Recently in Jack the Eggman Category

Over the holidays I spent an afternoon trying to get Jack to walk.

Jack, he's the guy who is the main character in some little game I'm thinking to write up.  I scribbled up some animation frames of him walking, then loaded them up into a little program I cobbled together to show animations.

It looked like some Junior High kid drew a little frame at the bottom of each page in his Chemistry book and then flipped the pages with his thumb.  Horrible!  Blech!

I'm not really sure why I was surprised at the results.  I basically did exactly that, except I scanned the pages into a computer and had the computer flip the pages for me.  Same difference, neh?!

So, I guess I need to come up with a better way to get the animation frames built.

I've been mulling over the prospect of putting together a game over the past month or so.  I do this every once in a while.  I ponder and consider and think and plan.  Sometimes I actually do something about it.

Anyhow, I have this vision in my head for the game, how it will look and feel, ways to make each level feel unique yet still feel like a cohesive part of the game, etc.

So, a few days ago I did a couple sketches to start defining what the main player might look like.

I wanted a chubby, curly-headed, round-faced farmer type guy.  This was my first pass:

I wasn't very happy with this one.  He looks retarded, and of an undetermined gender.  Also, his fingers are... wrong.

So, I swung around and made another pass.  Here's the 2nd round:

I was much happier with this one.  He looks confident, yet lovable.  Cheerful, yet determined.  Just the sort of character a game might need.  I think I'll play around with him some more and see what comes out of it.