back in my freshman year of college we studied a harvard psychologist who did a study I found pretty revealing. In it, they showed subjects a picture of a swan on a computer screen. They asked the subjects to point to the swan with the mouse cursor. They did, and all was well and good. What they didn't know was that the mouse was essentially not plugged in and an animation would play of the mouse cursor moving to the swan. When asked in the questionnaire if they clicked on the swan, an overwhelming majority answered yes.

I always forget the name of the professor, but he published this study in a paper with many other studies that posited that consciousness is an illusion put on by our brains. It makes a lot of sense to me. Our brains have become so complex that they've begun a kind of overgrowth is no longer concerned with our bodily functions. Idle hands and whatnot Though even with that knowledge, I still subscribe to the illusion of free will. To truly discount free will is an impossibility in my opinion...

Also this: http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/08/12/the-multi-universes/ (scrub to the interview around 40:00 or so in). While it's about a lot more than just determinism, I think I remember a riff on the subject of free will buried in seepage of that smart man's mind.

EDIT: Ah, here it is! Sir Daniel M. Wegner. Here's his book: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/conscwil.htm

We've got lots of levels thanks to some awesome testers/alphanauts. Over 300 or so. Check out the level browser to find the best ones based on rating. Andy added aluminum as well as a bit of a new mechanic in that metals (squares) are indestructible, solids are destructible and gases are the collectibles (goals). It makes for a bit more interesting setup so far. We'll see how it goes.

I just threw together a huge update over the course of today, with lots of it being UI tweaks and additions that will be integrated soon enough, though nothing too gameplayey/exciting/showable, though I did whip up a new site design!

Altitude!

http://altitudegame.com/

[we]

Couldn't agree more Sparky et. al. Though, I think this is really a matter of taste more than anything. Desilets has none, while most of us here do. That's how I'd describe his attitude. Tasteless.

Even if we make a bloody, hell-bent game it still has charm because it wasn't built as a superficial vehicle to give the audience softcore blood porn (or at least I hope). It was just something we wanted to do and loved doing it. Using the mother:child :: dev:game analogy: We love our children. We care for them deeply, sometimes more than ourselves. These people abuse theirs, or at least have a wildly different idea on what makes a good "parent". One that casts away the best interests of the child for their own selfish goals: greed, vanity, etc. 8 levels of hell . Kind of like one of those crazy Pageant moms...

"Why not aim high?"
because it's risky. because it's 10x harder and not only that but aiming low is a well trodden path with a much larger margin for error. Ultimately, Desilets doesn't give a shit about aiming anywhere it seems. He wants to see blood and tits. He embodies the reason the public views gamers as pubescent teenagers in arrested development. The dude looks a fair bit older than me and acts like he's half my age.

If I ever do this though, I'm popping the EA executives and designers of this game in the circle that represents "violence against art"

definitely.

that Desilets creep is all kinds of horrible.

[CAST]

just because I care, I'll spit some blurbs out for you.

CAST
CUB - played by Jonathan Knight - Executive Producer
BEAR - played by Steve Desilets - Lead Designer
GOD - played by bald dude host

BEAR: "and we kick ass all the time. The poem's important but to me that's the backdrop. It's about blood, violence and gore."

BEAR: "this whole backstory, nobody read the frickin' poem. the cliff notes maybe is about as deep as anybody would get into it."
CUB: "but the game will want to make people read the poem."
BEAR: "games don't make me want to read anything. I don't even read the instruction manual."

GOD: "are there girls in the game?"
BEAR: "there's women, lots of women in the game."
CUB: "Dante spends his adult life writing this poem, this love poem for this woman who's died and gone to heaven."
BEAR: "That's the love story, but there's plenty of just... TITS!" ... "Tits are very tasty."

::cut to footage of polygon boobs and grumbling over breast size, lots of "BIGGER BIGGER BIGGER" chanting and beating of man chests.::

ah, you're right... here we go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bERzMBTy77c

New news here. Come get 'er.

Finally have bosses in there with some art (level 1) When you hit his weak spot a lo-fi 'spolsion sounds the bell. Also, balloons now compound your lift as opposed to having a limiter as before. We're still working out how we're actually going to construct the bosses themselves. We've got some kind of particle thing going right now that could work for rotation among other things. We want to be able to make these bosses as big as we want fairly easily so developing a system for that that looks good at the same time is our next hurdle. Here's the Ugly below, his jaws are so powerful they don't need connective tissue. 

Also, the video appears to be down. Alternate link?

Works for me ATM, update flash player?

@glaiel - I tried to get steam rollin' on a compo but it was met with "meh" = http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6612.0

We're having a game jam next month here, we're thinking of assigning a level of hell to each team and see what we come up with.

"And I Buscaglied all over her back."

interview with the devs at 5:00 in: http://crackle.com/c/Jace_Hall#id=2453907&ml=o%3D12%26fpl%3D349935%26fx%3D

interesting look at how uncreative douchebags look at game dev.

Theo, are you working at 72 DPI? Make sure that's the case. That's the only thing I can think of that could possibly cause that kind of inconsistency with pixel dimensions.

 

Point me to the koolaid manbabe

I really don't understand Tom here. If I were a board member of _the_ game developers association why would I act with such hostility towards members and fellow game developers? I'm guessing there are other factors at play here, largely hostility with community involvement or lack-thereof.

In that thread there it really looks like he's having a meltdown. I mean come on: "Don't ask questions unless you're a member or lay your e-peen on the table". That's something i'd expect from an angsty 14 year old.

Tom Buscaglia is at it again!  http://tinyurl.com/n9wfwj

What is his deal anyways?

Just look at his avatar. He's a real goodfella.

Ok, since this game has been in development for a few weeks now I'm gonna catalog all my progress shots here in this post to keep the archive intact. This is just the art side, Andy has cataloged his progress in the form of separate blog posts for each version that you can check above.

Initial elements as characters concept

Going textbook diagram style

Using the original character concepts in a static mockup

Action static mockup

Radical shift to El Lissitzky inspired Russian microspace cosmonaut (protonaut) style

Animated game mockup in flash

Static mockup of level editor options and tools

Tim Langdell's Anal Bead Adventure

This _must_ be made.

Phew, today felt good. I think I'm finally honing in on a tileset I'm happy with. I was trying to be too painterly with my pixels but now things are much more ordered and legible. Beyond the new tileset Mike has thrown in a "badDude" grappling things. I made them little eggs for now, but the idea will be that you throw these at enemies/boss-weak-points. The controls are a bit different for when we had them in there earlier to hopefully aid a few things.

Now, to grapple an "egg" tap D and you will have it attached to you indefinitely until you tap "D" again to release with your inertia. If you continue to hold "D" at any point after you've grappled (or just hold D from the beginning) you will charge up and bring in the egg closer to you. Once released after holding you will jettison off the egg in the direction you are facing regardless of intertia. Let us know what you think. here's the live build in case you don't want to scroll back to the 1st post: http://intuitiongames.com/games/liferaft/

[PLAY IT HERE]

PLAY IT HERE

Ahoy! Myself and weasello (Andy Moore) are collaborating on a physics platformer about chemicals. You, the Protonaut, take on all sorts of molecules (many never seen before!) in an effort to break them down collecting the sweet, sweet elements of your liking.

LAST UPDATE: 6/14/2009

A large portion of the game is dependent on user generated content, and even in its rough state now you can sign up and start creating your own levels. The goal of the game is not entirely clear at this point so I'm being vague about goals and etc., but we're updating pretty regularly and Andy's trying a bunch of stuff out. Additionally, be sure to check in on Andy's devlog where he tracks each new build. Sign up within the game to start making levels so they persist with your account. Hit up the irc channel as well if you want to get involved we idle in there and love to hear suggestions.

BASIC CONTROLS

• Movement - WASD
• Slow Motion - Spacebar
• Quit to menu - ESC
• Zoom In and Out - Z, X

QUICK INFO

• Andy's changelog/devlog
• irc channel #protonaut on irc.coldfront.net
• level browser
• protonaut forum
• To load different levels attach "?levelId=222" or some such number on the end of the main URL

MY CHANGELOG
6/14/2009

• New DOF fx assets in there (you'll see what I mean eventually)
• Animated menus
• New site design (to be implemented yet...)

6/10/2009

• Added a whole bunch of UI stuff for menus/logins/level select/win and loss screens

I've been lurking on these forums for years, and have only now decided to join. I'm a Taurus, and have two pairs of handcuffs in my top dresser, one fuzzy and one plain metal. My pants of choice are blue jeans, and the bottoms usually get torn up from excursions of various nature. I'm a decent cook and a big eater, but remain steadfastly underweight. I'm twenty-one and live in the United States in Florida. I use the numberpad when I play roguelikes, and don't like most kinds of cheese. When I walk barefoot outside, I keep the same pace on the asphalt that I do on the cool grass and relish the burning sensation on my feet. My computer's graphics card is borked, but I'm waiting for a friend to bring me a better one rather than doing anything abot it myself. I live in an apartment with two roommates, and prefer to drink ice water. My favorite of the five base flavors is sour.  I have the entire run of Futurama in DVD, as well as the four recent movies. I have a stuffed bear in my bed that I've had since I was two years old. My NES got left out in the rain and became infested with some sort of algae, so I bought a newstyle FC Twin so I could play my old NES games. My computer speakers cost 50 cents American.

Best introduction ever.