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.