PixlBit

Birthday Blog Thing

 

 

Here's a longer version of the Binky the Clown vid.

Hello everyone how are you? Today I am 26 years old, or was but something unexpected happened that prevented me from posting this. Not sure exactly how to feel about that though, but it's another year that I am around on this planet. As with all of these birthday posts, I usually like to reflect on what happened during my previous year, both victories and failures and anything in between. I'll be honest with you all, I don't even know what to post here, but I guess we can celebrate together? I already started early, would post an image here of my early present, but am afraid since it's NSFW-ish, I might get banned. No it doesn't show nudity as private parts are "covered" but you can find it on my twitter. Anyway, let us celebrate together, and outside my early present, I actually have a surprise to announce towards the end.

As usual, life is like a game, you win some and you lose some. I find life to be like an rpg of sorts, in many rpgs you are given choices that determine the outcome of the game, just like life, different things happen depending on what you do. And each year on your birthday you level up, you take in all the experiences you've learned and apply them towards future goals, like level grinding. Each day is an experience point, and on each day you do something different like learn a new skill you didn't before, or tried something new. You apply that and wait till your birthday to see what you have accomplished.

You also have goals in life, which we can call missions or quests. Your main objective is whatever your goal in life is. Sidequests can be things you do to get closer to your goal or different things you do to learn new things. It can also be your job. Let's say your main goal is to buy a car, you need money, so you go to work to earn money for your main objective. But depending on how you earn that money depends on the outcome of your main goal. You also have events in your life like in a game, or cut scenes or what not, they can be things you see unfold, be it good or bad.

Along the way, you meet people which can be npcs, friends/ally's, or even enemies. Npcs are people you meet who give you useful information on what you need to do, like a teacher teaching you something, or sometimes they can be completely useless. Friends and ally's are your party members who will fight/be there for you when things get tough. That and generally have a great time. And enemies can be the people who give you a bad time and/or are hindering your goals and progress. Yes there are romance options, but that really depends the person. That one has yet to happen to me yet.

In a way, life is a game as I've explained, it is flawed but really is the best I can come up with, as I'm not one to try to give a deep explanation of things. You really have to be good at the rpg game of life in order to get the best possible ending. Each game of life for each person is different, it starts different, you progress through it differently, and your goals are different. But one thing that might be in common is that you're all working towards a future.

Well, like I said, yesterday was my birthday, and I got a call from my relatives in Mexico, cousins, aunts, uncle, my grandmother, wishing me a happy birthday and they even sang for me. It was really nice of them and I was getting a bit teary-eyed. I was planning on posting this blog yesterday, but apparently, the day before, on April Fools, we got a call from our electric company that there would be a power outtage on our neighborhood. It would start the next day with the outtage starting at 8pm and power would be up again at  6am. I thought it was an April Fools joke, but they weren't kidding. My brother's and I were playing Smash Wii U and we were going to go on a final round, and apparently the power went out. At 7pm. An hour earlier than they said.

Lucky enough, like every household should have, we had flashlights, LED lights and candles to light up the house. It was crazy, the whole neighborhood was dark and everyone was going outside their houses. You could only see the lights of cars passing by. Places like stores and restaurants still had power, so only homes would have a power outtage. I recharged my 3DS beforehand in an event it wasn't a joke.

I had to celebrate my birthday in the dark with my family. It was an interesting experience, and atleast I can remember it as that time I celebrated my birthday in the dark hahaha... But I had a great time too and got some presents as well which was awesome, except that I couldn't use any of them. I even forgot the power was out and thought my consoles were broken, fail moment there. My 3DS ran out of power which sucked, but I still had my DSi around and played on that instead and decided to play some Soul Silver, Henry Hatsworth, and 999.

It was interesting and fun in a way. It did make me realize how fortunate we are because people out there don't have electricity. Honestly, the only bad thing that came out of this is that all our food in our fridge went to waste. Bad thing was that we had shopped for groceries at the time before we got that call. Not sure if we can get a refund for this from our electric company for our groceries, I remember there was a power or water outtage last year in a city near here that lasted a week or so, and the department of whatever went out did give refunds for expired food in the fridge. But such is life, you win some and you lose some, but at least we can now look back at it and laugh and learn from it.

Other than that I watched the new Justice League vs. Teen Titans animated movie which was really good. Wouldn't be surprised if it was way better than a certain comic book movie I've been hearing about. But at least DC Animation is always great.

Oh yeah, since I don't want to post something too soon after a blog, here are some things I plan to do:

Pixlbit Questionaire will be back. I haven't abandoned it, I stopped around BaD because I was focusing on those posts and kinda left me burned out afterwards, which is why I kinda needed a break. There's alot of topics worth discussing so they'll be back as I want to step it up and see if I can add a poll option to topics I think that might benefit from it.

I'll continue my Pokemon History posts soonish. Just have to re-edit some things as these are old posts and have to correct any errors and make them shorter since I remember saying running out the character limit once. There is one thing I will reveal there that I've never told anyone.

Mystery Gifts will make an appearance at least 2 more times, a birthday one and a recent purchases one too.

amiibo Farm will return as I want to update that on all the new ones I've gotten since then.

Other than that, I plan on doing special posts depending on the ocassion like if a certain game or hardware has an anniversary. Or if I recently replayed a game in a while and post my thoughts if I still feel the same way about the game then and now.

And now, a surprise and think of it as a way of giving back I guess. It's something I've been keeping secret for a long time now and only a few people here know what it is.

Ready...?

...

...

...

...

...

...This has gone too far huh?...

Okay...here goes...

I am working on a game of sorts. Yes you read that right. Okay, dumb origins story time: I always wanted to make a game of sorts, but honestly never knew how to start and what to do. But then I decided to try out a free demo of a game creation tool. I got most of it and started working on something to see how everything worked. Sprites, physics, backgrounds and stuff. I then had to buy the full version of it to get everything I might need in order to do what I wanted to do. I've been working on it for a while now, but don't get your hopes up, as it's nowhere near ready. End of dumb origins.

Here's the thing, I don't know how to code, I am learning as I go through it and so far I'm doing pretty good with it. It isn't easy, but it isn't impossible. I'm using as many sources as I can to learn new things, like coding physics depending on what I want to do with said game. New techniques like sprite animation to clearing a stage, and making sure that all the enemies don't blow up if you shoot just one.

I'm not alone doing this though, my brother is helping me with art like sprites and any art asset I need for the game and probably artwork for the game. My little brother is helping too like giving me ideas that I've been applying to it. I am in charge of coding, like sprites, programming them, and everything else to make sure the game doesn't crash or end up like a Bethesda Game. But it will take me a while till everything is complete since I am basically doing the heavy lifting.

The only thing I might hit a speed bump with is much and sound effects, as I don't want to use any of the free ones on the internet. That and the usual legal hurdles with copyrights and trademark stuff. As I don't want a nice gent in a black suit knocking on my door. Plus...how to release it. I don't want to use Kickstarter or crowdfund it, as I find it that's the easy way out, but not knocking on anyone who does use it, but I'd rather just do it myself. I heard Good Ol Games don't charge for putting up a game there, and they can help you if you need some funding, though they will take some money off your sales to pay them back. I've also been researching some free game publishing platforms, but this is something I shouldn't worry about now as the game isn't near finished, but something I shouldn't forget. And no, we are not hiring.

The game we are making is a 2d shooter. Originally, my plan was for a 2D platformer that my brother had an idea for, but that's actually far more complex than it sounds. Trust me I tried experimenting with it for a while and wouldn't even be talking about this at the moment. A 2D shooter is less complex than a platformer, but still isn't easy. You have to make sure everything works, like make sure when you shoot at an enemy it dies, and make sure you have animation for everything, make sure your backgrounds move, and that you can move to the next level when you defeat all the enemies. Yes there will be boss enemies. It may sound generic, but we are trying a different thing with it when it comes to the bad guys here. It wont turn heads, and wont be innovative, and obviously wont be the next big indie hit, but hope you guys enjoy it when I do finish and put it up for sale. 

Price point I'm asking for is $59.99 to make up for all the time and effort I'm putting into this as well as covering trademarking and commercials. Just kidding, I'm planning on asking $1.99 for it as that seems reasonable for what kind of game this is. Wish I could actually show something, but since we haven't copyrighted or trademarked everything I'm afraid that someone will claim something as their own. Heck we even haven't come up with what we are going to call ourselves. Maybe I'll atleast show an art bit at some point in the future. So, wish us luck in this.

Well that's about everything that happened on my birthday and what my secret project is. Thanks for reading and later.