All your musics are belong to us.

Posted this elsewhere earlier and thought since the image is so awesome and the post became so long, it was worthy of a dev lab update.

So, what I'm thinking of doing is potentially including great indie music artists tracks in-game (with permission first of course). The mock-up image below shows how the music player (called the ES Ra(u)dio Player, pronounced Raw-d-o) dialog will probably look and shows the ability for the user to find out more information about an artist / track as well buy content from them (Your album cover doesn't need to be as dope as Big Dog Mendoza's).

From avoiDance Concept

Basically (to begin with at least) aDance gets free cool music streamed in-game that matches the style / arena theme and musicians get extra listeners / fans for their music, a bit like EA Trax but indie with included artists getting direct links and an opportunity to sell their content to potentially millions of players (that's what a top end flash game gets, I'm aiming at that floor). All content will be served via XML meaning easy live updates of songs, descriptions and links. Artists will have the ability to see how many players do what with your content (ie click the buy button or add to their favourites etc).

This is all brainstorming at the moment and an idea based on the fact that I do exactly the same thing with arena content (xml based data) currently.

Right, that's all, I need to actual get back to game development for some new content to share, back to the carnage I suppose.

If a Picture says a 1000 words how much more does Music say?

Today I'm showcasing (or rather spotlighting) some of the current music from aDance. Thus far they're 2 tracks (not including bumpers / stingers) but they may be replaced or change depending on where the development goes. Enjoy (or at least try too, ok?).

Main Menu Music

First up, the main menu music for my current game in development, 'avoiDance Concept'. This was my first track in FL Studio and all things considered I think it's pretty good, prior to this I made tracks only in ejay software (great for quick / start level track making).

Adance Concept Main Course by eternalsyndrome

Originally I was using some placeholder commercial tracks that were perhaps better then their current replacements but with my current budget (that being zero) I had to take advantage of my prior wise investments and finally get to learning / using FL Studio and my trusty Axiom 49 (it's a DAW hardware Army knife, serious). 'Hear' before are you the results of such a predicament.

This was my first opportunity to get real serious with it and I look forward to making more tracks and more importantly better at creating the sound that's in my head rather then just what sounds right or is just close enough which to this point I haven't reached yet.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience being a big fan of music and how it can set the scene, feel, mood and atmosphere for an environment, situation and creative work such as games (big fan of the retro / chip music too). It just seems to have a special God-given attribute that makes it special individually and as a part of something.

Ingame Music

Ok, so this is the ingame music track (the music you hear when playing the game, but, you knew that already, right?).


Ingame Action by eternalsyndrome

Overall I think it's pretty good and does it's job well, I'm most pleased however with it's accompanying Stinger and Bumper (I think does are the terms, if not, feel free to use them to make it so) sounds, which play after losing or winning in an arena. The technique is pretty simply really, upward chords for the Bumper and reverse downward for the Stinger (with a black key or two if I remember rightly).

You can find out and hear more tracks (if I've uploaded them already of course :D) as well as other developments of this independent game via here (naturally) and the links below. Thanks in advance for listening, commenting, following, liking, hating, stalking, stealing (ok, don't do a few of those, seriously).

ES Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/eternalsyndrome
Dev Lab Vlog / ESTV: http://www.youtube.com/eternalsyndrome
Emmunity Forums: http://www.emmunityforums.eternalsyndrome.com
ES IndieDB: http://www.indiedb.com/members/eternalsyndrome
ES IndieDB (Game): http://www.indiedb.com/members/eternalsyndrome
ES Flash Game Portal: http://www.flashgamesretreat.com

All your achievement are belong to us.

A preview design sample of the ingame achievement dialog and achievement icons (as well as some of the actual achievements that will be available for you to gain in-game!)

From avoiDance Concept - Click the image or here for full-fat version!

First ES Dev Vlog by Indie Game Developer Eternal Syndrome for Freemium Flash Game 'avoiDance Concept'.

First off, sorry for the frame drops and any other dodginess, it's my first, I'll get better with time, your help and patience! :)



The game is still in development at this point and the first vlog features some gameplay from arena1_mc accompanied by my (Leroy 'The 1nteger' Frederick - Developer) smooth vocals to boot talking about the game and vlog in general ;)

avoiDance in a sentence is Unadulterated and Unashamed Core-Gaming, Orb-Dodging, Blood-Pumping Arena action experience!

If you have watched or are about to watch this vlog I really appreciate it, to that end, feel free to Comment, Subscribe, Like / Dislike, Follow, Stalk (ok, don't do that, seriously) etc. Links & the like are below!

ES Twitter: Twitter.com
Dev Lab Vlog / ESTV: Youtube.com
Emmunity Forums: Emmunityforums.eternalsynd...
ES Flash Game Portal: Flashgamesretreat.com
 
Thanks again and look out for more very, very soon

Overall quick update and info on project 'stronghand'

General Update
So, I'm back from updating my 'Flash Skillz' so to speak which I've been doing a few months now and have begun putting them to good use. These new skills are fundamentally based on things that have created a better understanding of object oriented programming, creating reusable global classes (e.g. MathES.returnValueWithZeros(55, 3); returns the string (that's text) 055 and can be used everywhere in an as3 project without change) and just being better organised and consistent in Flash / as3 to create and test ideas quickly and efficiently (like using as3 Vectors instead of Array's when valid, I know, very techy speak :S).

I've also been looking at the free engine API's Flashpunk and Flixel where I've been looking to experiment with doing so fan remakes of classic games (they seem to be heavily retro game leaned). I've made good progress with Flashpunk but got stuck with collision (due to send a forum post for that), but thankfully I got it working successfully in the Flash IDE at least (it's meant for originally for Flex / FlashDevelop environments only). This is beneficial of course because if you do happen to have the Flash IDE, doing things like animation / interfaces is a doddle (you have to code all of this with the aforementioned API's which is a little backwards in my opinion).

Project 'stronghand'
I'm now just updating and improving my first premium flash game project aDance, codename 'stronghand' which will involve testing and adding new gameplay elements / environments, complete consistent new look, adding and adjusting elements according to feedback, completing mochi elements such as coins and social API (facebook / twitter etc), adding achievements (got the list already, but some may be arena based, so I need to account for that), improving the menu system (it's sleek already but I want to make it more engaging and entice play, I'll be looking at things such as Burnout 3, Flatout and other arena / track based progression games too) and many other tasks.

I'll have all these done by / before Monday next week and will be adding more info and pictures etc as valid around that time which will in turn help with the context of this update post and future posts regarding aDance, but for the moment here's the sell.

In one sentence:
Unadulterated and Unashamed Core-Gaming, Orb-Dodging, Blood-Pumping Arena action!

In one paragraph:
Unadulterated and Unashamed Core-Gaming, Orb-Dodging, Blood-Pumping Arena action! Avoid, Dance, Duck and Dive your way around the Danger Orbs and get to those score zones in an attempt to make the cut in the various exciting & challenging physics-based Arenas! This freemium game takes great advantage of the high-end Box2d physics engine making for a unique, exhilarating and high energy gaming experience!