8bitrocket Pumpkinman goes gold!
I am proud to announce the release of 8bitrocket Pumpkinman! From the insane minds that brought the web Retroblaster, Space Eggs, and Home Computer Wars, we bring you more retro-upgraded mad fun with Pumpkinman. Princess Pumpkin has been kidnapped by the evil Gourdon Gruesome. He has hidden her 30 levels deep in his hideout. As Pumpkin Man, you must traverse all 30 mazes, collect all of the candy corn and power-ups in each maze, and rescue the princess. Gourdon has littered his mazes with blood thirsty bats, evil bananas, ghosts, and many other baddies. At your disposal are a host of power-ups. Collect the corn, use the power-ups, solve the puzzles in each maze and the princess will be yours.
Powered by Mochi Leader Boards, test your retro gaming skillz against the world's best.
I have been working on this game for about 4 months. I don't have a lot of time to put into my personal games, and I like to take a lot of time to nit pick over the details of them when I do have time to work on them. A few weeks ago, this game had a to-do list that was 100 items long. Over the last few days I dwindled that down to 5 and then, today, seemingly out of nowhere, the list was down to 0 items. I guess it's time to let this baby fly and to move on to a new game.
It gets pretty difficult after level 10. Codes are provided when you start each level that allow you to skip back to that level in the Level Code Entry screen (main menu). There are also unlimited continues from your last level played (during the same browser session). The game will keep track of your own local High score, as well as world-wide Mochi Leader Board high scores..
Dev notes: This is an all AS3 engine written to take advantage of blitting to a single display object. The final song that is played while you watch the game win cartoon was written by me a few weeks back. I was going to call it AS3 For Me, but it is left untitled. The entire engine is driven by XML and tile sheets (with the exception of the title screens, and a few library objects). This will make it very easy to re-skin. If you would like to license the game engine or the game on a non-exclusive basis, email us at the link below.
I hope you have as much fun playing it as I did making it.
8Bit Jeff
Destructoid: The Myth Of Casual Gaming = Midcore?
Jim Sterling over at Destructoid has written a very insightful blog about The Myth Of Casual Gaming . Jim writes:
The truth of the matter is that the hardcore/casual divide is little more than a myth, and the companies that are so desperate to secure themselves a casual demographic are doing little else than chasing rainbows.
Jim seems to be covering some of the same ground that Jeff covered in his original blog about Midcore gamers. However, I don't think Jim would agree to any term to describe his feelings, especially one thought-up by a little dev blog like 8bitrocket.com. Still it seems that the idea of there being a majority of gamers that are not described by the terms Casual or Hardcore, abut are simply gamers that want some logical features added to their games is a growing idea, even if the list of features is a moving target.
We will continue to cover this "idea" using the term Midcore, because we like it and it seems appropriate, but when someone as insightful as Jim has thoughts along similar lines, we will support those as well, even if that same person might not support us. Thne import part is to spread care about the the concept of "Midcore" in whatever form it might take, not simply to advertise a moniker.
8bitrocket.com Home Computer Wars: Alpha Mission Launches
Home Computer Wars: Alpha Mission is part 1 of a game that started as a series of lessons for Mochiland.com to help teach new Flash game programmers the structure of creating a game. The game is inspired by Coke exclusive game Pepsi Invaders for the Atari 2600. That game was a re-design of Space Invaders with the invaders changed into the letters P.E.P.S.I. For Home Computer Wars: Alpha Mission I decided to change the theme from 'Cola Wars' to the personal computer was of the early 80's.
In the game you play as a trusty Atari 800 computer fighting off the hoards of competitors. You start with 8K, but by collecting memory module power-ups you can build-up to 64K (adding more fire-power) to your 8-bit Atari machine. This game has 12 levels that take you through 1983. Part 2 of the game, Home Computer Wars XL will continue the battle thorough the 16-bit era. All programming , game design and graphics were completed by myself, Steve Fulton. The sounds and music were creating by myself and my daughter Rachel Fulton.
You can play the game here: http://www.8bitrocket.com/games/homewars/homewars.aspx
This game was never meant to become a full-fledged 8bitrocket.com release. It's small, quirky. self-indulgent little game that grew-out of a tutorial. If you get some enjoyment out of it, all-the-better.
Mid-Core Gamer Spreads Across The Web
As the usage of the term "Mid-core Gamer" continues to spread across the web, we will periodically update you on its impact. Here is a list of interesting stories and links to internet chatter about "Mid-core Gamers"
The most interesting find this week was at the 2PStart Comic Strip Podcast.
Earlier this week they devoted the first part of their discussion to Mid-Core and whether the idea should or should exist.
Another very interesting trend is the proliferation of new blogs that are adopting the name Mid-Core. A couple examples are http://midcoregamer.wordpress.com/ that has taken the name to heart and Seanbajuice who started to publish Mid-core game reviews.
On the negative side, the Guardian in the UK thinks that the term might simply adopted by marketers:
"Marketeers probably call them midcore or something, but if Sony can tap into this market then they may be on to something."
While Attack Of The Chris says:
"Either way, labels suck."
However, others are a bit warmer to the subject of Mid-core Gamers. Waiting in Transit' simply says
"Well' which one are you? 8bitrocket has made a manifesto and the term 'mid-core gamer. For people like me who aren't hard core into gaming, but aren't exactly casual either'"
Still others have taken the idea to heart. WFMU's Beware Of The Blog says:
"That's why I was very excited to read about a newly defined (I think) and hopefully expanding class of humans: midcore gamers. There's a definition of what one is, but I think this is a class of people who will only to be able to identify themselves once they're in it. If you're sub-midcore, you're a n00b. If you're more than midcore, you're Otaku. Perhaps the most important thing about midcore for me is that it allows one to be comfortable with who they really are: an enlightened observer. They can extract giddy pleasure from watching n00bs wrap their smooth palms around a Wiimote for the first time, and have visions of them one day joining the midcore ranks. Perhaps more importantly, though, they can look at Otaku with a sense of incalculable awe mixed with projected embarrassment. Midcore gamers can comfortably spend 10 - 15 hours a week practicing solos in Rock Band (ok, maybe 24 or 48 hours if things are slow at work), but you'll never find them having to choose between their consoles and their lovers. Or their consoles and their apartment. Or their consoles and their dinner."
While speeple reports
"Filed under: Culture, Casual Plenty of gamers are often stuck between the definitions of "casual" and "hardcore." They care too much to be the former, and yet they don't care enough to be the latter. If you're one of them, and yearning for your own defining category, then worry no more. You might just be a mid-core gamer."
And there you have it. A round-up of some of the current thoughts about our humble little phrase "Mid-Core Gamer". We'll be back with another report as soon as we can scrape enough content to make an interesting post.
Flash Game Inter-web Mash-Up: Feb. 21, 2008
Blogs and other cool stuff that might interest the Flash game developer.
Funface Games has an absolutely outstanding article on how to promote your Flash games. This is a must read for anyone serious about making games for a living.
Ira Wiley at One More Blog has recently published an article called How To Make A Successful Flash Game. Ira discusses the criteria he uses to review games for AddictingGames.com. It is a great analysis of what it takes to make a game successful.
The ArmorBlog has a relatively new one on how to become a game developer.It has some very useful information, and points beginners to Flash and AS3.
Scott Bilas, from Drizzle.com, discusses the Oberon development team's experiences in building Flash games. The team is made up of former members of AAA game development teams who decided to try their hand at the casual games market. The article discusses, in detail, what tools and resources a professional game developer will need when he/she starts to work in Flash. It also includes some interesting tricks, tips, and overall is a very useful and full of good information.
8bitrocket.com Blog Comments Engine (Beta)
So, if you didn't know, we at 8bitrocket.com are very stubborn. When we started this site we wanted to write all the software ourselves, which meant that many "standard" features of normal sites were left TBD. One of the major thing missing from our blog engine was the ability to leave comments. We added a forum, but it seems that forums are just too difficult for some people to use. Anyway, we planned to add comments for many months, but last Friday I sat down to actually try to build our own.
I finished the first version of the comments engine tonight. It is still very basic. You must validate your email address before your comments are displayed, but you only have to do this once. After that, you can feel free to flame-away at all our insipid posts.
Anyway, please try the new comments (below) engine, and tell us if you find any problems or would like to see any features.
And yeah, I know, we are a bit late on this. Welcome to 2005, 8bitrocket.com.
What is that annoying AS3 Hiccup? Part 2
Well, I initiated my buddy Chris Cutler to help me out today and discovered a couple things about optimizing AS3 apps, but also opened up some questions.
Fist, we installed the AWESOME Active Graph Application. It gives you a graph of memory usage and I can now see the clean and sweep operations in graph form. Every time I have a hiccup in my game, it is during a clean and sweep, so I guess Mike and Jobe were right. The problem is figuring out how to handle this problem. We searched through my code and found quite a few simple things to fix first:
1. I am getting rid of as many local object instantiations as possible and replacing them with global objects. This might sound backward to a 'good coder', but for game optimization in AS3, it seems to be helping quite a bit. I have not completed my search for all of the offending code, but after replacing the code in just my sound manager, I can see a noticeable decrease in memory usage spikes. It is these spikes that cause the annoying hiccup, and it seems that I need to do my own disposal as often as possible to make sure that the object GUNK doesn't build up too much and cause a major garbage collection clean and sweep.
2. I have been looking at my blitting engine to see what optimizations I can make. I want to do a double buffer, but I am having trouble figuring out exactly how to proceed. I first tried to add a second canvas not attached to a display , did a copy pixels it on each frame, and then cloned it to my BitmapData canvas that is attached to my one display object. I don't want to just assign the on screen canvas to the off screen with a = operation because then they would essentially be the same object. The cone just wouldn't work though. For some reason, the clone operation results in my display not updating - very strange. I next decided to just (for shits and giggles) try to use the draw operation from one BitmapData to the other. It works fine, but I know draw is pretty slow, so I don't think there is much of an advantage to it. After playing around with using a general = assignment operation I came up with a new version. This current version uses a lock on both BitmapData (on and off screen) before the = assignment and and unlock after. I don't see much improvement here yet, but I will keep trying.
Next I will try the beginBitmapFill method instead of copyPixels and see if that gets me anywhere.
If you know of a method to double buffer that works well, please send it my way. I know I am just being obtuse and might be thinking about this the wrong way.
What is that annoying AS3 Hiccup?
I'm feverishly putting the finishing touches on a game I have been building off and on, in my spare time, for about 4 months (how many prepositional phrases can he cram into one sentence?). The engine is tile-based, and I am using blitting to a single display object. I have the game loop running on an enterFrame event, and am using the built-in event model to call my render() functions, as well as a host of other event based managers that handle sounds, onscreen messages, etc. I have specifically created functions at the end of each level to clean up objects and prepare them for garbage collection. I am also creating all of my listeners with a weak reference.
I'm finally down to play testing the game, and what do I find? 2 major problems. The first is an annoying screen hiccup that occurs every now and them. The Electrotank guys seem to think it is garbage collection, but I can't be sure. Even if it is, how do I fix it? It doesn't make the game unplayable, but it is frickin' annoying to say the least. The second problem is much worse. I have 30 levels in the game. Each level ramps up with more and different enemy to contend with, new mazes, etc. Last night, I uploaded a fresh version to a secret area on the site to test Mochiads and Highscores. I played to about level 24, then my browser completely died. I was about to try it again, but my son needed a bath. After the bath we played with Legos, read some books, and I never got back to re-testing the game.
I had time to sleep on it though, and I now have a plan of attack.
The Hiccup
1. I am going to attempt a double buffer the render (thank for the idea, Squize).
2. I am going to remove the update() and render() events and call loops instead
3. I am going to remove the weak reference from the listeners. I think this might be causing the garbage collector to fire up more often then needed.
4. I am going to replace the enterFrame event with a Timer event.
The Browser Crash
1. This is probably a memory leak of some type. I hope that by fixing the problems with the hiccup, I might effect this.
2. I will pour through my code and create a global object for as many local objects as I can find. For instance, if I am creating a new object type in a loop temporarily on each iteration, I will create a version of that object outside the loop one time instead of every frame and our iteration. - This might also help the hiccup.
3. I will need to profile the memory usage and see where and when it jumps up and doesn't go back. This will be time consuming, but it is probably the best way. Since there are not any good AS3 profilers out there, I will need to manually time and log some data. Scott Jeppesen just created a Logger in Air that I will utilize to write my profiling entries to.
Anyway, that is my current plan of attack. I hope it works. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to send them along.
*** Update ***
Chris Cutler, a co-flash head, asked me what I meant by
taking out the weak references above. I just have a theory that all of the weak
references might be causing extra reference object garbage to collect, it
turned out that the events are not the problem anyway, so I will keep
looking and post an update later. I am currently looking at all of the local
objects I create in iterations. Those might prove to be much more important
than anything else.
King of American Kong
I have been feverishly trying to put the final touches on my latest game, Pumpkin Man, but have been stalled by the movie King Of Kong. Steve and my sister were discussing it today, and even though I have been itching to see it, I haven't had time. I was jealous that they had seen it, so I ran out and rented a copy. After watching it, all of the special features, and listening to all of the commentaries, I am in awe. The best documentary I had seen before this was a little know opus on middle American film makers called American Movie. King of Kong is just as good or better.
American Movie told the story of Mark Borchardt and his struggles to a create a horror film will little money, poor equipment, but a lot of heart and some talent. The film is filled with real life American wonders in its characters. Some of them seem too far fetched to be actually real, but I have never heard anyone claim they were anything but. Very much in the same vein, King of Kong is filled with interesting characters that almost seem impossibly surreal. Like most cinema (and much of today's new media), some information is left out to tell a good story. Don't worry about that until after you watch the film though. It is a riveting underdog story with touches of treachery and that will keep you glued to your seat.
It tells the story of Steve Weibe, a school science teacher who is trying to beat the Twin Galaxies posted high score on Donkey Kong. Steve is very much a West coast outsider threat to the old boy network protected Donkey Kong high scores of the Twin Galaxies own Billy Mitchell. Steve struggles (seemingly alone) against a cast of over-the-top villains that wouldn't seem out of place in episodes Knight Rider, or the A-team. Mitchell is made out to be a little shifty and dishonest, while the Twin Galaxies gang's one-sided poor treatment of Weibe (for the most part) will leave a bad taste in your mouth. Of course, it is mostly a one-side take, and I know it has come under fire a little for compressing time, and leaving out some material. All that being said, it is a great work of art, and a must see for any film fan, especially a retro fanatic like myself.