEN, This guy contacted me and asked if me and him wanted to start a mod of our very own. So we tried and things were going okay on the mapping end, but that's all we had. So after of my partner's inactivity for about a month I started a mod of own and had a few guys help me out and got a little further. Then my programmer suddenly quit and no one was up to help out so we had to shut the doors to that mod. So I started another one (your wondering "why do it again" the answer is "I don't know") and it got even further and more was done and again, the programmer quit half-way during the mod and it died.

So now this takes me to where I am sort of now. I took a few months off and started mapping for team fortress 2 and improved my modeling/skinning/animation skills in 3ds max. Then when I decided to join a mod team I set some limits of the mod that needed help. I went by these rules:

1st. Did the mod have a dedicated team?
2nd. Did the mod need my skill as a game designer?
3rd. Did the mod have a unique concept idea?
4th. Can I relate to the mod without having to study the subject first?

Then some of my own question I asked myself:

1st. Does the mod have programming done enough to be able to finish it?
2nd. Are the members fun and enjoy what they do?

So I searched and searched and stumbled upon Snowball: Source. I worked with them for a while then the main programmer fell ill and the programming crawled. I lost some hope then...An angel appeared. His name was Zeeky and had a very good background in programming and helped us a lot to get things done. But it then took a turn for the worst. Motivation is hard to keep on a project that the leader just sits there and does nothing.

Zeeky and I became really good buds and decided to leave the development team to start our own project. Right now its a secrete project that I can't give anymore details than "bigastni".

Stay tuned!

Continued

A little more about my history of developing games.
When I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade (around 7 to 8 years old) my good friend Tu showed me a great game that intrigued me for what I am today. Well the game was Starcraft and after me seeing him play it with his older brother (who was a computer hacker) I fell in love with it right away. So I went out and bought the battlechest at Target and went home and played it. Then one night we wanted to play over the phone lines (oh yeah, dial up fun) and he asked me what kind of map I wanted to have made. So we came up with Bionicles (legos) and he made it in front of me and I guess that is where I got hooked.

So I practiced and practiced but was very limited on my parents Windows 98/ME computer and when they bought there XP about 6 years ago I was open to many new programs which made everything easier to do. A couple years of experience and I had joined one of the best map making clans Operation Onslaught (Oo.oO) and grew up in the later ranks. Until one of my clan mates showed me Half-Life 2 my thoughts changed forever.

Soon I got Half-Life 2 and downloaded Counter-Strike: Source on dial-up. It took me a good 2 weeks downloading 24/7 to complete the download. Comparing my speed from then to now is a giant leap that even Micheal Jordan wouldn't be able to jump. (5kb/s to 4.2MB/s[~4300kb/s] 860x faster) He told me to download source sdk and follow this tutorial and it sprang off from there making CS:S maps.

Keep a watch! more to come on how I got into the modding scene!

New beginnings.

Alright so my last blog idea I had didn't really work out as I planned it too. So I am starting fresh and just going to tell you all about my daily life.

A little about me, I live here with my parents in awesome St. Paul, Minnesota where I am attending school at Brown College and majoring in game design. I am 18 years old and find it that life isn't what it used to be like in high school. College is a great way to expand your life as a human being and to further your knowledge and help society tomorrow. Now why game design you may ask? Well, as soon as I turned 1 year old my parents loved heading up north to my grandparents cabin near Duluth, Minnesota. For them it was vacation and well, me being 1, I didn't really care since I don't remember anything back then. Well anyways, my dad loved to video tape home videos on a ginormous camcorder that he still has and sometimes uses, but this particular video he took was of me and my sister (didn't know the age at the time but I would say she is around 10 or 11) on the couch, both nintendo controllers in our hands and playing super mario bros. Now I'm not saying I was playing it but, I was pretending and I guess it was then, I fell in love with games.

Now today, I have a bit of experience on working on games and with people as well as some industry help that should help me out in the future. I will post more of my memoir in the future but right now I'm pretty tired and need sleep for class in the morning. Rock on central!