Last week I attended the Assembly’09 summer event, like I have done every year since 1992. Although this time I didn’t make a game and didn’t hold a seminar session, I still contributed in the 4K intro competition… twice, actually.

Again I worked with XMunkki on an intro called Dream Creditor, which ended up at the fourth place in the competition (Download Windows zip / YouTube video). Additionally I made a tongue-in-cheek-production with little marching elephants called Irrelephant. Audience seemed to like it a lot so it placed on the 3rd place! (Download Windows zip / YouTube video). You can probably also easily spot that my little 2D walker prototype (from my previous post) ended up as part of this production.

Like I said, I’d post a bit about some prototyping. Nowadays I’m usually using Processing for small prototypes. Some years ago I used to use EVALDRAW for little algorithmic tests. I love it for the immediate feedback when working with it, and also the different modes it provides.

But after I started to like more the whole concept of isolated first-stage prototypes, I felt EVALDRAW wasn’t just enough for all of my needs. After pondering with some alternatives I ended up “standardizing” on Processing, although it would still have a lot to learn from EVALDRAW. :-) However the one cool thing with Processing is that you can export your creation to be a stand-alone mini-app or even to a web page. As long as you have installed Java.

Lately when working with some ideas for a platformer game, I wanted to make some tests for a “walker”. To be exact, the simple kind which would just use some carefully chosen formulas like sine curves to move feet and body.
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Assembly’07 is over. I held a seminar presentation there about Immediate Mode Graphical User Interfaces (IMGUI for short), together with Jari Komppa. You can check out the slides.

With XMunkki I once again created a 4 KB intro, Rose Shank (download Windows zip). What’s special about the creation is the fact that it was created in a custom language which uses LISP syntax (Lisp-ahtava aka IL4). The code is compiled into a custom minimal bytecode and a VM for that particular case. Respect to XMunkki – he is the brains behind that nice little system which we have talked about for some years, and he finally got around to implementing it!

If you hadn’t heard yet, I recently also quit working for my previous employer Sulake Corporation and co-founded Secret Exit Ltd together with Jani Kahrama. We created a prototype of one of our game concepts for the Assembly Game Development competition. Cinnamon Beats took the 3rd place although it’s still in pre-alpha and we have received many positive comments about the game.

Update: Sources for Rose Shank are available.
You can also view a YouTube video of it!

With my friend XMunkki we decided to release the source code to Andromedary, our 4 KB intro which came to 2nd place in Assembly’2006 event. Download it now and don’t forget to check out other 4 KB development resources in the IN4K site.