I'm SICK!

Yee-haa for Pneumonia!

Since I'm spending many grueling hours at home and in bed, I thought I might make use of it to start some work on my next project....that will remain unannounced until at least MAGfest, but probably not until later.

Left 4 Dead is pretty much done now. I'm just going over it a bit to test things and make sure nothing breaks, and so far testing is good. I haven't run into anything game-breaking yet.

Now I'm just prepping for MAGfest since my illness is probably punting me out of commission for the holidays. No family or friends this year, I guess. :(

I'll get one more update in before MAGfest on January 4th. Until then...keep doing whatever it is that's keeping you alive.

-E

...ALMOST done!

Pixel Force Left 4 Dead is 99% complete.

Everything is done except for general debugging, which is coming along well.

Getting closer to January 4th!

Down to the credits...

All is fine on the home front of Eric Ruth Games. I'm starting to slow down a bit on production since I'm reaching the end of "Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead." Today I'm working on (and probably finishing) the credits screen. I have 2 more songs to write (one for the Farm Finale and one for the Credits Crawl) which hopefully I can get started on today. Once all that is round up, I can get to streamlining and final debugging. That should take me about a week or so complete (depending on how many problems I run in to) and right afterward, I'll need to re-encode the mp3s at a lower bit-rate and finally write the "read me" file. At that point, all should be done and I'll just be waiting for MAGfest on January 1st to show off the product in its completion. When I return home, I'll upload the zip file to FilePlanet.com and we'll do the big release on the evening of the 4th!

I'm excited and tired at the same time. *whew* Its been busy couple of months!

-Eric

Dead Air is almost complete

Tonight will mark the completion of the "Dead Air' campaign in my Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead NES de-make. With only one other campaign to complete, the game's basic design should be done in about 8-10 days. It will take a strong play through to determine how best to streamline the project before release. I've tried lightening the game's size by downsampling the sound effects tonight, which has saved me a bit of room. I still have a lot to play with in the optimization department, but with help from my QA guys, I should be done by christmas, and just in time for MAGfest and of course, January 4th- full release.

Speaking of release, it seems that disribution and download links will be handled by FilePlanet.com Be sure to thank them for making this project easily available to the public!

Also of interest is a link to GamePro magazine, where I think you'll enjoy this top 13 list they've compiled. http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/213136/13-fantastic-fan-made-game-remakes-demakes/

Thanks for checking in, guys! I hope everyone is well and preparing for the holidays!

-Eric

Half way there

Alright, now that Thanksgiving is over, I can return to programming every day with less interruptions.

I am about to work on the sprites for the escape boat at the end of Death Toll. The campaign is just about done and just requires that escape boat to be completed. Once I get that in today and I test a little bit, the entire campaign should be fully functional. By the end of the evening, I hope to have started Dead Air by at least getting done the Green House tile set.

Its been a busy week, but wrapping up a campaign makes me feel like enough was accomplished. Not looking forward to writing some more music though. I feel like my internal audio well of creativity is drying up quickly. And while I do like what I've put together so far, it'll take a miracle for me to kick out something as productive as quickly as the last 6 original tracks have gone.

If I'm really luck, I can get a few screens in to Dead Air before having to be back at work tomorrow night at 11. Wish me luck!

-Eric

Left 4 Dead update time!

In about an hour, a friend of mine will be showing up to help me get some additional play testing done. Currently, I've finished up to the cabin on the road in "Death Toll." which is about the half way mark of the campaign. When he gets here, I'm going to record a 2 Player video that highlights more of the interesting play aspects of the game. I will then upload the video to youtube in under 24 hours.

Debating if I should add commentary...hmmm.....

Thanks for reading. I'll update with some more later this week.

-E

WOW! Just...WOW!

So, on November 16th at 5:30 pm, Alexander Sliwinski posted a link to my youtube video of "Pixelforce: Left 4 Dead" on Joystiq.com. Now, that same video holds almost 200,000 views! Just...WOW.

The feedback about the video has been tremendous, and honestly, I'm extremely overwhelmed. Unfortunately, all the sudden praise and notoriety has halted my game production since I've redirected my time to doing interviews, answering questions, and negotiating with companies. I'd love to talk more about it now, but I'm VERY tired and need to catch some sleep.

Thanks you SO much to everyone who commented and watched my video. I love you all and if you knew how this event has made me feel, you might understand why I chose to make games in the first place. :)

All the best, guys.
-Eric

Back to the norm

OK, so I barely finished and uploaded "Mean Kathleen & The Great Quack Machine" to the IGF ftp just in time. Now that I've got THAT finished (and I'm 100 dollars poorer), I'm now working on my NES style de-make of Valve's "Left 4 Dead." This project is not an original IP, but a chance to work within the constraints of someone else's ideas and plans (like Mega Man Rocks.)

So far, the project is turning out great. I've menaged to get both difficulties working on a 1 or 2 player game more than half way through "No Mercy" right now. All but 2 of the zombies are programmed as of now and I'm about to work on one of them. Only Bill is playable right now since I'm trying to perfect all game play through him before creating the other 3 characters.

Much of the sprite work is already complteed, as are fully functioning stage music and sound effects. I've actually made quite a bit of headway and I plan on having the "No Mercy" campaign completed by the time the REAL "Left 4 Dead 2" hits stores on November 17th. After that, I'll probably upload some videos to youtube or something and link to them here.

All in all, things are well and game development presses on!

3 Days to go!

GameX in Philly was great! I mean, aside from the fact that I returned home with a cold and a minimal amount of sleep. I got a chance to meet with some great new folks and rub elbows with a few celebs at the same time.

Now that I'm back, I only have 3 days left to complete and send "Mean Kathleen & The Great Quack Machine" to the boys at the IGF. Luckily I've finished all coding and design work. I'm down to the final tidbits, including mixing music, inputting sound effects and tweaking graphics.

Well, I only have a few days left, so I gotta get crackin' on fine tuning the audio. Wish me luck!

Going to Game X in Philadelphia

Tomorrow afternoon I make my way to Philadelphia for the Gaming Development convention- Game X. I'll have a booth there for my most recent projects, including the one I'm working on now (Mean Kathleen.)

Tonight, to prepare, I am fixing up the last of the coding errors and bugs. I have a little music work to accomplish as well and I hope to have at least a working version of each stage music in place.

So, as a check up to my last entry, each of the 8 stages is complete, including the final boss stage. Tonight is a glaze over to achieve as much completion as possible. Wish me luck tomorrow, people. It might be a stepping stone to a better move in my career path.

New stage work

Over the past 24 hours, I've been able to start all my stage 5 work for "Mean Kathleen," including a new enemy, a new stage obstacle and of course, a new background and tile set. Stage 5-1 is now in perfect working order for both difficulties and I am abou to engage in the design of the other 4 sub sections of stage 5 - Italy. In the next few days, I intend on writing some music for the background, but first I should probably finish writing lyrics for the music in stage 3 and 4. That's it for now. Just wanted to check in with some new information.

Here we go...

For those few of you interested in how my development progress goes, I've decided to maintain a game development blog. Sadly, I've started this endeavor quite late in my independent career, thus leaving my previously completed titles in the dust. However, starting today, I will be updating my development progress at least once a week to educate and entertain the Eric Ruth Games fan base (all 4 of you.) Please enjoy as we begin this new project together!

For those of you unaware (everyone), I am in the middle of developing 2 separate video games. The first of which is a music game that meshes rhythm and timing with the education of learning to type on a QWERTY keyboard. The second of which is my 2009 entry into the IGF (Independent Games Festival) titled "Mean Kathleen & The Great Quack Machine." This title serves as a sequel to my 2008 summer release "Georgie George & The Great Quack Machine" and as such, it builds upon the previously designed game-play by way of new control mechanics. I've rectified weird collision detection and added larger, more explorable stages as well as equipment upgrades via a shop.

"Mean Kathleen" needs to be completed by November 1st to make my entry deadline for the IGF, so I'm hard at work trying to get the title 100% by then. So far I have all the basic gameplay and upgrade mechanics completed. Stages 1 through 4 are finished and even contain their background music (mostly completed). The game will have 10 stages in all, and basically I have to get 2 stages done a week until deadline. UGH!

Very soon I will post some screen shots so you can take a quick peak, but for now, you should amuse yourself with my previous titles. Take a trip over to www.ericruthgames.com for free downloads of my earlier titles, and stay tuned for more information regarding my 2 current projects!

Thanks guys,
-Eric