Category Archives: Active Projects

All current hardware and software projects that I am working on.

The Journey to Steel Ego

  By |
Leave a comment

Anyone who follows me should know that I love my side projects! After a certain point however they become more than just a side project and end-up being another full-fledged project. This is another example of that happening. What originally started off as a “just for fun” project quickly evolved in to something I enjoyed playing as much as I did working on it.

Inspiration for this project came from Nuclear Throne. After (finally) playing it, I found myself hooked – but I couldn’t quite pinpoint why. More often than not I would find the difficulty way too steep, but I kept coming back for more. I quickly found myself hooked (and as a byproduct, inspired).

Continue reading →

Steel Ego (Alpha 0.4)

  By |
Leave a comment

Anyone who follows me should know that I love my side projects! After a certain point however they become more than just a side project and end-up being another full-fledged project. This is another example of that happening. What originally started off as a “just for fun” project (inspired by playing Nuclear Throne) quickly evolved in to something I enjoyed playing as much as I did working on it.

Continue reading →

Venturing out of my Unity Comfort Zone

  By |
Leave a comment

besusplatformer_3For over the last 3 years, I have exclusively worked in Unity 3D for all of my indie game creations, but a few years ago before I learned to use it, I had begun a project in Gamemaker 8 (which eventually got ported to Unity after I had become increasingly familiar with Unity). In August of 2016, I would again revisit Gamemaker: Studio by downloading the free version and after playing around (translation: getting lost) in it for a bit, I had gotten my fill. Enter the insane deal on the Gamemaker Humble Bundle and the itch to explore Gamemaker would show-up again. After a couple of days contemplating the purchase, I bit the bullet and went for it (the included source code files were the tipping point since they would serve as examples for me to see how the engine was structured).

Continue reading →

Studio Besus Demo Disc

  By | , , ,
Leave a comment

BesusDemo01Nostalgia is something all too common for me and in my most recent bout of it, Playstation demo discs attacked. Going through many of my older ones, I yearned for the exciting days of getting a new one. I discovered countless games I otherwise never would have thanks to them; Ape Escape, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and Bloody Roar just to name a few. With broadband internet as common as it is and demos becoming less and less common for games, they are certainly a dying (already dead?) breed. I wanted to change that, or at the very least, revisit my nostalgia.

To do so, I decided to use my engine of choice: Unity. Thanks to the System.Diagnostics namespace, I am able to open external executables from the “launcher” using: Process.Start(path to exe). But before launching the demo, I open a brief description of the game and give the user the chance to back out or start it. Upon doing so, I pause the music and bring up a new UI message to indicate a demo has been launched. To keep the “optical disc” feel of the Playstation demo discs, I make extensive use of Movie Textures to showcase the currently selected item as well as to play a full screen movie (but this is done an a separate canvas).

Overall I am very satisfied with the feel of it all and even designed it so demo configurations, videos, descriptions, and titles can easily be swapped out for other games and/or specific game studio collections.

Download the Studio Besus Demo Collection here!

New Crash Co. Beta Demo!

  By |
Leave a comment

Just under a week after launching the Steam Greenlight campaign for Crash Co., I am proud to present a new playable beta demo! Nearly 5 months since the last playable preview was released, there have been a number of changes, ranging from bug fixes to gameplay tweaks!

This demo features a total of 12 playable levels (7 main demolition levels and 5 hidden bonus levels), allowing you to control 5 main demolition vehicles as well as a handful of transport-only ones; from a train to an ATV.

 

 

 

If you find any bugs, have any suggestions, or would just like to share your opinion on the game, please let me know!

Crash Co. Building (or Demolition) Progress Update

  By |
Leave a comment

BuildingsNew02It’s been a few months since my last update but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a number of improvements to Crash Co! Starting things off, let’s face it, the buildings in Crash Co. were due for some refinement. These were still the original buildings from my prototype days so suffice to say, they were a bit ugly. Being nothing more than cubes with a texture meant everything about them looked flat. They got the job done, but there’s no reason that I couldn’t add more detail; so that’s just what I did. Below you can see the transition from old (right) to new (left).

Despite having added more detail to them though, they still seem a bit lifeless. Enter reflections! After having (finally) decided to learn about Reflection Probes, I decided to put them to use and generate a reflection at initial runtime (not in realtime though as that is far too expensive). Despite the lower quality of the video below, I am quite satisfied with the final effect.

 

Continue reading →