Today marks a milestone as I finally add something new to the “Games” tab here on the site. Chapter 1 of “The Silver Lining” is out, and it’s available for download over at the main site. Some of you might remember the demo we released for it a few years ago, and that’s basically what Chapter 1 is, in terms of puzzles and gameplay. What’s been added is a lot of polishing, as well as cut-scenes. Lots and lots of cut-scenes. And some really cool enviromental effects. And bug-fixes! Graham no longer glides around the island anymore! It’s still a very short chapter, but the game will expand nicely in later parts.
It should be noted that this game does not contain any explosions or farting ducks, as the writing staff has been very wise to keep the script away from me. I have a general idea of where the plot is going, but there’s been a lot of changes backstage, so when all five chapters are finished, it’ll be just as big a surprise to me. I could just download it off the SVN and peak ahead, but it would ruin the suspense.
Personally, I’ve been really impressed with everything they’ve done with the game since the Beta version. My role in this chapter has been limited to animation and some voice-work. The intro and the outro, for example, are my big babies this time around. In fact, one of the directors asked me to re-animate the big five-minute intro sequence about four times, causing me to go into a raging fit on multiple occasions. I’ve learned to be a lot more zen about it as a result. It’s good field practice for what to expect in a real animation studio.
Fun Trivia: I voice the first Winged Guard and only have two short lines in this game. Both of them sound like I’m channeling Kermit the Frog trying to be the Colonel from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Not-So-Fun Trivia: King Graham does not actually play a saxaphone in this game.
But-On-Second-Thought Trivia: It just occurred to me that I have a whole hard drive full of 3D King’s Quest character models – fully rigged and ready to animate. Man, I could do so much evil with these.
Clash of the Titans New Rule: Shakey Cam + 3D Glasses = NOT ALLOWED Seriously: Why not just Gaussian blur the whole movie while we’re at it? Also: Movie is very inaccurate. All historians know the Titans were killed by an angry Spartan. Also also: Ralph Fienne’s performance as Hades seems to be a compromise between the director wanting him to play Voldemort again, and Ralph wanting to play Grimer Wormtongue.
Iron Man 2 Yaaaaayyyy: Explosions! Robert Downey Jr! Robot fights! Scarlett Johansson in tight black leather! Sam Rockwell being wacky! Mickey Rourke being Russian! Biiiirrrrd! What confused me: I don’t think this movie had a script. The story stops every two minutes just so Robert Downey and Sam Rockwell can stutter and chuckle through their lines. It’s like watching a two hour blooper reel. With explosions. Many explosions?: Oh, yes. Many explosions. My big gripe: Maybe I’m over-analyzing, but was that whole “blood toxicity” sub-plot actually a convoluted metaphor for Tony having a drinking problem? —Actually, yes – I just checked it. It was. They slapped a whole new sub-plot over the movie because thought Tony being an alcoholic was too dark for children. So they gave him radiation poisoning instead. Fun for the whole family!
Kick-Ass Gwah?: GWAAAHHH!!!! What is it?: What part of GWAAAHHH didn’t you understand?
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Best Video Game Movie Ever?: Of course not. Not while Mortal Kombat exists. Did it respect the video game, at least?: Nope. They just jotted down “Prince,” “Persia,” “Time-Travel,” and “Desert,” and made a movie out of that instead. Was it watchable at least?: Oh, yeah. It needed more time-traveling, but was still a fun watch. There’s ostrich racing in it!
The A-Team Awesome?: Yes, awesome. Better than Crank 2: I don’t think Jason Statham will allow that. Is the full theme song in it? It better be: It is! They play it twice, by my count. What about Baracus? Does he pity any fools?: He pities ALL the fools.
Toy Story 3 So is it any good? It’s Pixar. These guys once made a successful romantic comedy about R2-D2, so the real question to be asked is “is it less good than the last movie they made?” In which case, no. “Toy Story 3″ blew my mind. Definitely better than TS2, although I’m still debating over whether it’s better than the first one. That baby head on the spider legs still creeps me out. Isn’t there a baby in this movie?: Oh, my god! You’re right! I forgot the awesomeness of Big Baby! And wasn’t there…. ?: Totoro! Totoro was in this movie! And a force-field dog! And a dinosaur that eats force-field dogs! And a monkey! I made up my mind. It’s better than Toy Story 1. So is it over?: Yes. I don’t think there will be a Toy Story 4. Unless you count this.
The Last Airbender What’s it about?: “The Last Airbender” is based on the highly successful animated series, about young boy who controls the elements and must return to free the world from the tyranny of the Fire Nation. The story on which is it based has received multiple awards, garnered critical praise from all age groups, and has captured the hearts and imagination of today’s generation, making it one of the more beloved stories of our time. And how’s the movie?: IT’S A ROTTEN, BORING PILE OF EXPOSITION AND HALF-BAKED CINEMATIC SCREW-UPS. M. Night Shyamalan has betrayed every single ounce of respect I have for his film-making prowess – and this is coming from someone who even defended his work on “Lady in the Water” and “The Happening.” Heck, this is coming from someone who’s defended “Dragonball: Evolution!” In fact, DB:E is the opposite of this. In DB:E, the subject matter was defecated all over, but the film still has the spirit and heart of the show. In “Airbender,” the subject matter is respected to the point where some scenes are shot-for-shot recreations, and yet the spirit and heart are completely missing. Sure, it follows the story, but there’s no humor, there’s no charm, there’s no imagination, there’s nothing that makes us want to enjoy the movie! It’s like being served a turkey dinner, only there’s just bones and M. Night ate all the meat in the kitchen!!! He’s effectively ruined the next best movie trilogy! Hang on, I’m done yet. Let me just add a break here… continue reading »
The word is in and I’ve just been accepted into the Vancouver Film School’s 3D Animation and Visual Effects program. Classes start next June though, so I’ll have to kill some time until I move to the rainy city. I’ve always wanted to go back to school at some point and with the job market as it is, this is probably the best time for it. Plus I’ll get to live in Vancouver for a year.
My current career goals right now are exceptionally higher than they were when I first graduated Dev a few years back. Rationally, they should be lower because as I’ve learned, all the jobs are in web design and graphics art (newspapers, billboards, magazines, etc.) Yet I’ve convinced myself that if going home and animating epic battle sequences on the computer is a good way to de-stress after a hard day of making T-shirt logos in Illustrator, there’s no reason I shouldn’t consider Pixar and ILM as viable career options (even up against all the intimidating competition.)
So wish me luck (in about a year’s time.) I’ve got my sights set high and I don’t want to trip over anything.
At long last, one of the three big projects I’m working on will be finally released as of July 10th. “The Silver Lining” is a King’s Quest fan-game developed by the massive and talented team with Phoenix Online studios, and yours truly has been responsible for a whole ton of the animation in this game. The game will be released in an episodic format starting with chapter 1 next month and so on (or until we’ve got everything in place.) Either way, it’s a BOM milestone. Something I’m working on is getting finished!
Courtesy of poster Jeyradan, here is a wonderful video of a cat slapping another cat. This is a very accurate recreation of what Bolt’s life has been like ever since he moved in with two other cats.
It’s all finalized today. House is sold, papers are all signed, cheques have been deposited, and I’m now living in a house with little to no internet access and a broken e-mail address that is taking Shaw forever to fix.
I’m getting a lot done in terms of home renovations and working on the game, but don’t be surprised if there’s fewer updates here. There’s only two computers in this house connected to the internet; one is password-protected, and the other is virus-ridden, forcing me to copy-paste every 20 seconds. I’m working on fixing this problem, but until then here’s the new trailer for the official Monkey Island 2 remake (I have to admit, their 3D remake looks way better than my MS Paint remake.)
Well, now. Here is the kind of news that would make my head explode fifty times over if physics permitted. I was going on the Telltale website to download and replay “Tales of Monkey Island” when right on their front page was the announcement of their next two adventure game series:
“Back to the Future” and “Jurassic Park.”
Fresh off of finishing the brilliant “Ghostbusters” for the PS3, I’ve been itching to see more childhood favorites return to PCs and consoles. In fact, just the other week, me and Brit sat down to watch BTTF again, and I kept thinking that the movie would work so well as an adventure game. I had the same gut feeling when a group of us watched JP months earlier. Now all I want to see is “Bill and Ted” make their way into a game and my life shall be complete.
In the light of this news, I actually sent another follow-up to Telltale’s HR department. I liked where this company was going before. Now I’m convinced I need to be in that office.
“Back to the Future” is a good choice for this company in my opinion. Their last two seasons of “Sam & Max” relied heavily on fourth-dimensional thinking in order to solve puzzles and tell the story, so bringing in the DeLorean wouldn’t stray far from what they’re already good at.
“Jurassic Park,” on the other hand, is a little different for the company, given how Telltale is renowned for making comedies. They have had success with their CSI games, but in this case, we’re dealing with a horror franchise where in every movie, people are trying to escape an island full of killer dinosaurs. So they’ll really have to expand on the situations and characters if they plan to make it episodic (unless they make it a comedy where we get to play as velociraptors trying to start a rock band.)
“And the winner for Best Movie is… The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”
Not exactly the first thing I want to hear when I turn on a TV.
Okay, so “The Twilight Saga” sweeping the MTV Movie Awards can hardly be considered a surprise, considering they let teenage girls doing all the voting with their cell phones. Heck, the Twilight movies are probably keeping the phone companies in business. But what are these girls really voting for? And how many straight guys voted for these movies too? And can they still be considered straight? And does “The Twilight Saga” really count as a saga?
sa·ga n.
1. a. A prose narrative usually written in Iceland between 1120 and 1400, dealing with the families that first settled Iceland and their descendants, with the histories of the kings of Norway, and with the myths and legends of early Germanic gods and heroes.
b. A modern prose narrative that resembles a saga.
2. A long detailed report: recounted the saga of their family problems.
3. A progressive rock band made famous in the early 80’s
No, it is not a saga. And just to recap, here is the movie everybody is voting for. This contains spoilers for “New Moon,” so be sure to read thoroughly in case you think you need to watch the movie first.
VAMPIRE: I’m not good for you. I must leave you.
GIRL: I want to kill myself.
WOLFMAN: I’m not wearing a shirt.
GIRL: I still want to kill myself.
WOLFMAN: Look. I have a truck.
GIRL: If I kill myself, maybe I can see him.
ME: We are now 90 minutes into the movie.
GIRL: Oh, look. Werewolves. And I still want to kill myself.
WOLFMAN: Don’t kill yourself.
GIRL: Okay.
VAMPIRE: I’m going kill myself because you probably killed yourself too.
GIRL: I will come to Rome to save you from… killing yourself.
VAMPIRE: Yay. We are in Rome.
GIRL: Make me a vampire.
VAMPIRE: Okay.
ME: And that’s how Robert Pattinson landed Best Actor at the MTV Movie Awards.
WOLFMAN: I am sad now.
ME: At 130 minutes into the movie, we all are.
WOLFMAN: At least you saw some sweet werewolf fights, right?
ME: Oh, yeah. That was pretty awesome for like, 30 seconds.
People have tried to convince me that the books are better, so I bothered reading “Twilight” for a bit and then stopped when I realized I didn’t have enough vaginas to really enjoy Stephanie Meyer’s wet dream about a vampire she made up. Who sparkles.
My diagnosis: stick to Buffy. At least when girls bone vampires in that show, they literally destroy buildings.
Today marks a milestone as I finally add something new to the “Games” tab here on the site. Chapter 1 of “The Silver Lining” is out, and it’s available for download over at the main site. Some of you might remember the demo we released for it a few years ago, and that’s basically what Chapter 1 is, in terms of puzzles and gameplay. What’s been added is a lot of polishing, as well as cut-scenes. Lots and lots of cut-scenes. And some really cool enviromental effects. And bug-fixes! Graham no longer glides around the island anymore! It’s still a very short chapter, but the game will expand nicely in later parts.
The word is in and I’ve just been accepted into the Vancouver Film School’s 3D Animation and Visual Effects program. Classes start next June though, so I’ll have to kill some time until I move to the rainy city. I’ve always wanted to go back to school at some point and with the job market as it is, this is probably the best time for it. Plus I’ll get to live in Vancouver for a year.
Well, now. Here is the kind of news that would make my head explode fifty times over if physics permitted. I was going on the Telltale website to download and replay “Tales of Monkey Island” when right on their front page was the