Wow What an Absence!!

So I have been missing for a while, yeah big whoop wanna fight about it ?

Over the last couple of years I've had absolutely nothing to say, which is strange for me as when I'm at home the wife is always telling me to shut it. Anyway I still have nothing to say other than I'm working on a game ... again.

My last game was pretty straight forward as it was a simple Rock, Paper, Scissors tug of war style game made with you can download it here. My new game is made using the same Adventure Game Studio engine but the game itself will be more suited to the engine more on this another time.

I started writing my new game a couple of years ago but as life got busier it got sidelined (Got married, had a son to name a couple of these busyments) but now everything is cooling down again I feel I am now in a position to continue where I left off. To be brutally honest I'm quite glad I had to leave this project alone for a while as when I came back to it I felt like my writing was pretty poor and my direction was far from interesting. Reading kids story books has helped me find what makes a story not only interesting... but captivating too. Nonetheless writing is hard, I havent really written anything in years (probably since high school) and anxiety is not helping me !! anyone got any tips with anxiety? Comment below

Until next time folks!

Ciao

Sin

Day of the Tentacle and Fimo

"Its high time I settled on a hobby"
I turn and proclaim loudly to the wife.
Now a normal person at this point in their lives (nearing 30 and married) would have found a hobby and would be quite accomplished at it.
However the same cannot be said for me. In the last twelve months I have jumped from Warhammer 40,000 to Yu-Gi-Oh cards to Web design (HTML 5) to adventure game building and everything in between. I wouldn't say I get bored with doing these things its just my mind tends to wander whenever I get stuck into something. Am I nuts?
Anyway my new latest craze is FIMO. FIMO is a type of modelling clay in which once you have finished designing an object you can bake it in the oven to make is solid. Handy for making things like mini statues, magnets, earrings, necklaces...  Basically anything remotely crafty can either be created or enhanced by using this stuff. These guys (pictured) as some of you may remember are Purple and Green Tentacle from the old adventure game classic Day of the Tentacle. Took me about an hour to do and they're only 2cms high!!

Who knows how long this obsession will last but I at least intend to make at least 10 mini figures with this stuff.
Peace all over your face !!!

The End of Lucasarts / Lucasfilm Games

And so on the 4th of April 2013 the people at Disney decided that it was time for the curtain to fall at Lucasarts. Thousands of people including Ron Gilbert the creator of Monkey Island (TM) expressed their sadness in losing a company that created some of the best, if not the best adventure games of the 80's and 90's. There is no doubt that over the last decade the adventure game genre has suffered a dramatic decrease in interest due to the rise of the console.

The adventure game genre has been around since the 1970's starting off as text adventures following a basic plot which consisted no graphics and depended solely on the users imagination to paint a picture so that the stories began to jump out at them. In the 1980's however the way in which these games were played changed, the use of impressive graphics alongside the integration of a mouse instead of typing actions into an interface gave the genre the classic storybook look. The player now didn't need to draw a map on paper and they could view the scenes as the producer would like them to see them. Anything was becoming possible plot lines that were once plain and very one dimensional became far more immersive. Characters started to have attitudes quirky animations and charming qualities and with that came the comedy. 

Insult sword fighting and one on one punch ups decided whether or not the player could continue with their quest and if that was not enough there were the puzzles. Some of these puzzles were unsolvable without hours and hours of head scratching and constantly wandering around looking for clues that had not been heard or in some cases seen.

Lucasarts formally known as Lucasfilm Games were one of the giants of this market and they created many treasured classics such as ;

• The Monkey Island games
• Sam and Max
• Maniac Mansion
• Day of the Tentacle
• The Dig
• Loom 
• Grim Fandango
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 
• Labyrinth
• Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
• Full Throttle

These games to me are timeless classics and I play them regularly to this day. I am sad to see Lucasarts go however it must be said that the classic point and click styled game has long left the public arena and is now very much in the underground.

But there is hope.. 

The genre is not dead..

There are still many many companies and studios .. albeit smaller which are creating these games and it is with these that I now spend infuriating hours pointing and clicking, roaming and talking, laughing and indeed shouting at the screen.

But how about you? 

Did you grow up with these titles like I did?

Were you one of the many people that held your breath as the plot lines unfolded and became more and more enjoyable by the second? 

How does it make you feel? 

Until next time 

Peace all over your faces

Ant (Sin)

Guybrush Threepwood no longer hanging around. 

Punctuation and other troubles!!

So here we are post three..! Who indeed would of thought?
With over 100 page views in under 4 days, this is turning into a small scale epic.
I often wonder how journalists and authors do this kind of thing. I find it hard writing a good title, never mind a story which has everyone glued to their seats.
My stories are more like..

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved coffee and every day when he woke up he'd have 1 cup, then another... and another...and anotherandanotherandanuvaandanuva... then he would sit and and write incomrehenisible babble which later noone would care about because it is full of poor grammar etc.

But I must learn this writing craft ..

Being out of school for any amount of time you tend to find that proper punctuation and grammar are lost to the innermost depths of your brain. I am constantly second guessing where to put a comma, and don't even get me started on apostrophes... grrr

In fairness my english is terrible. I got a D in High school and had to retake my exam in college.. got a C the second time (and an A in speaking and listening but we will come back to that another day).

So ... what I'd like to know is?

How confident are you with grammar? Do you struggle with full stops or where to put a good comma? or are you a grammatical wizard who knows just where everything should be at all times? If so how do you remember where to put all these dots and dashes? Is there some kind of rhyme or tune to help you remember or does it just take a lot of practice?

Drop me a line.. Leave a Comment below....

Who knows maybe you might win something.

Until next time..

Peace all over your face ..

       Ant

Baffled by the sudden use of grammar!!

A little shop scene

This is a piece I started drawing some months back for a project called For The Love of Mustard. It is yet unfinished (like all artists say all their lives) 

For The Love of Mustard is a mini quest whereas our mini hero has decided to get himself  his favourite mega ham sandwich, however upon inspecting the fridge he finds that he is all out of mustard... 

Now everyone knows that a ham sandwich is all about the deliciously delicious sneeze inducing mustard..  

And so our hero decides to embark on his quest to the not so local corner shop. (Only a meager 2.5 Kms) but is his journey as straightforward as it seems?? 

Will their be tragedy, horror ... fun times even ?? 

No one knows however...  what we do know is that our mini-heros life is about to change in a mahoosive manner. 

When will you find out 

Now that would be telling !! 

Stay tuned 

Peace all over your face!! 

SinSins Studio blog

Hello and welcome to my blog.

I have always thought about making a blog about my work but never been able to work out where to begin until today I came across the blog belonging to an old friend of mine. 
She goes by the name of Binty and she designs Comics, is a graphical animator and all round artist. Upon reading her comic Worry Wart and seeing how well a blog can really help display some of your work I have taken a leaf from her comic and have started my own dev blog of sorts.
Worry Wart

Anyway moving on ...This is where I blog.  

See my blog 
See blog grow 
Grow blog grow!

Updates to follow 

Peace all over your face

Sin