It pleases me to announce my latest project in development, MageQuest! It is a side-scrolling platformer in which the user assumes the heroic role of Erik, an mage apprentice who must trudge through the lost lands of Alomaris to defeat the evil Mage Lord Garak. Erik must survive traps, clear obstacles, cast powerful spells, and battle hordes of goblin soldiers, troll archers, dragons, giant spiders and much much more.

MageQuest will be a very extensive project. My goal is to make it sit among the top echelon of flash games on the Internet. A lot of time will be spent on perfecting the game play, art, animation, and music to give it a console-like experience. It should literally feel like you’re playing a game on the Nintendo DS or XBLA platform. I know that flash is capable of this, especially with ActionScript 3.0 running under the hood.

Something that excites me quite a bit is the fact that this project will be entirely documented on this development blog. As I’ve stated before, I intend to show you everything I do: The process of sketching out a game character and converting it to a game sprite; Programming their behavior; Assembling maps and levels; EVERYTHING! Like a DVD with its “special features” section, this development blog will serve as a “Behind the Scenes” look into the development of casual gaming.

You can’t imagine how excited I am to start. My goal is to have at least a couple major posts a week. Posts may include images, screen caps, youtube tutorials, and code excerpts. Please stop by as often as you like, or subscribe to the Entries RSS. I’m always open to comments and questions.

Wish me luck!

I’m blogging through my iPod touch’s Safari browser. You gotta admit, that is pretty cool. A little impractical, but none the less impressive.

I hope to announce a rather large project that I’ll be starting soon. Stay tuned!

Haha, I’m having too much fun drawing these TeamFortress 2 characters. TF2 is easily one of the best multiplayer games of all time. It took 8 years for Valve to release it, but in my opinion, it was well worth the wait.

That kinda goes along with one of my mantra’s as a developer. I try and budget my production schedule so that I have more than enough time to complete a project. While clients may not be happy with that, I’ve ensured that my project won’t be rushed, whether it be a game, web project or an application. Most people can tell just by looking at a project that some corners were cut. Fudging the schedule means that you’ll have plenty of time to ponder over your bugs, research what you need to know to complete the job at hand, and maybe even explore new areas of implementation that you’d never thought of before.

Now, don’t do this to the point that you become a flake. In fact, trying something like this when you get paid hourly is the best way for a client to drop you from their Rolodex. However, if you’re designing your own game on your own time, remember: “It takes as long as you need it to.”

Remember when I said that there weren’t that many flash game development blogs out there? I thought that the least I could do was assemble a list of as many I could find. Here goes:

Jobe Makar

8bitrocket

Interactive Crap

Andre Michelle

Patterson Consulting Inc.

Seb Lee-Delisle

Casual Game Development

I’ve composed a list of reference books for both programmers and artists. I own them all, so I can personally vouch for their usefulness. You can buy them through amazon now by clicking on them.