Of Pennies and Arcades
This is really awesome. Back at PAX Prime, Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade asked James to write up his proposal story. James did and now it’s on the site! I cannot say enough how amazingly amazing this is.

Pumpkins!
With the bitter cold of fall settling in, the smell of burning pumpkins fill the air and all we can think about is spooky specters and sweet, sweet candy. As you might have guessed, Halloween is a special time of year for Ska Studios as is evident in the kind of games we make. We’d like to celebrate this month’s fall festival with some pumpkin carving patterns!

We’d love to see any fan-made Ska Studios pumpkin designs so please send pictures my way! I will place a few or all of them over at the Art Unicorner. Of course you can always create your own pumpkin designs, you don’t have to use my patterns but if you do want some, download them below and get carving!

Download the ZIP of all the files here!

Included:
The Dishwasher Pumpkin
Yuki Pumpkin
Cat Pumpkin
Crow Pumpkin
Vampire Smile Pumpkin
Z0MB1ES Angry Face Pumpkin
Charlie Murder PunKin
Lester Deth PunKin
Tommy Homicide PunKin
Rexicutioner PunKin
Skelekitten PunKin

These patterns rely on using multiple layers and only the Z0MB1ES pattern cuts all the way through. Here is a video and written directions on how to carve layers.

Monster of the Day
As a personal project, every year since 2008, I’ve made an attempt to create a monster a day during the month of October. I wrote a little blog post about it and have made it up to day 6. I hope to keep it up until the end of the month. Check out where I am storing and will be updating them.

Oh yea and we’re still working on Charlie Murder. More on that next time!

Schenectady, NY – May 5, 2010 – Ska Studios cleared up some confusion surrounding the release of their arcade title Charlie Murder by officially announcing that the game is being developed with the band’s input and will be released by Microsoft exclusively on Xbox LIVE Arcade sometime in 2012, along with the purported end of the world.

After initially being announced as an Xbox LIVE Indie Games title, developer Ska Studios decided that the Charlie Murder story was worthy of a bigger stage. After intense negotiations with the band and some bribery, Ska Studios was able to convince the Charlie Murder crew to sell out yet again, and commit to bringing their band’s punk rock story to Xbox LIVE Arcade. As part of the agreement terms, the entire band will complete a one year counseling program at Happy Times Recovery Center in Atlantic City, NJ. Their treatment will focus on mending the strife that has kept Charlie Murder on hiatus for nearly a decade as well as addressing, among other things, bassist Tommy Homicide’s recent hoarding tendencies and guitarist Lester Deth’s addiction to other addictions. After the program’s successful completion, the entire crew will join Ska Studios as “Creative Consultants” to make sure the game stays true to the band’s epic story.

“Yeah, the band is in a tough spot, but we’re signed up for that trendy rehab stuff so we can get paid,” said lead singer Charlie Murder. “We sold out and we’ll do our time in counseling. Just know that we are no longer indie, we are Xbox Live Arcade legit and in 2012 we will have the achievements to prove it.”

For the latest on Charlie Murder, please visit us online at www.ska-studios.com, follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/skastudios or like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/skastudios.

One big difference between the previous shot: it’s 720p, baby!  Survival Crisis Z, by contrast, was good old VGA–640×480, and the previous SCX shot was 800×600 (the XNA default).  Get with the times, James!

This does remind me–I need to add shadows under characters.

Well, long story short, thought gave way to coding, and after a little bit of work, here’s what I came up with:

Brilliant, no?

If you want to play with the old SCZ (warning: won’t work on Vista, won’t work on displays that don’t support 640 x 480, may just not work in general), here’s the zip.

I’m not guaranteeing this game (let’s call it Survival Crisis X for now) will get off the ground, and if it does, everyone will have to wait at least a year for it to see the light of day, but hey, I just love posting screenies!