Zlatoosk and the Snowglobe
Zlatoosk the Terrible, god of war and llamas, was in a foul mood.
He cursed the thieves who had stolen him from the king’s grave.
He cursed the merchant who had imprisoned him in a water-and-flake-infested globe.
He cursed the tourist who had bought him in the marketplace, the woman who wore flowered mumus and talked to her cats.
But his most vicious curse he saved for the baby now rolling him about on the floor and slathering his glass prison with saliva. Channeling his rage, he willed that a lightning bolt might fall from heaven and smite the vile infant.
In centuries past, he had summoned thunderclouds. But that was when his pride and strength had fed on the offerings of kings.
He felt a surge of power. A small spark leapt from the surface of the globe and struck the child’s nose. The baby dropped the orb and began to scream.
Zlatoosk gloated in his revenge. The mantle rolled into view, and he knew the lesser idols of the hearth—especially the pale child with wings and ridiculously large eyes—were in awe of his power.
Then his orb rolled under the gate that had been placed across the basement stairs.
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To this day, Zlatoosk lies beneath the stairs among broken shards of glass and scattered flecks of white.
He is still in a foul mood, though the mice do leave him offerings on occasion.
(This is my contribution to Advent Ghosts 2010.)
This Little Babe
Merry Christmas from von Lehe Creative.
This Little Babe
Words by Robert Southwell (1561-1595)
Music by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
This little Babe so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake, though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmed wise The gates of hell he will surprise.
With tears he fights and wins the field, His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battring shot are babish cries, His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need; And feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.
His camp is pitched in a stall, His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes; Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound, The angels’ trumps alarum sound.
My soul, with Christ join thou in fight; Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib is surest ward; This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy.
Networking for Nerds
I love my workplace, because my workplace is full of nerds.
I mean, what could be better than a lunch spent hashing out how to turn the corporate headquarters into a volcano island guarded by laser-sharks?
But we nerds have a problem.
Langman Soundtrack
Many people have told me how much they like the 8-bit music featured in Langman.
All of the songs listed in the game’s credits can be found on 8bitcollective.
Here they are in order of appearance:
- Cloud Caller by Ookami
- Dancing 0n the M%n by FearOfDark
- Moonlit Memory by xaimus and malmen
- C0N51GR4 by Ookami
- Tiny Tunes by FantomenK
For those of you who just want a simple download, I’ve posted a zip file containing all the songs from the game.
Langman Trailer
I’ve posted a trailer for Langman on youtube.
Click here to play the game.
Unity Resource: LangmanController
While developing Langman, much of my time was spent tweaking the PlatformerController script from the 2D Lerpz tutorial. I made some changes to how it works, and along the way I encountered (and fixed) a number of bugs in the original script. I’m sharing my changes in the hope that others will find them useful.
Announcing…Langman
Unity Resource: XYMouseController
Here’s a companion to the XYController example. It demonstrates translating the mouse’s screen coordinates into a point in Unity world space, and using this to position an object. (Translation: it allows a player to move an object around with the mouse.)
It isn’t game-ready, but it’s simple and (hopefully) easy to understand.
Unity Tip: Rigidbody Interpolation
When Intergalactic Sheep Pong was first published, I noticed some choppiness when the game was running in Firefox. The graphics would hang and then suddenly unfreeze, revealing objects in new, sometimes drastically different positions.
This was especially befuddling because in the Unity3D editor, I was getting framerates upwards of 1000fps. And in other browsers (such as Safari) the graphics were smooth.
Cardboard Millennium Falcon
Why drop $160 for Hasbro’s Millennium Falcon when you can build your own?
Supplies Used:
- Studioscale’s Millennium Falcon blueprints
- Scissors
- Compass
- String (for drawing large circles)
- X-Acto knife
- Scotch tape
- Elmer’s glue (for reinforcement—I wanted it to be relatively kid-proof)
- An old vacuum box, toilet paper tubes, and other miscellaneous cardboard scraps
- Paper
- Posterboard
- A rubber band (aka Han’s seatbelt)
Punch it, Chewie!
