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Class Blog

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Objects of Interest

To be expounded upon...

www.suddenlysmart.com - an application that makes many of the generic action-building functions of Flash easier and faster, while limiting only some of the flexibility of

www.newgrounds.com - everything by everyone. User submitted Flash games and movies, always a source of inspiration, and hopefully a source of criticism as well when you submit your own things. Also forums and a great community for learning Flash gaming.

www.ffiles.com - more user submitted content, this time a bit more practical and industrial. It often doesn't have to be a complete site or game, but just a tiny piece of interactivity.

I just wanted to post these URLs here so that others can check them out - I'll have a full description written later.

- Nav

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Epic Battle Fantasy 3 - Artist Exploration!

Say you have a love for gaming. Say you have a love for learning how games are made. For most gamers, its natural to want to play great games all day, but something truly special happens when they decide to MAKE games all day.

That's exactly what this artist has done. Matt Roszak (aka kupo707) partnered up with his buddy, HalcyonicFalconX for music, to create not one, not two, but three games based on his imagination and some determined coding in Flash!

Enter Epic Battle Fantasy 3, the source of my topic today.



EBF3 is a Flash game based strongly on any typical j-RPG (Japanese Role Play Game), with a system more specifically inspired by the classic turn-based RPG Final Fantasy. In this game you play as the three heros that starred in his previous game, Epic Battle Fantasy 2, who, at the height of their collective power, went to face off against the game's final boss and failed. They landed back in Startington all at level 1 with basic weapons and armor. It is you, the player, who gets to take them back to their glorious power to rid the world of evil once and for all.



The game's system features three main characters on the screen at all times, each with their own bouncy walk cycle and each that follows the leader before them, so the three look like a team walking around the world. There are many characters that are non-player characters (NPC's) that can be interacted with that give the party quests they need to complete.



There is also combat, where the player can walk up to a monster, press space bar, and initiate a combat sequence. The combat is turn based, but once the team enters combat, they are transported to another scene that zooms in on what monsters the team is fighting and allows the user to select attack, magic, special abilities, or items. The player can also select what monsters get hit by which team members, just like in any classic console RPG. In addition, during combat, if the characters are left idle, they each have their own idle animation for waiting around. There is also information on the monsters the characters are fighting if the user mouses over the monsters.

There is a lot to explore in this world built in Flash, with hidden boxes containing items, dungeons , and tons of characters, and it is truly an amazing feat to see classic gameplay being made fairly using Flash as the engine and tool behind their creation.

Check out his art. It is simple but when making something as big as an RPG world, cute and simple is the way to go. He has truly built an exciting game. And you don’t even have to own another console to play it!

Artist Exploration - www.okaydave.com (Dave Werner)

The website I chose is an individual portfolio site. I’m sure this will come across several times, but this site I feel is different from most portfolio sites by going through the complete design process phase. The layout and used of mixed-media, photographs, videos, flash animation, and graphics, allows the homepage collage come to life. It adds an element of texture to the website. The combination of handmade drawings and professional completed projects really allow you to gain a lot of insight about the artist.

HOMEPAGE
The home page collages seems kind of jumbled and mixed up at first, but when you hover your mouse over the images, the ones pertaining to the same project s are “illuminated” in a unifying color, which allows you to see the pieces of each project. Again, it is a unique take on a typical navigation system, while still having a much more practical and literal menu below the collage.

CONTENT
Each project has a page dedicated to it, with several process images shown. They also all begin with a video that goes by and explains, step by step, the reasoning, concept, design, and follow through for the projects. This visual element, as opposed to linking to a 10 page pdf detailing the design process, gives you all of the necessary information without boring the viewer.

His portfolio covers a wide array of different types of projects, each using several different forms of media to bring together the finished product. I really liked the illusion of tangible images and drafts incorporated with the digital elements.

www.okaydave.com (This image is of one of his logo designs).

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Big Spaceship - Studio Exploration

Big Spaceship is digital in New York that has...

Samples from the portfolio:

http://www.starburst.com/