A Heartfelt Goodbye from Lucas and HIS GAME!

So, this is it! This is the end! I regret to inform you that today is my very last day at Smiley Guy Studios. It's a little bittersweet. I'm pretty sad that I'm leaving. I sat on the bus this morning just thinking about the fact that this may be the last time that I ever go this route. (I know its too sentimental but get over it!) But I'm also feeling as though the skills that I have learned here will be with me forever. I finish this year feeling more knowledgable and more confidence than I did when I started. I found fields that interested me and really dug into what makes someone good at that job. I immersed myself in the Toronto video game community and wrote a 50 page sit-com pilot! These are things that wouldn't have even occurred to me to do prior to this year. 

Aside from that, within the studio I met a ton of awesome people. They were always willing to answer my questions or just have a good conversation. Before coming here, I was quite frightened of the "real world." The point where you become an adult and all the fun gets sucked out of you. The people here however, have showed me that that's not the case at all. Most love what they do and have a good time doing it. I have to admit, when I first got here I was not quite sure whether or not Brad was joking most of the time. It's a kind of humour that takes you a little while to catch on to.

And finally... The Game! It's done! I feel really proud of what I have done. To be honest though, as an outsider who doesn't know about me; it would look quite unimpressive. The art isn't amazing and the code is pretty sloppy but I feel it's a real accomplishment. I've really never done something like this and all the skills that I used were acquired earlier this year. I acknowledge that it has flaws, but it's a stepping stone. My next game will be better, then my next will be even better than that! I'm just happy that it works. There were a few points where I wasn't even sure that this would be possible at my skill level. There had to be a few major concept changes to make sure that the game was even possible, but I pulled through. I have something now that although it may glitch out at some points, someone can sit down and play it. If you're wondering where it can be played, I have it hosted on a website which I'll link to below. I'm going to update it one more time before I leave, just fixing a bug that makes the player spawn in the wrong place and a simple mixup with one of the cloud tiles. It's not a big deal, the game works the same without these changes. It's just a matter of aesthetics. 

To end this off, I'd like to tie it back to one of my first blogs. As I walked in today, I noticed the dancing Jewish man figurine. I figure I'll leave it here for two reasons. 1) There are so many objects and trinkets laying around the office. I'm sure everything reminds a few people of a story or an experience, so I want something here that is a reminder I was here (as odd a reminder as that is).  2) I really don't want that thing back. Like, honestly I don't want to lose any more sleep over the thought of that thing on my shelf. Please. Keep it. 

I'd like to thank Julie and Mike for even after having poor prior experiences with co-op students, accepting me to work here. The year had a huge positive impact on me and I'm sure I won't be forgetting it any time soon. 

The Game: http://www.cavemenjointlink.com/

All about Anna, Costumes, and Penguins

Hi guys~ Anna here again~
It is officially the end of week two of my internship, and boy has time flown by. I' have been enjoying myself, and can't believe I'm already two weeks into this intern thing.

This week, I started working on Uberdude, which was super cool. I love the art style, and have had the pleasure of colouring all the animations. It seemed like a large task at first, but now that I am actually putting my pen to the tablet and just popping out scene by scene in colour, I find myself enjoying my music and just having fun with these animations.

Other than that... Well, it's soon to be Anime North Time, and my friend has decided to drag me to it, even though I'm busy with life and freelancing and...sighs... I'd like to say i have a cosplay, but I didn't and don't have the time to make it, and when I tried to find material for the jacket that I planned, Fabricland didn't have that many choices... And all of Toronto's fabric stores close at either 6 or 7. By the time I arrive there after work, they would have all closed... I suppose it must be fate.
I have my freelance side job to occupy my dwindlingly little spare time as well. My dad introduced me to a guy named Brandon Feraras, who is working on an ios game about penguins and environmentalism. It's called Pengix, for anyone who wants to check it out. At this moment, the game is all Brandon's - he created the entire thing on his own time, with the graphics being made in Photoshop.

And yeah, the art isn't great - he is obviously not an art person. But the game is quite fun, and only the graphics need improving. And that's where I come in. I'm still working on it, but I have been redesigning the whole look to the game: the sprites, the backgrounds, and possibly adding in animations...

Ohe day, I'll make a game of my own too....
Until next time,
Anna

Lucas is Wrapping it Up

Hello people of the world! This week has been on the less-eventful side but nonetheless, everything is still in motion!

The game is almost done, just minor changes are being made now and I'm prepping for the final version! It's really cool to see all the work finally come together. I'm looking foreword to it.

Unfortunately, the short film that I was talking about last week will have to be postponed. My film-making friend and two of the actors are unable to put in the time due to exams so we'll be doing it during the summer. I am slightly disappointed because I'm a teenager and I crave immediate gratification but it's probably for the best. We'll end up not having to be so rushed and not confined to a small amount of time.

On a side note, I read "Of Mice and Men" and "the Catcher in the Rye" this week.

Still sleep deprived.

Lucas Continues to Shame Us All With His Energy

Ok, this week has been a busy one! I'm just going to go through the list of things that have been pulled together over the course of this week. Seems like the best way to do this.

1. Co-op: So, the write-ups for our final culminating projects were due this Wednesday. I'm pretty happy with mine. I of course, made a game. I borrowed a huge amount of the code from the work that I have done here at SGS so that cut down the time that I had to spend on it my a monumental amount. Despite that, it looks and plays completely different. I also had to do a powerpoint presentation to the class. I think that went really well too.

2. Writing: Last week when I finished my pilot episode, Julie sent me a link to withoutabox.com. It's basically a hub for film festivals. I was looking through the site to find a script-only festival but I was having difficulty finding one that had parameters that fit my pilot. However, I did find a bunch of student short film festivals. I figured... why not just write one of these? So I did. I have a good friend who is in the film program at Earl Haig (It's an arts school). He's going to help me shoot it. I am going to direct. And I'm also doing the casting this week (There are enough drama-geeks at my school would be up for it). We're going to film next weekend. It's only going to be about 5-7 minutes so the filming shouldn't be too laborious. I have however, started making a call sheet for the times that all the actors need to be there. Just so that we can manage the time well.

3. Reading: I know this is a bit off topic, but from tuesday till now, I have read two novels. I felt like mentioning it just because it's been quite intensive. My sister gave me "A Fault In Our Stars" by John Green. It was really good. I went out and got "Looking For Alaska" which is also by him on wednesday. That was really good as well. I need more sleep.

Lucas is Becoming an Inspiration to the Rest of Us

I feel really good about this week! First off, I'm on schedule with the game now! I had a my check with Aman this morning and I got some criticism on the tile set and character. He told me that I should take away the colour of the player overtop of the tiles to make sure there's enough contrast of the two. Apparently, it's helpful for colour-blind people as well as making sure that the player is always clear seen. He is also going to send me some of his previous tile sets so I can make some comparisons. I'm going to make some tweaks on them then on monday we'll lock it. Feels good to not be behind! 

On a side note, I finished my Pilot! I've been doing some work on my own on a TV Pilot. I had finished a treatment and started  the actual spec two weeks ago. Now I'm happy to say that it's done! It's 55 pages. I don't think I've ever written that many pages of anything. Mike said I should send all this stuff to him and we can talk about it. He's already given me some pretty brief do's and don't's of the industry and I'm really exited to hear more. I'll probably start writing more specs. Now that I've already gone through the motions of doing this first one, it should be easier from here on out.

One Good Intern Helps Another

This blog is a little off schedule. Just because the last week and a half has been really wonky. I've been at home with a fever since thursday so I haven't been into the studio but I was able to do some work on my own time. First, I'll start with a bit of a progress report with the game:

 

So as of now, I am done programming. I had to do a quick map loader to use the tiled (.tmx) map files in java but it worked out fine. I have a few very basic maps. The player can walk around and attack stuff and it's all very fun. I'm now starting on the art. I'd like to have time for two really polished tile sets. However, with time restraints I may only have time for one. It won't be the end of the world though. 

 

Also, heres the (very very very) rough tile set that I have been working on:

 

 

 

On a side note, I've been talking to Elizabeth about my interest in television writing. She was able to send me some very useful packages from her classes on things including how to make a good pitch, to a character development sheet. Since I've been home sick with a ton of free time, I was able to complete a 12-page treatment (Like a pitch) and I have about 10 pages of a pilot episode. Elizabeth also sent me some samples so I had a bit of a grasp on what the format should look like. 

 

 

Lucas Full Speed Ahead!

Wow, first blog since I've been back!  There's a lot of progress that's been made in terms of the game that I gotta blab about so stay with me for a moment.

First of all, all the classes are done. It's really been tough to get through it all. I was met with a few unexpected challenges with the code but overall, I'm really happy with it and I'm glad it's mostly done. Now all that's left is to actually put everything where it's supposed to be. For now, I already have a player and some enemy placeholders. I'm using a legend of zelda tile-set for now, just so that I don't have to spend all the time making one from scratch.

 

I've been spending most of my time just building levels. This is really where I shine. Now that the code is done I can really have a lot of fun with the map building. I can have people actually play it and get real criticism. I have run into a few bugs but nothing major that I haven't been able to fix in a few minutes. Hopefully no bigger game-breaking issues arise. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Lucas' Eye on Waterloo

Ok! So, this week was pretty sweet as well. First of all, The game jam was awesome! It was super intense and straining (I barely had time to sleep.) It was also pretty rewarding seeing as how I have something to show for my time there.

I'm sorry to say that anyone reading this will have to wait one more week to play it just because me and my friend are in the process of cleaning it up a bit before we put it up anywhere. I can say however that you play as a giant eyeball and navigate through a maze without touching the walls. I hope that explanation is sort of adequate.

Also, I'm going to be entering the Junior Waterloo Programming Competition. It sounds big and fancy but it's really just a test. If you score high enough, you can win money and scholarships! It takes place near the end of February so I'll be going in for extra help sessions at school. I'm really looking forward to it.

Lucas' Game - First Stage

So now that I'm back from the break it's time to get down to business!

Me and Julie mocked up a schedule before I left for the break. It basically plans out my time from now until the end of the school year so that by the end I have a kick-ass game to show for my time here. The first week is dedicated to concept.

So far, the first week has passed and my little prototype/concept game was approved! It is a little odd so I'll do my best to explain what it is:
 It's a 2d top-down game. The whole point is that there are puzzles but all the puzzles are hidden. I plan to make subtle hints with oddities in the tile sets to lead people in the right direction. I hope that made sense.

I'm still using images that I either downloaded from the internet or spent maximum 30 seconds on so it's not really visually appealing but I'll include a picture.

Over the next few weeks I plan to expand on the idea and figure out new ways to keep it engaging. I also just realized that this is the first blog that was entirely on something that happened at work. Sweet!

Lucas' Blog and New Video Game

It seems as though I haven’t put up a blog here in awhile. It may in fact be because Julie hasn’t been on my case about it. Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing though. Over the last two or three weeks a lot has happened. So now I can write about all of in a huge blog. How exiting! Well first of all, anyone who reads these would probably know that I’ve been learning Java and Javascript. Well, I’ve been finally putting those skills to work. A few weeks ago I started building a small platformer game with a friend of mine.  I’ve also been doing one on my own but I’ll talk about that later. I’m having a really good time at it. They're not super fancy now but it's a start.

            I’ve been going to some game-related events and been meeting some really cool people.  Some of them have made games that I actually played and so I enjoyed meeting the minds behind them, it was fantastic. I got a twitter account so I could connect with all these people. If I learned anything from these events, it’s than networking is everything. Everyone likes to follow each other’s projects and I need a way to tell people about what I’m working on so I started the “LUCAS TENNEN DOES STUFF” blog. There isn’t much there yet but there is definitely more to come: http://lucastennen.blogspot.ca/

            Over the last week and a half or so I have been working by myself on a small puzzle game called “AM I REAL?” I actually just put it up two days ago (can be found on my blog). A bunch of the work was done at Smiley Guy and I’m happy about how it turned out. It's really short, only takes about 10 minutes to get through but its my first one, so cut me some slack.  I’ve been watching the number of plays go up, refreshing the page every hour or so and I’m exited to see that over 200 people have played it! It’s a pretty big deal considering that the number before was zero. Overall the last few weeks have been busy and amazing and hopefully there will be many more like them. I should also throw out some random co-op related blurb like I usually do... I can do that next blog...

Am I Real

Cavemen Joint Linl