Game Project Update: Animating and Spriting

Regular readers would know that in addition to shamelessly exposing my privacy to the Malaysian busybodies, I used this blog partially as a developer’s log for my game project, Unlocking Pandora. For those who had just recently metamorph’d into a busybody, you can click the link to find out more about my project.

The short-stuff of the assignment is that I’m working on something that might help me get a head start of my thesis paper v2.0. Unlocking Pandora is a PC role-playing game (RPG) similar to Final Fantasy 1-4 graphic style; you choose a party of fighters, you upgrade by fighting monsters and you save the world by killing the powerful evil guy.

For quite a long time I had to put this project on hold because of my school’s website project but that’s old news now. So when I wasn’t reviewing the last two non-RPG games, I was planning on working of some sprite edits (I’m no good at customizing my own character sprites though).

But that didn’t work because I was distracted by some new material I’ve collected. So instead, I’m gathering graphical stuff and dissect them to arrange into RPG Maker 2003 (RM2K3) format.

This is one of the four new battleset edits I’m working on. The animation for this graphic is used for my healer character’s attack spells.

Like the cell animation techniques that Astro’s TV channel, Nickelodeon, had taught us, I have to arrange each box of graphic one by one in a timely sequence. Recolouring, resizing and transparencies are part of the flexible editing options in the software. Here’s something what I planned to achieve.


These are some of the battlers’ examples, but not necessarily I’ll decide on this design.

And place them in the default battle system like these (old works showing here, by the way but you get the picture, right...?).



Every character’s specialized attack or magical upgrade gets its own animation.

It’ll be a b**ch to calibrate and arrange to make it look really nice but I’m kind of veerrrrry particular about it (I rarely make an animation less than 50 frames now). So far, I’ve got 2 characters whose attack animations are good and done, which makes 7 others to create.

As for other animations, I got some of the generic ones done. But then there are the specialized enemy attacks (a boss sends out a great evil-blue beam!) and monster sprite’s attacks (generic monster strikes and status disability) and sequence/events-triggered animation (like feathers falling very, very slowly from the sky).

I’ll calculate how much animation cells I’ll have to face-off but since I’ve already know that it’ll be annoyingly humungous, I don’t think I want to scare myself with the details (aaccck!).

Speaking of humungous jobs, I’ve made some new problems with a sprite graphics relative to my storyline. In the storyline, my protagonist uses a unique magic circle to draw power out from the earth to *cough* spoiler *cough* against the bad guys. Currently, this is the magic circle sprite graphic I’m thinking of using.


I’m working out a scene sequence but the magic circle doesn’t seem dramatic enough for this scene.

The magic circle I’ve first tried for now seems... kind of wimpy. And it’s too much a reminiscent of Ahriman’s Prophecy’s Power of Eight. So I’ve changed my mind and saved that circle for other stuff, maybe in side-quests.

But now I’ve created a problem of what to use in making a more dramatic magic circle. Looks like it’s going to be another long trip to MS Paint. But I got the ball rolling and I’m sticking with its current course.

The magic circle is significant for the storyline as an informative guide to the magical world of the game, plot development for my protagonist and a nature of the gameplay. There will be eight components, each one representing a raw magical power and so there’s a kind of puzzle system attached to it.


After much doodling, I’ve decided that the bottom-most pattern will suit. Now I’ll just have to resize, adjust and maybe even animate it.

If you’ve read this long, then you’re a bigger busybody that I thought. Okay, the rest of the changes and additions I’ve made are:
1. A game hint system that will tell the answers to quests but will also cost level points.
2. Storyline extensions, mostly in Act 2 and Act 3. Side-quests for both Acts are still in the thinking cap.
3. Music and sound effects are finally finalized! I got two sound effects that are quite big in size but I’m keeping them because it’s the sounds of two people having fun-sex. This way, I can create a Vegas brothel. In my game, that is.

I’m still considering making my two non-playable characters into playable characters since their roles is looking to become more and more significant into the storyline. It’s not that I’m afraid to do the battler and battle animation graphic work (I’ve a full year to complete this project after all), it’s whether turning them into playable characters will affect the intrigue of their backgrounds.

Aaaah... the power of the imagination. Busybody enough for you?

Game Review: Fairy Godmother Tycoon

Seeing as I’m away from the Internet again this week, I thought about making an entry about the current situation of national and international affairs. Of the late Benazir Bhutto and how Pakistan’s January polls had been postponed. Rumours have it that she was assassinated to stop her from revealing evidence that the polls would be rigged.

Or that our health minister, Datu' Seri Dr. Chua, had been caught in a video-taped sex affair in a hotel, incriminating evidence against his integrity, his marriage sanctity and his political career. Yet the newspapers posted his holy apology, a major contrary to the years back in the trial of Anwar Ibrahim. With its dubious facts and money-jelly witnesses, Anwar Ibrahim got the all the verbal flogging.

Half of my mind considers something’s really not right the way our newspapers handled their rat-talk, much less the politicians’ rat-talk. Unfortunately, since all this would be old news by the time I post this entry, my opinion is redundant.

So instead, I’ve devoted my time to playing cracked games. Here’s what I’ve fooling around with.

Fairy Godmother Tycoon.

Haha, I loved this a lot. I’ve realized that of all the downloaded games I could play, Lemonade Tycoon was definitely one I could play for hours. So it was happy for me when Fairy Godmother Tycoon came out.

The story goes that Fairy Godmother had her potion-making empire threatened by dragons, bears, bulls and not-so-handsome princes (financially speaking). Your job as family member is to open a store and drive the competitors out of business.


My favorite freelancer is the Robber Barons, aka Crooks-For-Hire.

The gameplay is something manager-based. You have a set amount of cash, a quirky town to conquer and its own 3 kinds of cursed problems which you cure with your potions. Between those, you decide how much to spend on supplies and marketing and research and how high the price for the potions based on cost and forecast.

Then you start the day and watch your decisions bring you either profit or doom.

All and all, I really liked it because of its political humor on the traditional nursery rhymes. The storyline was pretty good (watch out for Goldilocks and the Bearzinis) and the gameplay was challenging without being overbearing. The visuals, music and sound effects were mediocre but it kept very well to the spirit of the stories.


Occasionally, a random fairy tale member seeks your out to help with their problems, like this Giant who’s, for some bread-related reason, is losing customers.

There’s nothing much different in most tycoon-type games in Fairy Godmother Tycoon than most others. But what I really liked was the storyline and its eccentric punch-lines. There’s a news bulletin that shows random events as you start your days. Some of my favorites are:

"Snow White picked to live in a house with seven dwarves in new reality television series."
"Wolf's political career ruined after being discovered wearing sheep's clothing."
"Moon-Jumping Cow tests positive for Bovine Growth Hormone."
"Jack Sprat and Wife banned from all-you-can-eat buffet."
"Animal control called in to rescue french hens, turtle doves, and partridges in elaborate Christmas gift gone awry."


Dentist bills in Sweet Tooth Town are insane.

And these are not counting the other odd-and-funny instances such as when King Midas comes to town and turn doorknobs into gold, thus increasing peasants’ wealth and enabling you to set higher prices.

In fact, I think I’d rather read something like that in our local news instead of the health minister’s affair. Something like, due to the tragedy of Humpty Dumpty’s fall, our King, Ynag Di-Pertuan Agong, overturns the Law of Gravity, making Malaysians suffer a floaty epidemic.

Fat wish, but I really do want to look for a rainbow’s pot of gold after a Pahang floodstorm.

PS:Downloads for this game can be found in Reflexive Arcade. If you want the cracked version, ask me nicely.

Internet Connection Hibernation ... I mean, Merry Christmas!

Poopy Blog Entry!!

No I haven't been De-Evolutionized. But there will be a blogging stall for some time.

It's that time I've been getting ready for; my abstinece from the Internet. Unlike most lucky (rich, obsessive, society-deprived) people, I'm on a tight budget, thus can't afford to have an internet connection.

In fact, I have yet to pay for the previous rent from *MySis, back when I had an internet connection. MySis is great. She's practically supporting my Celcom's service and still lets me use her router at her house when she and her husband is out at work.

Not that I call or SMS'd a lot of people on a regular basis, mind you. Most of my pals communicate in online forums and are across oceans anyway.

We're decorating a Christmas tree desktop by putting random pictures on a Christmas tree background with no particular graphic rule except the theme has to be Christmas. It's still not finished though but I've made my contribution.

This is the actual desktop image for GW's Christmas tree, at the current stage of decorating. I'll post a new image when we finally get it done on Christmas Day, if ever (bah, humbug!).


Mine's the kid in the rocking horse and his two aunts helping him learn how to use it.

As you can see, we're a bunch of cheap art-character spriters having no sense of proper art. Just having the stupid fun of it all.

So just as I had forewarned you guys, I'm going offline for a while; reducing my blogging to Mondays or Sundays. So I won't be around for any Christmas Specials.

But hey! In the spirit of gift-giving and gift-getting (and all that multi-cultural-thingy our goverment had been trumpetting about), if you guys want a present from me, I got something in my Santa's sack that might appeal to all.

You know when you download a game's full version from Yahoo! or Big Fish Games but you can't play the full game itself unless you pay money? There's a couple of software tricks around that with no aversions to your PC and I got the download in my Mediafire service provider.

I should know because I'm still using the damn, awesome (strictly illegal) thing. Just put your name here and I'll have a reason to steal cyber cafe money for Tuesday morning.

With that said, enjoy your Malaysian Christmas!

A Friend’s Artwork for the Year’s End

Lately, I’ve been using this blog partially as a developer’s log for this project. Consider that as part of my motivational reward since it’ll be a freebie by next year’s end. Afterall, where else am I going to promote this project but in my own site?

Naah, I’m fooling with you folks. I just don’t want to think about my exam that’s coming up in a few hours. Yeah, let’s put the blame on that.

And so the artwork for this week is somewhat of (not to say lower quality, but...) a younger experienced artist by whom I had been ‘glomp’-ing out on a regular basis, Nessiah.

Nessiah aka Enexodia aka Archeia aka Jasmin aka Expialidocious is a Filipino girl who just moved to Findon, Australia and is probably getting ready for her first Christmas outside of South East Asia. She’s working on Unlocking Pandora’s artworks for free.

A freelance artist (who could be paid to do this thing) is actually making my game project for free (Let’s emphasize on the word, ‘for FREE!’). And I only gave her some illegal key-generators programs as Christmas presents to unlock those pesky 60-minutes-only downloaded games, so what does that say about me? Cheap? Oww...

It started on some help on battle animations but then I decided she’s really got great art sense so I asked her to do some artwork and character art. Hey, I didn’t expect Marvel comics or Hong-Kong-type mangas but this one’s actually very nice.

Nessiah did this one in GW.net forums. It’s a portrait of my female protagonists parents, Feladie and Iqeas. In the project storyline, the portrait will play a strong role in Act03 on plot discovery and character development.

What kind of plot development? Oh, puh-leze. That’s a major spoiler. Even Nessiah doesn’t know what the mini details of the portrait actually represents (haha!).

But I’m glad she liked the project. She even made an MS Paint tutorial about them. But as usual, clear-headed as she is (cue lightly implied sarcasm here), she wrote in Feladie and Keea, instead of Iqeas.

But I supposed that there’s no harm done because Keea, my main character, is named after her mother, Iqeas. Sort of. The Wolf and the Wildflower story tells another tale though, but I ain’t telling you fellas that either. Not yet anyway.

All part of the ‘hyping’ rule (Hype! Hype! Hype!).

If you will excuse me, I declare this week’s image blog entry done. Now I got to run for the watch-shoppe because though I remembered to bring my calculator, I forgot to buy batteries.

Crap.

The Thesis Project Strikes Back!

Just when I thought I have heard the last of my thesis project, out pops a ‘ding-dong’ SMS music from my Sony Ericsson. Normally, it would have been some random AhLong wanting to give me a Christmas special offer (borrow money now and get a FREE microwave!), but surprise, surprise, it was Supervisor.

Oh for jeezes’ sake, what did I do now? The message was a shortie, just asking me to come up for presentation today in the faculty office. I had wished that she mistaken me for another random student who didn’t show up for their presentation D-Day so I just messaged back, asking exact time.

Apparently, Supervisor knew she got the right stupid kid when she SMS’d me back, asking for an 11am interview.

Damn...

Normally, I loved presentation. I do. I got A+ in public speaking co-curriculum and was the co-head of my group. My software engineering class didn’t have a bad presentation either. I can speak well, dress well and as long as I can focus on the subject matter, technical difficulties be damn’d.

But I DON’T feel focused today. I haven’t eaten breakfast. My head is still woozy-oozy-dizzy and it feels like my stomach wants to be woozy too (I think I have self-fermenting crack in my system that my body doesn’t want to share with me).

And so here I am at school, making a few last-minute touches on my system. At least the service provider is working (BOTH backup and backup’s backup). I don’t know who else is playing the music to my project grade but frankly, I don’t care to focus too much on it right now.

I’m getting ready for what I call ‘Internet Connection Hibernation’. It’s the time when I don’t have enough cash to access to the cyber cafes anymore AND I’m going to work on my pixel characters.

These are my old stuff but just to give you an idea. I have nine of these guys to art out, and all nine have about 4 or 5 semi-custom poses to design. It’s going to take a while to do them and I work better if I don’t get tempted to drive back and forth between PC and source of Internet.

Furthermost after my presentation today (just to remind myself incase I forgot), I’m going to do an outline of all my characters and then submit them to my artist. She’s doing character art for free but she hadn’t worked on mine at all.

So I’m going to pass her as much story spoilers as I could just to get her an idea of the game structure, and then let her decide if she still wants to do them.

Of course, considering if I may or may not still be alive after this surprise presentation today. It’s 9:30am on the Monday before Aidil Ad’ha and I’m the one feeling like a cow to her execution.

Whoops, there goes my ‘ding-dong’ SMS again. With any luck, it’s an AhLong giving me a Christmas special offer.

Game Project Update: The Storyline.

Since I had a little time to sit back and think non-stressful thoughts that might aggravate my fever (heh, more aggravating actually), I had time to play some of the 1001-or-so downloaded games I’ve haven’t had the chance to play. On the top of my list was Aveyond. I had always wanted to try it out but only recently I’ve cracked a full-version file out of it.

Aveyond isn’t a new game nor was it made with any high-tech type of game engine. It was made in ye’olde RMXP, released last year by Amaranth Games, a sequel to a previous free-to-download project, Ahriman’s Prophecy.

I’ve played the older, free-to-download game ages and ages ago and though the gameplay was good, the storyline was nothing super, just the average linear concept. But Aveyond was something different. Not patient enough to take the game on the scenic play, I opened the spoiler guide to read the rest of the storyline.

Heh.

Oh, come on. It’s not cheating when I just want to know what things play out. Look, I’m just skimming through the plot puzzles, the NPC facts, the... er, okay, I’m cheating. So might as well get it all out and say that I cheat at a lot of PC games. If the game I’m playing has no cheat codes, I’ll look for a trainer. If I ever had the chance to get a PS3, I’ll buy Gameshark port as well.

All and all, I don’t play games for the gameplay (which is a sin not to enjoy gameplay, a blasphemy should my buddies in GW heard me). Instead, I like games for the storyline.

Cheat codes help me breeze through the game so I won’t have to spend so much time on it, thus enabling me to proceed with other games and more new games in the least amount of time. There’s no shame in being a game whore.

Which brings us back to Aveyond. It’s not the game itself that make me decide to adjust the storyline of my own game project, Unlocking Pandora, but it was the deciding factor. A lot of the better games had been chosen by the public as best-to-play have multiple endings segments. Like the visual novels Tsukihime and Fate Stay Night. Heh, even free Flash Games comes in multiple endings (see my previous entry, Other Age).

My game is divided into 4 chapters; Act I, Act II, Act III and Act IV. Storywise, the entire project is done, right down to the words uttered by aimlessly working NPC (non-playable-characters) in the villages/outpost/seaport/mouldy cave.

But since I wanted to convert it into a more choice-based oriented plot, this is going to take a lot of thinking. Especially since I’ve already cemented halfway through Act I. Fortunately, I don’t think it’ll be anything too dramatic.

Though the game focuses on my female protagonist, there are other characters that will play equally important roles in the plot; thus, deserving of their individual endings. So depending on player choices in certain situation, frequent use of that character in battle and/or tasks and so on and so on, the final Epilogue will be of the most chosen supported character’s ending.

This is going to be a major challenge since I’ve created nine characters (including the protagonist) which mean I’ll have to outline ten endings, an extra as the chief ending. I think I can pull this off from theory to coding. I don’t think it’s going to dramatically prolong the work either.

Ooo, some of the GW-ers is going to squeeze milk-money out of this one. I once proclaimed to the forum boards at large that I’ll never do a multiple-ending type game (due to it’s being an overused concept).

But as this is a case of Classic-Not-Generic, I must bow to the tried-and-true reason. I just wish I didn’t like it so much.

Flash Game: Other Age by Zeiva.

Firstly, thanks to Nessiah for her kick-starting my addiction to flash games. I hope your first Christmas in Australia has the summer weather burn your ass and your family pizza dinner.

If, like me, you liked multiple choice then you must have dreaded all the subjective questions in your secondary school exams. Every question has a 25% of being right and 75% of being wrong. And every question plays a role in determining your score as either an A, B, C and etc, etc.

Pretty much, that’s how you start Other Age, a flash game by Zeiva (who made 5 other flash games, alongside with a gazillion and one superb artwork). A round of multiple choice questions. Hey, not that I’m complaining because this is a really great game. Addictive too.

You play a princess who woke up to her 16th birthday. Tradition in the Zeiva kingdom is that you get to go on a blind date with a gentleman based on the choices you’ve input into this crazy machine that’s a 1/2 a teleporter and 1/2 anR2D2 with fork arms.



Yes, the machine is called that way. Don’t ask me why, I just play the damn thing.

By the way, every gentleman that is transported to you was done so unwillingly so your first challenge was to explain that you’re not going to rape them or anything. Once you figure out what kind of guy you’ve bombed yourself with, pick a date-setting they might like and get starting (cafeteria, library, etc, etc...).



For example, this is my first guy, Neody, bodyguard to Prince Lenz (he’s also my favourite guy). He enjoys long walks in the woodlands so I’ve chosen the, er, woodlands. But like every other dating game, trouble starts and thus I’m plunged into a search-and-rescue survival mission.

Also known as a mini game.



Different guys get you different mini games. Like if your multiple choice got you Zoui (a hungry guy from Zeiva’s other flash game, Genetic Glow), your mini game is to serve him as much good food with the time limit (emphasis on GOOD food). Win and you get Zoui’s Date True Ending. Fail and Zoui gets send back with many apologies from the King and he gets blasted by his friends as in ‘where the heck have you been?’ interrogation.



The same principles go for all your chosen guys. Each possessed a ‘true ending’ when you score and several ‘failed endings’, all depending on how badly you did. There are about 8 guys you can easily find and 2 ‘secret’ guys that are going to take some considerable skill in the multiple choices Luv-Luv robot’s questions to look for.



Warning! Beware of this guy! This is the man you DO NOT want to end up with. Trust me; it’s bad enough just looking at him (worse than some real-life guys I know) but it took me several tries to finally find a method to really get rid of him. You just have to punch his lights out.

The creators of the game kept to the secrecy in their sellable art book, so you’ll have to do some real money purchasing in order to find all the full Other Age secrets (hey, the girls got to make a living).

I have scored on all 8 guys and with the help of a great blog reader I also found the last 2 secret guys! Haha, not what I expected for either of them.

Overall, I duly recommend this game.
Link: http://zeiva.deviantart.com/art/Other-Age-39931316

Again, thanks to Nessiah. You Filipino wuss.
PS: Your Christmas present had been sitting in my file service provider for days. Can’t I just e-mail you the link and let you temp yourself to download it?

PPS: Interesting... My stats show that this blog entry is widely viewed. If you want to know how to get the all 10 guys and win their (mini games) hearts, do leave a note and I'll give the answer.

Game Project: Unlocking Pandora

I’m in one of the most non-productive stages in my life right now, aka Empty Days. Non-productive, yeah but it sure beats the bad days and I’ll be having more of those in the coming weeks. Still, I am thankful for how things had turned out.

For starters, I nearly struck a silver Wira while driving around Kelana Jaya this morning but managed to stop in time. Never saw a partially bald man gone so white before. I left the T-junction quickly, with 5+ witness drivers meters away behind me even though we're all driving at 5km an hour.

It wasn't my fault but I'm not going to waste this blog entry describing in ridiculously detailed scene on how he should have noticed my blinky turn signal, especially since he was on the road the public used to turn left instead of going straight forward. I'm saving it to bored to death the traffic cops.

So instead of committing 3rd-degree murder, I decided to fill a little more of the day's void by building up a bit more of the game project I’m working on, ignoring the fact that I might have better things to do, like kill a cockroach or something.

To get a clearer definition just so you guys can see my pride on how cheap my project it, I’ve rounded up the usual background system and resource checks:

-RPG Maker 2003 (game engine)
-First Seed Material and etc (sprite graphics)
-Monta’s Monsters (monster graphics)
-Moutamsi Music and etc (music midi)
-A1 Free Sound Effects and etc (sound effects... duh...)
-And more etc, etc, etc since I haven’t bother to properly catalogue where I got these from.

Take note I'm writing a copy-and-paste from my old topic in GW gaming community but I'm going to make it as simple as a tourist brochure written in badly-printed Jawi. So if you don't understand, do ask me or, as the Travel and Adventure channel taught us, improvise your brain.

So without further ado... Quickening presents...

Game Systems:
-Menu System and Character Battle System (Action Time Battle).

-Map-based characters' actions such as field shooting and etc...


-Member switching in Character Battle System.


-Class Choosing (There are 3 variations; Offensive, Defensive and Support. As the story procresses, your members will have to choose one out of 2).

Story:
The main heroine is Keea Winston, a student of The Academy who's about to graduate as soon as she gets her thesis done. The magic class she had chosen, Soul Energy, is rare, difficult and mostly useless so she had to travel to a place called Stony Village and study its history and runes with permission from the local experts.

But Keea's presence disturbed a locked secret and her unique aura trapped the guardian spirit into her body. Without the guardian spirit, the imprisoned evil entities started to leak into the forests of the island, awaking all manner of savage and vicious beasts, threatening the population from unknown and long-forgotten nightmares.

Now possessing what is called Fighter Spirit, Keea infused the magical energy with her own and sought to rectify her mistake (and save her own life) by searching for two other guardian spirits in two other sealed chambers before the evil entities reached them.

Her actions though, went not without notice by numerous high profile personalities, such as the Society of Aqera, the Nobility of the neighbouring country Sun Valley, the Circle of Casters in The Academy and also the reclusive agents of the Dark Enchanters.

And even if Keea managed to survive through all that, there's the secret of the spirits themselves...

Characters:

Name: Keea Winston
Role: Female protagonist
Background: She's a final year student of a magic university and she only needs to do one last task to graduate so she could later return to the Academy as a junior lecturer. Yet often of late, she dreams of an unknown golden-haired woman playing a sad tune on a harp. She thinks that one backwater island, home to the ruins of Pearl Temple, holds the answer to this mystery.
Skills: Soul Energy


Name: Jake Langley
Role: Wise old nag
Background: Langley was Keea's first tutor in the craft arts and he remained one of her oldest and dearest friends. His true background, however, is shrouded in mystery, other than he has been travelling around the region for centuries as a freelance consultant and tough bargainer. So far, it is believed that Keea was his only apprentice, a favour to her long-dead father.
Skills: Elemental-infused Soul Energy


Name: Niq Hillshire
Role: Obligatory anti-hero
Background: Niq is the headsman of Stony Village, a growing community that was once filled with outcasts and refugees. He takes his role very seriously and was most protective of anything of value that came out of the Pearl Temple ruins. He is quiet, rebellious and unconventional but without him, Stony Village would have turned into a lawless thieves den instead of the peaceful yet sorely overlooked society it was.
Skills: Ice Flows and Ice Blade


Name: Anita of the Aqiaka Clan
Role: Annoying curious faerie
Background:

Enough said.
Skills: Planthood and Floral Wrath


Name: Montgomery Suayunu
Role: Wiseass
Background: Before he became a mercenary for hire, Monty was a soldier of the Aqeran Sniper Unit and before that, he was a boy raised in a military community on the notorious Aqeran-Sun Valley borders. Constant fighting and battle conflicts gave him a devil-may-care approach to all things that wants to kill him, including his friends. He and Niq are old buddies, despite the wide difference in their personalities.
Skills: Long Range and Metallic Bombs

And also 4 other members yet to be discovered. Oh my!

Some of the main NPCs (Non-Playable Characters):
Mr. Usana: "Knowledge is the most dangerous kind of weapon to give to your foes."
Baba Yaga the Witch: "History never ends. It always comes back either to haunt us or repeat itself."
Princess Regent: "Bribery is the lowest form of begging."
Lord Protector of Aqera: "My duty before my life unless my heart tells me otherwise."
Lord Sagecrest: "My kid is too pretty to date your hero."
Lady Emerson: "Let's face it. The best kinds of trouble are always inherited."
Rilselq: "Dreaming is natural. Not everybody does it but everybody should."
Bernadette: "Sometimes, you gotta come back full circle to start all over again."

Screenshots:







Larger 640*480 pixel Pictures:
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/9200/unlockingpandora011kd0.png
http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/9476/icedragons01ea3.png
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/8431/temple01road20fixdf4.png

Progress at the Moment: 5% Done
Mood to Work:

So yes, this is a summarised version of the game project I'm working on. I intend for it to be a free-to-download because it's obviously made from an overused game engine (I just need to weak some custom coding) and from a free graphics site. It'll be vulgar of me to sell this since I got so much of it for free. And I'm only vulgar to people I want to cheat money from.

If there's anything I like to waste time other than playing expensive games, it's building cheap ones. Expect this to come sometime exactly one year from now (hey, quality control-lah!).

In the meantime, I got to see to a car that had a surprise attack from a silver Wira and check if the breaks and tyres are still passably safe to, I don't know, maybe to run into another near-crash again.

Introducing Me

In the light of my most recent attempt to achieve numbness of emotions then posting about it in here, I've realize that I have yet to actually introduce myself. Well, since I don't really want to introduce myself, I suppose it's all polite courtesy for my future self when she re-reads all this (I'll be 30 and gray before my time and she'll go "Giirl, you're a pathetic imbecile." Not that I except she could be better than me seeing that I created her.

And in so creating said future woman, let's define current woman. I'm in my early twenties, at the age where I should be maturely able to leave home and go build the nation or something. But I can't . I'm stuck here because I haven't graduated yet and I took the full bachelor degree course instead of doing diploma first and earn a bit of pay.

Along the way, I gained a few 'F's'. My folks think that the stupidity lies in the school. Maybe they won't admit to themselves that their slug-a-woman (wow, sounds like a bad comic book heroine) had actually blown thousands of ringgit in depression.

Woah, did I just said depression? I mean stupidity. Yes, I'm not depressed, I'm just stupid. No I'm not anorexic, I'm just stupid. No I'm not suicidal, I'm jus-... well, you get the idea. Around here, emotional problem means that it's an embarrassment to the family.

Sure we can all say "Oh, she's just having a slight fever. Let's get the Panadol," but the fact reminds that we're a society that abhors emotional problems. It's unstable. It's a weakness and God only knows if any other family member might be suffering from the same thing but had not yet manifested. Not good for the breeding stock of the rich and dato'ed (Dato' is kind of like a Malaysian knighthood, though its value had decreased somewhat for years).

Again, I've said that I don't care what people think about me, but mostly I was referring to people I won't see ever again. Goodbye-Aunties I call them, never around to say hello, just following *Mak to meet, greet and then say goodbye, it was a very nice wedding/function/party/whatever-social-event-please-don't-invite-my-mother-if-you-think-she-might-drag-me-along-again.

I do, however, care a little bit of what people might think of my family. Just a very small bit; Il have to do a CAT scan of my brain if I need to look if it's still there. I try not to expose them to trouble if I have to, especially since I caused it.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that the trouble would disappear. They do, however, have a bad habit of growing to massive proportions. Usually when that happens, I divert their attention to something else until the storm blows over. A cheap and dirty trick but if it works, I don't care.

Next to that, I'm also a slightly appreciative person. Especially about art. Not art as in museum gallery but art as in computer-affiliated cyber galleries. Check my December month's image. It's a nice pretty image which the original I got from CGSociety.
If the original artist knew I'm using this image to enhance my blog, whoopsie then. But it should be not as opposable as the image had been shrunk a lot to fit the blog page so the quality is kind of lest=s dramatic than the original.

I like pretty images. I would look all over the Internet for particularly nice images worthy of decorating my PC Desktop. Sometimes, I write a short story about what I've e found. Expect the one for December sometime around December (duh!). I'm not an artist myself (there's a school horror story in here but I won't bore about it to you. Yet) but you don't have to be a chef to know classy food from fast-food.

But most of all, I like to write. Fantasy fiction mostly, about my magical imaginary world. I have it slightly more structured as time goes along. It's a great way when you can't afford to own a Warcraft account and much faster to zone your head out too. In this cyber community I'm in, they're all cool on making plain vanilla old-school RPG games. Kind of like Final Fantasy before it took to worshiping the 3D religion.

When I'm not wasting my time on building a cheap game one coding line a day, I waste in writing about my imaginary world. I got some of the basics in the right places, mostly the technicality of magic and some minor histories. I've always wanted to write a book since Enid Blyton corrupted my childhood and I still do.

But I have no place for my fiction to get expressed. My mom calls my fictional writings as 'mengarut' or nonsensical. Sufficiently, family support is that very last thing I would ever ask of them when it comes to my most precious thoughts of all. I just don't think I could stand their oh-so-overwhelming concern.

That's what this blog is for, a place for my thoughts. It's true because I said it so and it shall be so (cue God-mode moment here, bear with me). And when it comes to keeping my private thoughts safe, I feel better believing that my future self would actually be thinking, "Girl, you're an okay imbecile."

The Ranting Continues...

Yesterday didn't turn out so well, huh? Yeah me... But as one must always induce positive thinking, one shall perceive that the rantings of yesterdays as manure to tomorrow's outlet. I think it was a politician who said that, maybe even a Chinese business man because I'm sure as hell that manure today is still manure tomorrow.

So pretty much, I got home in one piece yesterday. Drove all the way in one hand only and my left hand too. I had to use my right hand to hold my forehead up and those darn salty water out of my eyes, lest I'll have to stop by the side of the road and bawl like a baby. So I'm emotional. Sue me.

So yes, there's every possibility that I might get the failing grade on my thesis. Since we all charitable people, I'm not going to rant out on how I didn't bother meeting my supervisor (wrote about that already, go figure). Especially if my previous supervisors got a wind of me. I imagine them metaphorically crucifying me on the altar of the IT faculty but teachers being teachers, I would take a real crucifixion over an 'F'. At least I can die from crucifixion.

So I have one week to ferment at the pit of my stomach. No biggie. If I'm not too genius, maybe I'll work on that database my other course wants me to do. Me being me I can't guarantee I'll make it a working one, much lest hand it in time at all.

The three big differences in this is that the movie thingy was just a database file, the lecturer is nicer and I have two other people that going to fall down with me if I screw this up. I may not care if my world ends between tomorrow and twelve seconds after I end this blog but I make an acquaintance suffer the wrath of the 'F', I'll roll over and die first. At least my group has a reason of fatality to excuse my lack of progress.

Passing over the hazards of school, I guess I did feel something close to better after the snot drive (wiped the steering wheel before I left the car). Got home just after sunset prayers, hung around the kitchen table area until *Ayah and *Genius (my littler brother) got home.

Interactions with Ayah just got low but not grudgingly. Frankly, I try not to care. Then he asked if I was okay. Now really, a man who raised you from diapers and still paying for your petrol money is sufficiently capable of reading your mind. More so since I still got red eyes from the boo-hoos.

Just for being a jerk, I kept eye contact away and ignored the question until my father asked me a third time around. I supposed a teeny weenie part of me just wanted to throw hints at him that I was capable of lying to my own father (like I haven't done it with various types of well-practiced faces before).

So I just said I had a slight fever. Being that it rained that morning, it sounded justified so he just left. Ayah, like every other male in this Confucian-ingested province, brushed it off and went to his business. I can't show emotions to my father. Firstly, I'm not pretty when I cry and secondly, I scream when there's finally somebody to see me cry (not good for the neighborhood).

Thirdly, he's a guy. Guys can't handle emotions, as Oprah had taught us. And I don't talk emotions with a guy. Maybe I would but it'll be in a bitterly joking manner that's worth its weight of sarcasm in bricks. I drop a lot of hints to my family but maybe I'm just bad at hinting to them that I got emotional problems. If I were to hit Ayah with a big sign that says "I'm the Stupid One", he probably still wouldn't budge.

But hey, he's in the dark and I'm in dire jeopardy, which incidentally, I'm going to bury myself in bed clothes until D-Day comes. I am not going to talk to anybody about this, lest if it's an authority figure. But I do plan to rant something out a little bit more, not here, but definitely in a chat room.

I think I'll steal some 50 cent coins around the house and fork it over to the cyber cafe and meet the gangs at GW cyber community. They're e not really friends but they share a little interest with me so I'm going to screw this over to them anyway because I'm anonymous. Just blur out a line or two, hear them chat back "Oh you poor baby...," then blow this over.

I consider it healthy exercise to finally get something out. Otherwise I'll have to pull over on the side of the road in a car then bawl like a baby.