As you may all know, I’ve been absent for several months. The first few months were due to a severe neck injury that prohibited me from any posture or activity that involved sitting.

It was then during July that I had fully recovered, but was studying for a exam (to which I did extremely well in). As September approached, I was contemplating whether or not I should continue this blog as there seemed to be less and less demand for applications. Nevertheless, I set a count of 20. If 20 or more people were to inquiry about my absence I would continue. Sure enough a few days ago, I felt inspired to get back on developing.

I still do not have a Cowon s9 – so developing “bug free” is not likely. I’ve recently become interested in developing for the Android and iOS, but because I do not own any of the two hosts I have not yet jumped into the band wagon. I’ve decided to change and shift focus of this blog as an open tutorial and personal request site. Tutorials will be made upon request and only upon my discretion. For instance, if there is a high demand in creating a mine-sweeper game, I will take time to make a minesweeper series. If there is a personal request for a game or app I will suspend the tutorials and privately create the application for the requester for a donation fee (this will help me in development cost). The donation fee can be anywhere from $0.99+ (you be the judge).

I have also recently purchased a kindle as it was a great aide for me while in bed. Amazon has recently announced a development platform in which I will be sure to participate in to develop for. Although my focus is on flash, as they begin to role out the SDK I will be adding kindle based applications.

Again, thank you all for patiently waiting. I know my absence was abrupt, but I assure you I am well now and ready for some challenges!

-Santoki

The old design

The new design

You’ll notice immediately that there has been a number of changes to the site. Let’s take a look into some of the functions that have been added to this new design.

• Thumbnails
  • For each posts (Not yet fully changed)
• Recent Tweets
  • Now you can view my latest “tweets”
• Recent Comments
  • Just to keep you more informed
• Related Posts
  • Some posts may indirectly refer to another (Must be optimized)
• Popular Posts
  • You can now find out what’s been the most talked about
• Better Search Feedback
  • Searches for a title will now be highlited
• Featured Articles
  • Breaking posts or just announcements will now be pinned to the top.

Find a bug?

Please help me out, if you find something inconvenient, broken, or any other problem please don’t hesitate to let me know. I’ll be updating this site internally regularly, so let me know if anything goes wrong!

Thanks again, and I hope the best with this new design.

Advertising

If you would like to advertise on the sidebar, I have available 125 x 125 pixel boxes on the sidebar. You may contact me via email to discuss about pricing and policies.

For several months now, I’ve been really wanting to redesign 2souldesign.net. So for a few days now, I’ve been making some mockup designs and really came to like one of my designs. So I’ll show you a sneak preview of what I have right now.

A redesign from a bird’s eye view.

One of the key things I really wanted was a cleaner look with good spacing between each elements. With the above design, I think it has accomplished just that (albeit not finished). I’m also leaning towards a pinned featured article that would be ahead of all other posts, if it’s popular. Thumbnails for each post was also something I thought should be implemented to allows an easier association with the corresponding post.

By the way, yes, that model on the 5 updates for Shadow Kai is one of the newer units I’ve modeled. I’ve been debating about having the unit’s hood on or not, and decided to take it off – so this actually an older model. So far the game has a bowman, priest, assassin, and warrior.

Shadow Kai Unit

A comment suggested a G-sensor game using sounds, which I personally find interesting, but almost impossible to create due to the lack of a cowon s9. If you would like for the game to be a donationware (Application for a donation of any kind), I’d be more than happy to make it running!

Here’s the link.

Jump!

You can get the game here.

how to play:

You control two balls and must strategically jump over all obstacles and try to stay alive.

To Jump, press either the arrows or press on the corresponding row (top / bottom). Can’t press both at same time.

What can be done?

To make this game more interactive, we can create different modes (random, tripple), and spice up the graphics.

So was the game good?

Your feedback will help me determine whether or not this game concept should be further developed, modified, or scratched.

I am 11% away from purchasing a Cowon s9.

Today’s concept game is called…

Swoosh!

You can get the game here.

how to play:

You control an “Orb” and must fling the orb against falling objects to rack up points.

To fling the orb, press on it. Then pull it back and release the orb to the falling object.

What can be done?

To make this game more interactive, we can create different abilities for the ball.

eg: we can have a ball that ricochets, goes through multiple objects, or bigger in size.

We can make the objects falling slower, faster, smarter, and/or more lives.

So was the game good?

Your feedback will help me determine whether or not this game concept should be further developed, modified, or scratched.

I am 11% away from purchasing a Cowon s9.

What happened?

I’ve been working on several in-house games, but recently I have misplaced my Cowon S9. After a week of searching around my house, I am left to face the harsh reality that it no longer is within my vicinity.

What does this mean?

Will I still be making games? Apps? Well this is where the line becomes a little gray. As much as I would still like to develop for the cowon s9 I have no way of testing the performance (lag) and/or the g-sensor. This will make things very difficult for me to develop any new games. I remember trying to develop Tower Defense v0.1 and having a very difficult time allowing the performance thrive despite the multiple loops of collisions in motion. Now with the absence of my s9 I may not be able to develop for it anymore.

Will it be replaced?

I’m not necessarily sure if I should purchase another s9. I’ve been having a hard time keeping up with the economy, but I’ve been able to support myself moderately. Buying another s9 may be well worth the investment as I currently do not have an mp3 player, but to spend another several hundred dollar is rather steep for my current situation.

I can’t promise that I’ll be able to continue making games for the s9, but I’m definitely hoping that a kind soul would find my s9 and leave it at a lost and found. There’s a couple games I still want to finish and while the motivation isn’t as strong, I’m hoping I can push one game out before Christmas.

cheers,

Santoki

You can always help me out and donate a couple bucks for an s9.

There were numerous bug fixes and balancing issues that had to be addressed, but after what seems to have been forever – the final product is before us all. Several alpha testers have sent in their set of suggestions to me on a regular basis and due to their support I believe this game has become that much more greater.

You can download the game here:

Here are some of the changes and bug fixes:

• Changed Background
  • Title Page: Charcoal like drawing to 3D imagery
  • Game Page: Replaced with a gradient background with an accented menu.
• Added Awards Menu
  • Allows player to access Highscores menu and Achievements menu.
• Highscore Menu
  • Displays user’s high score
  • Reset button to reset user’s highscore.
• Achievements Menu
  • 12 unique Achievements have been added for re playability such as the following:
    • Claustrophobia: Build only of side A
    • Spartan Soul: 1st Cell 100 enemies
    • Mammonite: Never sell a tower
  • Reset button to reset user’s achievements
  • An achievement to allow access to the Editor Menu.
• Editor Menu
  • Allows user to change the stats of each tower.
  • Allows to save changes
  • Allows user to revert to default settings with reset.
• Mechanics Menu
  • Describes the mechanics of game
• Credits Menu
  • All users who have alpha tested the game have been mentioned in the credits.
• Game Fixes and Changes:
  • Wonder Tower has been added.
    • No attack
    • It increases a slight chance of playing against a legendary boss
    • Cannot be sold
    • Increases Point and Score when an enemy is killed with a 1st Cell Bonus Award.
  • Towers have been balanced.
  • Enemies have been balanced.
  • Two legendary Bosses have been added.
    • Legendary bosses are rare and have a very small chance of appearing after the game ends.
    • Legendary bosses chances of appearing can be increased by having more Wonder Towers on the field.
  • 20 Levels have been implemented.
  • Level 21 and 22: Beholds a Legendary Boss that can be accessed to by a very rare chance.
  • Blue Enemies can not be slowed
  • Red Enemies are much faster
  • Achievements can be achieved only by beating the game.
  • Slow Towers now have a smarter AI. Once a target is frozen, it will seek the next closest target.
  • Changed the upgrade time to instant due to a memory error.

As you can see the changes from version 0.9 to 1.0 was immense and huge. My hope is that you will enjoy this game as much as I have creating it during my free time.

If you would like to support me as I continue creating these games there is a PayPal donation button on the bottom and I will greatly appreciate it if you can help me out.

Thanks again, for everyone who has supported this project. Enjoy.

p.s. You can follow me also on Twitter @ 2souldesign

The current work project I’m working on will requires several days of my time to finish, so there may not be an update any time soon. Some of the alpha testers have not e-mailed me or given me a feedback in some way – I will still be waiting.

Once the project is finished and the feedback has been received, I’ll do my best to roll out the version 1.0

Santoki

This game will have a couple more new updates that even the alpha testers don’t know about, but will be a great surprise.

In addition to these recent tower defense updates, I’ve been getting some questions regarding other games. Don’t worry I haven’t shelved any games – This includes Shadow Kai.

A model I’m working on for Shadow Kai.

Also, I’m trying this twitter thing now, so if you would like to follow my “tweets” you can follow me. If you are an alpha tester, please send me in a good summary of the game so far, bugs/suggestions and ideal stats for each tower, if you haven’t already. Thanks!

santoki

No one likes lag. As a developer and a gamer myself – I hate lag. In the recent changes to make the playing field a little more “variety like,” maze/twist and turns, the game became unplayable. This was a bit of a sad down turn for me as I was hoping that the game would be able to still withhold.

The map above went through a standard test and it failed. While it was playable for the first few enemies, once a fourth tower was added, the lag of the game was unbearable. This may very well be the Achilles heal I never wanted to face from the beginning of this project. I may have to in the end alter the map and/or stick to the one way non-maze map.

There was a suggestion made having non-attacking dummy towers and that is what I’m currently trying to make, but it is proving to be programming intensive on my part. I have never done strict path-like AI programming so this will be a very tricky problem to program.

If all else fails however, I feel that the level with the ‘H’ shape still manages to be “OK” for a beta release.

Santoki