DaVince's Little Blog

Moved.

2011-08-13T14:58:00.001-07:00

I doubt many people care, but I moved the blog to Tumblr.

http://davince21.tumblr.com/

See ya, Blogger. Thanks for the service.

Released userscript: More HTML5 YouTube Key Controls

2011-01-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

I released a little script that makes the HTML5-based video player in YouTube a bit more useful. It adds the seeking and escape-exits-fullscreen hotkeys that the Flash player has (but the HTML5 player does seeking better than the Flash one if you ask me).

Should work on all browsers (except of course IE), if not, let me know. Also, suggestions are welcome.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/95415

Messing around with HTML5

2011-01-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

Trying to make the most basic of game engines so that I can make a game in HTML5 later. Because that's the plan.

Try it out here. Will be updating it from time to time. If you're a coder, give feedback.

http://davince.tengudev.com/code/HTML5-game/

Switching website to HTML5!

2010-09-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

This probably isn't going to mean anything to the non-techies, but I finally decided to make my website future-ready and switch everything to HTML5. Know how much time it costs me to do so? 10 minutes.

Yeah, I convert some code from its previous XHTML 1.0 form and it only takes me that short. It's awesome. And I can actually start using some new HTML5 features on my site from now on if I like, like the ability to have my music play right on the music page without ever needing a plugin. Or creating little canvas-based online games. That's what HTML5 is all about, or at least, on the that's what's on the foreground. :P

Site updated; started a productivity calendar.

2010-06-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

First things first. I updated my site a bit! Sir Boingers can now be easily found there too. Also added a new site I recently made to the portfolio, and new songs (there's a whole bunch of new ones now!).

Next! I've started a productivity calendar inspired by the Seinfeld Calendar. The Seinfeld Calendar is a way to keep your day-to-day productivity up through the "desire to see long chains of crossed-out days on your calendar". I'm using it to juggle two different tasks now, it really seems to work as I do a bit of coding and learning properly every day now. :)

Anyway, this means that I have worked on my own website, on Chris's website (which isn't online yet), and I finally, finally picked up again on some projects I definitely want finished (like SMOrganize), and some programming/scripting languages I wanted to look into. Going great!

Not sure how many people are going to read this, but hey. Signs of productivity! :)

Released a game: Sir Boingers and the quest for Cupcakes (and Justice)!

2010-05-03T14:17:00.001-07:00

We (the members of Tengu) have made a little retro-style arcade game. It's available on the Tengu website.

That's here.

Go play! :)

Holy carp the Wii is awesome.

2010-04-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, I only bought one just yesterday. Even though I've been wanting one ever since it was released, haha.

I'm having tons of fun with it. Already installed all that homebrew stuff and stuff. Really nice.

Subsequently, this has slowed down any work on Moon Blade, haha. I got the thing set up now though so the rest of the week is MB'ing!

Game resource competition drawing to a close.

2010-03-01T13:45:00.001-08:00

So I was actually hosting a game resource creation competition on Spherical (http://spheredev.org/), and I noticed I didn't even mention that on my blog! Shows how much I update that thing, or how much people read it anyway (I guess that number improved with Google Buzz though!). :P

The compo was all about creating and submitting resources that people can use freely - that is, music, graphics, stuff like that, for people who are looking for resources to use in their games. Just some generic, basic, varied useful stuff.

So anyway, it's almost over, and I'll be submitting my own little free-for-use music pack when I close it officially. There's been some nice entries in and a few more in line already, so I'm a bit more excited than I was when barely anything was entered for months. (Yes, the compo took almost four months just to give people the time to make something. Heh.)

Edit: and here is my entry. Have fun using this music if you need it.

After this will most likely be a competition that uses the resources people have made. I just hope it gets more than one entry, compos haven't been doing too greatly on Spherical for some time now. Perhaps I should set some strict timing limits, or advertise it anywhere else... Problem is I don't have a clue what other communities have even any amount of Sphere users!

Moon Blade progress!

2010-02-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

Moon Blade (the epic RPG Chris and I are making) is coming along nicely. Over the past two weeks I've been getting back into coding, relearning whatever I might have forgotten, and I've made a nice flexible menu system, various useful debugging functions, general improvements over the entire project and now I'm working on a character movement system.

We've planned everything out in stages, each stage having about 5 or 6 goals, for example, "get the menu system done", "make the character movement work", etcetera. Our first stage is finally almost complete. It's about time.

Screenshots? Well alright, but there really isn't a whole lot to see yet (other than Chris' nice font). Some debugging screens (the stop signs indicate graphic placeholders that were loaded automatically because the files weren't found):

New App in development: StepMania Organize

2009-12-07T08:53:00.001-08:00

I'm working on a new application. It's going to be a program that's supposed to make it easy for StepMania players to organize, edit and install songs for the game.

Written in Python and cross-platform libraries (the Qt GUI framework and gstreamer audio library), it's going to be available for Windows, Linux and Mac users when finished, and should make the organization of simfiles for StepMania players a whole lot easier.

Edit

Aaaand a website for it is now live. Not that there's much to see.

My list of favourite anime.

2009-10-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Registered on Anime-planet yesterday and filled it in a bit on what anime I have watched so far and how high I rate them.

To check my highest-rated anime, go here.

It might be a weird or unusual selection, but then again I prefer unique story lines and art styles over mainstream anime (don't get me started on the utter crap they send out on TV, for example). So if you're looking for something different, pretty much all of the highest rated anime in that list will qualify for an enjoyable experience. :)

In other news, I added a portfolio section on my site which I will be filling in soon.

Two new songs.

2009-09-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

Been pretty creative lately!

I finally downloaded a much newer version of the music tracker I use today (ModPlug Tracker to the newer OpenMPT), and found some major improvements in it. For example, I can now use VSTi's for instruments, which is a format that generates sound on the fly. Much better audio quality!

The Cheetahmen - Extended Version (IT source) (IT compatible with old MPT)

A chiptune based on the somewhat awesome music of the completely awful video game, with a bit added to it.

Le Petit Circus (IT source)

This one uses a VSTi because I wanted to see how well my music tracker works with it now. Turns out it works great! This is just a short little circus-like ditty that loops.

Bein' Artistic.

2009-09-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

I drew some stuff today. Check it out:

Sketch.

Traced and recolored image (anime).

Leave feedback if you want. :)

The Spherical Game Repository now opened!

2009-09-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

A bit of explanation before I link ya:

Sphere is an old-style RPG creation system, also capable of making non-RPG games pretty well. It has a modest community that creates and releases games, libraries and little tech demos from time to time. However! A lot of these games became lost forever at some point - usually due to their websites disappearing and no one having the game on their harddrive at that point.

So I, an active user of Spherical, came with an idea: to have a repository where people can find any Sphere game or resource ever made. People liked the idea, and now the repository is alive.

http://downloads.spheredev.org/

The repository is still fairly small - I've been uploading a few of the old and new Sphere games and demos that I have on my drive and I seem to be about halfway through. Once I and others are done a lot of Sphere's game history should be available on the repository.

If you like RPGs, small games or have an interest in making one, I definitely suggest you check out these games - and Sphere!

Site modified.

2009-08-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

Right, I edited my site today. It is now 800 pixels wide instead of 1000, which actually makes it a lot more visually appealing. Buttons and descriptions on the front page have changed to make things a bit more clear and appealing for visitors.

Another change is that I have added a few more old files to the Sphere section: the four examples from the "Examples" pack are now also available for download seperately, and I added explanations of what each example exactly does. Project Keen gets a sample screenshot and an easier download for non-Sphere users. I might go and make screenshots for all the other games and projects later again too.

The biggest change is that I now have added a Really Old Stuff section to the games/projects section. It's really just a direct link to the directory that contains most of my old games, but it does open up a whole new (old) area of my stuff to explore. :)

There still are some todo's, though. The Python page definitely is outdated. Maybe I'll have it link to this blog instead once I post stuff about Python instead, that'll be a bit more convenient.

My Current Projects

2009-08-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Just a little note what I am working on right now.

Music

Making music for the following games:

- Tops the Pig 4

- CloneKeen Plus (Commander Genius)

- A Commander Keen game mod

Future: some songs for Pokemon Azure, a fangame, and maybe a few chiptunes for another game (still gotta contact the people interested in me making these for them).

Testing

- CloneKeen Plus (Commander Genius) (well, from time to time.)

Game Development

- Moon Blade (tengudev, more info soon)

The Tengu Dev website is back! Sort of.

2009-08-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been under construction for so long I decided to just put the new site have so far on the main page. Beats that old front page, at least.

Tengu Development

I got a job today!

2009-07-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hooray! My job application for "Internet Assessor" has been accepted today! This means I shall be rating and improving web search results and be paid for it! Sounds simple, huh? Well, it's a bit more difficult than it looks... and it's actually interesting because you get to see all kinds of interesting and weird web sites (and spam)!

There's no need for me to post about it here, I know, but I'm just so excited I needed to share it. Also, this means I finally have an income I can use to increase my collection of awesome games and consoles. :)

DaVince out! More interesting news next time, as I lay out some future plans for Tengu Dev (a two-man game development team).

Hello again, World!

2009-07-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

Well, here we go! A brand new blog! I decided to switch to Blogger for ease of use, feeds, and being able to submit blogs quickly. Hope you don't mind the change. My old blog is still available over at http://davince.tengudev.com/oldblog/.

For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, this blog goes with my website and will report any games or applications I make, find or play, as well as post news about music or things I've created. Hooray!

So! Our current projects on Tengu are:
- Getting the site fixed up properly
- Moon Blade, an epic RPG, is back in development! We won't neglect it this time. :)

We also have plans for a shmup (shoot-em-up, with the flying planes and everything), but I'm not sure how much we'll be working on that now that plans for Moon Blade have resumed.