Chrome Extension: Print This Frame!

A client came to me yesterday with a problem: He couldn’t print a webpage in Chrome. I look and sure enough, clicking “Print…” in Chrome yielded a page that wasn’t the full page. Why? Because the website he was viewing it on put stuff in frames. Yuck. The 90’s, right? (I know I was guilty of using them back in the days of Angelfire when having your browser being able to upload files to a webserver was a Big Deal) So what did I do? I developed a Chrome extension. It wasn’t too bad. Continue reading

#1GAM May 2014 Entry: Money Game

I heard about #1GAM before but I never had the time or drive to participate. I decided to enter something, no matter how small for May 2014. May’s optional theme was MONEY. Since time was short, I went with the first thing I thought of: (even though normally this is bad, but this would also stop me from second-guessing myself) use money to buy platforms. I thought this was a novel idea. Continue reading

Drop Herder

“Drop Herder” was designed in mid-late May of 2011 for a 3rd party. Their requirements were to make a game for kids teaching them about diabetes treatments. The toughest part about designing this game – I think – was the age range. They wanted kids ages 4 to 10 playing this game.

Think about that for just a moment: age 4 to age 10. That is QUITE the range. Going from not knowing how to read to wanting to play “cool” T-rated/”tween” games. I think I managed fairly well considering.

The game design is simple: you move a drop of insulin from one point to another in the human body. Once that point is reached, the player is taught something about diabetes.

I think the only thing that I wasn’t happy about after I finished this was that I forgot the explain the secondary purpose of the parent taking a picture of the child’s head. Besides being used in-game to describe to the player the concept of “you,” (remember, ages 4-10 here) and as a profile picture it would serve as a nice transition scene into their body. Imagine taking a picture of your head and then slowly zooming in on it until you’re inside your body. That seems like it would be fun/cool to me if I was 4 or so.

Download: Drop Herder GDD

A Duo of Designs

Here are two more design documents I cooked up in the middle and end of January 2011 respectively: “Junkyard Dogs” and “Mario Kart – Wudang Mountains.” Both were designs made to fulfill requirements by 3rd parties. “Junkyard Dogs” is a 2-4 player design set in a junkyard where players have to construct and control a rail gun and harm their opposing team members with it. Think of it as “UT2K4 mixed with Minecraft.” Man, I loved me some UT2K4….

Download: Junkyard Dogs GDD

“Mart Kart – Wudang Mountains” is just as it sounds: a Mario Kart racetrack set in the Wudang Mountains of China. It was my first time designing a racetrack. I think my only complaints with this design are:

  • I didn’t pick a Nintendo character to theme this track with. (e.g., DK Summit as in Mario Kart Wii) I do have some ideas listed down at the bottom at the document, but I didn’t pick one and left it open to discussion.
  • The track design is too simple. I thought the track design would be tough enough due to the obstacles I put in the way.

Download: Mario Kart – Wudang Mountains GDD