Scurvy_Lobster Blog

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Jun 9th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

Today I released a very small game called Kill the avatars. It's bloody and some would say grusome but it's not to be taken too seriously. I had a lot of fun making it, so I hope you will enjoy playing it.

At the moment the game can be found on the moddb.com frontpage as a news story and you can also find it listed permanently under my 'games' section of this profile.

Enjoy :-)

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Apr 3rd, 2008 digg this super bookmark

Jump over to the Crystalline game profile and try it out. There is some bugs in the game but it is still worth a try.

Do read our latest news posting about the game too. It has a lot of valuable information.

Right now we are considering doing a small update to fix some of the things we want to have better balance.

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Apr 1st, 2008 digg this super bookmark

I am very happy to inform that our HL2 mod Crystalline is finally finished! Right now we are making copies of the game on DVDs for delivery on the deadline today at mid day. Once this is over we will get some much needed rest :-)

 As soon as possible we will begin producing screenshots, video and final descriptions for the game. We want the release to go as smooth as possible and you to enjoy our game as much as possible!

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Mar 31st, 2008 digg this super bookmark

The time is about five in the morning here in Denmark and we have been working all night to finish Crystalline for its deadline. This is getting a little bit exciting but somehow we still believe that we will make it before 10 am.

 We are pleased with most of our progress but we have also made serious cuts during the night. Things were supposed to have nice particle effects when they disappear but this was a too time consuming task and got dumped.

An interesting change is the control scheme where we are using the mouse right now. I don't know how this will turn out quite yet but it does seem to get positive results from testing.

It's late, we are tired but luckily the engines are still running :-)

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Mar 30th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

It's Sunday and the weather is fine. But why be anywhere else than at moddb? ;-)

Crystalline is slowly beginning to have some shine to it and I know that we will be working late tonight before we go to sleep. If possible I will upload a new in-game screenshot or maybe even a small video to show. Can't promise anything but stay tuned!

It will be interesting to see the response to our rather minimalist design ideas. Control only requires three directional keys and we are aiming at a really casual experience. Maybe not the most common thing here on moddb.com; but hey, the motto here:

Play something different :-)

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Mar 29th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

Having ended production of sound effects, graphics and animation for Crystalline our programmers are now extremely hard at work to get everything working together. This Source engine doesn't give much away for free, at least when you're doing total-conversions, so everything gameplay related has to be build from scratch.

With only three days left before deadline we can soon look forward to some rest and relaxation. We have a big party a few days after deadline and game presentation and that is really something to look forward to after being "in the trenches" for a month without any real breaks.

It's tough but still fun to make games you know! ;-)

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Mar 28th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

Still hard at work on the Crystalline production and gameplay is beginning to take form. We have most of the small things in place but due to a lack of programmers on the production we are behind schedule on gameplay implementation.

Right now our focus is to get as much of the key features in place before deadline. An this is putting a lot of pressure on our programmers. Before the start of this production they had never touched C++ programming or the Source engine. It has been a long month for them where they constantly have revised how to get Source and Hammer to do the right things.

Looking back now we could probably have used another engine with more succes. But as stated yesterday in this blog, we are required to use Source on a DADIU production. This is a huge engine for our small game and that isn't ideal for something that is very far from an FPS style game.

0 comments by Scurvy_Lobster on Mar 27th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

As some may have seen the HL2 mod (total conversion btw.) Crystalline has just been announced. We are a group of eight Danish DADIU students that have been working through March to make this game and we will release the mod at the beginning of April.

A couple of questions we get often is: One month production? And why Source engine?

The answer to the first is easy; since the group is made from student from different universities and art schools in Denmark it isn't practical to make the productions any longer. This has its clear limitations on the scope of the game and makes it necessary to prioritize everything very carefully. One month is what we are given and that is the rules we play by.

The second question is a bit more blurry to answer. Officially we use Source engine because this is the engine selected to be used by all DADIU games. This however has caused quite a discussion on a number of occasions. First of all, nearly no DADIU games have been First Person Shooters and the same is true for Crystalline. Last year in May you could see games like FLIPSIDE and The Way where absolutely nothing from Half-Life 2 was reused. Many DADIU students feel that there is too much Half-Life 2 in Source and that you constantly have to put up with the many limitations this creates.
Several times things are hacked together on top of something else and especially our programmers feel this.
Another thing is the content pipeline in Source which is horribly bad. Where several other engines have more modern tools you are required to have programmers figure out several command line tools, edit files, source code and rebuild/recompile to get anything into Source/Hammer. In comparison an engine like Unity can have content creators update to the latest files even while the game is running and changes are seen instantly. Source engine is 10 years behind in this area.

But enough about Source! We are working hard to bring Crystalline to life and look forward to releasing it! :-)