Be-Rad Entertainment

Check out this crazy cool wall animation.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Since I’ve decided posting every other day was taking up too much time I might just start posting videos every now and then.

Crimson Star is a WIP sidescroller game being developed by DarkSirrusGames.

The developer claims it’s about 8% completed.  So doing the math here, let’s see, carry the 1, yes, it will be close to finished in time for the 2024 Olympics.

We will be watching you, Crimson Star.  You’re almost lookin’ good.

Check out the development blog here.

C’mon people, stop posting so many comments.  The Internet tubes might burst from all this commenting.  I kid, I kid.  In reality there are hardly any comments because no one’s reading this site (Note to self: maybe I should update it more than once a month).  Why do I tell you?  Because at this point it doesn’t matter too much.  Come six months it will matter.  I’m at the bottom and the only place to go is up.  It’s exciting.

I read an article on MSN today that really hit home.  It lists and explains 5 things happy people have in common.  This moved me because we’ve been working towards our alpha deadline at my day job and so many people are just straight up burnt out and unhappy.  That’s not good for business, health, or pleasure.  WTF?  I ask you.

Read the article here

Huh, they surveyed a bunch of chicks for this article - what about those of us that are manly men?  Well, uh, just don’t worry about that for now.  The article works for any and all of us.

So… basically what it boils down to is you can be happy if you want to.  It just takes a little self awareness and effort.  If you’re happy then chances are you’ll brighten the days of everyone around you.  Then the whole world will be a better place where deer and bunnies will dance together in the streets.  And the squirrels will have plenty of nuts for winter.

And everyone will play 2d platformers.

Jasper’s Journeys is a sidescrolling 2d platformer with cute graphics.  This bunny is really well polished, smooth, and shiny.  Nice use of colors, guys.  Your goal is to collect gems for money, fruit for weapon ammo and gold orbs because they’re golden orbs.  There are also several types of powerups you can get throughout the game.  But the powerups seem to disappear when switching levels, that get a frowny face

There are a few kinks that will hopefully get ironed out in a later build, but overall it’s solid.  Here is the feedback I submitted:

Some feedback:
1. It’s disappointing to lose upgrades after finishing a level.
2. Picking up enemy loot is a bit frunstrating since they’re small and disappear quickly.
3. Main character is slightly hard to control. Less inertia would be nice.
4. Add more music, or a more pronounced constant ambient sound.
5. More save points, free save option. Maybe auto-save when transitioning levels and going through doors.

With a few small tweaks this game is sure to be a butt kicker.  Hope it does lexaloffle well!

Game: Jasper’s Journeys
Genre: 2d sidescrolling platformer yummy goodness
Game Website: Lexaloffle

A fresh new preview of the 2d platformer “Skin & Bones” has been released.  The whole game is fresh to me because it’s the first time I’ve heard of it.  Have you heard of it?  Either way, now you have.

Looks like you control 2 different characters and flip between them with the push of a button.  One of them (bones) is slow and powerful while the other (skin) is fast and agile.

Check it out here

The Hazel art directory of is filling up.  I sent one of the last art requests away and will only-probably-hopefully have 1 more medium sized request.  So all I really need are more scrolling background objects and particle effects.  There will most likely be a few more items that’ll pop up but for the most part I’m ready to actually start making some levels.

See, I haven’t started making any levels yet because I wanted my engine and art assets to be mostly complete.  This doesn’t seem possible in the AAA gaming world.  Things go much smoother when your game engine and its tools are in tip top shape and don’t break every other day.

I’ll be hitting up the independent games festival at the game developers conference next week so some more screenshots and possibly a movie of The Hazel Chronicles will be put up soon.  It would be nice to have something to show people when they ask what I do.

Carry on my wayward son.

Plasma warrior is a shout out to the original (amazing) Metroid for the NES.  First and foremost we can say not many games can stand up to the early beauties the Metroid games were (and still are) so mimicking it in any way is an attempt at trying to defeat a God.  PW doesn’t defeat the almighty, but it’s still a decent break from your daily activity.

It’s a platformer with very simple graphics.  It might have about 8 colors used on the screen at any given time.  It’s not going to win any blue ribbons in the art department.  You run, jump, get high jump boots and a couple other power-ups that’ll make you more powerful or let you get access to new areas.

The developer, Neuralscan Productions, also made PAROXYSM.  AHHHHH that cut/paste was big.

Game: Plasma Warrior
Genre: Platforming, like the NES Metroid days
Website: Neuralscan

The wonderful end of the world is Katamari Damacy hyped up on gamer fuel, or some other caffeine based beverage equivalent.  Essentially you run around touching and bumping into objects.  Small objects stick to your body and make your character grow in size.  The bigger you get, the bigger the junk you can pick up.

This game is a little whacked out.  It feels like one of those crazy Japanese games, but it’s not (well, sorta not really) (Is a clone of a crazy Japanese game a crazy Japanese game itself?).  It’s made by Dejobaan games of eastern Massachusetts.  And you know how we here at Be-Rad Entertainment feel about crazy Japanese games?  We like ‘em.  And by we I mean me.

If you decide to try this game please play through the second level, it’s well worth the effort, especially if you’ve done some retro gaming in your day.

I have a strong urge to play pac man now, hmmmm…

Game: The wonderful end of the world
Genre: Katamari Damacy pick-em-up
Website: Dejobaan Games

Castle of Elite is a platform puzzle game made by Daniel Remar.  The controls use both the keyboard and mouse simultaneously and it works great.  The character is controlled by the keyboard and the mouse is used to place/destroy blocks.  There are a limited # of blocks you can pick up.  Once you have placed/destroyed a block you can’t get it back.  It’s like it went into a black hole or was thrown into a pool of magma (you don’t stand a good chance of getting a block back after it flies into a black hole or is swallowed up by magma).

The goal of the game is to pick up all the coins on the screen and make it to the exit door/portal/rip in the space time continuum (take your pick).  There are over 50 brain teasing levels to work that gray lump in your head.  They start as tutorial levels and progressively become more difficult.

The game is free too, can’t kick that in the face.

Game: Castle of Elite
Cost: $Zero$
Genre: Platform puzzler
Difficulty: Mild brain tickles to wall punching goodness
Website + Download: Remar

 (The “new” look)

Some days are the greatest development days and some just aren’t.  Luckily I’ve been having mostly productive days lately.

For some terribly whacked out reason when Dell first sent me my laptop 2.5 years ago I thought it’d be a good idea to darken most of the art files while increasing their contrast quite considerably.  Why would I do that?!?  Because at the time it looked good.  Real good.  The fancy new LCD screen on my portable dev station looked so vibrant, especially when displaying the beautiful backgrounds in The Hazel Chronicles.

I was wrong, really wrong - sorry Sean (He’s the artist).

Looking back I can see why I’d think tweaking the contrast would look good, but it just mucked the screen up.  The screen was too busy, kinda like the new Rez on XBLA or the newest version of Geometry wars.  It really detracts from gameplay.

Lesson learned, trust the artist.