Its the night when the owls see everything
That’s right =)
Tonight is Java Mammas awesome monthly challenge, or as some people call it “New Song Night”. I’ve been tweaking my song “Lonely Owl”, but I think I’m ready to present it to the public, and that will happen tonight Insha Allah (god willing).
So, Rob has been very good at broadcasting the open mic every Thursday (that’s today) at the ilyAIMY channel on uStream.tv. My camera has been super crappy and not working…grrr, I’m going to try to see if I can fix it some how, so that I could broadcast when I’m guest hosting for him in the future.
Also I have an upcoming show, I’m opening up for ilyAIMY on Friday the 13th, at The Old Bowie Town Grille in Bowie Maryland. Many of my PGCC friends have RSVPed “yes”, I haven’t seen them in ages, and some of them haven’t seen me perform since my PG days, hopefully they would enjoy the “improvements” =).
Tomorrow is Rob’s birthday gathering, and also my lunch with my good friend Youseff, it’ll be a day filled with friends, fish, fun, and ends with a pajama party / DVD night…god I LOVE being back in the east coast.
My game jam buddies have started fixing up our game “Illusionary State”, wohoo..I’m pretty excited to actually see the working version of our game, its going to be awesome. They already have the music I made so my part is pretty much done. I will defiantly post links to where you can download the game and try it out for your self in the near future Insha Allah, once we get everything running =).
Still no job yet, but I’ve applied and gotten some call backs, hopefully I get THEEE call from the one I really want. Wish me luck.
Hopefully I’ll see some of you tonight at the Java.
Salaam.
Results of the G.G.J. 2009
7:20pm (Sunday Feb 1 2009)
Well, I wasn’t too happy to be honest…
Here is what happened:
We didn’t set deadlines for specific things, so the 2 programmer/ artiest, kept working the details. Then an hour before it was time to submit, a technical error happened, and Dan lost all the “collision detection” programming he’s been working on the past day. With so much little time, he had to scramble up a working skeleton of the 1st level. Rob was trying to figure out a specific animation for his character (and unfortunately didn’t get it) so about 45 minutes to due time, he had to drop that and work on the game’s story intro (which came out good on “our” machines). I had to get on their tail to give me the files I needed in order to submit it in the format needed.
Also unfortunately, we didn’t get to use my music for the Splash screen, the level, or the game over =(.
But luckily I had edited the audio for the game story, so at least ONE of my pieces were used.
When it was presentation time, the flash file some how got out of sync, the audio & the lyrical animations were WAY off. I had to explain that because of the trouble we JUST had, everything is basically jacked up. Never the less we were able to get our point across, and even got a few laughs from the crowd.
We were Awarded “Best Concept” for this theme, I’m actually pretty excited about it, I thought we might get the “better luck next time” or “you have potential” type of awards, but “Best Concept”? wow. That really brightened my perspective.
Dr. Harmeyer then told us that the IGDA had voiced interest in having some of our games “redone” to be displayed at their big meeting in San Francisco next month. That is great news! both Dan & Rob are excited about getting the game in the working condition we wanted, and since I like to learn from my mistake, I gave Rob until Thursday to figure out his animation =). I’m also hoping that Dan will figure out what he needs in time to re-submit the game by this weekend.
I think we have a really good chance to having our game chosen, we apparently have the Best Concept =), and the coolest audio, I’ve heard the others in Rockville…we TOTALLY got best audio =)
So there you have it, even with all this craziness, it was still an awesome experience, I can’t wait for the next one =).
Now…to catch up on sleep.
Salaam.
Updated #8
Its 2:00pm (Sunday Feb 1 2009)
Well, the final count down has officially begun. We have only one hour to (if not less) to finish the game, place it in a zip folder and uploaded it to Game Jam Site.
I’m a little restless, because my 2 team members are still “tweaking” the game. Not sure why, the game is now shorter, so it should have been done by now.
I was able to create the voice over needed for the Introduction story, so that the player wouldn’t have to “read” the instruction, the audio quality is not the best, but I think it came out well given the circumstances & equipment (cheap mic & an old laptop).
Dr. Harmeyer has put me down as the Team Leader, so I received instructions on how to properly “package” the game. I’ve been pacing back and forth the past few minutes, I won’t rest until I’ve uploaded the game to the site. I’ll let you know how it all ends.
Wish us luck.
Salaam.
Update #7
Its 10:46am (Sunday Feb 1 2009)
So a few changes have been made, we’ve decided to go with only 3 levels for the game (which I’m happy about). We will doing some voice overs for the introduction of the game, hopefully that would go well. Its good that there is 3 of us, because there are 3 voices needed, yours truly here will be Mr. Idman, the evil man’s voice, niiiice =)
Its crunch time, so hopefully things will start working now please, thanks =)
Salaam.
Update #6
Its 9:14am (Sunday Feb 1 2009)
I woke up a few moments ago from a 2 hour sleep, I grabbed a cup of tea and a bagel, Dan & Rob have informed me that they are running into some “minor” issues. One deals with the boundaries of the game, and the other with the animation of the main character. I only wish I was a more useful Flash programmer, I’m pretty much handicapped with it comes to ActionScript. But I believe they can do it, I voted to keep the Prototype Ball placement Dan had been using all this time, it was sleek, and working.
I think we are about to try one of the levels out.
Later.
Salaam.
Update #5
Its 5:20am (Sunday Feb 1 2009)
RobTom is up, and Dan is now resting =)
I was able to complete all the audio with more than enough time, and I handed it to Dan so he can try it out once he gets back. Energy is defiantly low at this point. Since RobTom was asleep, he asked me to create a Red & Blue pill for him. Being that I’m not an artist, I didn’t have Photoshop or Flash on my machine, so I had to go old school and make it in MS Paint, I must say it came out pretty good =). Now that Rob is up I gave you the files for the pills so that he can artistify it for Dan =).
I had a nice long talk with one of the hosts here, his name is Steve, really cool guy, he wants to do some quick recording with out breaking the bank. I ended up showing him some of the free programs that I use like Audacity & Acid Express, and he really got pumped to actually start recording, since the myth of its complication has been revealed to be non-existent by yours truly (for a simply recording).
Also apparently they have been taking pictures of us and posting it up on the web, not just us but all the other locations as well =)
I still can’t find me though, I’m the one with the big headphones & bigger afro =). They should be located on Flickr.com/Photos/GlobalGameJam
Also I “think” they will put the games up for people to see and play on the UB Game Jam Site… but I could be wrong =)
Till the next update.
Salaam
