This is so plain stupid, I had to post this up. Just when you thought they ran out of ideas for Japanese ero-dating sims, they surprise you with more idiotic plots. They had to hire an American voice-actor and put in movie parodies for the lawls. YES WE CAN!

Oh, it’s safe for work :) But whether your colleagues will make fun of you is a different story…

I dunno about you, but I’m digging the art.

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Blog updated courtesy of Flickr Mobile,
originally uploaded by ahbonk’s mobile phone.

Kids will have to collect different monster stamps from the many train stations in Tokyo into their stamp book, then they’re entitled to get rare card items.

Kids have all the fun here. Parents however…lol

As cliche as this might sound, today is a sad day in history. Think what you want of him, but undoubtedly Micheal Jackson is one of the greatest musician that ever lived. As an 80s baby who grew up with his songs, I’m deeply hurt by his death. Moreso for people who are still listening to his songs till this very day, like Zaido.

Before I continue, I would like to say, Screw all MJ haters.

I guess this is supposed to be where I put music videos of him and rank them. Well, you can find that in thousands of blogs on the Net right now. Or if you’re like me, just go to Micheal Jackson’s YouTube channel and reminiscence on his rockin’ songs, his sleek dance moves and well-produced MTVs. Good times, man.

Instead, I’m going to pinpoint the legacy he left behind in video games. That’s right, his contributions go well beyond music.

Take, for example, Moonwalker for the Megadrive. I didn’t grow up with console games, but I fondly remember the time when Dzaid and Daim showed it to me. It’s very well animated and the artists did a good job bringing MJ’s spirit into digital design. MJ closely monitored the game too and even requested to have more enemies so that it’ll be more awesome!

As such, many gamers deem this game a classic.

Never seen the arcade game before, but it sure looks kewl.

There was quite a controversy revolving around Sonic 3’s music. A board claimed that MJ created the music for it but due to scandals, his music got changed… a little. I dunno what to think of it, but there’s no doubt that Sonic 3’s music is heavily influenced by MJ’s style. No wonder it was superb. View the popular documentary here. (Damn disabled embedding)

Sega still loves MJ though. In one of my favourite music games ever, Space Channel 5, you control a cute reporter to save Space Micheal by mimicking and outdancing the enemy! MJ voiced Space Micheal himself and the dance+song used for the rescue sequence is packed full of MJ style.

I used After Effects to cut the above sequence out of the full gameplay footage and uploaded it to YouTube. That shows how much I wanna blog about this!

And finally, his popular song ABC used in Elite Beat Agents.

I would like to end the post by showing you how much NicoNicoDouga users love MJ. Just type Micheal Jackson in the search box, and you’ll see a bunch of MAD videos.

No doubt, this is the most popular one. It’s Hare Hare Yukai, after all. Love the timing!

Rest in peace, MJ. You’ll be forever remembered.

Day 5 of my Unity3D trial. Been busy doing other stuffs, but yesterday I tinkled with it again.

Say, ever wanted to drive through an asteroid field above the clouds? Thought as much.

Click here to see it in action!

Don’t worry, you’re safe! The asteroids are all behind you! (aka lazy to program collisions)

You can always IMAGINE that it’s a game where you’re running from a horde of Tie Interceptors (left side of the screen, can’t see ‘em) while having to avoid the asteroids. Have fun!

Unity3D works nicely with Blender! Downloaded an A-wing and an asteroid model, and changed their colours a bit. The model is automatically updated in Unity3D as I save in Blender. Nice.

It’s getting close to how a 3d game would feel like (yeeaaaa suuuureee) and it only took at most 6 hours of my time. I’m really liking Unity3D so far. Here are some key points of this update:

• No more holy cube :(
• Few lines of script to make the 3D ship follow the 2D mouse cursor
• Added a bullet generator that responses to the mouse click, again just a few lines
• With prefabs, I can change the particles of the bullet easily and it updates all bullet clones
• I put a script in an empty game object that acts as the game’s control center
• Added a generator that spams asteroids with random size, rotation and speed
• Actually, the camera and the ship is also moving to the right a’la horizontal shooter, just the stupid BG is not moving… hence the asteroids for added effect :P

Prefabs are fantastic. No it’s not Fabian before he was born. They’re like classes in OOP and MovieClips in Flash, but it’s so easy to change the outlook, the particles, etc since it plays the animated result automatically in the scene/game pane. The scripting part is quite messy, but I’m a messy person anyway :P

Next up, I will add collisions and enemy ships, plus some bullet patterns. Stay tuned!

Click here for the source files.

Day One of using Unity3D.

After reading script references and video tutorials, I decided to take some time and start doing a Unity3D project from scratch. That’s right, from scratch, without any of those tutorial files etc. Starting from a completely empty project.

I present to you… The Holy Cube and The Raining Shapes of Death. It is my interpretative art piece of the downfall of humankind (the cube). As holy as they are, humans cannot dismiss their flaws of excess pride (the cylinders) and weakness in judgement (the spheres). But fear not, as parallel planes of existence (the floor) prevent their self-destructive nature.

Let’s not forget that humans tend to want to be accepted (the spotlight).

Haha love programmer bullshit.

Click here to see it in action. Use the arrow keys or WASD to move the holy (nuaaaaa) cube.

Time I took to create this: 20 minutes. Amazed? Here’s why:

• Creating shapes was obviously a cinch, but adding physics to it was also one click away!
• Adding those particles was with just a click, and a little mouse drag to attach it to the cube
• To move the cube, you just need to add 3 freaking script lines
• The script for the camera to look at the cube is 2 freaking lines
• The spotlights share the same script as the camera, means they also look at the cube
• A few script lines to bring the shapes back up after reaching a certain bottom y-axis
• Duplicating the shapes means the script gets duplicated too

I know the shapes go through the platform, as the shapes are too fast and the platforms are too thin to detect collision, but I enjoy looking at them fall like rain lol.

Really, imagine the possibilities if I had a month. Let’s see what I can come up with!

Here’s the Unity3D source file. Whoever’s interested, you can check out Unity3D’s website.

I’ve been exploring options for game engines lately, I wanna get out of my Flash comfort circle. I have many game ideas yet it’s been a while since they came into fruition. So I stumbled upon the usual: Torque, Ogre3D, Game Maker, etc.

There’s been a game engine that is rising in popularity among indie developers, good for 2D and 3D games alike, has built-in graphics and physics engine, good networking support for MMOs and can be easily published to various platforms such as PC, Wii, iPhone and *gasp* Web browsers?! No! It can’t be! Yea, call me outdated, coz I’ve never seen such impressive 3d in my browser before (except in YouTube lol).

Introducing Unity3D. They just added support for development on Windows a few months back (was only for Apple for years). Maybe that’s why their game list is not prolific, considering many game developers use Windows. But by looking at the current games, one can’t help but be impressed.

Take, for example, FusionFall, an MMO for teens by Cartoon Network.

Whoa since when did the characters look this awesome? Ah, the good ol’ days when I had Astro where I would just watch flip through Discovery, AXN, Star World, Nick and Cartoon Network.

The story starts with matured Dexter wanting to bring you to his timeline via a time machine. As usual Deedee is up to no good again and goes “Oooh what does this button do?”. You are accidentally brought way forward to the future, to a world of doom and crisis. (DOTT much?)

Don’t I just look so kewt? All these kids and teen MMOs are smart enough to screen your name manually, so I was given a temporary name first.

You are then escorted by Ben and Numbuh Five to a basic combat session. The controls are simple, the interface is intuitive and the tutorials were easy to follow. Cutscenes are shown here and there to describe the current quest. Once you reach Sector V, you are able to invite friends to your group, do trades and what not.

Well not enough to convert me from WoW of coz, but I’m sure it will make any CN fan happy.

The 3D world is convincing enough, especially considering that it’s playing in your web browser. And it’s an MMO to boot. Of course, the downside is that you need to download the plugin, but it’s small and easy to install with just a click of a button at any game launch page.

While you’re at it, try this Tropical Paradise demo. Believe it or not, you can navigate through the landscape above with the WASD keys and mouse. And play the free web games at Blurst, they’re all using Unity3d. I especially recommend Blush and Paper Moon.

I’m gonna download the trial version of Unity3D and see what I can do with it. Regardless, it’s high-time we realize that web browser games have evolved beyond just interfaces and sprites.