Layers and Layers

I wish there were a super fast viewer for Photoshop files. A nice portion of the world map for Grapple Buggy is shaping up and it'd be great to be able to make layers for it and have them quickly viewable. Honestly I don't know of a program like this, but I wish there were the ability to open a PSD file in a fast viewer (like IrfanView or Windows Picture Viewer), then page through the layers themselves, in a simple fashion like pressing the arrow keys up/down or something.
Sure programs like IrfanView can open a PSD and display it 'flattened', but the trick would be flipping through the layers. It'd be really nice to have monsters on layer, level actions on another, written notes on another layer, and the environmental surroundings on another layer, for example.

Photoshop is great to use and create the images, but for simply viewing it's expensive, slow loading, and not everyone has the program. Most PC users have those simple file viewing programs. Maybe that's the problem, those are too simple and I'm looking to do something complicated. Regardless it be great to use such a program with the rest of the Grapple Buggy team, sharing the world map with them and flipping through layers to see how the levels fit together.

In the meantime, do know that things are chugging along at a good clip, with plenty of game assets swirling about, being carefully put into place by knowing hands.

Three point one lives

I was scared to make the change to XNA Game Studio 3.1 merely because ... who knows what could happen? I've been waiting a while to upgrade just to make sure the kinks were worked out and thankfully everything went rather smoothly.

For those developers still waiting to upgrade from 3.0 to 3.1, the only issues I had were the following:

• It asked that I uninstall 3.0. When I went to Add/Remove Programs it also showed I still had GS 2.0 installed. It never asked to uninstall that, and I never did... so I guess that's good? Uninstalling 3.0 requires a reboot.
  
• As I installed 3.1, it 'got stuck' on installing Games for Live Redistributable stuff. I let it sit for about 10 minutes and the progress bar never moved. After that didn't work I started shutting stuff down via Task Manager. I then restarted the installation, and it jumped past that point. Everything seems to work, so again... I guess that's good.
• At first I forgot to actually upgrade it since the 3.0 to 3.1 shift is not automatic--silly me! Here's the helpful article on that.
  

Other than that, it was very smooth and I'm glad its finished. It does take a little while... maybe 20 minutes total. Or 30. To wait through all the updating and installing and such.

After that I made sure Grapple Buggy still runs on the Xbox 360--and looky there--it does!

Okay, so this is my standard-def-test mega TV. It's huge, ugly, and blurry, but this helps me figure out what text is unreadable to us 'second class' TV viewers that haven't upgraded to HDTV. The faint red lines in the middle of the screen are actually debugging text for framerate, objects updating, and other programming stuffs. (But the orange-red, sausage thing to the right is really in the game and looks pretty interested in the buggy.)

Thankfully I have recently acquired a smallish HDTV to do further testing, so hopefully Grapple Buggy won't come out all stretched on rich bastard TVs like Weapon of Choice woefully did/does/dain.

Detailed Files

As work continues on Grapple Buggy, I thought I'd plop in a design for one of the levels. For those Weapon of Choice fans, the levels in Grapple Buggy will be quite different and much more in number than what we've done before. This particular level is sandwiched between others, and will be encountered as you're exploring later through the opening area of the game.

This is a technical illustration of the level, with the slightest pixel conveying intense meaning and intentional direction.
Okay, I'm kidding, it's a really loose sketch that serves to guide the construction of the level. The final level won't end up exactly like this so I'm trying not to spoil too much by showing it!

And finally say hello to a hearty bin of Grapple Buggy shirts on their way out to the lucky winners. Congrats shirt winners!

Everyone Wins!

Giveaways are fun.
What's more fun than giving one shirt away?
How about giving one to everyone that participated!

That's right the shirt Giveaway is over, and after reading all the funny comments, and checking my mega-stash of Grapple Buggy shirts, I decided everyone that made an effort would get a shirt!

I'll be emailing the comment-writers soon, and I hope everyone enjoys their prize.

In Grapple Buggy development news, I will be working on getting the game to work using Game Studio 3.1 so everyone hold their breath! Assuming anyone's still alive, I'll do an update when it's okay to release said breath.

And speaking of Game Studio 3.1--it seems like Christmas in July has come early because apparently Xbox Live Indie Games will be getting user ratings!
(You know... this news is like a Christmas gift... but in July. I have no idea when they'll actually implement the user ratings.)
User ratings--wow! Finally, a way in Xbox Live Indie Games to separate the wheat from the chaff... but without all the chafing.
Now if we can just get a simple path for finding the games on the dashboard. What do you think Microsoft--maybe something for Christmas in December?

Story time & T-Shirt Giveaway

Hooray, E3 is over and it was spectacularly not sucky! Great job guys!

I took a super-special demo of Grapple Buggy to the show and managed to wrangle a few daring members of the press to take the titular (giggady) buggy for a ride.

And guess what--no one died! They also seemed to like the game. Hooray for hummus!
Here's some of the stories:
http://kotaku.com/5278854/grapple-buggy-hands+on-swingin

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/990/990398p1.html

http://www.destructoid.com/nathan-fouts-grapple-buggy-impressions-135318.phtml

I wore and handed out fancy new Grapple Buggy T-shirts at the show. The shirts look similar to this but more 3D in person:
Grappley, eh?

Well I'd like to give one away at random to those that play along!

All you need to do, to enter this particular giveaway, is post a comment to this blog post, and include a synonym loosely associated with the word 'grapple'. (In other words, have fun coming up with the word or words.) It could be as a verb, noun, etc. So for instance your comment could be "This game looks so amazing! I can't wait to *grab* it!" Or you could just leave a comment that says something like "clutch" or "clasp" or "seize", for instance.

The drawing will be randomized but you simply have to post a comment here, and email me at nathan@mommysbestgames.com so I have an email with which to contact you, if you win.

Oh, and only one email per entry/comment. You can comment all you want, but that won't effect your chances of winning past your first comment. Play fair, make a comment, send me your email and we'll all keep doing just fine. And I won't be spamming your email something like that. This only for this giveaway. Unless you want some spam--in which case I can forward some your way. Sadly (sorry) I'm only willing to mail a shirt within the Continental 48 states of the US. Finally, I only have medium, large, and XL T-shirts, so I hope one of those will fit you.

To review: make a comment on this post about the game for this post, including a loose synonym for the word 'grapple', and email me so I have your email address to contact the winner. If I can't get a hold of you, you won't win.

Let's say this ends in about two weeks, so some time after June 22, 2009, I'll announce the winner. Good luck!


UPDATE: Looking good everyone, thanks for the funny comments! Keep 'em coming, there's still time before the random drawing.