The Giant Of The River Thames: Little Megan’s Giant Adventure in London on Kickstarter

Posted 18 Aug 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Business, Diaries, Games

The Giant of The River Thames is now officially on Kickstarter.com! For those who don’t know, Kickstarter is a place where people can fund ideas and creative projects. You make a pledge to a project to help getting it completed, in return, the creator will give you some rewards for your help.

We are trying to raise $3456.00 to help pay for art works and software licenses, and we only have 28 days left to make this happen! Take a look at the project on this project page and let me know what you think. We are very glad that the kind folks at Kickstart have put this project in the “recommended” page. Please help us make our pledge goal of $3456.00, spread the word and let your friends know about this project! Every bit of support will help us get closer to bringing the project to reality.


Project Page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pepwuper/the-giant-of-the-river-thames-little-megans-giant


Thank you!

Posted via email from Next Level with Brandon


Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

Keeping up the Motivation #indiegames #gamedev

Posted 15 Aug 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Diaries
motivation-001

One the hardest thing I have to deal with everyday is to keep waking up early every morning and be energized and pumped for the day of work ahead. Working on your own projects and being able to manage my own time is a great gift, but it also comes with great responsibility – if I don’t get things done, no one is going to chase my tail and scream at me. Working on what I love is a great way to keep myself motivated, but the power of the constant pressure of running out of money and facing the unknown future can not be ignored. I found myself needing an extra shot of motivation every now and then when I feel lost. Here are some of the things that worked for me, and I hope they will continue working!


Music
House and Techno music seems to do the trick for me – Daft Funk, Chemical Brothers, and Last.FM/Pandora.com. Oh and Dizzee Rascal. My recent favorite is Annie Mac on BBC Radio1. The stuff she plays rocks, differs, and jumps. And we all know Europe has the best techno music. ;)


Books
Reading other people’s success is a good way for me to keep my head up and focus on the positives. “Delivery Happiness” is what’s doing the trick for me right now. Tony Hsieh‘s down-to-earth writing is both humorous and informative.


Games
See what other giants in the field has done. Inspirations from some of the most original games from Q Entertainment, Popcap, ThatGameCompany, and countless others from TGISource Forums and the Unity Forum. Seeing is believing, and I need to believe it’s gonna happen ;)


Images
Images of what I want in the future. I keep a folder on my computer of images of what I want the future to look like. And then I set them as my desktop wallpaper to remind myself why I working so hard on these projects. My current desktop wallpaper.



Other things that also help
  • A walk in the park
  • Shower in the morning, and another shower in the evening
  • Water the lawn
  • Talk to others about your projects and getting feedback. People love to help if you are starting something new, and creative ideas could come up during these conversations to get you excited!
What are some of the other ways you keep yourselves motivated?
edit: Oh and this, definitely this video(Web 2.0 Expo NY: Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library)).

Posted via email from Next Level with Brandon


Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

FWD: in UK, Independent Studios Choose Self-Publishing, Digital Distro

Posted 10 Aug 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Uncategorized

New survey in UK says,

64% Game Developers self-publish, of which 96% are independent studios.

52% on iPhone platform
38% on PC
36% on PSN
16% on Xbox Live

And for those who self-publish, 72% digitally distribute their games.

In conclusion, if you want your games to be discs selling at retail shops, most would go with a publisher. And digital distribution helps game studios self-publish. Nothing new here, but lovely stats for a nice Tuesday morning.

Posted via email from Next Level with Brandon

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

For Unity3D Stats Junkies – Web Player Hardware Statistics #unity3d

Posted 02 Aug 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Games

(blogged for future reference)

If your Unity 3D game is going to be mainly played on the browser, you should pay attention to this data on user hardware.

from http://unity3d.com/webplayer/hardware-stats

found via @mrchrisallen

Posted via email from Next Level with Brandon

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

Screen Recording Software – Screenflick

Posted 31 Jul 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Uncategorized
I had to make a short video overview of the game yesterday. I used to use Camstudio all the time when I was on Windows, and was disappointed that it doesn't run on a Mac. So I spent several hours trying to find a good screen-casting software on the mac. Here's what I found:

1. Jing: Free and reliable. But unfortunately only records to SWF and not video formats. 

2. ScreenToaster: Online Screen Recorder. Free, but I couldn't get it to work and it kept crashing my Firefox. 

3. Camtasia:Mac: I've heard a lot of good things about Camtasia, but the $99/$149 price tag is a bit much for me. 

Eventually I found ScreenFlick, and it's $25/23 price tag is perfect for me who just needed a simple and easy tool to record the screen and audio. I downloaded the demo and it worked great (except for the watermark in the center of the video). I hit purchase right away after trying it for 10 minutes and have been quite happy with the result. 

There are some others like SnapzProX ($69), ScreenFlow ($99), and iShowU HD ($29.95) that I didn't look into. But if you don't want to spend too much time thinking about which software to go with and just want a simple solution. I'd recommend ScreenFlick

Posted via email from Next Level with Brandon

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

FWD: Pixar: 25 Years of Animation #animation #art

Posted 30 Jul 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Uncategorized

It took Pixar 25 years (and a million talents) to get to where they are today. If you live near Oakland, you need to go see this and be inspired.

from Juxtapoz: A Pixar: 25 Years of Animation preview at Oakland Museum of California

Posted via email from Next Level with Brandon

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

Reduce Coding Time with Snippely

Posted 26 Jul 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Games

This is one of the best tools I’ve found lately. Snippely is basically an organized notepad, allowing you to store bits of codes that you use over and over again. So instead of going back to the textbook or searching the reference website, you can quickly copy and paste codes you’ve written before and simply modify them to fit your new needs.

For example, I stored a two line code for one script to refer to another script on a different object. I use this code quite often for interaction in between the player, the enemies, and the items, and I simply copy and paste this code from Snippely each time I need to do it.

Smart and handy, give it a try!

Download from http://code.google.com/p/snippely/

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

FWD: 65 Beautiful Free Fonts for Web and Graphic Designers | Artatm #fonts #gamedev

Posted 21 Jul 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Games

I spent hours finding a great font two weeks ago. If only I saw this list earlier! There are some really great looking fonts here. I was surprised by how much better the game looked after a font “upgrade”. Don’t ignore the quality of your fonts, especially if your game has a lot of text on the screen.

From 65 Beautiful Free Fonts for Web and Graphic Designers. (Remember to always check the license info before use.)

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

FWD: In the eyes of Children

Posted 20 Jul 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Games

The Greatest Game Ever, based on the cutting-edge social-ready free-to-free True Imagination Engine.

from Don Dimanlig

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

FWD: untoldentertainment.com » Six Ways to Tell Stories in Video Games #gamedesign #gamedev

Posted 18 Jul 2010 — by Brandon Wu
Category Games

The Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

Have you heard? Monkey Island 2 is the greatest game ever made.

Full article at Untold Entertainment.

Here are six of the most commonly used ways to tell stories in video games. If you’ve played any games with a narrative element, you’ve probably seen at least one of these. You can see how the story-telling in games have evolved over time, and while not listed here, the interactive methods of telling stories in games (eg. Uncharted 1 and 2, Heavy Rain, Half-Life 1 and 2…) have also provided additional tools for game developers to shape the experience of players.

Interactive story telling and story telling in an interactive medium. I sense continuous innovation in this area in video games. And yes please at least play the Heavy Rain demo on the PS3 if you haven’t done so. While the heavily scripted story might not be for everyone, it is a new way of combining gameplay with narratives, and it served the game very well.

Again the full article is at Untold Entertainment:untoldentertainment.com » Six Ways to Tell Stories in Video Games.

Posted via email from Brandon Wu’s Road to Where He Wants to Be

Post to Twitter Post to Plurk Post to Yahoo Buzz Post to Delicious Post to Digg Post to MySpace Post to Ping.fm Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon