sumiguchi.ca is now online

I have posted a permanent link to sumiguchi.ca, my web site, on the right menu. It is a little low on content right now - just hosting my game: Santa's Sweatshop.

I have been working on a new GBA game that is almost like a guitar sim. I have put a concept build together and passed around to a few friends. The feedback was pretty positive and I think I know how to turn it into a game. It would not be unlike other music games like Karaoke Revolution and DDR.

I have been working only on the gameplay engine for this, but need to start considering graphics. I have asked a friend of mine that is a graphic artist to help me out in that department - hopefully he will!

I have been a proud owner of a GBA since the launch of the micro in September. I really can't beleive how much I like the GBA - so much in fact that I plan to pick up the DS Lite.

Unfortunately, one thing has bothered me - no accessories are available for the micro!? I wish they could have found a way to make the standard GBA plug fit in the micro. So I sent of an inquiry to Nintendo to find out why there are no accessories in stores and was a bit suprised by the response:

The accessories for the Game Boy micro are not available at local retailers, because it is a limited edition system and we do not know how long it will remain on the market. To find out more about the Game Boy micro and the Game Boy Advance SP you may want to visit www.gameboy.com and www.nintendo.com.

Am I the only person who didn't know this was a "limited edition" system? Oh well, even if I had known, I probably would have picked up the micro over the SP. I guess they do sell accessories on nintendo.com...

I have to take this matter into my own hands and build my own accessories....more to come!

Just got a Gamecube

So it was about 4 months ago when I picked up my GBA Micro and since then I have become a big fan (again) of Nintendo. Programming for the GBA has become a hobby of mine and along the way I have been playing some really cool games like WarioWare and Mario Power Tour Tennis (or something like that).

I have been playing my Xbox very happily for the past 5 or so years and I love it. XBOX is definately the first persion shooter king in my opinion. From Halo to Half Life 2, there have been a ton of fantastic first person shooters, and those that were on multiple consoles, the Xbox version always seemed to have the edge.

But there is more to gaming than just first person shooters! I didn't see any good justification to pick up the 360 at this point. For sure it looks like it is a fantastic machine, and online is awesome but I think I will hold off for a few months at least. There is still some good gaming left in the Xbox with a some notable titles that I am still looking forward to playing through.

I did need something new though, so I picked up a Gamecube. First impression is pretty good - I picked it up used with a stack of games. I don't have, but am looking forward to playing Power Tennis, Donky Konga, Zelda, Resident Evil and a few others.

This has put a bit of damper on my gba development, but I am slowly making progress! My next game is going to be a guitar based music game - using Krawall GBA, HEL2 and HAMLib.

I hope to put out a Proof of concept version of the game within the next couple of weeks.

The End of Santa's Sweatshop

This marks the end of Santa's Sweat Shop, my entry into the 2005 Drunken Coders development competition. It was a great little project and I had a lot of fun.

If you want to see my blog entries for the development of this game, they start On Dec 12, 2005, found here: http://sumiguchi.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_sumiguchi_archive.html

This blog will continue to be dedicated to the homebrew development work I am doing. As mentioned in a previous post I am doing some experimenting right now with HEL2.

If you have any questions about Santa's Sweatshop or are looking for the binary - please let me know by posting a comment here or emailing me (sumiguchi gmail.com)

Missed the top 5! :(

Well the results of the Drunken Coders First Annual Christmas Compo are in!! Too bad for me, I didn't make the top 5!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to play all the games (since the DS emulator scene is still a work in progress) but I can take comfort in the fact that the #1 and #2 games were both really well done!

Still waiting to see what the judges thought of my entry - hopefully some feedback that will help me onwards and upwards!

I am thinking of stripping out the Audio and gamesaves to make this Multiboot compatible for all the MoviePlayer users out there. Let me know if you are interested in playing Santa's SweatShop on Multiboot!

I am now working on my next game, but really just in the experimental stage. Peter Schraut has just released his Beta2 of HEL Lib - and its has some pretty cool stuff in it. Check it out at www.console-dev.de!

Thanks to Peter for posting Santa's Sweatshop in the featured projects!!

...and on to the next!

I am looking forward to finding out the results of the DrunkenCoders competition! Results are announced tomorrow!

Since then I have been doing a little thinking about what I should do next on the GBA. I have a few ideas, but they require that I start to tap into some areas of the GBA that I am not familiar with - so I need to do some learnin'.

Right now I am interested in some of the really cool gba demos that I have seen posted. I am thinking of creating a demo using the new HEL 2 library that Peter Schraut is releasing soon (beta is now available).

Drunken Coders competition is over - Entries available for download!

As they promised, the Drunken Coders have made all the entries available for download on thier web site. I encourange everyone to check out the entries - there is a lot of hard work packed into that RAR file!!
I have got all the GBA entries on my micro and I was pretty impressed with the games. I haven't spent much time playing them yet, but am looking forward to it!

I got a couple DS emulators, but the don't seem to be very stable - so I have only seen a few of the DS entries - which also looked pretty good!

As for my entry - Santa's Sweatshop - well this is my first publicly released game (well one of my first ever games!) so I am very interested in getting any feedback I can. If you liked the game - great! if not, tell me what could have been better.

If you do like the game and played through all the challenges - please post your scores in a comment and I will make sure the best get into my hall of fame!

Here is a quick updated set of screenshots of Santa's Sweatshop.

Santa's Sweat Shop - submitted to the competition

After about 6 hours of testing/fixing on Santa's Sweatshop yesterday, I submitted it to the Drunken Coders dev competition!! This is my first GBA game that has ever been "released" and I am very excited with the prospect of people playing my game!

I think the Drunken Coders will be posting the games/roms to the public starting tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing the other games / demos that have been created for this competition. I haven't done anything with the DS, but downloaded an emulator today so I can check out the DS entries as well.

Regardless of how the competition turns out, I have to say I have really enjoyed this experience! It has been a lot of fun and a lot of work. I think I have produced something that I can be proud of - I really hope others enjoy it!