The Twelve Days of Christmas

2 more days to Christmas!

A first hand announcement: For those who want to experience Christmas and lives in PJ/KL, you are welcomed to CDPC's Christmas celebration, starting at 7.30 on Christmas eve. CDPC is located at Subang Square behind Taylor's college. Contact me for details.

I'm sure many of you are shopping for christmas presents.

For the snowballing publishing giant EA, after securing the exclusive rights to the NFL license(a move that enraged many gamers. links: petition online, how to fight back, news) , they are moving on to acquire 20% of Ubisoft's share to put in this year's Christmas shopping bag(deal subject to approval by US regulators).

As for me, my christmas PS2 dream will remain unfufilled, as the price of the console continues to hike up. (As a consequence, I'm stuck to FIFA2005 for the rest of the year)

Here are some interesting links on a certain Christmas song:

A link from Kelvin Chaw that debunks some common misunderstandings on the song "the Twelve Days of Christmas". Mere childs play? Which days do the 12 days refer to? Have a read.

The song is the most spoofed and parodied Christmas song, a bit overcooked if you ask me.

However, Grumpy Gamer's take on it(the twelve days of crunch time) is one of the funniest I've encountered, especially if you're familiar with the struggles and difficulties of game development.(today's update is on the 9th day of Christmas)

Al Lowe's CyberJoke entry for today on the 12 days of christmas ends in a lawsuit.

Alright, I'm off to my holiday!

Coming attractions at GameWorld: my dream of playing for Arsenal came true

The Best Footballer in the Universe

To thank Ronaldinho for featuring in my previous series on Maxis/Hotlink, I got to blog this.

The ever smiling Brazilian is crowned world footballer of the year 2004 by FIFA!

The fact that he is crowned despite winning nothing for neither Brazil nor his club Barcelona, speaks volume about his impact on the field. (on second place, Thierry Henry won the Premiership title for Arsenal, while on third place, Andrey Shevchenko won the serie A for AC Milan)

Now lets have a retrospective view on the winners of both the FIFA world footballer of the year and the Balon d'Or(European footballer of the year). Here are the list of the past winners:

year	FIFA	Balon d'Or(out of 10)
1991:	mattheaus	papin
1992:	van basten	van basten
1993:	baggio	baggio
1994:	romario	stoichkov
1995:	weah	weah
1996:	ronaldo	sammer
1997:	ronaldo	ronaldo
1998:	zidane	zidane
1999:	rivaldo	rivaldo
2000:	zidane	figo
2001:	figo	owen
2002:	ronaldo	ronaldo
2003:	zidane	nedved
2004:	ronaldinho	shevchenko

When is the last time a defender is recognized by the big two yearly awards? Matthias Sammer of Germany, precisely 8 years ago.

When is the last time a goalkeeper received a "footballer of the year" award? Lev Yassin, the legendary goalkeeper from USSR received the Balon d'Or a good 'ol 41 years ago.

A good defender is often identifiable by his dogged persistence, no-nonsence, pragmatic and cautious approach to the game. These qualities are not as marketable/appreciated as say, a dazzling dribble or a fantastic goal. Do you see a great tackle being replayed on TV 5 times from different angles? Do you see any documentary titled "A Compilation of The Greatest Tackles in the Universe"? A good defender brings out the best in an attacker. No good defender = no good attacker. Imagine defenders as waiters serving the Ronaldos and Zidanes of the world awards after awards on silver platters.

A good goalkeeper is judged by the least amount of mistakes he make. Goalkeeper that can make you laugh does not receive awards. Think along the lines of Fabien Barthez and Rene Higuita. How often do you go "whoa its about time that dude make a mistake!" when a goalkeeper flumbers? Similar to programmers in games, they are expected to make nil mistakes, bug free!

Should the football world give more credit to goalkeepers and defenders ( and also defensive midfielders for that matter )? What are your views?

Are you Sick? The Cure - Indie Games

1. Sick of celebrities such as Monica Bellucci and Brooke Burke manifesting in games? (OK, maybe not)
2. Sick of the lookalike, playalike games in the market?
3. Sick of T&A, blood and gore taking the place of creativity in games?
4. Sick of licensed games?
5. Sick of sequel games?

If your answer is a big Yes!! to any one of the above, its time for you to check out some indie games.
Without big publishers and licensing deals breathing down their neck, these independent studios enbaled a free flow of creative juices in their game.


1. Gish
Gish can do more things than Mario, Sonic and Jazz JackRabbit combined. If you played Half-life 2 and loved what the gravity gun did to the gameplay, you will love Gish as much, if not more.

For example, not only he can stick on rocks, he can stick on rocks and roll around, best of all, he can stick on rocks, roll around and then use the rock that was stuck on him to crush enemies!

My only complain is that the learning curve is a bit steep. However, once you get a hang of the gameplay, the process of exploring and learning what little Gish can do is very rewarding indeed. Oh, did I mention Gish is a lump of tarball with eyes?


2. BreakQuest
This game received the "Best Arkanoid Game of the Year 2004" in Game Tunnel. You must be thinking, "What?! Someone actually pays attention to games made out of a paddle, a ball and bricks aplenty??"

On a side note, if you underestimated the game because of its name, you are forgiven too. Breakwhat? Yawn. WhatQuest? Yawn.

You will not be forgiven however, if you prejudge the game before actually playing it!

The wacky level design in BreakQuest simply had me hooked. On one level, I would be bouncing my balls(no pun no pun!) off colorful hoops, on another level, I would be carefully thinking how to clear lines of bricks by switching and matching their colors. The finishing of a level had me looking forward what the brilliant physics engine has in store for me the next level. And because each level is unique in design, thats a whole load of fun waiting to unleash itself!

The game had me awed and stoned at the multicolored explosions at one stage, had me cursing at pesky pests at the bottom of the screen, then suddenly had me moving my mouse back and forth frantically to adapt to the wicked effects of picking up a cursed powerup.

For men, this game lets you blow things up. For women, it has pretty graphics. So what are you waiting for?

For more independent games, check out Game Tunnel.

Completed: Kung Fu Fighter for s700i

Development on our latest mobile game offering, the unoriginally-named "Kung Fu Fighter" was officially wrapped up yesterday.

The game is based on the upcoming movie "Kung Fu Hustle" by Stephen Chow. It will be embedded in the Sony Ericsson s700i phone, to be re-launched in conjunction with the release of the movie.

I know, the word "Hustle" is conspicuously missing from the game name. I have no idea why too, given that materials and scripts to the movie were provided.

Naming screw-ups apart, I am actually quite happy with the project. The development of the game took about 3 weeks. Sounds like a miraculous feat eh? On the programming side, a combination of pre-planning and programming on paper actually saved the day. On the art side, I believe they endured hell as the game is heavy loaded on graphical assets.

I'm excited not only because it is the first IP based game that I've worked on, nor is it only because it is our first game to be embedded into a phone. Primarily, its because this game got to be one of the very few games that I was involved in and am not ashamed to talk about. Kung Fu Fighter takes a step back from the conventional button -mashing fighting games, and rewards players with kick-ass animation with minimal key presses. The design perfectly suits casual mobile gaming.

To not sound like I'm promoting my own game, I got to tell you the down side. The phone is overpriced! Pick the phone up if you feel a bit rich this holiday season, and hope you will enjoy the game. (you don't have to pay a cent for the game)

Here's Yow Chuan's post on the game, complete with some eyecandy.

Edit: Ow did an unofficial postmortem on it

How to convert me to a Hotlink/Maxis user, Part 4

A shimmering smile.
Like what I said in the last post, one that causes hearts to throb and knees to go weak.
Who else could be more worthy than Siti Nurhaliza? More charming than Siti Nurhaliza?

Answer: Ronaldinho



The Brazilian playmaker from FC Barcelona smiles when he scores a goal, smiles when he got caught offside, smiles when he makes a tackle, smiles when he is tripped by an opponent, and I suspect, would even smile if he scores an own goal.
Ronaldinho is currently contesting for FIFA player of the year.
In my opinion, he should be also contesting for Nobel peace prize in football. If there is currently no such prize, one should be created to honour his contribution of lighting up the game.


Add in the final nail to the coffin, "Aktifkan".



(and also a line of fine print to scare off consumers who love to read fine prints)

Do I see any converters yet?

Conclusion: Using an ad campaign, this is what it takes to convert me to a Hotlink/Maxis user. Either this, or improve the services. Which one is easier? Go figure.

How to convert me to a Hotlink/Maxis user, Part 3

While Vince Chong looks like a geek that charms, he doesn't look capable of conquering and ruling the universe. A closer look reveals that he has a set of err... unique teeth.
Who is that someone capable of ruling the universe with a no-nonsense teeth defect, yet at the same time sporting a geeky look?



Who else but Jaws, the villain from the Bond series that gave James Bond a run for his money in "The Spy Who Loved Me". His character was so loved that like Arnie in Terminator, he makes a return as a lovable good guy in "Moonraker".
Oh yeah, as a hobby, Jaws chew stuff with his metal teeth, definitely not someone you would want to mess with.

For the next installment, we will find out who has that smile that causes hearts to throb and makes knees weak. Stay tuned!