Episode 37: Project Monkey, Cost and Shaders

     Hi guys! I decided to talk about the progress I've made on Project Monkey and realized I haven't posted anything about it since January 2013. Sixteen months ago! How time flies. As I said earlier, I had to take a one year hiatus from actively developing the game so that I could face my final year in the university properly, but I continued to passively work on it by recording my ideas, searching for better methods and tools for the project and using my compulsory final year thesis at school as a whetstone for my game programming skills. You can read more about (or download) the software I created in the process here, and if you don't know what Project Monkey is, you can check out my earlier posts. In this post, I'll be talking mainly about shaders and how they affect the look of the game.

Khuutra screenshots. Left: Cel-shading. Right: No shader

Episode 36: Check out the app/game thingy I made as my Final Year Project

      So I just finished my fourth year as a physics student in the University of Ibadan and like all final year students, I had to submit a thesis which usually devolves to almost a hundred pages of boring research work that isn't actually useful to anybody or the design and construction of a simple device which applies certain principles which I should have been taught during my stay in school. I'm an anti-usualist (stole that word from Hilltown Bionic's dictionary) so I choose not to do a research on a topic that has already been researched a million times (what's the point of research if it isn't trying to uncover new things?) or build something that no one would ever use after I get a score for my project. I decided to make a physics game and dress it up as an academic project.

My Ideal Gas Law Simulator in Simulation Mode

Episode 35: Nigeria in Call of Duty Game

     Good day dear readers! It's already the month of May and I haven't blogged at all this year. I've been really busy with my final year in the university (between sports, socials and academics). I planned to make four blog posts this month to make up for it, but I may end up making five this month as this post wasn't planned. However, something happened today (May 2nd, 2014) that provoked me to write. Activision announced a new game, Call of Duty: Advanced War and the reveal trailer opened my eyes to how bad Nigeria's reputation has gotten.

A Screenshot of Lagos State from the trailer. Note: Game takes place in the near future