System_Cycle//

2009-05-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

Game Competition Update!
I don't think I've mentioned here I've been completing numerous side projects with a few classmates of mine at school. I'm having a great load of fun and learning a lot. Here's an update on what we're doing with the flash competition project we're doing.

We're wrapping up work on a flash game to be submitted into the third annual Westwood Game Competition; along with fellow team-mates and core Programmers, David Moss (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-moss/12/74b/700) & Tom Lindeman (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tom-lindeman/b/55a/879). The game is shaping up great! Art is starting to come in, after most of the structure has been in place for a little bit. The game is nearly feature complete, with a few revisioned features being put in, and a little bit of bug fixing left to go. Dave's working on animations and I'm working on some of those new features. Bug fixin' tomorrow!

Later guys!

Fallout 3

2008-11-02T23:19:00.001-08:00

It's not often I experience something I feel worth formalizing into a written piece to share with others but I've just recently spent sometime in the D.C. Wastes.
Fallout 3 is, in short, an incredible game thus far. Lots of quests, lots of slow-mo goodness. Lots of great voice-acting and nothing short of amazing visuals.

However, underneath it all I really do feel there's something much more worth experiencing. After playing Fallout 3 for 20+ hours I've grown to attach a certain feeling with it. The game is bleak, and even though it's very fun (there's that "f" word), it illustrates some incredibly sad things opposite it's caricatures of American pop-culture.

That's nothing new though, right? I mean the original fallouts were also about the destruction of entire worlds and they seemed to keep everything on the up and up. Well, in my opinion there's a few different things in the mix.

First of all, the play-style is incredibly different. Wandering around the wastes in third person view; managing ammo, attempting to discover new locations all as myself. It's really daunting, really scary, and kind of depressing seeing all these people barely scrape by.

Second of all, with today's graphics you really... empathize with the destruction. The visuals in the game are incredible, and incredibly sad. It's so much more poignant to see the wastes portrayed in such visceral definition.

Finally, I think writing plays a huge part in this. In the past, although the wastes have been a similar concept they've often times (at least in my opinion) had a lighter side to things. I could be misjudging due to my limited experience with the first two games but in Fallout 3 I've encountered more sad stories about families or people just trying to help humanity being slapped back down by the cruelty of fate and their government, than I could shake a stick at.

It's kind of moved me in a place that seems disturbed and slowly twisted. Bethesda, I commend you for making your own game out of an amazing, rich, and diverse world. I'm not sure if I'll be the same once I'm done experiencing all you've offered with this game.

Thanks.

2nd Place Ain't Too bad Honey

2008-06-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone :).
Now I feel slightly more rested than the last time I posted here (but only slightly ;P). I'm working part time over at 7 Studios www.sevenstudios.com as an Engineering Intern and going to class on every other day. They're in big-time crunch right now and I'm trying to help out but it's hard with school, haha. Still, I am super excited to be working at a real (fairly large) game company, livin' the dream.

--The cherry on top--
Tuesday was the pitch / presentation for the Second Annual Westwood Game Competition. I think we delivered a pretty good pitch, and the judges asked me to demo the game afterwards. I think that because of lack of tutorial menus / proper documentation they really were at a loss beforehand. However, they seemed really impressed after the demo, not only with the dynamic (original!) music that was presented, but also the vast amount of work that went into creating unique AIs that interacted with each other.

It's always cool to be in a competition and see other teams of people who've been working on games as well. I really enjoy interacting with people who have the same passions as I do.

Anyways, around 7pm the presentation started. The judges were Justin Lloyd, Voldi Way, Dave Kosak, and David Perry. All very cool people, and coincidentally I've had some sort of strange involvement with all of them in the past. xD
So the awards thing was rather long at around 2 hours, and many of the games won awards. My game: Harmony, was actually the first to win an award which was for "Best Use of Flash". I'm really proud of it because they went on to tell me what they meant by the award, which is that they were impressed by all of the RTS elements and all the music going dynamically. I really take that award to be sort of a Programmer's award, and it makes me proud to be recognized in such a way :).

More awards were given out: Best Pitch, Best Concept, and then a sort of reflective bit where the judges talked about their impressions of every game.

As the ceremony neared a close, it was revealed that there was to be 3 placing awards. My personal favorite game (other than my own) called 'Awesome' won 3rd place, Harmony won 2nd, and a game called 'Glide with the Wind' won 1st.

In my opinion, glide with the wind was actually fun and addictive, but also very simple and not very innovative (not that innovation is a rubric for greatness). Not exactly my kind of game, but I respect the judges choosing it.

In the end- I came back with a lot of feedback on how to make Harmony better, and quite a few people told me they loved the designs (which is a credit to Cameron!) and several people also told me they loved the music (which is a credit to Vincent!). Together, we made a really cool game that I want to continue to make better. I think we could have a chance of making something big out of it, but it's going to take a bit more work ;D.

Talk at you guys soon.

The wonders of crunch

2008-06-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I'm running on about 3 hours accumulative sleep for the past couple of days. I worked all last night in order to get my game as done as could be for the Second Annual Westwood Game Competition.

How do I feel?

Really freakin' tired. As for the game goes, I'm actually really proud of myself, and everyone who worked on the game. I think for 2 and a half months in a new language / development environment we did pretty freaking well.

My only real concerns at this point are with the path finding the game. Right now it's a bit glitchy and it actually really hinders gameplay. While I think the game is pretty fun, it needs a little bit more polish time to work out the movement code. One solution I came up with while working on the code was that I should use some sort of a graph / node system to determine which positions on the screen are occupied and handle collision response.

This is probably the opportune solution but I came up with it too late. It would probably take me about a week at least to gut all of my movement code, implement a graph system, and implement all new movement code based on the new system.

So here's the brightside-- While the game is finalized for the judges tomorrow at 4pm (and I'll be at my first day at work at a new company! :D), I don't see or talk to the judges for another week. I'm going to try and use this time to implement a new system. I'm really hoping that the path finding issues that are there won't inhibit players' (and the judges) ability to enjoy the game, but I intend on fixing it soon anyway so we'll see.

Alright, I've gone on for long enough. Here's the link to my page on the competition site!

http://2dgames08.westwood-anaheim.com/Harmony/Harmony.html

2008-04-03T01:43:00.001-07:00

I'm working on the second annual Westwood Game Competition now, and I'm going to give you a little taste of what I've been working on. This is one of the six creature designs I'll be using in the game. My brother did the animation, I did the actionscript. (Use the arrow keys to move the character around the screen! You might have to click on the swf so that it has focus)

I have a prototype mostly finished in XNA so shortly I will start to port logic over to Flash as the art is finished. I'm really excited about this project :).

Kung Fu Game Work In Progress

2008-03-14T17:00:00.001-07:00

Video of my Kung Fu Action game so far. Working on some basic gameplay elements, as I continue developing and polishing, I'll show you some more. I really hope to polish it up and get some real art in there.

Forgive the programmer art for now, please :)

Programmer's Demo Reel

2008-02-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

L: What makes a programmer, Mr. Lebowski? Is it.. knowing how to implement design choices?
Dude: Sure.. that and a keyboard.

I've cut together a sort of programmer's demo reel to show people while at GDC and further propagate the legend that is Corwin VanHook ;P. I think it turned out rather nicely. It drags in a couple of places but I think it's slightly justified by the fact that it is supposed to show technical prowess and not necessarily my artistic skills. We'll see when youtube gets it's act together and lets you view it. Let me know what you think!

Electric Lies

2008-01-27T02:18:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone's doing alright out there, ;P. I haven't been quite as productive as I would've hoped but I feel a little bit like I'm off of my usual beaten path when it comes to programming and game development. Away from tutorials and engine structure articles, I'm in the thick of it and I have to figure out how to really make a game. Lately I've been messing around with getting a 2D character on the screen and triggering (+ playing) its animations correctly. I'm kind of gearing up for a playable prototype. Soon I'd like to have my character punch and kick with real collision boxes that work correctly and cause an enemy to react effectively.

But while this is my current major project (a 2D Sidescroller / Brawler I'm working on with my current Engine), I want to make sure I provide for the club as well and run an above average project over the next month. Why? GDC, my friends. Game Developer's Conference is coming up and there is much to do. The Westwood Game Development Club (basically me) is attempting to lead and finish a group project designed for its providing members to show off at the conference. If anything, it's a way to get people to notice you at the conference.

Well-- I'm about to collapse. I stayed up too late watching LOST (addictive show, I might add). Good night and good luck.

2008-01-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

Well, my last school term ended on the 20th, we had a LAN party on the 21st (7 hours of Crysis.. we had other games, we just didn't want to play them. Omigod hand-held tactical nukes.) and I turned off my brain for christmas. After the new-year, though, I renewed my programming addiction and made a little pong clone fairly quickly with the 2D Game Engine I'm building.

Since then I've decided to continue to improve my game engine. Today I've added a game state (or screen) management system. The base "screen" for this system encapsulates all of my engine in it, so that whenever you want to make a new game you can: Derive from it, make a new object associated with a texture, and add that object to "MyObjectManager". After that, you're golden, it auto updates and draws itself.

It's pretty cool since now I've implemented a simple pause menu into my game as proof that simple menu systems can be created very quickly and easily, allowing for even more polish in a quicker amount of time. If there's anything that impresses people more than explosions (aka particle effects ;P) it's polish.

So as I continue to work on learning games and figuring out how to do certain things, the goals that I accomplish may not particularly excite anyone who isn't acquainted with the challenges. However, when all my accomplishments come with a nice menu system and a little chrome (that doesn't take time away from developing the core), people will (hopefully) be more receptive.

I think it's a funny coincidence that I used to want to be a chef, and now I'm a programmer, mixing ingredients in a different way. In essence, I'm talking about Presentation.

In any case, the next term is starting-- I've got to organize events over the next couple of months to keep the club running and active, preparing for the Game Development Competition my school holds in March, and we all have GDC to look forward on Feb. 22nd! I'm very excited, things are getting interesting-- that's for sure.

Particle System XNA and C#

2007-12-07T01:28:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. Thought I'd show you a video of some of my XNA work.
This is a 2D particle system that is essentially an emitter controlled by a mouse which shoots out particles. The particles themselves can have any image you want on them, right now they're generic circles.

2007-11-04T22:32:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!
My, my, it's been a long time.
But then again, I guess it's a good thing because it shows I've been busy or at least so lazy that I've been disregarding my most favorite of blogspots! (You decide, my devoted non-fans!)

Anyway, I thought I'd make a little re-introduction / summary of what's been going on.

I'm Corwin VanHook, a budding game developer and programmer going to school at Westwood College in Los Angeles, California. I love playing video games, and I love that feeling of playing god, to some extent, when you create a world that behaves in new and exciting ways. I really love learning more and more about how to make games, and I'm doing my best in my spare time to better myself in that respect, so I hope I'll live up to my expectations of myself.

So I've been at Westwood for a little bit over a year now, and what do I think? Well primarily I've done almost all my general-education, and I'm a third of the way to a Bachelor's degree. Most of my class-time hasn't really regarded my craft thus far, but I'm now taking an intermediate programming class and my schedule looks to be full of primarily 'core' classes (that means all the things regarding what I love).

I've gotten a chance to really make my console programming skills solid, and exercise my skills regarding some 2D game engines (see Torque Game Builder (TGB, T2D)). I've also made some good friends, some of which will be graduating shortly, and it saddens me to see them go after I've barely known them, many of which are (or are going to be) very good programmers and designers.

I've made contacts in the industry through Westwood's inaugural 2D game competition several months ago, and also through Jason Seabaugh, who was the artist on S.P.I.D.E.R. (Jason now works at 7Studios, along with a programmer friend of mine, Tyrus Alexander!).

So all in all, school has been an exciting thing for me. I've had a lot of time to do a lot of cool things and I'm only 19.

On the programming side, I've just now started to make the jump to 3D game programming. It's really a daunting task, and I'm using Microsoft's XNA to soften the blow a little bit and help me understand core concepts better. With no one to really teach me the fundamentals of 3D right now, it's a little bit difficult, but it tastes all the sweeter.

Here's an example of my first 3D renderring (found the dinosaur on turbo squid's free section). A symbol of one of my first triumps in the area ;P

On other fronts, my brother just graduated LA Film School and finished his directorial debut with his thesis project: A Warrior's Death. It'll be on youtube shortly, and I'll let you all know.

I promise to post relatively soon with more 3D updates and all that goodness.
Write at you later,
~Corwin

Animoto Video

2007-09-02T01:02:00.001-07:00

Game Competition update

2007-06-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I know I haven't updated in a while. I've been crunching with my team mates on getting SPIDER finished. I presented last week, even though we hadn't completed the game. The awards ceremony for the competition was on friday, and the judges (who are all very cool people in the industry) recognized our work. We were the only game who got recognized, out of the 3 or 4 games which didn't finish and still presented.

I'm really really happy with how everything played out. Even though we didn't have a complete game at that point, we were stil able to present what hard work we did put into it. And we are definitely continuing development of SPIDER.

As for the judges, they were John Say (of Say Design), Dave Kosak (of Fileplanet/Gamespy), and Dave Perry (Countless AAA game titles). It's been a huge honor to get feedback from these guys, who generously devoted their time to judging the competition.

And as for the game, when it's complete, we're going to start distributing it. Here's a gameplay screenshot:

I'm going into shock...

2007-06-08T23:22:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned how incredibly excited I am about BioShock? This game looks incredible to me, and 1up just released a 20 minute sort-of behind-the-scenes look here: 1up BioShock Special. This thing is definitely worth watching, it has some cool insights into the story of the game, and how it was developed. A game like this just says volumes with it's atmosphere, go check out the video guys. :D.

c0de m0nkeying around

2007-05-30T00:19:00.000-07:00

Spent a large chunk of my day programming with guys from school. We're rushing to finish our project which is technically due on thursday. While I should've been sleeping just moments ago, my thoughts kept drifting to the code, coming up with solutions for specific problems we're facing. I'm sure this is the classic fight, a fight against resources. You can solve any problem with enough time, most likely. Ah well.

I'll be able to share with you all soon. I'm tremendously excited, but really taxed at the moment, so bare with me. I'm hoping you'll all have fun playing our game :).

2007-05-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

How can any gamer not get excited? It's StarCraft 2!

Alright, so I wasn't ever a hardcore StarCraft fan, but it's one of those games you could just go back to over and over again. It has a lot going for it in simple replayability. User made maps added a whole new dimension. It was one of the games that brought RTSs into the main-stream, and changed the gaming landscape.

So... yesterday, when StarCraft 2 was announced in South Korea, people went nuts. Apparently it's being designed by Dustin Browder (known for some pretty high profile RTSs like LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth II, and C&C: Red Alert 2), so there's a lot going for it.

There's a couple of things I want to mention-- first of all, the videos and screenshots for SC2 look amazing, but I'm not seeing a lot to say "This is a new StarCraft". It's almost as if they're content with remaking StarCraft and graphically overhauling it. Well, we can only hope that gameplay will be drastically different, while maintaining what made it great.

Second of all, upon watching the gameplay & art trailer on their website (www.starcraft2.com if you're interested) something occured to me. Some of the art looks a lot like they're working on expanding the world to not just encompass StarCraft2, the RTS. Is a "World of Starcraft" in the works? It sure makes sense. Blizzard's made more money than god on WoW, maybe WoS is the next step. It might not be out for a few more years, but that's fine. The release of WC3 with WoW was very similar, and we'll see where it goes next.

I am awake. Alan Wake. I am A. Wake.

2007-05-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

(Click the picture to see full-res version)

I wanted to talk a bit more about what could be my most anticipated game in the coming months, Alan Wake. A.Wake is being developed by Remedy Entertainment, a Finnish company which is well known for it's atmospheric action-packed Max Payne series. It's being described as a 'Psycological Action Thriller' about a horror author who visits the small town of Bright Falls in an attempt to cure his insomnia. Alan's nightmares come back but this time, they're in the real world and they're after him. There's a lot of depth story-wise, including a mysterious woman who proved to be Alan's inspiration. All that's well-and-good, and I can't wait to experience what's sure to be an excellent story... but:

Here's the kicker. This game is going to be entirely free-roam, and in a huge environment resembling the American North-West. Hmm, GTA: The Shining?

Here's a video of what Remedy's got so far. Yeah, most of it's a demonstration to sell people on Intel, but the video is rather impressive regardless. Give it a look, it's worth your time.

An update, and this year's great games.

2007-05-01T00:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. Been busy with all that good school stuff ;D. Although none of my classes include programming just yet, I've been getting busy with some of the guys at school. We're developing a unique 2D-puzzle game for the Westwood College SoCal game competition. I'm really proud to be working on it, and I wish I could share some screens but I don't think it'd be prudent ;D. Don't worry, I'll post all of the information once it's finished (we're shooting for the end of May).

Last month (seems like forever ago) we visted GDC in San Francisco. What a wonderful way to get yourself energized about the industry you wanna work in? We got to meet a lot of cool people and do some cool stuff (especially with Microsoft's XNA). I can't wait to go again next year.

And now to the main chunk of this post.. I sit here thinking to myself: Man, there are a lot of awesome-looking games coming out by the end of the year (hopefully). Let's run through 'em.

Bioshock (Irrational Games)
Man, does this game look awesome. Just exploring the flooded, art-deco interiors will be a treat for me. Crazy water-effects, creepy and interesting A.I. and character design make it look way better. I can't wait to dive-in.

Alan Wake (Remedy Entertainment)
This has got to be one of the most underbuzzed game this year. Alan Wake looks kind of like Silent Hill meets GTA: Next Gen. Awesome atmosphere combined with that go-anywhere style gameplay everyone seems to dig. Plus it's the guys who did the Max Payne games. Favorites of mine, to be sure :).

Mass Effect (BioWare Corp.)
New, next-generation space-epic trilogy from the makers of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Just I, not II)! Can you say OMIGODZ? For sure, I know you can. Because, if you're like my friends and I, you can't wait for this freakin' game to come out. I don't think I need to say any more...

Alright, sure. There are other games coming out, big hyped ones too (Halo 3 anyone?). But these are the big three. And more are gonna come along. I'll post new stuff I find interesting about these in the future.

See you around.

FFXII, 50 hours and counting...

2006-12-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

So I've logged over 50 hours on FFXII now, since halloween, and I have to say I like it a lot. I'm still not sure whether the length is such a good thing, considering the amount of story I've experienced is... fractional in proportion to the semi-repetitive grind for money and XP. The license grid is extremely powerful and I'm sure that I would enjoy a Low-level playthrough maximizing my stats via the license grid.

The lack of character-class-situation is kind of disappointing, but the game is still very challenging. Usually, your healing gambits are going off so quick, you have to be very fast at micromanaging in between your gambit-run macromanaging. Bonus points in the fun department because the battle system always feels fresh, and in challenging fights you definitely feel the pressure!

Once I finish the story, I'll write up a full review. More Final Fantasy reviews to follow, I'm sure. So you guys learn my background as far as that goes. I'm a huge FF fan.

lvl18 Programmer LFG pst

2006-12-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

This is the first post in (hopefully) a long-running series on Game Industry. My name's Corwin, and I'm an 18 year old gamer / Programmer who's trying to make his mark on the world of Video Games. I just started going to college, but in my spare time I play a lot of games. This is where I'll be posting my opinions on the Game Industry of today, as well as previews / reviews of upcoming (as well as long-past) titles. Let's get started!

December-06
Now Playing,

PlayStationPortable (PSP):
SOCOM: Fire Team Bravo 2 (Lots of online play)

PlayStation 2 (PS2):
Final Fantasy XII (First Playthrough)
Ookami
Star Ocean 3: The End of Time
.Hack//G.U.