Powerslam Out Now!

Finally on this Australia day of 2012 Powerslam is finally out and not only that it has the honour of being on the Mac App Store!
http://itunes.apple.com/lv/app/powerslam/id496164653?ls=1&mt=12

Last Blog Entry?

Now that my new website has its own news feed there doesn't seem to be much point in having a blog...

But who knows, I may still post here from time to time. But to really stay up to date be sure to bookmark CobraBlade.NET or subscribe to my site's RRS feed.

In motion

I think I have finally done enough work to show how the game is currently looking. Rather than more screenshots however I have made a quick six minute video I have uploaded to both Vimeo & YouTube.

Feel free to check one of them out below.
http://vimeo.com/30977183

R.I.P. Steve Paul Jobs

An inventor, an icon, a technological genius has passed away today. I speak of none other than the young Steve Jobs who was only 56. A very inspirational man that I certainly looked up to. He changed the way I listen to music, use a phone, use a computer, play games. He made my life easier in many ways with his visions.

I am deeply sadden by this news on many levels and unfortunately words fail to express the extent of this. So I will just say that the world has just lost a brilliant man, who's visions and passion were unparalleled. So may we do our best to make sure his memory along with his visions are eternal and live on forever.

The lengthy evolution of POWERSLAM

Here we are in 2011, three years since my first game release and my second game has yet to come out. That is despite work beginning on it the year after Soulless was released!

While my lack of coding abilities obviously contribute somewhat, what has truly slowed development down is my quest to discover a style all of my own that I could use across all of my games. So lets turn the clock back and look at the many forms POWERSLAM has taken leading up to now.

In 2009 when things first started the game was looking vastly different. These taller more realistic sprites didn't work as well in this game as they would have for Soulless and it is obvious why it needed to change.

A lot of work later and the game was looking very different by 2010. Its funny though, at the time I was obviously being to critical of myself. I could probably have ended my quest here as it was already looking really good. But important changes were yet to be made...

Then later the same year a dramatic change! A different shading style for the sprites (playable characters not included as I never got that far) and a very different arena. This arena helped remedy a few issues I had with AI and camera placement.

Still 2010 and a sudden change that came out of nowhere. I gave changing the characters all into anthropomorphic animals a try. I figured there is nothing like this out there and it'll really help to get POWERSLAM recognised. The down side is I'm after a style I can use for all of my games and while it'll work for this I can't think of future games I can release in this style.

Another year goes by and we get to see the final change. This is where it all comes together. Everything is zoomed-in and done in a different style now I'm using Poser Debut but the character types are back to what they were like early 2010. The arena is the same used late in 2010 but the ring itself is going back to early 2010. So a cool new look combining everything from 2010.

Welcome back to today where I am busily creating many more sprites for POWERSLAM to try and bring the game to completion. Hope you look as forward to its release as I do.

Website update

Finally got around to finishing off my new website design today.

I've had it sitting on my computer half completed for a while now so decided to make today the day I would finish it and upload it.

As usual, it can be found at
http://www.cobrablade.NET

New 2011 iMac

Half a decade old, it has finally become time to replace my old loyal iMac with a new one. Technology has just changed too much to make it practical to continue using it (only being able to upgrade to a maximin of 3GB of RAM is difficult when dealing with 3D rendering). It'll be missed, but the exciting news is just how much faster my workflow will become with this new iMac.

I'm also in the middle of leaving DAZ Studio behind and jumping onboard of Poser Debut. A very lengthy process (sadly) but it too is for the best in the long run regarding the speed and quality of my workflow.

Easter Success

Very happy with how much I was finally able to get done during my Easter break.
My confidence for POWERSLAM coming out this year is extremely high after this!

Logo Design

Playing around with a few logo design ideas when I decided to do one inspired by one of my old favourite companies... see if you can guess what company I'm talking about. ;)

Got an iPhone... finally.

I finally got myself an iPhone... I know it is pretty late... but considering I wanted a Mac way back around '97 and didn't finally get one until around '07, it isn't that bad.

The good news is I can finally look into game creation for the iPhone!