Eduardo the Samurai Toaster
by Robert DeMaria · in Torque Game Builder · 11/02/2006 (4:15 pm) · 6 replies
Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is the first game created by my game company (Semnat Studios LLC). Eduardo the Samurai Toaster is a fast paced action platformer. You play as Eduardo who is the world's first Brazilian samurai toaster. The core gameplay revolves around Eduardo being able to toast Toaster Pastries by either flipping onto them or rolling into them. Eduardo can then shoot the pastries out at other enemies. Each type of pastry behaves differently when they are launched and has a distinct purpose in terms of gameplay. In addition to being able to launch toaster pastries, Eduardo is an expert pole-fighter and has a variety of moves he can perform with his pole.
The game has no HUD, all the information you need is conveyed through Eduardo's sweatband. The sweatband changes color to indicate the type of pastry Eduardo is currently holding. The sweatband also becomes more torn as Eduardo takes damage.
We plan on having four visual themes throughout our levels. Only two themes are featured in these screenshots. However, each level will be visually distinct.
Four people are currently working on the game. Daniel Coleman directs the gameplay, does all the art and works on level design. He also co-founded Semnat Studios with me. We are working with an animator named Ian Bowie and we are contracting out the music to an artist named Raymond Gramke. I do all the programming work on the game.
Unfortunately we have been running into problems. For a long time, characters would often fall through the floor where two platforms overlap. I've been able to make this problem stable on my machine, but recent tests on slower machines indicate that this is still a problem. The game is currently running on TGB v1.1.0. Hopefully, upgrading to the latest version will fix this problem.
The problem with upgrading to the latest version is that my changes to the engine to allow for texture compression seem to cause the game to crash. (I'll be making a post in the appropriate forum section about this later.) Texture compression is an essential feature for the game. As you can see, we use a lot of large textures. Texture compression allows us to run the game on computers with video cards that don't have gigantic amounts of video memory.
The game has no HUD, all the information you need is conveyed through Eduardo's sweatband. The sweatband changes color to indicate the type of pastry Eduardo is currently holding. The sweatband also becomes more torn as Eduardo takes damage.
We plan on having four visual themes throughout our levels. Only two themes are featured in these screenshots. However, each level will be visually distinct.
Four people are currently working on the game. Daniel Coleman directs the gameplay, does all the art and works on level design. He also co-founded Semnat Studios with me. We are working with an animator named Ian Bowie and we are contracting out the music to an artist named Raymond Gramke. I do all the programming work on the game.
Unfortunately we have been running into problems. For a long time, characters would often fall through the floor where two platforms overlap. I've been able to make this problem stable on my machine, but recent tests on slower machines indicate that this is still a problem. The game is currently running on TGB v1.1.0. Hopefully, upgrading to the latest version will fix this problem.
The problem with upgrading to the latest version is that my changes to the engine to allow for texture compression seem to cause the game to crash. (I'll be making a post in the appropriate forum section about this later.) Texture compression is an essential feature for the game. As you can see, we use a lot of large textures. Texture compression allows us to run the game on computers with video cards that don't have gigantic amounts of video memory.
#2
Really cool.
11/04/2006 (2:12 am)
Really really stylish looking thing. I love the desaturated grassfield look. Really cool.
#3
@Chris: We're not really trying to make a Samurai Jack spoof. We seem to get comments like that a lot though. To clarify what it is we're trying to do, Daniel the artist and director had this to say:
"Thanks for the compliment! But it's not a Samurai
Jack spoof in any way, though I do have a lot of
respect for the cartoon and all of Genndy
Tartakovsky's work (I really loved the episode with
Ogami Itto and Daigoro of Lone Wolf and Cub). The
similarity might come because we both take inspiration
from some similar sources, that being Samurai cinema
and traditional Chinese and Japanese art. But I've
been a Samurai film fan for a very long time, before
Samurai Jack ever came about. If you're a huge fan
like I am you might be able to spot some of the visual
influences in the game. In particular the black and
white grassy area was inspired by a scene from the
superb samurai drama "Harakiri" (go rent this asap).
And there are going to be other black and white areas,
a lot of them inspired by Samurai movies. Other
locations that we haven't shown yet include bamboo
forest areas where I've been inspired by Chinese Song
and Yuan Dynasty ink paintings and old Hong Kong kung
fu movies. And the mountain in the blossom area was
inspired by the Fuji prints of Katsushika Hokusai."
11/06/2006 (1:20 pm)
I'm really glad to see that you guys like it. :)@Chris: We're not really trying to make a Samurai Jack spoof. We seem to get comments like that a lot though. To clarify what it is we're trying to do, Daniel the artist and director had this to say:
"Thanks for the compliment! But it's not a Samurai
Jack spoof in any way, though I do have a lot of
respect for the cartoon and all of Genndy
Tartakovsky's work (I really loved the episode with
Ogami Itto and Daigoro of Lone Wolf and Cub). The
similarity might come because we both take inspiration
from some similar sources, that being Samurai cinema
and traditional Chinese and Japanese art. But I've
been a Samurai film fan for a very long time, before
Samurai Jack ever came about. If you're a huge fan
like I am you might be able to spot some of the visual
influences in the game. In particular the black and
white grassy area was inspired by a scene from the
superb samurai drama "Harakiri" (go rent this asap).
And there are going to be other black and white areas,
a lot of them inspired by Samurai movies. Other
locations that we haven't shown yet include bamboo
forest areas where I've been inspired by Chinese Song
and Yuan Dynasty ink paintings and old Hong Kong kung
fu movies. And the mountain in the blossom area was
inspired by the Fuji prints of Katsushika Hokusai."
#4
11/06/2006 (1:26 pm)
I love it :)
#5
11/08/2006 (8:46 am)
I absolutely love it too. Keep it up. 
Torque 3D Owner Chris Jorgensen
Cascadia Games LLC