Month: January 2009

Live Show on Justin.tv!

Posted on January 18th, 2009 in Gaming, Projects, Video, Web.

Electric Pegasus – Monday Nights Live – Quench Your Thirst for Combat Inside!
(Information from our show from the official Electric Pegasus thread here. The show will be broadcasting on the Dead Pirate Studios JTV channel here.)

Electric Pegasus Broadcast Schedule:
Monday nights from 8PM – 10PM CST (aka 9-11 EST and 6-8 PST)

Welcome to the Show:
The thread is here for you to converse with us pre and post broadcasts. Are you wanting to see a game we haven’t been giving time or though to? Do you want more in-depth information about a certain franchise, game, or character. Are we going over your head with what we’re talking about and you don’t quite understand what a quarter-circle back half-circle forward + short is or what the hell it does? Basically if it has to do with anything we said or did on the show or if it has to do with fighting games, you have come to the right place.

Electric Pegasus Rushdown:
Starting Monday the 19th, yes this coming Monday, Electric Pegasus will be teaming up with Flamegoat and Dead Pirate Studios to put together two hours of intense 2D and 3D fighting game action for your entertainment and for your mind. I’ve recruited two good and well-rounded (familiar with everything, we’re not tournament quality material in any specific game) fighting-game-enthusiast friends to give you a glimpse into a world that has all but become extinct here in the West. In the East, arcades continue to thrive. Arcades throughout Asia enjoy a much older clientele than the child-catered arcades that litter the West. What exactly does this mean? In Asia many arcades are adult driven places, low key. Many even serve alcohol and allow smoking inside. In this environment mature players gather to square off against each other in games of almost any arcade genre. Sadly, in our part of the world, this has all but died.

We’re going to re-educate you about the fighting game genre from the ground up. Get ready to throw out your latest installment of Mortal Kombat and your D.O.A. and get into some real man’s fighting with Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Samurai Showdown, and much more. We’ll debate the pros and cons of 2D vs 3D driven fighting game engines and the continued evolution of the fighting game genre as a whole away from its original sprite-based combat into its now full HD counterparts.

We will also be working within our network of enthusiasts to bring in other fighting game enthusiasts and competitors to join us from the studio as well as unparalleled fighting game geniuses that will join us via phone and skype. Get ready to get informed, stay informed, and find out why fighting games have been, and always will be, the most skill driven one-on-one games created. World of Warcraft PvP? Give us a break. Grab your fighting pads and your arcade sticks and meet us at the character select screen.

Games featured on our show:
Arcana Heart
Art of Fighting
Fatal Fury
Samurai Showdown
Rival Schools
Neogeo Battle Coliseum
Street Fighter 2
Street Fighter 3
Street Fighter Alpha
Real Bout
The King of Fighters
Guilty Gear
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Capcom vs. SNK 2
Tekken
(and many more)

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DJ Gear: UnholyKnight's Preferences

Posted on January 12th, 2009 in Music, Tech.

If you know me or follow me on Twitter than you have already figured out that I have an unhealthy obsession for music and DJing, but where did it all start? It started with buying Jamiroquai’s album Dynamite when it was released in winter 2005. Above the large display of CDs at Tower Records in Dallas (which has sadly closed since) were copies of the album on record. The plan was to pick up an LP frame and frame the album for my wall; It never made it onto the wall. Instead of buying an LP frame I thought it would be interesting to pick up a cheap turntable from Guitar Center to play the album. Everything about playing the record got me excited and I figured I was only a few steps away from a full, very cheap, DJ setup. The following week I picked up my second turntable and a cheap mixer.

This initial setup consisted of the Altec Lansing headphone from my computer, a Stanton direct-drive, a Numark belt-drive turntable, and a Numark DM1050 mixer. The Dynamite album was quickly joined by plenty of Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, and some other random records I liked at the time. It was about that time when I started buying records that I began to listen to and understand the differences between the genres and sub-genres. In the summer of 2006 I bought a pair of Technics turntables and since then there have been a steady stream of equipment purchases and upgrades. Fast forwards to early 2009 and I don’t even want to know how much I’ve spent on this hobby in three and a half years, but I will say I’m currently playing hip-hop, house, electro, and funk (the funkiest of funk that was ever funky – including old favorites like Parliament). Below I’ve outlined what I use and a little on why I love it.

Turntables: Technics SL-1200MK5
Technics delivers a turntable that is built well enough to withstand the bumps and knocks that accompany hauling gear around from party to party. On top of that these things are as reliable as you get when it comes to turntables. Sure there are cheaper alternatives, but once you pick up a pair of Technics its not very likely that you will need to buy another pair for a while.

Mixer: Pioneer DJM-909
The DJM-909 from Pioneer is the two channel mixer that could. It’s good for scratching and mixing. Complete with your standard cross fade controls and channel adjustments. The DJM-909 comes with a bank of built-in effects which are implemented very well and are more than enough for me. Some people enjoy using effects and layering them to create new effects on the fly. Layering is something that cannot be done on the 909, so if you are looking to play with effects a lot I would suggest picking up a different mixer and investing in an external effects unit.

Headphones: Technics RP-DH1200
When it comes to headphones sound quality is a must, but at the same time they must be comfortable to wear. The Technics RP line of headphones are definitely not the best sounding headphones on the market, but out of all the headphones I have used the RP-DH1200’s are the most comfortable to me. Wearing these for hours at a time does not bother my ears like some other headphones have.

Digital Vinyl System: Serato Scratch Live
Rane Serato Scratch Live is a tough one to explain. I went with Serato over Torq and other digital vinyl systems due to the fact that Serato is the current standard. Not only is it the standard among many DJs, but it also has the most usable interface in my opinion. Plus there are built in easter eggs such as the ability to play pong using records to control the paddles.

Speakers: JBL JRX125
The JRX125 speakers from JBL are great for indoor use. I’ve never had a problem with these speakers in an indoor environment. The bass provided by the unit is good, but as soon as you turn these on outside its apparent that a dedicated sub is needed in addition to these. Either way these are a great place to start. They drive all of my parties and many people take note and tell me how good they sound.

Wash Light: American DJ Revo III
American DJ comes on strong with the Revo III. This is honestly one of the only American DJ products I feel is worth anything. The unit comes ready to go out of the box with a built in speaker to detect the music. It does a surprisingly good job at keeping with the music and delivers a great wash-light show with plenty of variety. The unit also comes ready to be plugged into a control setup for full control over the light show. The unit is a part of the new generation of LED lighting equipment which enjoy longer lifetimes as well as the ability to run without a cool down cycle. For examples of the unit in action look up the Revo III on youtube, there are tons of videos.

Light Stand: Ultimate Support
The Ultimate Support stand stands out for the lock, raise, and lower features. At the base of the stand is an adjustment for lock, raise, or lower. In the lock position you are unable to move the stand higher or lower. In the raise position the stand will only move up, allowing you to easily raise the stand with your lights or speakers attached. The lower setting slowly lowers the stand back down for after even tear down. The system allows you to setup the stand without help from a second person. Definitely a must for those working a party or small event on their own!

Synthesizer: KORG Kaossilator
When the Kaossilator hit the streets it turned a lot of heads. In Tokyo you were hard pressed to find one of these units for months as stores sold out as soon as more arrived. Using only a touch pad and a bank of effects you, the KORG Kaossilator lets you churn out beats anywhere you may be. This can be thought of as the iPod of music creation, but there is a downside. When you turn the unit off your work leaves with it. The Kaossilator isn’t as much a tool for production as much as it is a great tool for improvisation. I wire it into my DJM-909 via the session in inputs and drop my own custom beats into the sets that I’m playing. Always a nice touch that no one else can replicate.

Vinyl Cleaning/Storage: Gruv Glide
When dealing with vinyl media you’re going to need a solution for wiping off everyday dust and also for protecting your music collection from the thing they’re normally subjected to. Gruv Glide itself, when applied, kills static electricity and also cleans minor dust and grime from your records. This means that not only is your record now clean, but its also static-free! That means less dust build-up on your precious vinyl and to prove how well it works they include a very technically advanced static detection unit (aka a packing peanut). The boxed version comes with two microfiber pads which allows for a quick wipe down of your records before giving them a spin on the decks. A single bottle of Gruv Glide works for around 150-200 records, so when you think of it like that it doesn’t cost much for how many records it protects and how much it helps.

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PC Game – LINUS

Posted on January 9th, 2009 in Gaming, Projects.

Preliminary Design
In Fall 2008 I worked on my first small, PC-based game using DirectX 9. The original concept for the game was to be a small dungeon-crawling based game where you played through the dungeons as an archer. Each room of the dungeon would be equipped with turrets, a maze, and enemies. Rooms with a maze only required the player to get to the exit of the room while empty rooms required the player to eliminate all enemies in the room before progressing to the next room. Plans for a boss at the end of the dungeon were discussed, but never realized due to time constraints on the project. In fact, the game in its final form is nothing as we had planned in the beginning.


(Click thumbnails to enlarge – Original concept sketches)

So what was the deal with not meeting our original goals? The biggest reason we were unable to realize our original design was due to the fact that this was a game programming class. We walked in on day one not knowing anything about either Visual Studio or DirectX programming. This fact alone cut our work time in half as the first half of the semester was devoted to learning how to use DirectX to make something that resembled a game. The class served as a reality check at how time consuming building a game is. Implement a new enemy, test the game. Oops! The game crashed, let’s track down why. Maybe that or the new piece of code doesn’t work as you thought it would have, its time to rewrite it or pinpoint your logic error. Needless to say, with only two programmers and one artist, you’re stretched thin relatively easily.

Finished Product
Below are some screenshots of the “final” version of LINUS (the version that was turned in at the end of the semester). The game’s main character became a robot since the artist completed the robot sprite and it was what we had to work with first and the game’s basic mechanics were altered within the final weeks of developing the game since it was apparent that there was not enough time to accomplish everything we wanted to in the beginning.

With these things in mind, LINUS evolved into a game that is best described as a fusion or Geometry Wars and Smash TV set in a desert where you control a robot that blasts through extraterrestrial enemies. The game is not about completing the game, since that is impossible. Instead its about how many points you can manage to rack up before you become overrun by the enemies and run out of lives.


(Click thumbnails to enlarge – Final game screenshots)

Even with the revised game premise and mechanics we still didn’t get everything into the game we had hoped for. Code was assembled on the last week to include two types of enemies equipped with projectiles, but we ran into issues where either the enemy firing caused the game to crash or the enemies projectiles wouldn’t register as hits on the LINUS robot. Since we couldn’t pinpoint the issues with the code quick enough, and we didn’t want to demo a game that crashed as soon as things started to get interesting, we took the two new enemy types out of the game.

A working demo might be posted here in the future. Right now I’m waiting to get final polished artwork for some bits of the game and don’t want to post the game in its current state. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on those assets soon and post a working copy of the game here.

Overall it was a fun semester project and I wouldn’t mind working on another game in the future. I’ve downloaded the XNA since then to play with development on the XBOX 360, but I’ll save my comments on that for a future post.

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