Blogs - gamepopper

Wow it's been way to long since I last posted on here.

So what I've been doing since February is building myself up as an Indie Games Developer. This has included getting myself a company page on IndieDB:

www.indiedb.com/company/gamepopper

I also have a page for my most recent project, Secret of Escape:

www.indiedb.com/games/secret-of-escape

Feel free to check me out! I'm currently looking for an artist to improve the visuals of the game.

Sorry for the long absence, I’ve been a bit busy unpacking and preparing for another upcoming year of University. As some may recall a few months ago, I got offered a place at a summer camp in America and in mid-June I setted off for America to begin my two months of work. I had a great time meeting a large variety of people young and old and tried out some new things like boating, motorbiking and camp fires. I also worked in the Computers as each staff member taught a Science. There were three of us working in computers and we were allowed to run our own courses, so I figured why not teach them how to make games using programming.
And so the Games Programming Science Course was created! On each two weeks I got a group of enthusiastic campers aged between 7 -15 interesting in making games, and while they had some difficulties understanding some of the codes and functions I was able to help them make some interesting games, including the original Pong! The video in this link shows some of the examples actually made by the campers…

Blip.tv

I am very glad to have gone and experience working at the camp, as well as being able to travel around America afterwords, such as New York, Washington DC, Delaware and New Jersey. It was a great experience and I would love to go again, especially since I have experience in teaching now!
But at the moment I’ve got work catch up on and University to prepare for. Talk to you soon!

Hey guys!Two updates on the site, I’ve added videos to some of the game pages, so you can see some gameplay footage of 8-Bit Theater and Death Maze.Also, I’ve posted up a new game demo, this one of my second semester assignment. It’s a demonstration of user interaction of a Katana demo made in OpenGL using GLUT. Click here to check it out.

Now for the big newsStarting back in November/December, I applied for a summer job in America at one of their Nation’s Summer Camps through the agency Camp Leaders. Despite some hiccups in the interview and application process I got a place and not too long ago I got my work VISA, and in mid-June I will be leaving to work in America for 2 months!

I will be a camp counsellor and an instructor at Camp Watonka in Pennsylvania, teaching computer programming. It will be a great experience as I’ve never travelled to America before and I’ll be teaching as well!I’ll also continue work on Siegfried in the mean time and if possible, work on another game as a demo for job applications.

OK I'd like to show you guys what level I'm at so far:I've currently made two games, which were both assignment projects for Advanced Level and University respectfully.

I've currently made two games, which were both assignment projects for Advanced Level and University respectfully.

The first one is 8-Bit Theater: Black Mage is in a Shooting Game, a fan-game of the webcomic 8-Bit Theater made in Game Maker 8. It's a side scrolling shooter with Black Mage fighting Final Fantasy themed enemies, like in the comic itself. It was an extended project for me to have an understanding of how games are made, and it got recieved very well at the time, despite it being only two levels long.

The second one is Death Maze, a maze shooter that was a first semester, first year assignment for the Games Programming module at University. Unlike 8-Bit Theater, this one had to be made based around a skeleton code (a premade program that had all the functionalities to work, but not much for a proper game), and we had to work around it to make the game we wanted.

Right now, I'm in my second semester, studying further in Java, and learning Java, C++ and SQL. The latter two I have touched upon in the past but never really got that far so I'm glad to go back and learn these. I'm also doing AI theory.

Meanwhile in my spare time I'm writing film reviews for my University's media website, learning to make games, go to the local anime society or hang out with friends, and survive Uni life. However, I've began to work on a game that one day I will upload here:

The second one is Death Maze, a maze shooter that was a first semester, first year assignment for the Games Programming module at University. Unlike 8-Bit Theater, this one had to be made based around a skeleton code (a premade program that had all the functionalities to work, but not much for a proper game), and we had to work around it to make the game we wanted.
Right now, I'm in my second semester, studying further in Java, and learning Java, C++ and SQL. The latter two I have touched upon in the past but never really got that far so I'm glad to go back and learn these. I'm also doing AI theory.

Meanwhile in my spare time I'm writing film reviews for my University's media website, learning to make games, go to the local anime society or hang out with friends, and survive Uni life. However, I've began to work on a game that one day I will upload here:

Siegfried will be a fantasy/steampunk themed scrolling shooter. At the moment I’m going to make this game (or at least a prototype) in XNA and maybe transfer it over to another engine or make my own to make more features in it and bring it to other systems (e.g. Mac and Linux).

I hope to update here regularly as well as my own blog (gamepopperdev.wordpress.com).

Talk to you all soon!