game development – Stoo Cambridge

OCR from a screen grab? Why would you want that? Ahh….Ok.

Posted: June 19, 2018 at 7:42 pm

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Tags : blobbit push game development tutorial

As development on Blobbit Push draws to an end there’s a list of things that need fixing, sorting and tweaking before the game can be published. One of ‘these things’ is to compile a list of all the animations we’re using for the front end UI. Stuff like level select, pause menu, you get the idea. Now I could go with my original intention of just typing the name of each animation into a spreadsheet, not the quickest option as I would manually have to read through every animation and type it up. Not really up for that, especially when there’s artwork to create! Hang about wouldn’t it be great if you could screen grab the text and paste it into a document? Hmmm, well it turns out there’s something out there that does just that and it’s called Capture2Text for Windows. (http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/)

So how does this work then? Incredibly easy me old china, let me show you.

Revisting the Sensible Golf Editor Part 2

Posted: June 7, 2017 at 11:59 am

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Tags : amiga game development pixel art sensible golf sensible software

Back in 2011 whilst browsing through some of my art archives I found a disc image called “Sensible Golf Editor”. Of course I simple had to try it out even if I couldn’t remember how the thing actually worked!

Well it was a great idea at the time but I just couldn’t remember what keys did what

The Art of Little Bird Episode 1

Posted: May 10, 2017 at 9:47 am

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Tags : art game development inkscape little bird logo design pencil vector art

Christmas 2011, the holiday season was about to begin.. I was just about to begin the slow down for the holidays, you know the usual sort of thing, mulled wine, ginger wine, mince pies, backing up my files, fixing things, you get the idea. So mid-bite through a mince pie I’m offered a small project to work on, only catch is it needs to be started pretty soon. Something about needing to be done quick. Hmmm.. Tell me more I say..

So first question is, ‘what’s this all about then?’ Turns out the game is a physics based scrolling rollem’about skillfest featuring a little bird that.

Blobbit Push the 2nd

Posted: March 25, 2016 at 6:42 pm

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Tags : blobbit blobbit push game development pixel art

It’s been many years since the first Blobbit game came out and as many years again Mark and I have pondered on when we should work on it again. Neither one of us had the time previously but the planets have aligned correctly somewhere in the Universe and we both agree 2016 is to be the year a new Blobbit game will appear!

But where to start? I’ve thought long and hard over the years of what the next Blobbit game should be. Things have moved on a lot since Blobbit Dash and during that time so as the medium with which games are played. No longer are phones an obscure format with tiny low resolution screens. Neither are consoles all about mega 3D rendering engines and incredibly arduous intro sequences and cut scenes, oh hang on some still are, swiftly moving on…

Work in progress comparison old (left) vs new with alpha shaded shadow too! (right)

Pinball game you say?!

Posted: May 11, 2015 at 7:36 pm

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Tags : art concept game development gimp inkscape mypaint vector art

Sometimes you’re offered a project that ticks all the boxes right away. Let’s go back to September 2012 when one such project fell in my lap.
The game was called Looksi Pinball and was intended to work with a hardware overlay for an iPad or iPhone to provide.

Pinball UFO Table Rough

UFO_Table_1

1995 – some pixel texture art I did for Joe Blow

Posted: November 4, 2013 at 10:50 am

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Tags : 1995 amiga game development pixel art

Here’s some old pixel art I made in 1995. Only thing I’ve added to it is a scanline filter (after x2 scale) original image was 320 x 256 , drawn 1 pixel at a time. I’m such a sucker for hand drawn anti-aliasing!

ET is here and taking our cows!

Posted: February 14, 2013 at 11:14 am

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Tags : art game development illustration inkscape vector art

One of my recent projects was to design the artwork for a pinball game. The first table had the theme of Aliens and UFO’s. So not wasting any time I came up with these little chaps who fly about the Nevada desert looking for things to abduct with their dazzling tractor beam of light. OK it’s actually a blurred out line with an alpha blended gradient and all that other artistic malarkey, but you get the idea.

Initially I did a concept sketch , why break from the norm eh? After a quick scan into the computer I loaded the newly digitised drawing in to Inkscape where I recreated it using vector lines before colouring in using quite a few layers of fills and gradients, oh and the most important ingredient Tea!. The beauty of vector art is it can be exported to pretty much any resolution. This is brilliant for those times in your life when when 6 months down the line you’re asked to do a HD+++ version for iPad Mega Retina 9 or the need arises to create a version in print.

As a test I took the art I’d created for the table and produced a canvas print for my studio wall, the results were excellent.

To finish off here’s what the flying saucer looked like prior to me adding colour and shading.

Sega World Championship Soccer II (Secret revealed)

Posted: March 5, 2012 at 8:50 pm

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Tags : football game development pixel art screen shot sega sega genesis sega megadrive sensible soccer sensible software soccer

There’s a secret that I’m surprised hasn’t surfaced by now? It’s not something to change societal structure, nor create widespread panic on a global scale. No, this secret is about a game I worked on during my Sensible Software days,

Revisiting 1995: The Sensible Golf level editor

Posted: December 1, 2011 at 11:00 am

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Tags : amiga game development level Editor map editor pixel art sensible golf sensible software

It’s screen shot time again folks! I’ve taken it upon myself to provide a few screen shots for the GamesTM article that’s currently being written. ‘Yeah no probs’ I said thinking I’d load up the old Amiga emulator, take a few screen shots and be out in time for the virtual pub to open.. Nope!

Hang about, go back to the start, what am I talking about ‘again’ I’ve not done any for a while, damn I must be getting on a bit as I’m time warping back to 1995 and the many hours, days, months spent designing and editing golf courses for Sensible Golf. Strange.
Anyway as I was saying it took a bit longer than I thought but after several failed attempts to get me USB joystick working,(subject of a later post) I managed to sort out the shots as promised and just as I was about to close down the emulator I saw a disk image of the Sensible Golf map editor. Hmmm.. I wonder if it works? And if it does work will I be able to actually use it again? (cue tick tock music) It loads! Cool I thought… then.. well.. that’s about as far as I got. The memory banks that stored the ‘how to use it guide’ have become somewhat corrupted so I’m relying on that old favourite , trial and error.

Cannon Fodder disk box…

Posted: March 20, 2011 at 7:15 pm

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Tags : amiga cannon fodder game development pixel art sensible golf sensible software

During a recent clear out and tidy up..hang about that reminds me does anyone remember that show that used to be on in the UK many moons ago called Stoppit & Tidy Up?? Narrated by Terry, oops Sir Terry Wogan? No?… oh OK…as I was saying I was in my garage doing some “conversion” work… Conversion being the conversion of old stuff from shabby cardboard box to clean solid weatherproof plastic cube thing (with lid!!) when I found a box of 3.5″ discs.(remember those?)
Wearing my techie geek hat as I often do when I find myself rummaging about in old boxes of tech, I often snap a pic or two of any notable finds along the way. I was happily snapping away (resisting at this point in the blog entry to type ‘as you do’) at lost treasures I’d forgotten I’d owned and came across this.

Tag Archives: game development

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