Hole In My Head

Rare for me to do a post on a Tuesday. But I just gotta rant about today's test.

It was so simple. So doable. Could have scored full marks for it. But I just couldn't do it.

MENTAL BLOCK.

Such a shame. I was so confident and feeling good about the impending test, only to come out of the lecture theatre CRUSHED.

It hurts when you wasted an opportunity to score for something.

T_+

The emoticon above shows my agony as I struggle to complete my lab report. The NMR spectrum seems to be yielding a knife at my throat, almost going to slice me any moment now.

Despite 2 impending tests, I still feel pretty alright and not as stressed up as I thought I would be. That's quite a feat, according to my standards. I guess I now know how to slow things down a little and prevent those pesky burnouts.

Anyway, I'm a self-proclaimed Glee fanatic and of course have already watched the first episode of Season 2 which started just last week. I really dig the songs the cast covered.

Usual life scoop aside, I actually wanted to blog about liars. People who tell lies, make empty promises, fabricate stuff and so on. There's just this particular person whom I've known for about 3 years now that's getting from bad to worse. I won't name names because I don't really wanna sound like I'm bitching about somebody (Even then, do I sound like I'm doing so? Ok, whatever).

Well, I have lotsa examples to back up my claim but I'm not writing everything down here. Basically, whatever this person says from now, I will not believe it. One ear in, the other ear out. I've been played out too much already. Turning immune even.

Trust. Honesty. These 2 words which I value so much do not exist in this person.

Just get out of my life already. You don't deserve my friendship. And others' too.

Bit of NG drama

Phew. Stupid me I unknowingly uploaded 'THE INSANITY II' on minutes prior to what they call 'MADNESS DAY' on Newgrounds.com. Within about 2 hours the game vanished from the new entry Flash Portal with less than a 1000 views, much to my dismay. Thankfully after writing to the admin there I got a reply from Wade there that under my conditions they would delete the game and allow me to resubmit on a quieter day.

Man, for a minute there I thought 7 months of anticipation had just been flushed down the toilet. Lucky me.

For posterity here are the reviews it already got. I guess they'll be gone too soon enough.

"I am thinking to much..."

by: Kenxeus

date: 7 hours ago

The game got me thinking that maybe he is actually the twin brother of Edgar Friendly and that Edgar Friendly actually died in the car accident instead of his brother...Maybe I think that because when he went back to be a surgeon he could not do his job...
That his head injury made him believe he was Edgar Friendly, that the incident and the loss of his brother made him insane.
Great game what is next a game when he started doing his experiments for the first time?

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Score:10

"Absoutely Beautiful"

by: SanguineWendigo

date: 17 hours ago

This game was as beautiful as the first one, I love every bit of it. But my favorite subject of the game would have to be the designs of all characters and creatures. One thing I have noticed is Edgar Friendly's hair is similar to a lion's mane, the king of the jungle, ironic since in a since that is what he is trying to become lol. the creatures as well are amazing in their design and even how to "handle" them was amazing. I do hope you make part 3 soon in the future for even though there is only 2 parts, I am a deep fan of the series. At least I hope it becomes a series....

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Score:10

"Your game"

by: jason7799

date: September 22, 2010

Good graphics for the atmospher it brings....entertaining for a while..or how ever long it takes someone to beat it..but yea it could have been more difficult
good game though
5/5

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Score:10

"Are you from Florida?"

by: TheRinger1976

date: September 22, 2010

I like your game, particularly the cinematic atmosphere you've created. I'd bet you're a fan of gore porn.

Seriously liked it though. Especially the [I assume to be] seamless blending of photos, drawings, and perhaps a bit of CG rendering in your stills. It tickles my pinial gland. Keep up the good work.

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Score:10

"That's fuckin creepy."

by: thom175

date: September 22, 2010

This game scared me shitless. I love the Lovecraft reference. I hope you make another because this is really great man.
5/5
10/10

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INSANITY II- Q & A

If you've any questions about the game's storyline or the future of the INSANITY series post them to me and I'll paste the answers in here-

Anonymous said...

This game is awesome! 8D Even though I keep getting stuck like the first game, but it's a lack of perception as per usual. XD Thank you for making The Insanity II, Mister Kris, my friend and I love it like we did the first game(which was HORRIFYING)! Your horror games are always terrifyingly wonderful.

Also the second painting in the beginning was a nice touch; I had played the Alpha and didn't expect it at all in the game itself. Keeping us on our toes as ever. ^^b

7:13 AM

EvilKris said...

My pleasure!
I'm working on a few other smaller scale games this year, but I expect they'll be an 'INSANITY 3' out sooner or later. It'll be based on Peter Langdon's brother, Nathan, and upon the concept of latex masks.

11:23 AM

Anonymous said...

Well, variety is the spice of life! XD It'd actually be a little worrying to be working on games like The Insanity ALL the time...is it at all scary for you to think up all those designs and situations and the main couples' psyches?
Even Stephen King takes a break from horror. XD

That'll be interesting to see in the future. So do you plan to always have it with "sane man being tested by the insane", or have you ever teased the idea of one of Friendly's mindwarped creations as an Insanity protagonist? I'm not saying the current formula is stale(nor should I assume that Nathan will be treated like Peter or Firstgame!Friendly, honestly...sorry), it'd just be interesting to see the mentality and how Friendly treats the creations he has under his control beyond cannon fodder for those he's testing. ^^

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Yeah in fact it is a little taxing to go deep into the world of Dr.Friendly and company, there's always one or two nightmares that lay in wait but it goes with the territory. Besides, what lies at the base of any story worth telling is the characterization, so you have to go there. If Friendly had been nothing more than a typical B-movie psychopath who kills for naught but leisure there'd be hardly anything riveting about him. But being that he was once a kind and caring doctor warped by mental disfiguration (brought on by a crash crash) it gives him a little more depth. His tragedy also gives birth and victimises the character Tracy Takaki -who obviously being somewhat driven to mental sickness herself- is compelled to follow the man she once loved to the very end. What starts to happen in the first game is Dr.Friendly's inner sub-conscious trying to bring him back to reality.

In a third game (set after part one) he will once again slip back into madness and this is where the character Nathan Langdon steps in. As he seeks out his missing brother Peter (INSANITY II), he will also become another hapless victim drawn into the Friendly world. Like I've said the game will explore the concept of silicon/latex masking and also intelligent vivisects who are able to go out into the world incognito. So in a way it'll still play with you, who's a friend and who's an enemy? And are you really Nathan Langdon? Yikes I think I'm giving away too much here. Sane man being tested by the insane? You bet! the game's not called 'THE INSANITY' for nothing, lol, and believe me, stale or not the story for the 3rd game is already much formed and will definitely keep you guessing right until the end.

About the other stuff-

Sadly it seems that these kind of niche games don't really fit the 5-minutes-at-lunchbreak medium which is Flash, and financially it's actually more rewarding just to whack out something quick and satisfying. So unless something magical happens like winning the lottery or somebody asking me to write an 'INSANITY' movie script I'm probably going to have to spend a year or so just throwing the bones sponsors want for quick'n'dirty $$$. Gotta pay the rent.

I Got My Hands All Over...

...Maroon 5's new album.

It's the 3rd M5 album that I own.

Anyway, I thought the cover looked a lil' creepy.

Well I guess that's pretty much for now, I'm so lazy to write anything. Think I'm gonna get the HP802 textbook tomorrow (FINALLY).

Science/Faith

Never expected to have bought 2 of The Script's albums, but I just copped the second one.

Science & Faith. Do both of them go together? They can co-exist, but I don't think they go together quite well. In fact they contradict most of the time.

Had the first 6-hour lab session yesterday. Though it went on quite smoothly, my IR spectrum is a gone-case. Time to scratch my head for the report.

THE INSANITY II RELEASED ON GAMESHED!

Be the first to play it here

By Ear

My ability to play music on the keyboard by ear is improving.

Playing music by ear is basically just hitting the notes according to the song you hear without referring to any sheet music. And making your own arrangements and accompaniments. I can tell you that the feeling and the satisfaction you get when you're able to play a song you just heard on the radio impromptu is AWESOME.

Who hates reading sheet music? *Puts my hand up*

Starting out will be a little tough, but as time goes by, you gain experience. For me, when I wanna play a new song I just come across on the Net, I start out by only playing the basic melody on my right hand. Once the melody and the gist of the song is clearer, I add my left-hand chords, changing and improvising the style and arrangement as I go along. Tried Shontelle's "No Gravity" which wasn't too tough. Today, I played a song that I heard for the first time. And it's relatively easy because the chords are pretty standard. It's The Wanted's new single, "Heart Vacancy", which is a lovely song. Peep the music video below!

There's Just Something 'Bout DA's Music

And of course DA = David Archuleta.

First things first, I'm not a 10-year-old pre-teen fan-girl gushing over DA.

But I gotta commend his music because:

1. It's sincere and heartfelt;

2. I can relate to most of his songs;

3. The songs are filled with catchy hooks and melodies.

I wasn't a fan of DA initially when he was on Idol but I bought his debut album and I have to say I'm gonna get his next one when it's out on October 4th. While his debut was more about love and whatnot, the upcoming one focuses more on being positive, optimistic and embracing your struggles, and these messages are embedded in tracks like "The Other Side Of Down", "Elevator" and "Things Are Gonna Get Better". I guess right now I really need those songs to pull me through in this trying time, to help lift me up before I can crumble down.

DA's music actually means a lot to me. And I'm so grateful that these songs are written and recorded, that I have the chance to listen to them. :)

Ok. Enough stanning for DA. Back to reality.

No more 3-day weeks for me!! :(

Lab and tutorials start this coming week and I'm gonna be frigging busy. Still on the fence on buying that Astronomy textbook. Such a waste to use it only for one semester. And it's not as if it's necessary, but it's recommended. WTH.

I wanna catch Resident Evil 4 but haven't got the time and the company. Not to mention playing my keyboard.

Talking about the keyboard... I feel like I can and enjoy creating melodies and hooks better than writing lyrics. Honestly, my song-writing skills suck and most of my songs all deal with the same subject that it's getting boring and tough. I think I prefer creating melodies on the keyboard instead (i.e. producing songs). We'll have to see about that.

PRELOADING MADE EASY IN CS5?

New pc yeehaw!.

PRELOADERS

---------------

It's pretty much known around the Flash stratosphere that preloaders are -always- a pain in the ass to get working. The first INSANITY game was a complete nightmare to set up, I had to painstakingly go through every movie clip, untick the Export in first frame box and drag each one into an asset holding movieclip on the 2nd frame of the main timeline. THEN for each and every sound I had to build a layer and drag the sfx onto their own individual layer. And even so everything was set up properly I still had some weird issues like sounds playing randomly on the title screen and such. To this day I still wake up Ripley style after a disturbing dream related to preloader setting up.
So there I was coding the 2nd INSANITY game thinking - "Oh man sooner or later I'm going to have to go through all that bs again" when I thought of something that might work.
I set up my timeline for the preloader as usual:

• 1st FRAME - Preloader code&graphics
• 2nd FRAME - Empty skippable Frame *used for the assets*
• 3rd FRAME - Title screen
• 4th FRAME - The entire game

I started dragging things into the second frame for a bit then I thought I'd try something. I went into Publish Settings/AS3/ and in the Export To Frame box I changed the 1 to 2. So Assets are all loaded on the second frame. Then I just compiled the game as normal and to my surprise and delight the preloader worked perfectly! Without the hassle of dragging all that crap into an asset holder.

Well slap my ass and call me Sally but I had no idea you could do this that easily. Do take note.

OTHER NEWS

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Hmmm, well as far as I know 'INSANITY II' is pretty much sold. I'm onto my new *unnamed* project, a Golden Axe clone. Currently struggling with pixel art and such, though I believe I'm onto a good technique. Actual fighting engine code is coming out smoothly as essentially all I'm doing is exporting my AS2 Streets of Rage demo engine to AS3. This time I'm all about keeping the game simple, done&dusted in under 3 months. No complicated ideas that will lump on production time. A few bits here and there to up the replay value by including many random factors.

Example- any 'stage' can contain a number of random enemies but their properties will be controlled by the difficulty level of that stage. Also there will be a chance some randomly selected enemies will be 'LORDS' ie a little bit higher than their actual level, like the Black Phantom characters in the PS3 game Demons Soul. You can win the game as quickly as in 5 lucky hint-giving stages, or just go through the game stage by stage and try to complete all 99 (for a special medal of course).

Damn coding a fighting game is fun. And it's playable almost as soon as you get your main sprite launching combos with a keypress. Why didn't I do this earlier?

INSANITY II ETA

Deals have been done- Looks like 'THE INSANITY II' is about to go public veeery soon, watch this space for an announcement.

Breaking Point

I finally got my PERFECT timetable!!! :D

Suddenly thought of trying my luck in STARS to see if anyone left my desired tutorial slot. And alas! There was a vacancy. And I switched. Thanks to whoever that person was.

If you're wondering why I'm blogging now, you can refer to my previous post.

Anyway, school started out pretty fine, but I'm already lost in 212. Time to start catching up!

Plus I now have company for all my modules. Awesome!!! :)