Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

They come back to bite me

2008-01-18T15:49:00.000+08:00

o.O It has been too long since I took the time to update the blog. Things were quite busy around here with all the fine tuning of the web portal as well as many other business developments. Learned a whole buncha new stuff too.. about all kinda things, both technical and, not-so-technical.

I also missed some gatherings with the local game dev community, but today theres an open day thing going on in GameBrain's office at KL Sentral so I'm making a stop there to hear about whats going ons nowadays.

My passion has always been about electronic entertainment (aka Games) and I fear that if I lose the connections it'll force me to become a mindless zombie worker person. And I definitely do NOT want that.

Looking back at the 2007 posts, I noticed I haven't done a whole lot at all for the year... I guess life's like that, never going smoothly as planned. Looks to me this is a turning point for me as I have to make some really serious decisions, very very soon.

Heres hoping I can blog a little more frequently this year... Adios.

A New Hope

2007-08-22T14:43:00.000+08:00

I'm back! I've been quite busy with Smart Worksheets for the last 4 months and now that its finally launched, I actually have a little more time to do other stuff like chat and blog now (other than my staple activities, working and gaming).

Looking back, I realised that I only posted twice before this for the whole year and its.. already August. Man thats really sad of me to dump this blog like that. Now that I'm back, I promise to post more. Still no juicy stuff like personally taken pictures or video though, mainly cause I don't have a camera. So I guess I'll mainly be ranting about general happenings and life's many many weird ways to screw you up.

Shh. I'm actually typing this at work. Till next time...

'I feel like I'm dying...'

Back on Track

2007-03-19T11:03:00.000+08:00

Wow. Its already been more than 3 months since my last post. Let me just say that the last 3 months has been pretty rocky for me, I was plunged into a whole new chapter of my life, with my business just starting off and finally getting some (semi-)fixed income.

So where do I start? Basicly now that the dust has settled, I can safely say that I'm now officially an IT Manager at Tres-Nova Malaysia, a Technology trading company selling enterprise security and office solutions. Its a small company, so basicly I handle everything IT and help support our customers.

On the side, I have my own thing (with my partners, of course...), X-Media Interactive. Currently it's just doing some basic Web Design/Publishing work, but once we have a portfolio going, other things like flash games, entire web portals, heck even casual games will come later.

Right now I'm all settled in my office at Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur and the work environment is cool (being in a small office with 5 other people) and my supervisor (read: boss) lets us relax once in a while. Hope I can find the time to post more later. :D

Back to work!

The New Year 2007

2007-01-03T01:07:00.000+08:00

Welcome to the New Year and the blog's first post in 2007! :D I've got great plans this year and I'm confident I can realize them (to a satisfactory degree). I realize this is the mandatory New Year's Resolutions post so here they are:

For 2007, I want to:

Earn more than RM 100, 000.
Get a Wii and XBox360. Must get Gears of War and Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Get a DirectX10 Vista Powered PC (along with Crysis and Unreal Tournament 2007).
Get to know more female friends. ^^
Develop more than 6 unique games.

There we go. Nothing noble like world peace or anything but hey, its still something.

For the holidays I spent some time with my Sis and Mom and went loitering in Midvalley and Cineleisure. Watched Night in the Museum and it's a pretty good Feel Good Movie. But alas, all holidays must come to and end and now its back to work.

The next lunar cycle will be the year of the Fire Pig. Its a neutral year for me, but it might be good for you! All the best for you and me for the coming year ahead. :D

Cheers!

Thank You MDeC

2006-12-21T12:37:00.000+08:00

I just did my pitch for Pizza Parlor 2 for the Game Design Competition yesterday by MDeC Malaysia but unfortunately didn't make the cut to win RM50k. Ah well, at least I didn't go home empty handed; I had the opportunity to learn from many great game concepts that were presented (and no doubt do something similar on my own later heheh), meet up with my contacts and industry people, and last but not least meet many new interesting and beautiful people. Heck, I even got treated dinner by one of the winners of the Comic competition. :D

All in all, it was a great experience, easily the biggest local game design centric event I've participated in so far. Kudos to MDeC for organising this event and bringing togather the people in the industry: newcomers, veterans and of course the press. I look forward to the next competition next year.

Can't say I'm not disappointed though... I had great plans for that RM50k. :D I guess now I'll just go back to my original plan and build up my assets one step at a time. :)

Happy Holidays Yall!

A New Beginning

2006-12-12T04:45:00.000+08:00

Mighty sorry for the long delay in posting, but LOTS of things seemed to have happened last week. First of all, I was offered a partnership deal with a large conglomerate to head my very own Game Development Studio. Thats like.. BIG. For me at least.

And then my luck took a strange turn. I got very sick right after that. High fever, delirium, the works. Took most of the week to get myself back on my feet again. Good thing that didn't happen during my development cycle for Pizza Parlor :D

Anyways back to the main topic, the partnership deal, I just accepted the offer and the planning process has now began. With their help, I will need to prepare a business proposal and probably present it as well. Busy busy!

As for Pizza Parlor 2 (The Game Proposal for the MDeC Competition), I am actually working on a comprehensive design document for it, based on my experience designing Pizza Parlor 1. Work is progressing slowly but it is really shaping up to be quite a cool game. I hope I am able to develop it within next year somehow.

Ah yes, I also updated the Template for this Blog. Note how the Game Download links are gone. I've made a new Blog to accomodate my Game Projects here.

Season's Greetings.
Don't Drink and Drive!

Savor the Sweet Smell of Freedom

2006-12-01T03:23:00.000+08:00

Yesssss.. Everything is done! Tomorrow I just need to bind the proposal and photocopy the concept art and after that submit the whole package to the MDeC HQ at Cyberjaya. I've been skipping almost all my animation classes to finish this proposal and I really do hope I get something out of it someday. Never really expected the proposal to take so long but the market research really took some time to compile and present in written form.

If you haven't tried Pizza Parlor yet, just download it from the link to the right under My Projects. I've received good feedback so far, apart from the minor little things like the difference between garlic and onions, I hope that you will like it.

Woohoo! I'm Free!

The Last Mile

2006-11-29T16:27:00.000+08:00

This will be my first post using Blogger in Beta and so far it seems that it's just like the old blogger... except abit slower heh.

Anyways I'm proud to say that Pizza Parlor is now completed and ready for distribution. Its not much, but its just something I made to enter the 4 Elements 5 Competition over at GameDev.net. I can't seem to upload the setup file anywhere except at the 4E5 Competition forum at GameDev.net (Includes Source) and SaveFile.com (Kinda slow loading).

With the game done, I can now concentrate fully on doing the documentation for the Game Design Competition by MDeC. I just need to get the Game Design Doc, the Tech Sheet, and Business Proposal done and I should be able to submit it all by tommorow. After that I'm just gonna spend the whole month gaming. xD

Back to Work...
Ciaoz.

Expand or Die

2006-11-17T21:31:00.000+08:00

Well, I have another 13 days to get my game done and another day to submit my game design proposal. The next 13 days will also be quite busy for me as I also have a game design workshop to go to as well as a IGDA meeting.

The good news though, is that Pizza Parlor is just about done and right now it is entering the Expansion phase, where the game mechanics are ironed out and implemented, and whats left to do is to put content into the game, including UI and Menu stuff. Considering my meager skills in creating graphics, I hope to be done with everything by the 25th.

Did I say the rest of the week is gonna be busy? I just hope I get through this month smooth sailing without any bumps on the road. Then I can spend December playing Nightfall and Neverwinter Nights 2. :D

Till next time...
Adios!

Crunch Time

2006-11-11T04:06:00.000+08:00

Sorry everyone for the lack of updates, but I am quite busy finishing up Pizza Parlor. I'm pretty late on schedule due to many unexpected difficulty in the implementation part, but for now I just need to plonk down my images, do the UI, make some levels and finish it up with a main menu.

Part of why I'm slow is because of the influx of games this time around. I have to resist the urge of playing Final Fantasy 12 and NFS Carbon, and soon Neverwinter Nights 2... Note that I did not resist the urge successfully for quite alot of times already...

Anyhow, I also need to prepare the business+design+technical proposal for a Games Pitching competition by 1st December (Yay 1 day after 3E...). After all that I can enjoy my christmas holidays with some good ol gaming goodness.

Wish me luck!

Moved... Again.

2006-10-16T00:37:00.000+08:00

Just moved to my old home on Friday. Can't say I don't miss the area, but the house itself is a mess, with lots of junk all over the place, not to mention some aesthetic flaws thanks to sloppy renovation work. All that moving just to be closer to Subang Jaya where I'll be spending my next six months learning animation. At least its gonna save me alot of time and money on transportation, from RM7.60 & 4 hours a day to RM1.00 & 2 hours a day. Quite the difference I must say.

I had to do some time-sharing with my sis for broadband connection as well. Plan to get a new phone line and a new streamyx account soon though.

CMC (Creative Multimedia Cluster) at MSC just launched a new Game Design competition, which I am planning to join. The good thing is that I only need to submit the game design documentations as well as a business proposal. But the bad news is that I need to submit it by 1st December. Which means I need to juggle between my animation work, Pizza Parlor, AND the game design for the CMC competition (which I haven't even started on yet).

I'm doubtful I can do it all, but I'm gonna try anyway. The sad thing is that I will be playing alot less games than I'm used to. :( Bad timing with NWN2 and GW:NF coming out so soon...

Wish me luck!

Back to School

2006-10-08T18:36:00.000+08:00

Yep I'm back blogging again. I was kinda busy with programming Pizza Parlor. XD

Anyway, I just enrolled in a 6 month 2D/3D animation program. 1 week late. Furthermore, its all the way over at Subang Jaya. Thats like a 2 hour transit for me. Nasty.

Why? First, I only found out about it last week. Second, its FREE. Third, I get a monthly allowance of RM500. Fourth, it will help me tons in my game design process. :D

Well, if the transit gets too much for me, I would just have to move back over to Old Klang Road to save about 2 hours transit a day. Now I'm just worried whether I can catch up with whatever they've done on the first week though. >.<

Back to my busy schedule
Cheers

Breaking The Habit

2006-09-13T12:39:00.000+08:00

So, last week, a day after I started the implementation phase, I came down with mild flu. Must have been my weakened resistances from the previous sickness. Anyway, it took me close to 5 days to recover from it. I pretty much spent the 5 days playing games and thinking about data structures for Pizza Parlor (without any actual programming).

Now that I'm ok again, I really need to start programming Pizza Parlor before my mind wanders off again. Oh yeah, I also found the time to update the blog to list the forums that I frequent. :P

Heres to my self discipline.
May the Force be with you.

Sick Days

2006-09-05T10:43:00.000+08:00

Argh. I was feeling under the weather for the past few days and I wasn't able to do much on Pizza Parlor. Anyhow, I feel much better today, and hopefully I can be done with the scheduling today.

Also, I just joined the MIND community over at their newly launched site. I'll probably be going into developing on XNA for Vista and/or XBox360 next, after Pizza Parlor is done.

Time to get the show on the road.
TTYL.

Merdeka Number 49

2006-08-31T20:13:00.000+08:00

Happy Independence Day, Malaysia! I wish I could be happier about it but it really saddens me to hear of all kinda of sad stuff happening around the country on this day. I wish people would respect our independence day more and not go crazy for whatever reason.

On a happier note, Pizza Parlor's Design stage is nearing to an end, I just need to finish up some concept work on the characters and after than I can start work on more managerial tasks like scheduling. Real Implementation Work should start next Monday.

Back to work.
Cheers.

Clear Winds

2006-08-25T01:03:00.000+08:00

Well, its been 2 weeks since I've started off with the design work for Pizza Parlor and so far all is well, and I should be finished with it in another week or 2. After that starts the long long months of implementing the game, as well as various art assets.

Also, I just came back from an IGDA meeting where I met lots of familiar faces as well as many local industry veterans that shared their insights regarding the current state of the industry as well as their views on IGDA. This is my first time attending such a meeting and it was really cool meeting all these game developer dudes and learning from them. The next meeting is in another 3 months time and I will definitely look out for it and try to attend it again.

Its pretty late now and I hardly got any sleep today.

Time to get some z's...
Tata.

Many Apologies

2006-08-13T17:25:00.000+08:00

Due to an oversight on my part, yesterday's Blanktris Reloaded release is unplayable. I forgot to test the game out after getting the game setup done and zipped up.

Also, SaveFile.com is upgrading their services, and I have not been able to find any alternate free file hosting services to use. I will update the new file as soon as I can.

Time to hide my face in shame.
My bad.

EDIT: Ok I got it uploaded through Rapidshare.de. Download it here.

EDIT2: I've recently just found out about the existance of GooglePages. I've uploaded the setup file there.

Graduation

2006-08-12T23:23:00.000+08:00

A convocation is a really tiring affair. I not only had to endure hours of semi-monotonous speeches, I had to wade through throngs of people after the ceremony to get anywhere...

It's all worth it though, many old friendships were rekindled and current ones strengthened. Of course, the tons of dashing pictures of me in my graduation robes were good too :D I'll upload the best ones once I find the time to look through all of them. :)

Surprisingly, despite all the tiredness, I found time to actually add the finishing touch to the first beta version of Blanktris that is now available to download! Please send me all your feedback so that I can improve it and hopefully make a buck out of it later. :)

Anyhow, I only have a little more than 3 months to complete my game submission for the Four Elements game development competition. Therefore, I've decided to suspend the development of Blanktris Reloaded and start planning for my new project as soon as possible.

The title for my next project is: Pizza Parlor! (Yup, I think you can guess what kind of game is it)

Time to chill out for abit.
Laters.

Updates, Updates

2006-08-10T00:43:00.000+08:00

Ah how time flies... Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I actually forgot I had a blog to maintain...

Anyway, I'm glad to report that Blanktris Reloaded has FINALLY finished its Alpha phase. With the alpha build done, I'm now finishing it up through BETA with some in house testing in the meanwhile. I know, this project has been delayed for way too long, and I apologise for my overextended hiatus (it was good for my soul though :)). With my renewed vigor, I assure you, you will see the beta version completed by the end of the week. After that, I will observe about a week of polish and bug fixing, and I will go straight into my next project: An entry for the famed Four Elements Contest by GameDev.Net. I'll tell you more about that after I'm done with Blanktris Reloaded :D.

Ah, and another thing. After months of forgetfulness, I've finally realised I have not updated my Gamasutra resume yet, and I'm glad to announce that I have just updated it. I had plenty of details to ammend, including my new address, new email address, new status, etc. You can check it out here. I've also updated my blog by adding a link to it at the side bar.

Lastly, my convocation ceremony will be held on this Saturday, 12 August 2006. I have to go get my rented robes tommorow and go for the rehearsal on Friday. I hope to do some networking there to jumpstart my freelancing career :).

I'm beat after doing lots of programming today. Thankfully theres only art assets left to go for the next few days.

Time to hit the sack.
Peace.

A Month Later

2006-07-13T07:36:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the month of inactivity, I'm just too caught up with playing Guild Wars and Titan Quest. Man, games nowadays are quite addicting... I just couldn't stop playing them. I suppose thats a good thing (for the games).

So yeah, I spent almost all my time on gaming, and the Blanktris Reloaded project is still just about half done. Time to buckle up and finish it using the rest of the month so that I could at least finish it within my original schedule. I need to start fixing up my life... again.

Blanktris Reloaded Status: Implementing Blanktris Special Feature

Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan

2006-06-02T16:31:00.000+08:00

Moved all my stuff to my Mom's 2 days before. Its true you never know how much stuff you have until you have to move it all...

I'm settling fine in my Mom's place for now, and other than her downloading habits, everything seems to be great! So right now I'm working on my game development portfolio, which as of now only includes 2 projects, a J2ME Mobile Game called Bunnies In Love using the Disney license which me and a team made during my internship with UnrealMinds, and the not-so-recently developed Blanktris I made about 6 months ago.

I do not have the source code for Bunnies In Love, so sadly I'm unable to improve it any further. In fact, I'm even considering removing it from my portfolio, if only I had more games to show...

Blanktris on the other hand, I can improve. I have a list of improvements to make with it and boy, its a long list. I was originally thinking of making a sequel, Blanktris 2, but after thinking about it for awhile, I feel that I have to be firm on my own policy of NEVER making any kind of sequels for any game (to make way for creativity). So.. I'm going to build Blanktris from the ground up again, bigger and better than the original, but I'll still be continueing the versioning. Since the 'final' version of Blanktris was v1.6, prepare to see the new and improved Blanktris at about v2.something.

Since Blanktris, at its initial form, took about 3 weeks to make, I'm expecting something similar for the new facelift, but I'm gonna do abit more planning and scheduling to make sure I do this right. I will try to include the status of the game after every blog post.

Blanktris Status: v1.6: PLANNING STAGE DAY 1

Thats All Folks!

2006-05-27T14:13:00.000+08:00

Hey ho, finally got my finals all settled and I am now officially FREE! Now I can really do what I want to do: Develop Games (with a healthy dose of game playing of course). Life will be tough, but at least I'm into it full steam from now on. :D

Right. So next in my TODO list is to get a a girlfriend. Any takers?

On the Beaches of Paradise

2006-05-13T01:59:00.000+08:00

Okay, so far everything has been smooth, assignments and projects all well taken cared of. Whats left is of course some written final exams, which I am absolutely certain I will ace.

Now I will just relax for a bit, study for the exams, then I can finally start on a brand new game project and embark on my new freelancing lifestyle. I am still abit uncertain of what my life would be like floating around as a freelancer, but I am willing to take the risk.

Definitely beats having to program something I don't like for someone in exchange for a paycheck!

Cruising on Hells Highway

2006-05-08T00:11:00.000+08:00

Interesting week to say the least. The progress on the remaining 2 assignments is going good, although a slighty little abit rushed :P .

But you really don't want to hear any more about my academics, now would you? Just yesterday there was some kind of power outage + phone line disconnects going on in my neighbourhood. That left me internet-less for about 12 hours. Only now I realized how much my friends and I are dependant on the Internet. Let me tell you more...

At the first sign of the lack of connection, people were still calm and steady, thinking its just a minor, temporary disconnection. But as time goes by and the phone lines confirmed dead, people were just standing around as if they just lost their will to live. After it became evident that we had to spend the night senseless, we went around searching for things to do, like single player games. Anyone remember those?

Well, it wasn't that worse off for me, I still had to complete a programming assignment (I just had to mention it!), and other that, a PS2 and a bunch of games I've yet to even start playing yet (RE4 comes to mind...). And so ends Day 1.

Everyone was optimistic in the morning, thinking the previous night was just a nightmare, something that will end after waking up. Too bad. PS2 is a life saver.

Towards lunch time, to my delight, my phone line rose to life once more. I immediately start tasting the sweet sweet honey that is the Internet. I was tired, so I decided to queue up some downloads and go take an afternoon nap.

Only after I woke up, I realized that the rest of the house (which uses a saparate second phone line to go online) hasn't recovered their connection yet. o.O. Unfortunately, I didn't think of sharing mine AT THE TIME, thinking its just a matter of time before they get theirs back (Yeah I know, flawed logic, but Hey, I'm not a saint). Besides, they were on their way out to early dinner and didn't come back till late at night. So I just finished up my assignment, sent it to the right people, and played some Guild Wars :D.

But after they came back, and found out the connection on their side is still out, the pressure was on me to share my connection. And so everyone was happy. Except me, but only a little (can't download for god knows how many nights).

Wow that was a long story, hope you enjoyed hearing about how selfish I am. Cheers!

Threading the Edge of Chaos

2006-04-27T20:38:00.000+08:00

Surprisingly, this week there has been a lull in the work load. Everything on my part has been done and all I need to do is to wait for my project partner to finish his side of the deal. After that, its just the matter of packaging it and shipping it to our supervisors. :)

The worse thing is, I'm stuck playing Random Arenas in Guild Wars for the week. Can't seem to find anything else interesting to do. I need to go get some new games like Kingdom Hearts 2 or something before I go nuts.

Yeah. I need a girlfriend.

Its the Final Countdown.

2006-04-20T19:19:00.000+08:00

In another 2 weeks everything that's anything is going down and getting done. In this 2 weeks everything that has to be done is going to get done, no matter what.

Great.

Now I just hope I don't fall down and die one of these days.

Where is the Love?

2006-04-14T13:10:00.000+08:00

So another week has passed. The Symbian 3D game engine is just about complete, only missing the sound component. The next hurdle to pass is a complete game demo that can show off its features. Good luck to me.

In other news, the Marketing website (one of my many assignments) is I might say is about 75% done, with me needing to finalize the shopping cart system as well as prepare a quick-order system.

I also need to prepare a Media Law presentation concerning whether Freedom of Expression should be absolute. Lotsa fun on that one.

Next in line would be a report on Internet Security as part of an assignment for my Professional Ethics subject. Hopefully I don't need to do much on it :P

There are 2 more programming assignments in my inbox that I haven't even started on, despite the initial design and whatnot decided on...

And thus, with all this in mind, all 6 jobs, I have to manage my stress level and plow on unmercilessly. Life really is unfair.

Wake me up when April Ends

2006-04-07T18:01:00.000+08:00

In case you were wondering why I didn't update the blog for the past 2 weeks, I was actually hard at work completing the final year project, a Symbian 3D Game Engine, that needs to be done and fully documented by the end of April.

I only found time to blog now that I've just passed a major hurdle in the development of the engine, and hopefully things will be going smoother after this. I also have a Law exam tonight, so Good Luck to me I guess.

Live Long and Prosper.

Numbness in my arm

2006-03-23T01:19:00.000+08:00

Me: ...
Nurse: Whats your name? *checking my particulars*
Me: Low... Jason Low.
Nurse: OK. *Tightens pressure on my right arm*
Me: ...
Nurse: *Takes out anesthetics needle* Do you need anesthetics?
Me: ... No?
Nurse: *Puts back anesthetics needle*
Me: (Gulp)
Nurse: *Takes out protective covering from the tip of the blood bag, revealing the thick needle*
Me: (Can I change my mind about the Aaarggghh.....)
Nurse: *Stabs me in the arm*
Me: (Hmm. That feels different...)
Nurse: *Looks at the bag and walks away*
Me: (Guess I don't need anesthetics after all.)

Recovery!

2006-03-19T00:33:00.000+08:00

Been sick for the past 5 days or so. Don't you just hate the 'sick' feeling that seems to last for more than 3 days? It just lingers there making your life miserable.

Anyways I'm feeling better now. I got to continue with my final year stuff and assignments soon... before I go even more behind schedule.

The Layer Cake of Electronic Entertainment

2006-03-07T01:47:00.000+08:00

Heres abit from Raph Koster himself, about the 4 layers of a game: Mechanical, Statistical Variation, Metaphor, Narrative. Quite an interesting read. Some successful games were built starting from the Mechanical level, while some were built from the Narrative level, and the rest from a healthy balance of the two. Personally, I prefer the balanced approach. :D

The Future of Software Engineering : Product Design

2006-03-07T01:34:00.000+08:00

I just came across this very interesting article by Danc describing the Evolution of software development towards Product Design. I can't agree more with him. Programmers and Designers just didn't work well togather in the past. But now, I'm just not too sure. The new generation of programmers and designers are really bridging the gap. I guess the only way to know for sure is to wait and see. A nice illustration of the whole evolution process is well presented in his article as well. :)

Grflfphtdorf.

2006-03-06T23:58:00.000+08:00

Gah I feel like an idiot. I finally got in contact with a girl I really like and I think I really fumbled it up. The conversation just died midway. I just can't seem to think straight. My hands start sweating and my heartbeat starts racing. I only felt like this one other time before and I thought it was love. Maybe I still do...

I can only hope I do better next time. IF theres a next time that is....

Japanese RPG Designs

2006-03-04T20:28:00.000+08:00

A few days ago I attended a gathering of sorts about Games Design. They were coming up with great RPG story ideas, but nothing about the actual game design. They were like, writing a novel. Of course, the concensus of the party was that Game Writing should come before Game Design. I have no problems with that. This is what the Japanese RPG developers have been doing for years!

They might not have great writing experience nor training, but they came up with the Setting, the Theme, and even a Plot. Not bad for a bunch of 20+ year old game designer wanna-bes. They had to stop at the plot due to time constaints, and I have no doubt they will continue next week on the characters and later individual scenes (which will no doubt take alot more time).

Even with a good story, the game ain't made till the game design gets sorted out. And thats where the hard part REALLY begins.

Urban Renewal

2006-02-27T05:19:00.000+08:00

After a week or 2 mulling over the state of my life, I've came up with a new plan (yeah, another one) to improve my lifestyle.

I realised I need to cut down on the electronic entertainment and start taking care of my health, my social life, and my projects (and my laundry). Suffice to say, its going to be quite a challenge limiting my gaming activities with some kickass games like Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. But I'm gonna try hard this time around.

By the way, I made strides in the Symbian Mobile 3D Game Engine project and at last I have a base to work on. I still have some chinks to work out though...

And on a happy note, I just found out from Jeremy, my housemate, that his sister is single! I guess its a better time than any to kickstart my turning over my new leaf. Wish me luck :)

Smooth Sailing (I think)

2006-02-19T00:49:00.000+08:00

Nothing really interesting this week apart from meeting my housemate Paul's Japanese language lecturer, Shin, during our V-Day Buffet Dinner (Bad Idea). Quite an interesting fellow, reminds me of a typical 27 year old bum living in urban Tokyo. Heh.

On a totally different note, I finally figured out how to run those Symbian examples from the Nokia SDK for our final year project. Its only a matter of time before we complete our games engine.

And no. I still haven't found a girlfriend. But I have a good feeling I'll find one soon!

Sad and Lonely...

2006-02-12T21:51:00.000+08:00

Well, was just done with the first week of the new semester, and all is well. Except that Valentines day is just around the corner and I'm unable to celebrate it... again. I always tell myself my time ain't here yet, yadda yadda, but its days like this that I feel un-loved somewhat. :(

The 15 days celebrations of the Lunar New Year is drawing to an end, and everything is normal in the world once again. Heres wishing a good year to all, may your aspirations come closer to reality and your dreams closer to ideas. As for me, I still have to complete my final year project before its too late.....

Happy Lunar New Year 2006

2006-02-02T02:57:00.000+08:00

Yup thats why the blog hasn't been updated for the last 2 weeks or so... I'm busy enjoying my holidays :D . The Fire Dog year is upon us this time around and it seems like a pretty auspicious year for me. I hereby wish everyone a lucky and prosperous Chinese New Year!

As for my other endeavors, not much progress has been made.. yet. Right now I'm just chilling with Guild Wars and Battlefield 2, but as the new (and FINAL, I hope) semester of my university education starts next week, I reckon I'll be doing some serious business soon. So why not enjoy while I still can? Heheh.

A new year, a new fear

2006-01-10T11:34:00.000+08:00

My string of presentation went through without a hitch and and is well again. Right now I only have a final paper and a final assignment to complete. Its all smooth sailing again.

I recently borrowed a book called "Creating Emotion In Games" by David Freeman from my local university library and it is proving to be quite a good read. I've really learnt much about game writing and design reading the book.

For the past week or so I've been playing Battlefield 2 and its expansion Special Forces almost every day. Often times when you get a good team and a good squad going on its a blast, but many times you can be stuck without one and you're pretty much rambo-ing the game + many deaths and respawns.

Happy New Year 2006

2006-01-01T00:18:00.000+08:00

It just turned 1st January 2006 30 minutes ago. My new years resolution? To play more games of course. :D Now for some new years gaming goodness.....

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-25T18:31:00.000+08:00

Just had a couple of pretty busy weeks and I'm very glad to get some days rest for Christmas. Unlike in some of the Western countries, we Malaysians only get a day of holiday for Christmas, :( .
The rest is much apprieciated but more work needs to be done in the weeks ahead. I need to prepare slides for the Plural Society presentation, work on the game engine framework UML diagrams, prepare a prototype for the game engine, and work on a DirectX game as a final project. All within 2 weeks.

Anyways, Merry Christmas!

Recent Development

2005-12-13T19:57:00.000+08:00

I'm now working on my report for my final year project. Its a 3D Game Engine for Symbian OS for mobile phones. I'm currently working on the framework design which consists of 5 components, the System Core, Graphics Engine, Sound Engine, Network Engine, and the Input Engine. Most of the development would be focused on the System Core and Graphics Engine. My teammate is working on the SDK and compiler that we're going to use for this game engine.

Oh yeah, I donated blood today. 4th time doing it and I still feel good about it.

Busy weeks ahead

2005-12-10T12:18:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the late updates, things are really getting busier for me. I have about 3 more DirectX assignments to complete in 4 weeks, not to mention a sociology report and a final year project report to hand up in the week after the next.

That aside, I recently thought of an idea for a fighting game, but with more controls other than the traditional Up-Down-Left-Right and High/Low Punches and Kicks etc. I was thinking of something more gesture based, like using the mouse to control your hand in the Black & White series. Perhaps thats something only the Revolution Controller can do...

Renewal

2005-12-04T22:09:00.000+08:00

I just got my PC back yesterday with a motherboard and processor upgrade :) I also re-formatted my laptop, and now everything loads fast and looks clean.

Blanktris Final v1.6 is now available for download and I don't plan to update it in the near future due to my Directx assignments and final project (for the University).

Talking about directx, I spent some time installing and setting up my compiler as well as the directx sdk. I'm torn between using the old DirectX 9.0 SDK (Summer 2003) or the new one updated at October 2005. The sample code from my textbook doesn't compile in the October 2005 one, so theres a very good chance I'll use the old SDK.

Assignments among other things

2005-12-01T09:04:00.000+08:00

I'm considering completing Blanktris as soon as possible because I'm going to need to work on my university assignments and projects really soon. As of now I just need to add in one extra feature into it and I'm going to call it done and complete. I'll let you know when that happens.

Firefox 1.5 Final has been released, and just about every 'cool' person in the world is using it. And before you ask, Yes, I'm 'cool'. :D

One last thing. Happy 21st Birthday to Jeremy, my housemate.

A Handrolled Sushi Crash Course

2005-11-28T22:39:00.000+08:00

Attended a Handrolled Sushi class today. Turns out that making handrolled sushi isn't as hard as I thought. You just need the right ingredients and a little instruction to get it done. So here's my own personal crash course while its still fresh in my mind...

1- Preparing Japanese Rice
For each full cup of rice, add 1.25 cup of water. Cook in a rice cooker with optional seaweed for extra flavouring.

2- Preparing Sushi Rice
Once rice is cooked, take some out and put it in a basin. Add Sushi-Rice-Powder (smells like vinegar) and mix with a cutting motion. Be careful not to clump the rice togather so that the powder is mixed evenly. Add more powder if needed.

3- Preparing Japanese Eggrolls
First, break 2 eggs into a bowl. Add some fish granules for flavouring. Some prefer to add japanese soy sauce. Add pepper and sugar. Beat the egg evenly but not to violently to reduce bubbles. Next, sieve the egg mixture to remove the bubbles that form due to the mixing. Heat up a rectangular shaped pan and put in a tablespoon of oil. Use a sponge/tissue paper to distribute the oil evenly on the pan and absorb access oil. Pour in just about enough egg mixture to fill a thin layer on the pan. Start rolling the egg as soon as its cooked (which is about 2 seconds). You might notice that the first layer of the eggroll is very thin, thats why you need to keep adding layers and layers of egg to make it as thick as you want. You can add layers by moving the just-rolled eggroll to the far end of the pan and repeat the whole process again.

4- Preparing Sushi Ingredients
Sushi ingredients that are easy to prepare like japanese cucumber and eel are prepared pretty much the same way as the eggroll for sushi that is. Just slice them into thin long slices. Certain ingredients like crabsticks (kanikama) are very easy to prepare to be made a sushi ingredient (you just need to slice them in half at most).

5- Putting togather a Handrolled Sushi
Besides having your sushi rice and some ingredients, you will also need seaweed squares (doh!). First, lay down a bamboo sheet. Then put a seaweed square on it with the rough side up. Dip your fingers with vinegar before putting the (sticky without vinegar) sushi rice on the seaweed square. Put an even layer of sushi rice on 3/4 of the seaweed square, leaving a 1/4 space at the far end. Arrange the rice in a way so that the part closest to you has a thinner layer of rice then the far end of the rice away from you. Try not to compress the rice too much while doing this. Also, try to fill the horizontal edges of the roll with a little more rice so that you don't waste the ends of the roll (you will notice this when you start cutting the sushi roll).
Once you're ready, you can now arrange the ingredients on the sushi rice. Arrange the ingredients in an horizontal line at the middle of the seaweed square. Do not be greedy and put too many ingredients or else the rice won't be able to hold it all in. Some common ingredients put in handrolled sushi are crabstick(kanikama), eel (unagi), eggroll, goard slices, cucumber and fish-eggs (sakura powder).

6- Rolling the Sushi
Now comes the hardest part of the whole process. Carefully roll the sushi starting from your side (the side with the thinnest layer of rice) outwards. Roll the sushi tight, but not too tight. You just need to make sure the rice and the ingredients are held in place. Use your fingers to keep the ingredients in the middle of the sushi roll. If all goes well a regular sushi roll should be about as wide as the space between your thumb and your index finger when you make an 'ok' sign. If you like you can try rolling a square or even a triangle, but most people just end up with a circular sushi roll.

7- Cutting the Sushi Roll
Once the roll is ready, you can now cut it . To ease cutting, first cut the roll in half in the middle. Then cut the sushi roll at approximately the width of your thumb (a little less of an inch). When cutting, make sure your knife is wet (preferably with fresh water). Everytime you cut, clean and wet the knife again before cutting the next slice.

8- Serving the Sushi Roll
The finishing touch of a sushi would be some japanese soy sauce, and maybe a pince of wasabi (for those who like it of course). Serve as soon as possible.

Well, thats an easy to follow 8-step crash course on handrolled sushi making for you. We also learned about how to make those Japanese Rice Cake things, and thats just pretty much putting rice in your salted hand, adding some mayo chicken inside, cover it with more rice, and shaping the rice cake with your hands, and finally putting on a strip of seaweed.

All in all the class was pretty enjoyable, with the instructor speaking in Japanese all the way and a translator trying his best to translate. Plus, there was a healthy amount of ingredients passed around and I'm very satisfied with what I've learned despite standing around for 2 hours straight.

On the Blanktris front, I fixed a line-clearing bug where there was sorta an infinite loop in the line-clearing if the user keeps the drop button pressed (Thanks Trickflip from Unlinked!).

Latest Blanktris version: Beta 1.6 (still in development)

A Thought on RPG Character Development

2005-11-27T02:35:00.000+08:00

In one of my wandering thoughts I thought about the general definition of 'classes' in a role-playing game. Theres always the 'Holy Trinity' of stereotyped classes, in this case the Tank, the Healer, and the Nuker. All other classes seem to always revolve around those 3, at least for combat purposes. Crafters are generally separated from the combat classes for some reason or another. One thing lead to another and I started to think about how the best class system for an RPG would be. Some RPGs (including MMORPGs) have as little as 4 classes to start with but branches out as their gain levels, some are fixed to a few classes, some have ALOT of fixed classes, while some gives the player the ability to combine multiple classes (multi-class so to speak). All RPGS have the 'Holy Trinity', no doubt about it. Most other classes are extensions of the Holy Trinity with some different abilities most of the time based on a theme (Paladins, Shadow Priests, Battlemage classes come to mind). Some, however, break the mold with different concepts, like Illusionist(Mezzers) classes that hinder instead of damage, Rogue/Assassin classes that has stealth/thievery abilities, Witches/Warlocks that deals with summoning helpers/minions, etc. Really. the possibilities are quite endless once you start thinking about it.

The thing is, you can think of any dream class you want, but the real challenge comes in the balancing of these classes. The more classes you have, the more work in balancing them. Once again this by itself is a topic all by its own. Some balance classes by making any class capable of defeating any other class (very rare), and most balance them by making a RTS-type decision, Counters: eg. Fighter > Mage > Archer > Fighter. It's just a matter of giving certain classes offensive/defensive abilities of varying magnitudes against certain other classes. Sure it works, but kinda boring in my opinion, not to mention its all too easy to unwillingly create an 'uber-class' that seems 'stronger' than all others. There must be other ways to do this.

Balance aside, theres also another facet of classes, class progression (which often equals to character progression). From Skill-Based systems (Ultima Online Skill Points) to Hierarchy-Based systems (Lineage 2 Job Levels) to Tier-Based systems (WoW Talents) to Statistic-Based systems (Dungeons and Dragons or Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats) to Traditional LevelPoints-Based systems (DoAC classes), they all have their own pros and cons. I thought about how some systems, for example Lineage 2, uses a realistic modeling of how a character would 'grow' from a simple 'novice adventurer' growing into whatever profession he/she wishes to a step at a time. One instance would be Novice -> Fighter -> Mercenary -> Assassin -> Shadow Master. This hierarchial system is quite linear, where a Fighter (job 1) cannot revert back to a Novice (job 0) and is fixed in his fighter branch although he can choose to be either a Mercenary(Job2) or a Page(Job 2). I thought of a similar system but instead of only advancing in one branch, the adventurer can invest into other branches at the same time, similar to a skill-based setup. In this case, it is entirely possible to be (according to the example above) both a Mercenary and a Page at the same time. Balancing them would be a major headache, but it would prove to be a much more rewarding character/class progression system.

Misc skills like crafting skills can also be fitted into such a system with minimal effort. It would also help make each character quite unique in terms of abilities, something that I'm sure each RPG player would find very welcome. To soothe the transition between this kind of skill-based system and the old tradition class system, and to help players recognise each other's abilities, some kind of class-like title would be assigned to each character based on his character experiences.

In reference from certain MMORPGs in development, I thought of a kind of inheritence system where any subsequent character a player makes (aka alternate character) will have some kind of influence from the player's previous character. To make this point clearer, let me illustrate. The player first enters a game without any existing characters. In the game his character will essentially start with nothing, being something like a total newcomer to the land. This character will be free to do anything he wishes to advance his skills. If the player wants to make a new character, and if he chooses to inherit this new character from his previous character, this new character will have 'free experience' so to speak according to how developed his ancestor is. This would help reduce the 'grind' players experience in one form or another when making an alternate character in an MMORPG.

Blanktris Uploaded AT LAST

2005-11-27T01:22:00.000+08:00

Yep you heard right, finally got the thing uploaded. Check it out here. Feel free to give me feedback on it. It's not a final release version as I plan to put in a few more features of my own.

Yesterday me and my housemate Alvin continued our Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks Ko-op game and progressed another 25% of the game. It was truly a blast. We lost our first battle with Scorpian and decided to save and continue later. The Goro fatality was particularly entertaining :).

Read the next post for something I thought about for the last few days. Most of these ideas are sketchy at most, but I am already in the progress of archiving and developing them. Hopefully when the time comes I can implement my ideas in a real RPG of some sort in the near future..

Delays and more delays

2005-11-25T22:56:00.000+08:00

You know, these few days I ain't doing anything particular productive because I'm just waiting for savefile.com's upload system to be available so that I can upload Blanktris. I can't seem to focus on doing anything else for some reason. Hmm..

I'm hoping to get my desktop PC back within the next week, so at least I'm looking forward to playing NFS:MW and tinkering with the FEAR sdk. I guess meanwhile I'll just play some games and chill out for abit.

Argh.

2005-11-23T10:23:00.000+08:00

Savefile.com still hasn't had their servers ready for uploads yet, so no Blanktris today. :( Heres hoping I can upload and share the files by tomorrow....

So far I have seen and read through some 3D character modeling tutorials but I've yet to really get my hands dirty doing one yet. Thats probably because I have been abit under the weather this couple of days which I hope will get better by tomorrow.

Spent most of the day asleep hoping to sleep off the sickness, not sure it works though...

The Turning Point

2005-11-21T23:21:00.000+08:00

Well, well, well. While today went about as usual, with classes and all, the main highlight of the day is the nighttime gathering of sorts of students majoring in Games Design. Apparently large part of it is about students needing to take matters in their own hands and start to learn game design and game development in general by themselves and not rely too much on university syllabus. Admirable goal, but definately one that was passively drilled into our minds when we first started the whole course.

Still, I'm glad its out in the open, and we'll just have to wait and see whether it has any effect. Big ideas were proposed today, and some of them probably won't see the light of day despite how much good it will do, mostly due to the lack of motivation of the people capable of making it happen.

As for me, I felt that this moment is as opportune as any to kick start my productive streak. Since completing Blanktris yesterday (No, I haven't found a place to host it yet, but don't worry it will be around this week.), I am more confident that I can do this thing people call Games Design without being utterly clueless on how to start. As something fresh to learn and do instead of another programming exercise, I'm now going into 3D game character (<1000 poly) modeling with MilkShape3D. After that its probably back on adding features on Blanktris or starting a new project.

And on a final note, I'm now spyware free. :)

Blanktris is DONE!

2005-11-21T09:06:00.000+08:00

Phew finally got it done and fully functional after 3 weeks of hard work. Now I just need to find somewhere I can host it...

Today's blog update is late because I had to clean up my laptop from a spyware that managed to infiltrate my system. And theres one pop-up thing that just refuses to die. Even now I get these annoying pop-ups every 5 minutes or so. Spybot and Adaware tried their best but it seems they can't clean it. My only hope now rests on Norton Antivirus. Gonna do a full scan later when I go for class.

I hate spyware.

Just.. another... day...

2005-11-20T04:11:00.000+08:00

Yup, in another day, Blanktris should be done and ready for public consumption. It doesn't bring much in term of innovative gameplay features or whatsuch aside from being Tetris, but I plan to bring about Blanktris 2 later with some radical features I thought up that would hopefully enhance the tetris experience.

In other fronts, the proposal for my final year project for the university faculty has been handed up, and theres a very good chance that it will be accepted as we (me and my teammate Vincent) had already discussed our idea (a Symbian OS game engine for mobile devices) with a trusted lecturer and she has already gave us the go-ahead.

In Guild Wars, I finally got my Necromancer to Droknar's Forge but went broke trying to buy Droknar's Forge Armor. Even the combined wealth from my other characters (Monk and Ranger) wasn't enough. This is probably due to my Necro buying every skill he came across, elite or otherwise. Gah. Skills are too expensive. Now I'll just have to earn some money through my Monk and Ranger to finance my Necro...

My PC (which broke down about a week ago) is still Missing In Action, and I hope to get it back soon from my Dad after he fixes it up soon. I really want to try out The Movies, Earth 2160 and Need For Speed Most Wanted as well as Path of Neo. Its just too bad my laptop doesn't have the power to run the latest games. :(

Ok, its time for me to hop onto Guild Wars for some money making. Ciaoz.

Caffeine Deficiency

2005-11-19T04:15:00.000+08:00

Felt mighty tired today, so I couldn't bring myself to do any work on Blanktris. :(

Things should pick up again once I get a good nights rest today.

Almost done...

2005-11-18T03:57:00.000+08:00

Blanktris looks so much better now that I've finally added some background and button graphics to the game. Now whats left are some sound effects and full screen options. Then I can concentrate on some special extra features I have in mind for the game. Personally, I can't wait till its done. :)

Since I spent most of my time today sleeping and working on Blanktris, there really isn't much to tell except the one offline message I received from a friend through Yahoo Messenger about a petition to raise law penalties for animal cruelty. Basicly its a petition to push the Malaysian Government to raise penalties by law for animal cruelty sentences. Here's the link for those interested to sign it. I did.

Now for some Shadow of the Collosus for relaxation after a hard day's work. Peace out.

Just Arrived

2005-11-17T02:39:00.000+08:00

I forgot to include the link to my old blog in my first post, so here it is.

For those who aren't aware, I am working on a Tetris clone using PopCap's Games Framework in C++. I will be logging my progress in the blog in addition to my other activities daily.

I already logged what I wanted to log in the last post of my old blog, so if you want to read it up, feel free to go there.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2005-11-17T01:29:00.000+08:00

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!; The world forgetting, by the world forgot;; Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!; Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

- Eloisa to Abelard, Alexander Pope

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is also the title for a 2004 film starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

Now I suppose you'll be wondering why I would name my blog this, its simply because I liked the film alot and the quote from Alexander Pope's poem was very inspirational to me.

To start off the first post of the blog, let me introduce myself. I am Jason Low Jian Ji from Malaysia but you can call me by my Internet handle, Blanko. I am currently a final year Games Design student at Multimedia University Cyberjaya Malaysia. I'm a 21 year old Chinese Malaysian and I have been living in Malaysia all my life.

I am an avid gamer, playing all types of PC and PlayStation 2 games including experimental games like Katamari Damacy and Shadow of the Colossus. I also sometimes play basketball, read fantasy books, listen to music, watch a movie or try to produce a game in my free time when I'm not playing Guild Wars or Battlefield 2 online or attending classes at my university.

This blog is created so that I have a premise to express my rantings about my life and the stuff that I care about, including Technology, Gameplaying, Game Design and the Games Industry in general.