Ian Guthridge.com

Well! Back to school means back to work! I have about 10 weeks left to finish the biggest project of all time!!!

…

Ok, so it isn’t quite that big… It is big enough though. Unfortunately I can’t really share a video of the game itself, so instead I’ll share an older engine test video with you guys:

In case you can’t tell, the pink box is a button. It is pretty much triggered whenever it overlaps with a non-static object. Pretty cool, huh?

Hopefully I can show you guys something more relevant in the next update. Back to work!
-Ian

Sorry for the lack of updates this summer! My internship at EA Sports has taken up more time than I was expecting, so I didn’t really have anything new done to show you guys. I could keep trying to explain what it is like here, but this video probably explains it better:

Well that’s all for now!

Well partially… Moving platforms are at about 75% (There is still too much jitter vertically.) and I need to get the rendering pipeline finished up, and the tie everything together into a nice little package. Then it is on to the level editor! I’ll need to make a second pass through and add proper sound support, networking, and a few other things… but my main goal right now is to get things to the point where my buddies can start making levels asap.

Look for another big update this weekend soon.

Now that school is out, it is GO TIME! Time to hit the gas hard and build a game engine for my next big project. I’ve finished a pretty decent prototype of the basics of the game (movement, procedural character animation, and platforms). Take a look at the following video to see it in action.

The idea is that the player controls a piece of gum that sticks to [nearly] any surface. Being a piece of gum, you can’t jump but you can detach from surfaces, putting a new spin on the platformer. A few more gameplay elements are in the works, but I don’t want to give too much away right now. I’m currently working on some of the more traditional components, such as parallaxing backgrounds. Look for another update in the next few weeks.

I have always been interested in the creative process. What really intrigues me isn’t the end products: movies, art video games, etc. Don’t get me wrong I am greatly intrigued by what goes into a finished idea., but the transient creations, the forgotten sparks of originality are what really intrigues me.

I think of this as the personal creative process. It gets the creative juices flowing, as they say. It doesn’t produce anything in itself, it may not even be a creative idea on its own, but it sews the seeds for a creative idea later on down the road, even if one can’t remember the act.

I have pages and pages of little ideas I want to explore to see if I can create tools, toys or gadgets that help foster the personal creative process. Let me know what you think of my little toys, the first is below:

Click in the white box below, and then press (nearly) any key on your keyboard to create a little patten. It is a work in progress, but it is finished enough to show. Hope you enjoy it.

We had to code up a little procedurally generated animation for my graphics class. Sure it looks fresh out of 1998, but 1998 is retro now. Or is it vintage at this point.

… Either way, I still think it turned out pretty neat for being written by hand.

Atlanta had a pretty major snow today, of at LEAST 3 inches. It was crazy! GT actually canceled classes… at 2:30. My friends and I did the obvious thing and built a snow couch.

Photos after the break:
(continue reading…)

Hey guys,
I participated in the 2010 Global Game Jam this weekend. It was an amazingly unique experience! We had to make a game in under 48 hours themed around deception and either rain, a plain, or Spain. Further we could implement up to 4 “optional” constraints to make things a bit more… interesting. I coded for almost 30 hours straight in Actionscript 3; I spent about half of that time trying to hack the Flixel framework enough to make it work.  I mean, Flixel is a pretty solid system, our game just had a few special needs.

Click to play:

It’s the end of 200X. Now, we begin a new decade. I hope, as you too probably hope, that it goes smoothly… or at least than the last. While we aren’t where we thought we’d be, individually, as a country, or as a world, we have still moved forward more than back.

Here’s to the New Year! To the New Decade! May 2010 be everything you hope and more!

I hate starting projects.

The first line of code typed, the first paragraph of an essay or a story authored, or the first scribble on a fresh sheet of paper starts defining the product; it destroys the superposition of the possible things the project may become. With each stroke of the key or pen, thousands upon thousands of outcomes are pruned away.

I am destroying infinite works that could have been to create just one. Is this one better than those which will never be? Does it deserve its existence more than its brothers do?

I hope so.