• Redesiging the Woods to make the gameplay less illogical, as well as adding an additional challenge
• Adding some extra detailing and fixing a bunch of bugs
• Replacing the sound engine with sinBass, since the old one wouldn’t work with our extensive saving system (which was covered in an old post)

In addition to this, we’ve started adding in various sound effects. Up ’til now the game has been quite bare of sound (apart from music), but now we’re bringing more life to the world by adding sounds. This includes rewarding jingles when you solve a puzzle, or small ambient noises like birds, rain and branches crunching as you walk through the forest. We really like adding a lot of detail to Pivot, and sound design is a big part of that. A cavern might look like a large, damp cavern but if it also sounds like a big, moist cavern, then you can suddenly feel the hugeness and moisture as well. Just my poetic thought of the day.

Keep your eyes open for more updates on the most anticipated platformer of 2010/2011/whenever it’s done!

Today we welcome a new chunk of visual content to Cheese Media, The Galaxy Song!

Experience an out of this world adventure through millions of light years of space! And remember: Not wanting to learn about the galaxy is not an option!

For more information, check out the official web page!

last post! Tanzania was splendid, and climbing Kilimanjaro was a terrific although exhausting experience. I have added some photos to my rarely updated photo gallery in case you want to see some proof.

On the projects front things have naturally been standing a bit still these last few weeks – but not any more!

My friend and collaborator Nick ‘Lost’ O’er There is actively working on something new, a musical video of some sort but it’s still unknown exactly what this means. We – yes you heard right, we – also have a new musical piece in the works, with me arranging and Nick playing the violin. Hopefully it will please your ears when it’s ready.

Last but not the least; we’re back on track with Pivot development! The last major change was an upgrade to the latest version of Game Maker, GM8.  Doing this cost us a couple of hours of work, but it paid off! One problem that we kept facing while working in GM7 was its sprite engine. All the sprites we drew in Flash and Photoshop would have jagged edges in Game Maker – it just wasn’t possible to make them look smooth. GM8 however comes with full PNG alpha transparency support, allowing all our sprites to be silky smooth. Apart from this feature the new version also fixes a heap of bugs and saves both CPU and memory.

]]> http://cheesemedia.net/newsblog/?feed=rss2&p=296 3 http://cheesemedia.net/newsblog/?p=283 http://cheesemedia.net/newsblog/?p=283#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:04:25 +0000 LostOverThere http://cheesemedia.net/newsblog/?p=283 As you might have known, Petter and I have been hard at work on Pivot lately. But unfortunately it turns out inspiration is harder to find than Osama Bin Laden, which is precisely why Petter will be travelling down south to Africa to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. We’re told that from there he’ll be able to witness something awe-inspiring; whether it be one of the most beautiful sunset’s in the world, or slaves carrying his luggage up the mountain at bare minimum wage – something is sure to inspire him.

The downside to all this expensive inspiration is that Petter wont be here for the next few weeks, essentially leaving me to do whatever I please. Naturally, this means all my rejected Pivot ideas that Pete loathes will promptly be included in the game. After that though, I look forward to continuing to work on our next stage in Pivot which we’ll reveal at a later date. The concept art is all done and we’re currently in the stage of programming some of the challenges piece by piece to combine later. Furthermore, I recently recorded a violin part for a great new song Petter has been working on. Except more of that when he returns!

I asked Lost to record some violin strokes for me, seeing he plays the violin rather well, and added some sounds of water drops, some creepy ambiance sounds and a crescendoing piano melody. Here is the result:

Cavern

Lost and I have also gone in and replaced Game Maker’s built-in sound engine with an external dll one, which not only adds OGG support but also allows for much smoother looping.