Game Design – Kevin Gulling

Coaster of Carnage VR – New Trailers, Official Release Date

keving — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 16:45:11 +0000

Happy Halloween!

With the Steam release pending, I’ve decided to share the new trailer for Coaster of Carnage VR that will appear on the Steam store here as a Halloween surprise. Many of you may have been following the development since the announcement last year (2016), and may know that just recently the title was Greenlit on Steam by our fans! So first of all, a big thanks to all who visited the greenlight page and chose to upvote Coaster of Carnage VR! We have been working hard at ARVRCADE to bring you an “Early Access” version of the game for Halloween, unfortunately, it will likely premiere on Steam on or around the first week of Nov. But as a bonus for all those that purchase during early access, we are planning on giving it a Christmas twist that will be accessible in December! I’ll leave a link here to it when the store page is finally online! [http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/737260/?beta=0]

If you aren’t familiar in Coaster of Carnage VR, players ride an abandoned roller coaster in the middle of a spooky, horror-filled carnival. Here’s the newest trailer that highlights Vive use, where rather than a headlamp, the Vive controller is utilized as a flashlight!

The upcoming release will be an “Early Access” version which is a status available in the Steam store used to release an incomplete, but fully functional game version. So not only will it be great for some scares throughout the year, but coming October of 2018 when the game is scheduled for official release, there will be many new scares, features, and improvements! Those with early access will be able to offer ideas for the next scares, and those with ideas that we use will be given a spot in the credits, also the Christmas version that will be available in December, so make sure you check it out!

PS thanks to everyone who came out Friday night for the premiere party! Here’s some shots of your reactions:

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How to embed 360 pictures on your website – 1000 AE Sneak Peak

keving — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 10:44:44 +0000

With the emergence of VR, 360 degree video and images have become a popular form of media across the web. Facebook allows users to embed these images directly simply by uploading them. But how do you post a 360 image on your website or blog? 360player.io is a great resource for developers that accomplishes just that. Simply sign up for a free account, upload your 360 image/video in the proper format ( equirectangular 2:1, also for many players metadata for the associated image may be required). On Facebook you simply upload the image as you would any other image and as long as the metadata and format are correct, it is automatically converted to 360.

A 360 degree shot looking at Sol II from the satellite Lua: ARVRCADES 1000 AE for Vive/Oculus

360 image before processing

If you are wondering how you can capture these 360 degree images, there are different ways to accomplish this. You can capture real 360 pictures with the Android app Google Cardboard and Cardboard Camera available in the Play store. If you are interested in capturing a 360 shot of your project, 3d model(s) or game, there is a bit more to it. (Contact me for more info).

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Agar.io Strategy Guide, Hints, Tips, Legal Cheats, Hacks

keving — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 23:28:59 +0000

Agar.io Strategy, Hints, Tips, Cheats and Hacks!

Agar.io is another great online massively multiplayer browser game/app utilizing socket.io. You start out on a large square grid as a cell around 38-45 mass (It seems that sometimes you spawn on top of mass particles, so you can get a little bonus right from the start if you are lucky). There are little hexagonal particles of mass that spawn randomly on the map, and you gain mass by gobbling up these small bits of mass. It’s sort of like Pacman meets Odell lake. You can also gain mass by eating smaller cells, so when you start the game you are on the very bottom of the food chain!

Agar.io Beginners Guide

Objective – In FFA the object is to gain mass until you reach the leaderboard to show off your massiveness! There are also daily missions which give you coins and “DNA” if completed. In Rush mode the object is to be the largest cell when the timer expires.

Viruses – Viruses are the green spiked circles, and spawn at random around the map. A virus can be a safe haven for a cell of smaller mass. For cells larger than the virus, running into a virus will cause the cell to split up into 16 different pieces. This can be a good if you are able to keep all your cells because when you are in 16 parts you can eat viruses, but more commonly this can be your downfall. When nearby cells spot a cell being split by a virus, a frenzy of sorts begins. Cells from all over the map will risk there little cell lives just to try and get a piece of you, often times at their own peril.

Cell bursting on virus – Agar.io

Mass Ejection – Press ‘W’ on the keyboard to eject mass in the direction you are traveling. There are many reasons to eject mass, but most commonly it is used to transfer mass from one cell to another. If you see two opposing cells doing “feeding” each other in FFA, watch out, this is most likely a team! (Teams dominate FFA, go figure).

Split Mass – Press ‘Space’ on your keyboard to split your cell in half, ejecting one half in the direction you are traveling. The most common reason one would opt to split in half is to “eat” another cell. Make sure you are more than twice the mass of the cell you are trying to eat, or it will fail and you will either not be able to eat the cell you targeted, or if you overestimated your mass by too much, the cell you target can even eat you! Another common use for this function is to avoid being eaten entirely! When being hunted by larger cells a well timed split will insure that only half of you is eaten, and you will live to see another day! If your cell is smaller than 38 mass, you will not be able to split).

Strategies – There is one strategy that works fantastic for me most of the time. This method involves spending about 5 minutes or so farming mass particles and avoiding all larger cells, and maintaining a friendly relationship with cells in your size range (chasing a slightly smaller cell is usually fruitless, and will likely get you both killed!). Also it’s wise to keep in mind that when you are a small cell, you are a huge target! Trust no one! In the video below I’ll show you how to use this strategy to make it onto the leaderboard in about 10 minutes.

Of course one of the most popular strategies is the social game in Agar.io. Feed the right cell and you might have made a friend for life (of your cell)! But watch out, there are those who will eat you even if you do feed them. A good sign that a cell is willing to cooperate is if they eject some mass back at you in exchange. Also beware of traders though! About 50% of the cells that try to make friends, do so only to eat cannibalize their friends! This is a strategy that I don’t really recommend, as it may be a quick boost, but generally you will make an enemy for life by doing so, and getting revenge is one of the sweetest things to do in Agar.io!

With a good teammate it’s easy to dominate the map!

Hacks/Cheats – It’s likely that some bad hacks exist for this game, but I’m not going to be covering any hacks of that sort. There are “legal” hacks that I will focus on instead. The most common being using your name field to communicate to other cells with language or symbols. A popular use of this is for teams to use a “tag” on the beginning of their username, so that they can easily be identified as a teammate no matter what skin the cell is using. For example a couple popular groups are “MK” and “FBI”, and when they play they generally have a large team working together to easily dominate the entire map for hours on end! Another popular use is to mention teams in your name. Usually a cell with the name “team” is willing to cooperate, but still watch out for the predators, not every cell named team is actually friendly!

Another simple hack is to log on every hour and collect 20 free coins. When you want to play, if you have a couple hundred coins you can pick up a nice boost that lasts for an hour, which can be very helpful!

Now to the good stuff! If you want a real edge over the competition, you might decide that using ‘W’ and ‘Space’ are not the easiest keys to use. Sometimes you really have to mash that ‘W’, and sometimes you have to be very precise! Using a programmable input emulator we can change those keys to whatever keys we like! I am using GlovePIE, an old but still working PIE utility. FreePie is another one. There are others out there, let us know in the comments if you know of any other good PIE’s! The script I like to use is making the left mouse button work as ‘W’ in addition to ‘W’. If you need to eject some mass quickly, you can mash both the ‘W’ key and the ‘LMB’ and eject an incredible amount of mass very quickly! Download the Agar.io GlovePIE script.

Pro Tips – Now that you know the basics, here are a few pro tips to remember:

The longer you hold down Space to split your cell, the further you will eject half your mass. This is helpful for reaching cells that are far off.
You probably shouldn’t trust anyone unless you know them personally. Agar.io players are treacherous!
If a cell that is slightly larger than you has almost encapsulated you, don’t split, don’t eject mass, just stay on course and try to direct your cell into the particles in your path. Your opponent will be unable to collect any particles while following you, so after collecting enough particles, you will grow bigger than the cell chasing you. My my, how the tables have turned! This is also generally a sign that you are up against a newb, most vets know that the smaller cell is faster!
When you are small, sometimes you can find a giant cell and use it as parasitic host of sorts. Most large cells won’t risk trying to come too near to a giant cell so it can be a safe haven at times.

If you like this guide please subscribe to my blog! See you on Agar.io!

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Rust Skin “Slave Tank Top” T-Shirt Design – Gear for your Slaves

keving — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:26:30 +0000

Slave Tank Top Rust Skin

A tank top for your hard working slaves. Now if your slaves wander too far, your neighbor will know to blow their head off and send ’em on back home.

Support this skin by visiting Steam and voting “Yes” and adding it to your favorites it:

“Slaves”, also known as “Workers” in Rust are players that do utilitarian work, such as gathering wood and stone. Using slaves in Rust enables clans to build large bases fast. The concept is simple really, generally it involves finding some players with little experience who are interested in joining up with your team/clan, or just trying to get a decent start in the game without getting killed so easily. Depending on who you slave for you can generally rank up to a normal clan member eventually after hours of hard slaving!

If you play Rust and are interested in working as a slave to help build some of Rusts largest and most badass monuments and buildings, add me on Steam and I’ll give you the details, such as our current server and such. If you are a dedicated and hard worker we will even pay you in skins (which are worth actual money)!

It’s not always bad to be a slave in Rust, but watch this hilarious video by faceless as they wrangle some fresh slaves for trade on the market XD

Some tips for fellow slave masters:
-Don’t ever let your slaves into the treasury until after so many hours, about 10% of the volunteer slaves are actually trolls looking to reck your base! (true fact)
-Don’t give your slaves guns, it makes it too easy for them to kill you and take yours, slaves should be equipped with hatchets and pick axes and if you are a kind slave master, a “Slave Tank Top”.
-Don’t kill your slaves and laugh at them. While this may be entertaining to you, I find that usually your slaves will get bored of this behavior and eventually move on.

If you have any ideas for future skins/mods, hit me up on Steam, or by email, or leave a comment below!

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Carnival Coaster of Carnage VR on Steam Greenlight

keving — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 10:08:06 +0000

Coaster of Carnage now on Steam Greenlight

This Halloween take a true thrill ride on a deserted roller coaster through a spooky carnival! Coaster of Carnage is a short virtual reality roller coaster ride with a Halloween horror theme. Guts and gore, clowns and cadavers, blood and bones, and a cohort of Satans rejects! What could be more fun? Not intended for the faint of heart.

If you want to help Coaster of Carnage get the Greenlight from Steam, please check it out here and give it a like, a share, or a comment!

Coaster of Carnage will be available for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and a mobile version for GearVR, and Google Cardboard.

Special thanks to the following for donating assets to the project:
Timbre, TheSubber13, tweedledee3, sironboy, ivolipa, Jaylew1987, dheming, thefaceless and djol! Without you guys donating to the community, indie games like this wouldn’t be possible! Thanks again!

Edit: Release has been pushed back to 2017 so that we can launch the Cardboard, GearVR, Rift and Vive version all at the same time! Make sure you give us a thumbs up on the Greenlight submission so that Valve picks it up in time this time around

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Altspace Now a Platform for Live Entertainment

keving — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 10:00:01 +0000

Live Events in Virtual Reality!

We all knew it was coming, but how well do these events fare?

Screen capture of Reggie Watts, live on Altspace

Last night Reggie Watts performed a 1 hour standup live on Altspace for hundreds of viewers utilizing a new addition to Altspace that they are calling “Front Row”. Now a lot of you know that I was creating a live social platform in VR at the same time as Altspace (Multiplayer VR) but Altspace has taken my idea to a new level and I commend them for the work they’ve done, they are doing a fantastic job!

Altspace, for everyone!

Altspace can be ran on the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and even GearVR and Cardboard! For this reason Altspace is currently the best option for a social experience in VR, because of the broad spectrum of hmd’s supported, which includes over 90% of VR users. One of the reasons I am discontinuing support for Multiplayer VR (besides the fact that it only runs with legacy pre 0.6 sdk) is that there were not enough Oculus Rift users alone to populate the rooms enough to be entertaining.

Some of you who haven’t been to a live event in VR, or have yet to use Altspace may be wondering how such an thing works? in my opinion it is much like going to an event in reality. At the Reggie Watts event there were people in the back of the room, away from the stage, having conversations. People up front nearest the monitors (the audio source for the live audio feed) bobbing their heads and dancing to the music, and of course just people watching the entertainment!

Connect with me on Altspace: KevinGulling.com

Also big thanks @reggiewatts for being one of the first celebs with some vision of the future! It was great meeting you, funny as hell! Come back to VR soon!

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Diep.io Strategies, Walkthrough and Builds

keving — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 16:05:04 +0000

Diep.io Strategies, Walkthrough and Builds

If you haven’t heard of Diep.io then you have been missing out. Never has controlling a small circle that shoots small circles been so entertaining!
Diep.io is a multiplayer browser game that requires no downloads or long signups. Simply enter your name and start playing!

Diep.io Walkthrough

The game is fairly simple, you enter your name and press enter to start. Use the arrow keys to move and the mouse to aim. Click the LMB to fire your cannon.

You start out as a small tank

The objective of the game is to get points and there are 3 ways to earn them.

Destroy the yellow blocks, red triangles and blue octagons.
Destroy another player
Destroy game generated projectiles (pink triangles)

You can destroy things either by colliding with them or shooting them with your cannon. Be careful though, other players will shoot back and collisions also do damage to you!

When you earn points you increase your XP, when your XP reaches a certain level you level up. Leveling up can grant you stat increases. Pay attention to the bottom right of your screen, the stats menu will popup when you have enough XP to level one up. There are 8 stats that you can increase: Health Regen, Max Health, Body Damage, Bullet Speed, Bullet Penetration, Bullet Damage, Reload, and Movement Speed.

There are two basic modes. FFA and Team Deathmatch. FFA is a free for all, no teams (even though some people do team up, Pro Tip: you might see people spinning around and not firing at you, they are indicating that they want to partner with you), while Team Deathmatch is a two team battle, Red vs Blue.

Diep.io Strategies

There are two main strategies in Diep.io

Fight

Aggro (Projectile)
Speed (Melee)
Precision (Projectile)
Hybrid (Combo of the above)

Flight

Aggro (Projectile)
Speed (Melee)
Precision (Projectile)
Hybrid (Combo of the above)

It’s important to decide early on in your build which of these 2 major strategies you will adopt. Fight or Flight!

Diep.io Builds

I’m not going to go over the 10’s of popular builds, I’m just going to go over a few that I came up with*. It’s important to note that the build orders are not as important as some people say. Basically if you are going for “Fight” you will want to start out building Max Health and/or Health Regen. For “Flight” strategies you will want to start out leveling up your Movement Speed.

Fight

Fight/Aggro – The OctoArmor is a great offensive weapon

The OctoArmor can match almost any build 1v1, but be careful, this build is susceptible to a double team! The other great thing about this is the ease of play. Simply fire and rotate slowly, and go for the middle! You can climb the top 10 pretty fast, but as soon as people get wind that there is a king octotank, they will team up to usurp you so it’s usually short lived. To make a build that is less powerful in 1v1 battles, but also less susceptible to double teams, take one away from Bullet Penetration and add one to movement speed.

Fight/Speed – The “Bomber” is a high speed melee attacker

I call this the bomber because it is similar to a Kamikaze fighter. The tactic here is simple, use your weapons as propulsion and crash into the opponent to deal damage. I’ve also had success taking a point away from the reload and adding it to speed (Just hit 110k with it then had to answer the phone Then some punk killed my idol tank).

Flight

Flight/Speed – “The Squid” is great for quick getaways

Machine Gun Squid Build

I call this build “the Squid” because it sort of reminds me of a squid “inking” and fleeing a predator. The mechanics of this build are simple enough. Use tanks that have recoil like the Destroyer or the Machine Gun and use the recoil to help propel you backwards at a faster speed.

Flight/Hybrid

This build is under-powered in my opinion, and even though I have reached first place with it, it was short lived and it took me about 10 lives to do it.

I’m not going to rate any of these builds because the game is constantly being updated and important values are being modified to try and keep the game balanced and avoid a “Broken Build” scenario. But I think it’s safe to say that these builds will continue to stay competitive for some time. I think we can expect the “Bomber” build to be downgraded in the future, I find it pretty powerful in both deathmatch and ffa.

If you happen to see KevinGullingCom roaming around, add a [K] tag to your name to show that you read this article and I won’t fire at you

*I’m sure there are many similar builds!

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Noah’s Ark VR Experience – Oculus Rift Arrival Date!

keving — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 11:17:40 +0000

Today is a momentous occasion for many of us. The first round of Oculus Rift CV1’s should be arriving in the mail today! It is also a momentous occasion here at my studio for today we release

Noah’s Ark VR

Noah’s Ark VR – Developed by Kevin Gulling

Developed by Kevin Gulling in cooperation with Immersive Faith, Noah’s Ark VR is based on the Biblical passages Genesis 6:1-20.

One of the first of its kind, Noah’s Ark VR sets you the middle of a stormy sea on a creaky wooden ark. In this demo you can simply walk around the main deck and witness God’s might from the safety of your Ark.

You can download Noah’s Ark VR for Oculus Rift today from ImmersiveFaith.com for FREE!

Recommended Specs:
GTX 970 or equivalent
8GB of Ram
Intel Quad Core or equivalent
Windows 7+

Special thanks to “Dheming” for the SFX.

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Telltale Games – Game of Thrones Episodes 1-6 – Let’s Play

keving — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 18:03:33 +0000

Game of Thrones the Game

A Telltale Games adventure – let’s play walkthrough gameplay guide – Season 1 Episodes 1 through 6.

Are you a Game of Thrones fan? If you are a fan of the HBO series and you’ve seen all of the episodes, you might be craving more content by now with the premiere of the next season still months away. If that sounds like you then I definitely recommend “Game of Thrones” a Telltale Game Series. Not so much into gaming? Want to see a sneak peak before you buy? Or can’t play for other reasons? No problem, just relax and let me do all of the hard work while you sit back and watch the gameplay like it was just another episode of Game of Thrones (Telltale Games actually worked closely with HBO and George RR Martin’s personal assistant to insure that the game storyline coincides with the HBO series)! With the 6th and final episode just released the entire season is complete, and is about as much material as a season of HBO’s GoT, so any die-hard fan can appreciate Telltale’s masterpiece. Follow the Stark’s bannermen House Forrester through somewhere around HBO’s GoT season 3. Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t at least seen GoT season 3 and plan to, you might want to do that first!

Click Here to play the entire season

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 1 – Through the Night

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 2 – Justice or Mercy?

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 3 – A Long Road Ahead

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 4 – Defiance or Diplomacy?

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 5 – A Lord’s Judgement

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 6 – A Lord’s Depute

Episode 1 – Iron From Ice | Chapter 7 – A Lord’s Reception

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 1 – A Ransom’s Reward

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 2 – Fight for Life

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 3 – Unfamiliar Faces

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 4 – Strength of Mind

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 5 – The Pressures of Family

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 6 – Love and Hostility

Episode 2 – The Lost Lords | Chapter 7 – Initiation Completed

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 1 – Storied Sights

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 2 – Brothers

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 3 – Garrisons

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 4 – Rendezvous

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 5 – Relief for the Parched

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 6 – Intentions Known

Episode 3 – The Sword in the Darkness | Chapter 7 – Your Grace

Episode 4 – | Chapter 1 – The Old, the True, the Brave

Episode 5 – | Chapter 1 – Set Down Our Deeds

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Top 10 Resources for Sound FX to use in Indie Games

keving — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 21:59:13 +0000

For the independent game developer, due to time constraints it is sometimes necessary to reuse existing assets rather than create every single element of the game from scratch. Sound and audio effects are no exception. Unfortunately if you don’t know where to look, finding quality SFX for your game can take just as long as creating them yourself in some cases, so below I have compiled a list of the resources that I use most often for SFX when creating a game. They are simply ordered by the resources I use most often. There are many sites out there similar to these, but using the list below I have never needed to search further.

#1 – Audio Jungle
Audio Jungle is by far my favorite and most used resource for both SFX and game music when I’m not making my own. The quality control is impeccable, and there is no need to cull out the low quality sounds because for the most part, they don’t make it past Audio Jungles screening process. There are sounds starting from $1 each and when you need a sound in a jiffy, Audio Jungle is the way to go.
Visit site

#2 – FreeSound.org
FreeSound.org has a ton of audio clips, effects, recordings, and a lot of unmastered stuff – all free Creative Commons Licensing.

Visit site

#3 – CCMixter
CCMixter is a great resource for free music. Most of the genres you’ll find here ‘dance’ style music, but there is an occasional pop or rock song available too.

Visit site

#4 – Sound Bible
Search preview & download free sounds for instant use in your game.
Visit site

#5 – Flashkit
I’ve been using Flashkit since the 90’s, and even though most of the stuff on here is pretty old, it still remains to be one of the best resources for free sfx that I have found.

Visit site

#6 – OpenGameArt.org
OpenGameArt is another site that is human edited for quality assurance. This site has a lot of free licensing option.

Visit site

#7 – SoundDogs
Another site that I have been using for years to find simple sound effects.

Visit site

#8 – Newgrounds
Newgrounds has been online since the early 90’s but it was only a decade or so ago that they began the ‘Audio Portal’. A massive collection of user-submitted audio free to use in your NG projects.

Visit site

#9 – Unity Asset Store
If you use Unity, don’t rule out the asset store for SFX. You can find a lot of free and low-cost sound packs available, which could cover every sound you need for your project in one package.

Visit site

#10 KevinGulling.com/assets

I’ve put together a compendium of my sounds and other assets and made them available for download here for use in your personal or commercial projects.

Visit site

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