Peanut Butter Fingers

Lions Rampant

2011-04-20T22:39:00.004+01:00

Reef, Kulashaker vibe. Defo summery shit.

Goonies Never Say Die

2011-04-20T22:30:00.002+01:00

We pushed ourselves as musicians with new time signatures and tempos, different arrangements and avoided all repetition. None of the new songs finish the same way they start, as they were written from an emotional standpoint rather than a musical one. Instead of asking ourselves where each song should go we asked ourselves how each song should make us feel. It was all about trying to express yourself without having the words to do so"

Right yeah. It's good stuff though. Pretty much every track could be my theme tune if I was a super hero. Especially The Wrong End Of A Trembling Knife

Woods Alight - Monk EP

2011-04-20T20:33:00.002+01:00

Something a bit different.

Woods Alight is drumandbass head Tom Hubble. It's quite epic drum and bass, not out of place in something like supermeatboy, or your next Fast and Furious 8 trailer.

Definitely heavy dubstep influence, The Water and D-slam being my faves. The Water's got a wicked classic dnb drop, fucking excellent. No free download here, but defo worth checking out..

Link in the pic.

Enemies - We've been talking

2011-04-20T12:10:00.007+01:00

OK, so initially you're going to be like "fucking fappy haired, skinny jeans emo twat, what is this plinky plonky Vodaphone advert shit", then it's going to drop and get all crunchy and you'll love it like fellatio off a parrot with a ... I don't know I'm too hung over today to write real reviews.
Anyhow. Enemies are fucking awesome, Creamist is probs my fave track, all screamy guitars and air raid sirens and fappy breakdowns. go.

Link in the pic

Monobrow

2011-04-19T15:15:00.006+01:00

Ok, I'm double posting today, but only because it's day one of music blog mania.

If you have any love of 80s rock, ASIWYFA or anything that feels like being hit by a rock-band shaped truck doing 80mph then you need to listen to Monobrow. It's powerchord heavy head banging brilliance. Just go and listen and air guitar along to it.

Link in the pic

Invalids.

2011-04-19T12:04:00.003+01:00

Invalids (Pete Davis) has been a favourite of mine for a while, it's this crazy harmonic spaz-rock that has a serious feel good vibe to it. Anyway, I've been rinsing his 3 track EP for about 5 months now, and he's finally uploaded a new piece of work called Ursine Valor. Definately worth checking out - it's some really summery goodness.

Link in the pic...

Freaky Toys...

2010-07-13T18:26:00.006+01:00

So I was clearingout my attic with Ali today, and (I know this is way off topic), but decided to make some mutant toys....

I got 'Tubed!!

2010-07-09T11:02:00.002+01:00

Been a little while since I stuck anything into the blog-hole. but I have something to show! Theres a new demo of Bushido Shuffle out now, and it's had some good reviews.. and HappyCheeseCake was lovely enough to make a youtube video of the thing! If you want to get the demo is over on
my web page.

And here's the video

Samurais , Gadgets and Viral Marketing.

2010-04-09T09:58:00.004+01:00

OK, so it's been a little while, but here we are again! Bushido is coming on even further, there are new moves, the controls have been refined and it has a main menu! May Demo is still on the cards!
There is a new you tube video that you can check out here:

Hope you enjoy it. I'm having some issues with the game running under windows 7 at the moment which is a bit of a downer, but nothing that can't (eventually) get fixed.

Gadgets..

On a separate bit of news, I attended the Gadget Show Live Event the last 2 days, and it was totally insane, like 20000 people in the NEC. I was there with NeuroSky, demonstrating their MindSet hardware and the Invaders Reloaded game (the dev of which I covered in this blog last year). Anyway, it was really well recieved, with a constant queue of people wanting a go on the game. It was nice to be in such close proximity to other stands showing off games like modern warfare and Batman Arkham Asylum, and yet there were still just as many people waiting to play my little indy game!
Super hectic, but alot of fun. Massive thank-you to Jim Sullivan and NeuroSky for having us down to the show with them, and to all people who came over to play the games and have a chat.

BushidoShuffle - The slide to Silhouette Stance!

2010-03-01T14:14:00.002Z

Ok, so alot of work has been going on around Bushido the last few months. First and foremost the story has been coming together, with Kris and myself really fleshing out the world of Bushido and making it more comprehensive and real.

There have been numerous changes to the gameplay, strangely most of it has been moving it towards what I would call "hollywood real". Meaning, the game isn't realisitc, but it is least plausible within the context of the story.

Still, it seems that as soon as I've made an update video, I've surpassed it and it's looking Old, but here's the latest from the Bushido-Dojo

BushidoShuffle

2010-02-10T10:19:00.002Z

Ok, so total style change! Having seen some of Kris's amazing artwork for Bushido, I wanted to bring the game visuals more in line with the graphic novel. It's been a fair amount of work playing with the visuals and getting the right balance of looks vs gameplay.

Been making alot of other tweaks to the AI and general gameplay. I'm gearing up to switch the whole game across to my HATed editor, which should make Dev much much faster.

Anyway, here are some of the obligatory screenshots (please note I took these before re-working the anti alias and anisotropic code, so they are considerably smoother)!

Ink Defocus

2010-01-20T16:10:00.005Z

Sorry for the shameful lack of recent updates to the blog.. I've been very busy redoing my homepage and trying to get that relaunched, so in the meantime, maybe check this out. I took a break from making hectic things and tried doing something more calm. This is a procedural animation (different every time), it's based on the way a biro will leave a stain on your pocket! It's very slow and meditative, with the colors slowly blending and interacting. There's sound on it too, but sadly not in the video.

If you have a windows PC then you can tryout Defocus for your self! It can be found here. As usual with this kind of thing, I can't guarantee if it will work on your setup, it's an experimental thing after all! It uses a customised bloom shader that needs PixelShader V2 or above...

New AV work. 4 new visualisers (click images for full size)

2009-12-11T20:09:00.003Z

If you want to see them in action then check out the video:

Make it High Quality!!

Please note that the compression is pretty shitty and so
lot of the HD detail is lost. I'll buy a copy Adobe Premier
soon so I can export video in HD!

Bushido Shuffle Gets 2D-er!

2009-11-26T14:34:00.003Z

So, we've lost the 0.5 out of the 2.5D of Bushido Shuffle, and it's all now totally flat! The visuals have gone through another change, now with black and white cell shading, and an age overlay on the screen.

The fighting system is in the middle of huge overhall, now instead of keys triggering random combos, there are three keys that trigger low,medium and high attacks. You can chainlink between any of the 3 heights of attack , and use the up and down keys to modify the direction of the sword. It all adds up to make what is turning out to be quite a tight and fun control system!

Anyway, another demo is a way off, as alot of stuff is broken, but here's a video and some screens.

Another Demo!

2009-10-19T15:41:00.003+01:00

So, I finally got my act together and got a little demo out for all to enjoy!

It's really just letting you play with the combat system, and trying to chop some enemies up!
There is alot of work still to be done on this. I'm really just focussed on the actual mechanics of the game right now, and I've done almost nothing on the story elements of it at all!

Anyway, click the above image to catch a link to the Demo Download and give it a try!

If you're unsure of what Bushido Shuffle is, then scroll the heck on down and do some reading!

Organ Demo Released!

2009-09-24T14:22:00.002+01:00

So, here's a little tech demo of Organ. It runs through the 4 current patterns, and is generally quite lovely. You have to supply your own MP3's because I can't distribute other people's music with it. Read the readme in the zip file for more information. Basically you just drag and drop a bunch of MP3s into the same folder as the Organ application and run the application (it will detect the MP3's it's self). Once a track is playing use left and right arrows to skip forward and backward.

Visceral and Organ. 2 Audio Visual Toys.

2009-09-23T11:06:00.006+01:00

For a long time I've been fascinated by the visualisers for applications like iTunes and Windows Media Player, and I've wanted to do something similar. This urge was intensified earlier this year when I went to a SoundClash even featuring Luke Vibert and Clark, which was billed as an "audio visual extavaganza". It was a great gig but the video was prerecorded, and was not for the most part in sync with the music. Also, because it was recorded and the set was longer than the video, it looped 2 or 3 times, so you saw the same thing again and again.....

I decided at that point that I wanted to make something that was able to create random, abstract and generative visuals, either at home or live. The idea being that even if you play the same song through it twice, you wouldn't get the same result.

So, what I have so far is Visceral and Organ. Which are really little digital toys. You can dump any Mp3 into them and they will generate patterns and shapes from the sound data in the Mp3. Moving and changing seamlessly and in sync with the music. The idea is to take this much further in future. The wish list:

Many, many more algorythms, so that there are perhaps a total of 100 different patterns the visualiser can adopt.
Generative algorythms. Ideally, it would be beautiful if the program could generate new code based on the music. Meaning it's core patterns would not be pre-made, and it would in effect become self generating.
Better live input. Currently it's limited to 4 minutes, in order to eliminate memory overloads and general instability. Ideally this needs to be something that can run the length of a live gig!
Dual Screen. For a live environment divide the application into 2 screens. The Live display (which the audience see), and the background GUI, which would be displayed on the engineer's laptop. Allowing them to control elements of the application without the audience seeing mouse cursors etc...

Below are 2 videos, one of Organ, and one of Visceral. Give Organ a chance... it takes a minute or 2 to get going!! Please note that the screen recorder I'm using causes my PC to have some issues, especially with the Sync Rate and the sound quality. I'm sorry. There'll be a demo soon, so you can see it in all it's HD glory.

Visceral

ORGAN

Bushido Shuffle - ScreenShots from test level

2009-09-21T14:26:00.002+01:00

Just a little update, with some screenshots . Mainly very gory! You can click the hell out of it to make it bigger

Bushido Shuffle - Update!

2009-09-16T12:28:00.003+01:00

So, I've decided to flip Bushido Shuffle a little. I started thinking about the actual dynamics of the game, and in reality it's not that different from some of those old Megadrive games like Shinobi or Ninja Gaiden, so instead of making it a gigantic 3D world (that is going to kill me programming and bug testing), it's going to be a slightly more linear 2.5D affair!

Obviously this limits the amount of free-roaming that the player can do, but I've figured that abilities such as the double/triple jump and wall running will be unlocked as you play, and so you will be able to return to previous levels and reach new areas where you can collect new power ups.

Gameplay wise, the way the game actually works is alot more clear now.

There are 2 fighting styles, each kind of relating to the concept of ki. Initially you are only able to fight with combos of slashes. As you build ki you start to see flashes of light from your opponents swords. If you can time your attacks to coincide with the flashes you can instant strike your opponent and kill them in one hit.

Building ki to even higher levels allows you to become shinshin toitsu (unified bod and mind), ah who am I kidding, it's basically slowmotion, that means the milisecond flashes of "instant kill" time last longer, meaning you can chain together strings of instant kills.

Actual deaths have been improved, it's gone from 4 to about 12, with multilple ways to chop your enemies up including my personal favourite where you chop them vertically in half!

So, check the new video, comments and crit welcome! And subscribe and support!

PS. I advise watching in fullscreen High Quality (as the camera is quite far away, and it's all tiny otherwise!)

Invaders gets branded!

2009-09-11T10:00:00.003+01:00

So, Invaders has had some lovely 2D treatment from The Edge! It's looking alot crisper now than it was before. Game play has had some minor tweaks - such as improving the wingman feature, limiting bombs, level selection, a longer and more challenging powerup route and some real work on the learning curve. levels 1 thru 10 are a walk in the park, but by 30 things are getting mad flamboyant! Here's a screenie to whet your appetite for laser based destruction, and there should be a new 4 level demo out soon!

CLICK THE THUMBNAIL FOR A MUCH LARGER VERSION!

Bushido Shuffle. Feature video

2009-08-17T09:13:00.002+01:00

For a surprisingly long time I've been quietly tapping away on this samurai game. Its not something I've posted online or anything... it started out as an experiment, and I never intended it to be an actual game.

So what's the big idea? Well, my initial plan with Bushido Shuffle was to make a slightly more realistic sword fighting game. Samurai and slashemup games tend to originate from Japan, and as such the violence tends to be slightly detached from the action. By which I mean, everything can be blocked, and hitting someone with a sword will create a multicoloured flash!

In Bushido Shuffle, I wanted to give the feeling that you are fighting with a real sword. And not just any sword. A katana, the sharpest blade in the word. So, I applied FPS shooter concepts to the fighting genre. Characters use a hitbox system to calculate where a sword has hit them, and to generate damage (and dismemberment) accordingly. In easy terms, you can chop people's limbs off, mid fight.

Anyway, it's very early days. I have some of the fighting mechanics, and some of the movement/jumping stuff. Check out the video and tell me what you think!

Invaders Reloaded - Alpha Demo Out NOW!!

2009-08-12T17:01:00.003+01:00

Invaders Reloaded, a Space Shooter designed for use with the NeuroSky Mindkit EEG headset has just gone to Alpha, and there is a 4 level demo available from here. Of course, as the headset isn't even out yet, this demo can be played using just the keyboard! So go grab it and see what you think!

Origins of Butterfingers

2009-08-12T13:48:00.000+01:00

So it begins...

2009-08-12T13:37:00.002+01:00

So, here goes, I'm starting blogdom. I hope to update this place every day or so. I spend so much time making games, and music and digital art, and never really show most of it to anyone, it just gets canned as soon as I find something more fun. So up here I'll link to downloads of experimental projects, update on current work, and generally geek the hell out. And probably do alot of ranting about how retarded the government and so on are. But we'll see. Peace!