Space Ruckus: The Great Unfinished Game

First, a little background: Space Ruckus: The Great Invasion began as a fledgling 3D GameStudio project. Very little design work was accomplished, and so, we made the decision to migrate everything to a new engine. That engine was Torque. It was our hope that it would be an overall more flexible engine to work with. In hindsight, more design work was actually done with 3D GameStudio. It soon became evident that our small team was in over their heads. This is an age old tale. Boy plays video game, boy seeks to design video game, boy realizes that it is harder than it looks.

We may not have built a working game, but we did accumulate a great deal of production material in the process. After consulting with many of the other team members, I have decided to release that material. At spaceruckus.com, you will find Concept Art (some more horrendous than others) from the heyday of the project, Music Compositions that were recorded by two budding guitarists, 3D Models that were designed by an up-and-coming 3D artist, and some now ancient (3D GameStudio & Torque) Programming Assets. While there, be sure to check out the new Media Center, where you can sample a wide range of material from Space Ruckus: The Great Invasion.

It is a shame that we could not finish the game, but hopefully, we have all learned something from this experience, and will be a little wiser in the future.

Merry Christmas from the Haleys

A few days ago, I had a rather neat idea for a video. My Dad video taped virtually every Christmas between 1988 and 2006, and almost always had everyone say "Merry Christmas!" So, just in time for the holidays, I put together this montage.



I was not able to do anything quite like this last year (since my Dad had just passed away, and last Christmas was anything but memorable), but I think that enough time has passed now that this should not be too depressing.

Space Ruckus: The Great Unfinished Teaser

In 2008, I had an idea for a short (but sweet) teaser trailer for the Space Ruckus project. My intention was to show that the project was still alive, but not waste too many resources in doing so. I began by writing a scene by scene description of the events that would unfold in the teaser trailer, and then put together a quick (and dirty) video mock-up with those descriptions timed to some (crappy) music from the project. In doing so, I managed to get a few of the other team members to drop whatever they were doing before, and help out with this little side project. First, Trevor Howard composed a much more fitting music track, and then Micheal Cross converted my scene by scene descriptions into a living, breathing storyboard.

Around the same time that this was going on, we were in the process of bringing a new 3D artist up to speed on the project. His first assignment would be animating this new teaser trailer. Sadly, as seems to be the case with this project, things did not work out. The 3D artist in question later left the project, but not before submitting at least a few renderings. Those renderings are not present in this video because, quite frankly, they were in an unfinished state. What is present here is Trevor Howard's music track, accompanied by Micheal Cross' storyboards.

This is finally being made public because I feel that it is a shame that this material was simply allowed to collect dust in a private folder. If anyone likes this, I may release more material at a later time.

The video can be found on YouTube, and the individual assets can be found on the media page.

From the Graveyard: From the Graveyard

Did I just blow your mind? It is a blog about a blog.

Last month, I once again attended Comic-Con, and following that, wrote a blog about my adventures in San Diego for the second year in a row. It was called Tales of Comic-Con. A short time later, I started thinking about E For All Expo 2007, and the fact that I had never written a proper blog about it. Call me obsessive compulsive, but I wanted to have a blog about every convention that I had previously attended. If I posted a blog about E For All Expo 2007 without explanation, I knew that someone would inevitably say, "It is about damn time that you wrote about this." So, I came up with a harebrained idea. A blog about the dead.


From the Graveyard - A blog about the dead.

In the process, I became a bit sidetracked, and instead of writing about E For All Expo 2007, wrote a quaint little piece called The Adventures of Kat McClone. It was about a computer game that I never finished, and for good reason. However, I wanted to do something with the material, but was not about to release the game in its entirety. You see, my cat played the part of Kat McClone, and he passed away a few months ago. So, I was feeling sentimental about everything that I could find baring his likeness. Writing about Kat McClone's adventures did have one upside, though. Micheal Cross liked the idea enough to begin his own project, but I cannot say very much about that right now.

From the Graveyard: The E! False Hollywood Story - Part 2

I bet you thought that I was going to hold this one back until next weekend.

Night of the Dead Living

A local celebrity made headlines today when he rose from the dead. The coroner had this to say, "I have never witnessed anything like this before, and I have been in this line of work for thirty years. When the body first arrived, I did not know what to make of it. It almost appeared as though there were two men stuffed inside a suit. When the body of the man stood up, and simply walked out of the examining room, I was flabbergasted."


News Now, because News Later is not really news at all.

Now, we have that man with us. He calls himself Conrad Sheldon, and he has quite a story to tell us all. Ahem, it all began on March 23rd, 2003... (two hours later)... and that is how I discovered the lost city of Atlantis, and thwarted the Nazi regime. Back to you, Ken. Up next, we dig deep into the scandal surrounding Mayor Goldman. CUT!

So, that is how The Big Con would have begun. Before that was even on the drawing board, though, meelWORM and I were trying to get Conrad Sheldon into Good Old Adventures (Martin Kool's fancy little online world). I drew the AGI cells, which would later be used in a variety of other programs. Soon enough, Conrad Sheldon popped up in Good Old Adventures as a playable character, and the world was never the same again.

From the Graveyard: The E! False Hollywood Story - Part 1

Just who is Conrad Sheldon? Tonight, we investigate the man, the myth, and the mispellings misspellings.

Mr. Cromer's Wonder Emporium

Hey guys! In order to make any sense out of the Conrad Sheldon story, we must journey back to the night of March 23rd, 2003. The night was hot, wait no, the night, the night was humid. As usual, meelWORM and I were chatting online about a wide range of topics. At some point, we discussed Chris Cromer's AGI Web Site, and the fact that it had been rather absent of activity as of late.


The birthplace of Conrad Sheldon.

In typical mind melding fashion, meelWORM and I concocted a brilliant scheme. It was really quite simple in nature. A new member would register at Chris Cromer's AGI Web Site, and bring out the best (and worst) in the existing members, but we were not content with simply developing an average personality. We had to make things more interesting than that. After all, nobody wants to see an average circus freak.

This new personality was going to be an illiterate buffoon, with a 3rd grade education, and absolutely no previous Internet experience. Truly, a sight to behold. Moments before the first post, meelWORM coined the name, Conrad Sheldon. He said that he made it up off the top of his head.

As time went by, Conrad Sheldon evolved into a Sierra Online nutcase, and even opened his own Sierra Web Site, which remains online to this day. If the music does not leave you in stitches, nothing will. With the launch of said web site, news of Conrad Sheldon spread quickly, and topics began to appear on other community forums, such as The Subspace Channel, Tierra Entertainment (now known as AGD Interactive), and many others.

From the Graveyard: The Adventures of Kat McClone

Warning: This story contains a few raunchy bits here and there. Read on at your own offensive risk.

I was planning to begin the From the Graveyard series with my untold E For All Expo 2007 adventure, but in the process, became a bit sidetracked. As some of you may know, my cat Sonic passed away a few months ago. What most of you may not know is that I was once working on a homebrew adventure game starring Sonic as Kat McClone. I have been reluctant to discuss said game because, quite frankly, it was downright awful. However, I am feeling a bit nostalgic now, so bear with me for a moment.


Space Ruckus VI is just around the corner, I swear.

Anyone that visited the Goalsoft website in 2000 may have seen Kat McClone on the logo, and thought to themselves, "What the fuck is this?" Actually, they may have thought that about the website as a whole. Was anyone else still using frames in 2000? Anyway, I am here to clear up at least part of the mystery. I will leave the untold (and uncensored) history of Goalsoft for another time.

In 1998, I became greatly interested in game design, and quickly sunk my teeth into a piece of software known as Klik & Play. It was published by a United Kingdom-based company known as Europress. I kicked around a few game ideas, but only one of them ever saw the light of day. It was a little known game entitled Space Ruckus. Somehow, that sounds so very familiar to me... Where was I? Oh, right...

Space Ruckus 2.0 is Live!

As I said a week ago, I have been working on a new web design for the Space Ruckus site. Well, that new site has finally launched...

"The design features a new logo by Jovani Torrentez, several pieces of previously unreleased artwork by Allen Barrett on the new media page, and a special series page, which chronicles the history of Space Ruckus."

There were inevitably a few things that I wanted to finish by today, but did not have time for. The top script (which features special occasion logos) is forthcoming. Also, it is worth noting that the old Space Ruckus web site can still be found at http://site1.spaceruckus.com. However, it will no longer be maintained.

As usual, Space Ruckus could always use more help. Please refer to the new team page to find a list of openings (keep in mind that this is still a volunteer project).

Space Ruckus 2.0: T-Minus Seven Days

There is no doubt that the paint is rusty on the old web site. It has been online for about 4.5 years now. The code has become unmanageable. So, the entire web site is being redesigned. This time, it will be nearly fully driven by CSS. To make life a little easier, certain sections of the code will even be broken up into virtual SHT files; team.html, for example, will look something like this:

< !--#include virtual="header.sht"-- >
< !--#include virtual="table1.sht"-- >
< !--#include virtual="team.sht"-- >
< !--#include virtual="table3.sht"-- >
< !--#include virtual="footer.sht"-- >

The end user will not see this, of course. They will simply see the contents of the SHT files combined into a fully operational web site. This, alongside the CSS mentioned above will indeed make the new web site more manageable.

The new web site will be launching on Monday, July 14th, and will feature more frequent updates than the old one. The game, Space Ruckus: The Great Invasion, is still in development, and will be released when the team feels that it is ready.

A whole lot of things

At the moment, I'm getting things together for a public meeting. I've got an ever expanding portfolio for various projects, and I'll be sharing quite a bit of content. Among other things, I'll be handing out glossy prints, and recruitment sheets during a special recruitment session. The public meeting will be taking place in the Los Angeles area. If you would be interested in attending, let me know.

We're still working on SR (http://www.spaceruckus.com). We've made a few releases recently, such as model renders, music samples, and a teaser trailer. We have several very talented people on the team now. In fact, two of which have actually had involvement in the production of film and television series. We're making great strides to push development forward, and expect to have the game ready sometime next year. Our message forum is located at http://forum.spaceruckus.com. If you haven't already, feel free to register, and stick around. If you're interested in a position, please refer to the openings on the team page.

There are a few other projects brewing in the background, such as our proprietary engine (we're using Torque for SR, but future games will use our in-house engine), a comic book, and Israel Alvidrez's Low Income movie. For the most part, though, SR is our primary focus.

We haven't forgotten our roots, though, and while it's still very much a work in progress, this retrospective on Goalsoft may interest you: http://www.spaceruckus.com/retrospect.html

Sadly, the other Goalsoft web sites have been shut down, so you won't find too much of the old content online. I've stored everything safely away, though.

Gridline Games Tycoon

This fall, the game worlds of Gridline Games leap from the computer screen to the amusement park scene. Well, not really. Although, I am designing a park with RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 entitled Gridline Studios. Here are a few screenshots of the work in progress.

Overview of the Park:


Ticket Booth:


Plaza (with Hicksville visible in the distance):


Swashblood Isle (with Ralin V visible in the distance):


Original Concept (Goal Soft Studios):

Conrad Sheldon's The Big Con (First Draft, Summer 2003)

Welcome to Hicksville, Ohio. One of the trashiest towns in America and the world.

The Story:

8:00 P.M.

The first thing you see is an on air sign that lights up. Then a view of the studio with a camera lowering to get a better view of the news people. Conrad Sheldon arrives on stage to give a public speech since he had won the privilege to give a speech on TV. He wrote the speech himself. Finally the cameras are rolling. Conrad begins to give his speech. Meanwhile in another part of the city in an abandoned warehouse a group of crooks are watching the broadcast. The man in charge is captivated by this person on TV and orders his group to have him kidnapped. The other two guys leave the room. We continue to see the broadcast back from the studio. Finally it ends and Conrad gets up and leaves the stage. Conrad looks for the exit and finds himself in the back alley. Quite suddenly two guys run up and toss him into a bag. They load him into their van and take off. The title screen appears with the van driving down the road, street lights passing by, the street moving, and cityscape in the background zooming by. Also, maybe the tires have some effect of movement as well. The title "The Big Con" appears and the opening credits appear. Finally after all this is done the next scene appears. The van docks into the abandoned warehouse and Conrad is unloaded. Conrad is brought to the man in charge and a few words are exchanged. Conrad tells the man in his usual style of language that somebody will find out he's missing and come looking for him. The man says that wont be a problem since he has been replaced with a look alike. Throughout the game there will be scenes that cut back to this look alike trying to live with Conrad's unusual family. The man seems hasty to give away his full plan. He looks Conrad over once more and then tells the other men to load Conrad back into the van. The men go off into another room briefly to further discuss their plan. Meanwhile Conrad sits tied up in the back of the van trying to think of a way out. Soon later the two men return to the van and start the engine. The van pulls out from the warehouse and takes off. The man in charge walks out and says a few words. He says that things are going just as he has planned. He mutters some stuff under his breathe. To which only he can hear. Then he makes a sinister laugh. Meanwhile the van arrives at it's destination across town. An old science lab. Now what could the crooks want from that place. They park in front of the building near the entrance. The two crooks get out of the van and prepare to unload Conrad. They pull him out and drag him into the lab. They enter a lab station on the second floor and set Conrad on a table. What in the world could this be all about Conrad thinks to himself. One of the crooks prepares a needle. Conrad faints from the shock of seeing a needle. The crook inserts the needle into one of Conrad's arms and removes a blood sample. Conrad awakes and jumps up. He knocks one of the crooks over onto the ground as a reflex action. The downed crook yells out to the other crook to stop Conrad. Conrad trips down the stairs into the lobby and runs for an exit. He manages to make it out a back door. The door slams shut behind him. Conrad has found himself in another alley.