In Real Life, I've been very busy job hunting.
In between job hunting, I've also been busy helping out some friends of mine with fixing up a house. It's sort of a "I learn construction from them, they get extra free labor from me" kind of deal. For now I'm helping when I can, but it's under the understanding that if I get a job that pays money, I'm doing that instead.
Shameless blog plug for their house project coming up:
http://notmuchnewaroundhere.blogspot.com/
Check it out if you want to see what a house looks like when it's been abandoned for 3 years straight. Eeek!
A lot of my game projects are still in conceptual form, much too early to release any shots or info. I know I've been saying that a lot, so I've tossed together a quick screenshot for you all to look at. You'll probably know right away what it is if you've played the other flash game. I've blurred out most of it because it's very much in conceptual state and not even close to what the final game will look like.
Yep, Smiley has walls that scroll by now...and yes, I am working on a Smiley Gems 2.
The game will have a much more polished, faster paced gameplay of the first game. I've taken into account a lot of your player feedback for the first game, as well as my own tester's feedback, and I think this new one will make for a much better time killer type of flash game.
Not satisfied with just releasing a refined version of the first Smiley Gems, I've also been working on a new gameplay mode...Volcano Raid. The screenshot is from this new mode, in case you are wondering why I have walls involved. The new mode is still very much loose ideas on paper, so I'll have more info to spill once the gameplay is more solidified. Scoring tables for both modes will be seperate, as the two scores are not comparable at all.
Oh, and the jem/mine spawnings are funny(in a kick someone down a manhole way) and not very fair at all right now. I got a lot of work formulating and implementing new spawning rules for the gameplay.
As time allows me, I'll continue working on my game projects, and keep you all posted.
I've also recently gotten an Android Phone (Motorola Blur), so I might post some game reviews/recommendations for that as well. There certainly is a lot of apps and not all of them are that great, so I think I'll post some info to help you all sort through the trash to find the treasures.
I'm also really excited to try developing for the Android if I ever get enough free time to invest in learning the SDK and the billions of tools out there.
Like someone at a crossroads with a broken signpost, I don't know where any of this will lead yet. But there's no sense standing here waiting, it's time to plow ahead and find out.
Till next time,
Gawain
