Mancala: Final Release

July 2:
Anyway so the point is that I'm making a small game that shouldn't take me more than a week to do. I'm not going to guess on a release date yet, since I always underestimate, but it shouldn't take too long.

July 7:
As for Mancala, I've changed some code and it's working better, but I'm not focusing on it as much cuz I want to learn Flash 5. So I'll probably finish it soon.

July 10:
The programming aspect of Mancala is pretty much done, now I just need to write up the instructions on how to play. I may have it finished by Monday, assuming I don't find any other bugs.

Today, August 1:
Released! Finally! I don't think any of you knew this, but I've had a beta up on the AndrewAnimation Games page for a week ;-).

Anyway, gameplay is simple enough and is all explained in the rules.

You can play the game from this link, or go to Andrew Animation Games.

Have fun! Or at least as much as you can with a puzzle game.....

My Stupid Comuter / Progress?

Just like to start off with a weird occurence last night:

How often do you wake up at 3 AM to hear the Windows Vista logon sound? Right, probably not too often. Well apparently, my laptop crashed in the middle of the night (despite the fact that it was off), and then turned itself on again. I opened it up and it was running, except all my windows were gone. And I tend to leave a lot of stuff running (IE, AIM, HTML editor, Flash, etc.), so I had to reopen all of it.

And the icing on the lie cake: this is the second time that this has happened. I think I'm gonna call Dell tomorrow, cuz this is getting real annoying. And my printer (also Dell) occasionally turns itself on too. So my house is either haunted (which it probably is), or Dell has some kind of weird timing chip in their stuff.

And now, to Mancala:

You're probably expecting me to talk about Mancala, the progress I've made, how close I am to finishing, or something like that. Well the short answer is: I've made absolutely NO progress. I haven't been working on it that much, but I have a few excuses.

1) I've been playing around with Flash, trying to create a platform engine. It's not going so well (I really need a new version of Flash), cuz there are like 0 tutorials out there for Flash 5, and most of the other code is incompatible. I could just give up, but I'm still trying....

2) I've been playing Super Mario 64 on my PC a lot. I found out, though, that I need 50 stars until I've unlocked all the courses. Of course, I have 42, but they weren't easy to get. And they aren't getting any easier from here.

3) Movie class. Not much to say about this, but I will be posting the videos on Youtube once they're done. Look for them sometime next week or the week after.

4) I have actual customers that I need to do work for, and I can't spend all my time making/playing games.

I have no idea when it's going to be ready, but hopefully it won't be too much longer. I know you guys are half-intersted in playing it once it comes out.

Final question: would you like me to release a demo of what I have now? It's mostly done, even though you're pretty much guaranteed to beat the game in one-player mode. That's what I'm spending all my time on, in case you were wondering.

Fell free to comment.

My Life

Anyway so there have been a few things going on in my life lately. Not sure you care, but I thought I would tell you anyway.

1. Movie Class
runs for the whole month. We've actually made two movies already, and we only started on Monday. We have full permission to put our stuff on Youtube, so check my channel to see if I uploaded anything at the end of the month. Both of the movies are really quick, without a really complex plot, but they're kinda funny. Like WJUK's Legend ad. So far, I'm only in one of the movies, but I'll probably star in a few more.

2. Super Mario 64
is a pretty good game. Why am I bringing this up? I just downloaded it via emulator onto my computer, and it's a lot of fun. My friend downloaded it a few months ago onto his wii, but never plays it. I got tired of waiting for an invitation to his house to play it, so I downloaded it on my computer. Granted, it's not as good as it could be. I have to use arrow keys to move him, so I'm always falling off the edges and losing life, but I still like it.

3. Vermont
is where I am going to be leaving for vacation soon. It's a tradition of mine to take a lot of pictures and make them into a video, even though I've never put them on Youtube. Maybe I will this year, though. The videos are kinda funny, you guys might enjoy them.

The programming aspect of Mancala is pretty much done, now I just need to write up the instructions on how to play. I may have it finished by Monday, assuming I don't find any other bugs. So look for that game on my site. And I'll let you know here when it's done, of course.

New Video, Update

Happy 4th, sorry I didn't post sooner.

VideoGuy916 (10:18:39 AM): Hey
AwesomenessFTW12 (10:18:42 AM): hey vidguy
AwesomenessFTW12 (10:18:51 AM): happy 4th
VideoGuy916 (10:19:02 AM): You too
VideoGuy916 (10:19:22 AM): Do they have a fourth of July over in England?
AwesomenessFTW12 (10:19:55 AM): to celebrate their defeat?
VideoGuy916 (10:20:09 AM): No
VideoGuy916 (10:20:26 AM): But they still have a fourth of july
AwesomenessFTW12 (10:21:05 AM): really?
VideoGuy916 (10:21:12 AM): Yes
VideoGuy916 (10:21:30 AM): It doesn't just jump from the 3rd of July to the 5th of July
AwesomenessFTW12 (10:21:42 AM): lolz
VideoGuy916 (10:21:47 AM): Yup

In case you didn't notice, I put a new video up on Youtube.
Skunks: The Movie
It's basically just some footage of some skunks that came out onto our deck. Use that link or click on the video bar over there ----->

As for Mancala, I've changed some code and it's working better, but I'm not focusing on it as much cuz I want to learn Flash 5. So I'll probably finish it soon.

And a personal update, I will be in Vermont this weekend! w00t for vacation!

The Next Big Thing

For those of you wondering what my next big project is, this post should explain it.
For those of you wondering why I think you care, why are you reading this? Why don't you just go back to where you came from ;-)

Anyway so there's this game I own called Mancala. It's a puzzle game that involves moving little marbles from cup to cup based on the number of marbles in the cup (don't worry, I'll put more rules in the game than that). It's actually quite an interesting game, and I'm worried that you won't really get to experience it with what I'm doing, because of its display.

This is by no means something I came up with out of my head like Maze Adventure. In fact, some historians believe that this is the world's oldest game. How bout that? So I can't take complete credit. I owe cavemen something. This game really is "so easy a caveman could do it"! (If you've ever seen Geico commercials, you know what this is about. If not, I feel sorry for you.)

There's actually an interesting story behind why I'm doing this. See, I got this game about two years ago. Last summer, my dad, who is a database designer (these computer smarts run in the family) programmed it. At the same time, I tried to program it, but I didn't know enough about Javascript at the time. Now my dad's helping me program this game, and this is kindof our way of father-son bonding. Most of the time this involves playing catch in the backyard or something like that, but I guess everyone has their own method.

See, Maze Adventure taught me a lot about the code, stuff like loops, variabes, math stuff, and even some stuff that I didn't even know Javascript could do. Now I have the knowledge to make the game, and make it work right. It actually took me three hours on the train ride home last Thursday (when I went to New York) to get the basic gameplay working. Now I'm spending hours rewriting that code to work in some of the other little rules in the game.

Anyway so the point is that I'm making a small game that shouldn't take me more than a week to do. I'm not going to guess on a release date yet, since I always underestimate, but it shouldn't take too long.

And according to my Flash 5 lessons, I'm more than 11 hours away from the "Advanced" chapter, which is 6 hours long. This is gonna take me a while........