More Screenshots

Hi guys! Figured I'd post a few more screenshots here, since I've kind of been going asset crazy lately (which is a good thing - saves me from going completely insane, chopping up my hard drive into little bits, pouring them into a bowl with milk on top and devouring the soggy bits - all from spending too much time staring at walls and walls of Inventory and UI code), which - should... *ahem* should, lead to more regular devlog video posts. 

I've been reluctant to make any new videos detailing the dev process with Savage, since, well, the stuff I've been working on hasn't really been all that visually engaging/interesting. Like, who wants a video of five minutes of me going, "Hey you guyzz!! I changed some buttons! LOOK." 

Anyways, pictures! 

More fun/cool/weird/WTF announcements concerning my personal favorite pixellated barbarian to com. As always, thanks for having a peek.

xoxo, Matt

P.S. Lord help me, I couldn't control myself:

Screenshot Saturday

So I'd been taking a break from coding and I started to flesh out some other area art - one tileset in particular I had started like, three years ago. Over the last couple days I've been touching it up and creating more assets/tiles to go along with it and this is what I've come up with so far: 

Now with full on in yo' face Parallax Scrolling! (capital P, S).  

Other than that, I've been trying to tidy things up and get closer to a fun, demo build that I can have people sit down with and put some play time into. 

More updates on the way! 

-Matt

New Stuff, Old Stuff

Took me long enough. Anyway, yeah, it's right over here:  

http://www.planettobor.com/savage/2013/9/3/state-of-the-project-update

That is pretty much what has been taking up a good 16 hours of my day - nose deep in UI/Inventory systems code and coming SO CLOSE to a working state! Er... the Inventory system, that is, not the game itself, unfortunately. I do want to be finished, or pretty darn near at the end of this year, but we will see what happens. 

There has been a lot of traffic here lately, and I just wanted to extend a big 'THANK YOU' (big = caps)  and a sincere 'welcome!' to any new visitors (and returning) and let all a' ya know what exactly is going on here.

What is going on here? I ask myself that daily - and although I never really seem to arrive at any self-satisfying conclusion, mayhaps (<== spell check doesn't like this, >:]  ) I can provide you with one! ... Maybe.  

I have been pouring most of my time into the aforementioned Savage - a game I've been developing off and on (more like tearing down and destroying, building back up, repeat) for the last 3 years. As a result, I haven't been putting any time into my Comic over the past month/two months... but it is definitely something I want to get back to. And will get back to, on occasion. The comic started as an experiment with the daily-gag formula, mostly to see whether I had the chops/liked the format enough to do something like that long-term. A couple years later, I'm still not entirely sure, ha!! But I do dig a few of the characters, so I'm sure some other iteration of it will rear its ugly head eventually - however dissimilar to the original it might be. 

So there you have it! A very vague-ish, murky report on my goings on here with a series of magic 8 ball 'perhaps'es and 'too soon to tell's.  One thing I know for sure: I like making comics. I like working on video games. Expect more of both.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you didn' hurt yourself too badly during your visit. Band-aids (or, adhesive strips) at the door.

Love,  Matt

State of the Project - Update

Well, I certainly update this devlog a lot less than I'd like - mostly because I want to make sure that what I post here is worth mentioning. I don't want to update the thing when I do something silly, like: "Hey guys - I added tiny pictures to go in the inventory screen for the items!! K, bye!", or something... Actually, that IS one of the updates I've made, but I've been working on a number of other things, as well. 

The Day/Night system is coming along pretty well - I've been doing some heavy experimenting with surfaces and color blending. Here are the phases of the day, with some place-holder backdrops 'n such: 

Late Night

Dawn

Early Morning

Mid-day

Sunset

And speaking of toying around with light/color blending, here are a couple of other experimental shots of what I'm doing for some cave lighting and some CRT monitor filters, respectively: 

Spewky

Made with new-tech to look old and crappy!

Everything pictured is still in a pretty rough draft-y state, but I figured I'd share some screenies of my progress so far. I've gotta say, playing with aesthetics is exactly what I needed after having my nose buried in the UI and inventory system code for so long. Still there, but I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's (Savage) shaping up to be exactly the beast I wanted it to be from the project's inception. At one point, not long ago, I thought "Maybe I should scale everything back... go for a more true blue action/platformer with stage to stage progression", so I worked on that for a bit... And then proceeded to toss that idea right in the garbage. That definitely resulted in a huge time-til-release hit, but the experiment was worth it. I guess I just have to do everything the hard way :)

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope to have more progress to report on sooner rather than later; provided I don't decide to scrap everything and do another complete redesign - ha!! 

-Matt

Savage Gamejolt Page

If you're feeling saucy, Savage has a shiny new Gamejolt page up at 

http://gamejolt.com/, a pretty amazing platform for games.

Seems like a super fun way to keep a devlog, and an even more super-er fun way to put playable builds of your game up on there. Speaking of, I hope to have a test drive version up soon... So, keep checking back, and eventually there will be a plate of barbarian shaped cookies placed out on the table for you to consume... with milk... mixed with the blood of your slain enemies.

xoxo, Matt

Where Was I Again?

I just did a fool thing (but what else is new?): So  - I had this amazing, meticulously conceived, well rounded and (possibly) award winning blog I've spent all morning laboring over... and I accidentally deleted it. And the world is way worse off because of it, I tell you... Honest! Or, better, maybe. It's a matter of perspective (probably).

Oh well! here's kind of  what I was going to sort of say before my mouse up and decided to listen to some stupid impulse my hand suggested: We're in our new place! We made it out of the fire and landed in a much better living situation, a cleaner complex and an apartment that smells like a bunch of new stuff! Because it is. New, I mean. We've had our little Amazon shopping spree (thanks, insurance money!), received all of it and we're feeling a lot happier and more comfortable.

July has definitely kicked my ass. So much has happened: There was the fire on the 4th, and... well, that's pretty much it, but hot (heh) damn, what a loaded event! Each day after within those first two weeks felt like a whole month of their own. We are so lucky and blessed and have had so much help from so many wonderful people I can't even begin to compose another weighty run-on sentence like this! Actually I probably could, but I won't (for now). I can see the trail of red tape behind us and we're making tracks.

Here's what my shiny new "office" looked like about a week ago: 

Not demons, not deadites, not Ted Raimi in a giant, sweaty latex suit can bring old Ash (I will spare you any more fire-related jokes on that one) down - Hail to the king, baby. And thank god for buying crap on the internet. Without all that packaging material, I would not have been able to construct that luxuriant designer desk you see pictured above. I have a future in carpentry. 

I feel like I have about a bajillion (or some other equally absurd and hilarious fake number) hours of sleep to catch up on. Like that's going to happen.  I have too much to do, and I'm too excited to not do it. I think that came out right. More comics to do, a game to release this year, a shiny new podcast to do with my buddy Gabe (ya know:  that brave soul who braves the under-dark of the film industry to bring you outrageous/disturbing/funny reviews of such classics as (The) Legend of Sorrow Creek, and Killjoy, all that and more RIGHT HERE ) and... other stuff I haven't thought of yet or forgot to mention.

Anyway, I'm going to go try to fight through the aftermath of a Benadryl coma. Thanks for reading and stay flame retardant!

-Matt

The Roof Is On Fire

And it really was yesterday morning! What a crazy way to start a 4th of July holiday - opening up the front door at 6 a.m. to a wall of very angry and very real flames. Our apartment is pretty much destroyed with most of our belongings. No one was hurt or killed in the fire, but there are a lot of (something like 50?) other residents who shared the building with us that are kind of left scratching their heads and wondering where their new homes are going to be. It's been a pretty crazy day today, and the fire feels like it happened such a long time ago, as opposed to just yesterday. Lots of trying to get a hold of property management - lots of talking to our insurance provider - lots of not sleeping, ha!  

It's a pretty surreal situation, and we don't really know what's coming, so needless to say, updates on the ol' Planet Tobor are going to be a little thin in the coming weeks... at least until we find some new digs.  

We are so grateful to all the awesome firefighters who were braving the blazing inferno that was our place of residence, and the amazing folks at the Red Cross that showed up on the scene, providing everyone with comfort and information on what to do and where to go next. 

I'll keep you guys posted on the goings on here as often as I can. Thanks for reading/listening/watching, and there is lots more to come!  

-Matt

Savage Video Devlog 01

The first video footage of Savage for your ocular pleasure! And I even make the talking over it!!  

MOVING!

First off, for you awesome handful of fine folks who keep visiting the site despite my appaling delinquent lack of updates - Thank You So Much!! 

The site is not dead (though, perhaps on life support for the past, what, 7 months?? Yikes), but is definitely, finally, going through a bit of a transition.

Planet Tobor started out as something entirely different from what it's become, and I can't help but feeling like I need to shed some skin and start the process of replacing it with a newer, shinier, more personal coat. That said, I'll be moving some things around, redesigning and moving to a new domain name: www.grinningmonster.com, which is already associated with planettobor.com.

The Planet Tobor comic strip will remain intact and see a lot more love soon, thanks to me finally getting (relatively) comfortable with the development of Savage. The game is one thing that has been moving along full speed ahead and I'm excited to finally post some progress on it in the form of some videos and new screen caps.

More updates to come, and thanks for sticking around!

Mayday

So, our computers here have been suffering from a strange case of WTF I CAN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING ON THE &*@#* DESKTOP syndrome. Stupid, stupid viruses. I swear, this sumbitch is dug in deeper than an Alabama tick. Or something. I seem to be cracking it's disgusting membrane open and I've regained some semblence of control over my wife's laptop, but it still feels like an uphill battle. A big part of me wouldn't mind taking that dark and dangerous road up the scary volcano and casting into the flames from whence it came...

Anyway, in much better news, some of my music is featured in this episode of Gridlock TV; a show for cycle, car, generally anything that goes vroom gearheads.  The show is put together by my very talented buddy Eddy Montiel of Compadre Productions - watch the badassery at work:

There is also a shiny new animated intro in the works for the above show being stitched together by yours truly. More updates to come!

I ain't got time to bleed,

-Matt

Estranged

It has been way too long since I updated this site and for that I feel nothing but shame! Thanks to all you readers/viewers who keep coming in to check the comics and the pages out - that means a ton to me and I shall hence forth strive to keep this an entertaining (and frequently updated) place to visit.

I'm in the process of wishy-washy-ing back and forth with whether or not I want to choose a different hosting service and giving the site a face lift, so I apologize for any haywire behavior you might be experiencing here.

Work on Savage is going nicely - I've been pumping a lot of 20 hour days into the project ever since I finished animating the music video for the talented guys at Texas Microphone Massacre. If you haven't seen it yet you can check it out here.

The Spellbook (by super awesome Escaping Westlawn Productions), a short film I lent my goofy acting abilities to will be available for viewing soon. The director, crew and the cast were all awesome and super talented people! I'll post a link for it here when it's available for those who are into demonically posessed toys and sorcerous evils (who isn't?).

Escaping Westlawn Reel:

Two awesome fellows who worked on The Spellbook (and also comprise PointShootRecord) also threw together a production for the Austin 48 Hour Film challenge and asked me to be a part of it - I excitedly and happily accepted. The link for that film should be up sometime soon, too. 

PointShootRecord reel:

TL;DR:

Computers. I mean, wow, man.

xoxo

Feeling Animated

I've been slaving over a hot stove for the past couple of months and... wait - smell that? Freshly baked animated music video?? I'll get the butter!

The animated project I've been working on for the awesomely talented Texas Microphone Massacre is complete and available for viewing! The premiere at Elysium in Austin was a lot of fun and the band rocked the audience's proverbial socks off - thanks for coming if you made it out and if not, do not fret, the video can be viewed right here.

We will resume our regularly scheduled programming soon - thanks for all the patience and enjoy the video!

-Matt

Animayhem

... Not to be confused with anime-hem, which is or is not something I just made up. Whew - now that that's cleared up I wanted to take a moment to talk about the animated short I'm working on.

It is a music video. A cartoon animated music video for Texas Microphone Massacre's upcoming single, "In Your Dreams". Give them a listen - great tunes and I am so excited to be working with these guys!

The video will premiere at Elysium, in Austin TX on July 21st, so if you're in the area mark your calendar and come check it out!

On a more nitty gritty note, work on the video is going well despite an artform I'm not too terribly familiar with. But, babysteps toward the elevator...

Challenging, rewarding and interesting. Eadweard Muybridge was right - moving pictures are neat!

-Matt

P.S. More comics coming soon!

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program

I sincerely apologize for the lack of a real update today, but I wanted to take a moment to alert everyone to the fact that the next couple of weeks are going to be pretty quiet as far as the comic is concerned. I was recently commissioned to do a short animated project and that's going to take up quite a chunk of time - but the strip will be back to the five day a week update once the project is well underway/finished.

Thanks for reading and I'll have more strips coming very soon!

-Matt

Hooray Social Media Things

As the title suggests, I've been trying to wrap my head around Twitter (which until recently I thought was some kind of extensive digital library of exotic bird mating calls where, universally, the time honored 'tweet' was the goto favorite), creating a Facebook page for this guy, and lumping the comic feed and news feed into one comprehensive RSS feed - Mission (I think) accomplished!

You can now seek Facebook's approval in liking us and such - and following our Twitter, should you feel so inclined!

So for those that prefer feeds and such, it's all back up and running. To the best of my knowledge.

I may just be conquering my fear of the social network boogeyman. Scary.

-Matt

P.S. Check out these awesome T-Shirt designs created by my one true love, why dontcha?

New Art... And Stuff

I thought I'd throw a little mention up on here about getting rid of the RSS feeds littering this site... in that I have smote them down upon the mountain side (most of them). Having so many on here seemed a bit cumbersome to me, so I decided to leave just the one sort of catch all feed in the form of the News feed. I think.

I don't know - all this web/computation machine mumbo jumbo gives me a rage induced headache the size of a bantha! So, here's a pretty new picture I made between strips (no pun intended) that's part of a concept piece for a project I've been wanting to get off the ground for some time.

IMAGE PROBABLY NSFW

(No, it's nothing raunchy despite what the scantily non-clothed magic wielding harlot in the illustration might suggest)

But with Savage in the works, Warpaint on the back burner and Planet Tobor kicked into a 5 time a week update schedule, I might not see this project for some time. That's ok! Being too busy is a good problem to have, right? ... Unless that causes me to miss out on too many of my kid's little league games or school plays.

But I don't have a kid. Problem solved!

-Matt

Warpaint?

No, I am sorry to say no Warpaint today. For that I apologize. It will, however, be back in the next couple of weeks. There's a lot of work that still needs doing on the site and good things are in the works so expect to see it again very soon!

-Matt

Oops. But No Longer!

First (completely unrelated to 'Oops'), Planet Tobor is switching to a Monday through Friday update schedule. 5 days a week you'll get a brand new page! Now, onto the oops:

It seems like there were some dead links and images not displaying for a handful of pages in the Planet Tobor comics as well as some pages numbered with goofy inaccuracy. Fixed! I'm sure there are still some dead links floating around the site after the redesign, so I'll try to get to those as well. I guess I was putting a bit to much faith in the Force and went and switched off my targeting computer.

And what's with Gray Skies not getting updated this or last week? Gray Skies is getting it's own shiny new website, that's what! Along with the launch of a new Gray Skies site, Eric is also going to be launching his own hub site to house all his awesome artwork and creations. He's a very crafty man.

Details forthcoming forthwithly!

-Matt