- Navigation -
We'll be back - 20/02/09
AvatarI've just released a new version of my PHP File Manager. It contains all the bare bones of a file upload/download script, plus some nifty extras like a recursive folder delete, multiple file uploads, directory stats and password protection. You can check it out on the examples page.

As you probably noticed, things have been moving pretty slowly lately, what with A-Levels/University/joining the military being somewhat major distractions. I'd like to remind everyone though that we've not completely abandoned you: when things are less hectic in our outside lives we'll come back and finish what we started, I promise. We've got some excellent things planned for the new site when it's launched, and one of these days we will release the Zelda Bomberman demo, the 3D maze game, Jam, and all the other so-very-nearly-finished projects.

Stay with us, we'll see you soon.

- mit


Anniversary the fourth - 17/10/08
AvatarOh cock, is it next year already?

Unfortunately, we didn't think of any new content to add to mark the occasion, so here's a giant plagiarised birthday cake to make up.



- mitxela


My future absence, and GBA Audio Player - 28/08/08
AvatarHello, sorry to say I may not be around much for a while. I'm joining the military you see (Air Force to be specific), and signing your life over to your government kinda cuts into your free time. Not to mention they don't have the internet at boot camp. I'll be too busy getting yelled at, and exercising past the point of exhaustion any way, fun stuff. It'll still be a while before I have to go through that though, I've just been busy getting ready, and signing up so far.


Anyway, Mitxela released a new example a few days ago. If you're looking for how to make an Ocarina system in a Zelda fan game, you should check it out. It even shows how to identify the song the player is playing, very nice. He's also informed me that Jam is coming along nicely.


In my spare time I've taken the music system I wrote for the flash RPG engine which uses a format that's apparently rather common in GBA games (I was using Golden Suns format, under the assumption that it was original), and slapped something on it to auto detect where the music data is in a GBA ROM. It won't work for all GBA games, but I found a lot of popular games do work with it. Of course you'll actually need a ROM to use it, but please don't ask how to get one, we can't tell you anyway.

GBAjukebox.air (9.14 KB)

A .air file is an installer for an Adobe Air application. Basically an Adobe Air Application is a Flash file that runs like a program instead of web applet, I needed to make the audio player that way so it could actually load ROMs on your computer and play the audio in them.

- Atrius



New Game and stuff - 06/08/08
AvatarGood evening. I'm sorry to say that Atrius probably won't be here for a while, so most of our projects, sadly, will be suspended temporarily.

To make up for it, today I'm releasing a nice little arcade game - Anaconda! If you don't know how it works, you'll soon learn. Play Anaconda

I've also added a new tutorial detailing how to make dynamic tabs in Javascript, and I ripped a tileset of the Cloud Tops area from Zelda: The Minish Cap. Plus, I've uploaded at least two new songs since the last update, check them out on the midis page.

If on the odd chance you're interested, I've finally gotten around to putting something on mitxela.com. It's just a collection of old projects at the moment and is no where near finished, but you can take a look at the site so far: www.mitxela.com

- mitxela



Live and kicking - 05/06/08
AvatarToday I announce one of our many secret projects. This one is totally awesome - an entire new genre of game. A maze where the maps are completely three dimensional: read all about it.

What else is going on? I've uploaded a couple of new examples, one of which is demonstrating how to create a 'mario kart' style engine in Game Maker without the need for complicated image stretching. Check it out on the examples page. I've also uploaded a new midi.

We're very busy at the moment, and there hasn't been much progress on Zelda Bomberman, but we'll try and get the demo out by the end of the month.

You'll also notice I rekindled an old story from long ago. Think of it more as chapter one of the sequel rather than simply chapter two.

More info on its way soon.


Curvy lines, sprites, Link, hacks, and Flash. - 20/04/08
AvatarHello everyone, it's time for another edition of 'How much information can Atrius throw at you in one news update?'


First of all I put up a Bezier curve example for GameMaker 6, it also includes a nifty bonus: Anti-aliased lines, curvy ones no less. You can download that here, and if you want an example of what can be done with it just look our Asteroids game.


Unless my eyes deceive me, Mit's uploaded a very nice short story named The Hitman. Definitely worth a read as long as you don't hate reading stuff, in which case you're probably ignoring me anyway.


Lately I've been tinkering around with Golden Sun for the GBA. Want Golden Sun sprites? I've got 'em, a whole lot of 'em. In a virtual repeat of what I did with Link's Awakening, I've managed to pull a large portion of Golden Sun and it's sequel's sprites straight from the game data. You can get the packs of graphics on the sprite page, or right here.

On a related note, while trying to find out how to rip the sprites I found a way to swap your character with someone else. After sifting through all the sprite data I ripped I came across an interesting character. Yes folks, that is Link from the Legend of Zelda series in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. He's sheet #220 in the graphics pack I linked you to earlier to be precise. Why would Camelot have sprites of him in the game? Camelot actually works pretty closely with Nintendo having made games such as Mario Tennis, and Mario Golf. It's not unlikely they could have been considering having Link make a Cameo appearance in the game.

I'm not done with Golden Sun quite yet. Just for fun, here's a video of random fun messing with stuff at the beginning of The Lost Age. Not only that but, after finishing with the sprites, I've moved on to the level data. After some hard work I figured out compression & data formats for palettes, tilesets, and tile data for levels. Yes, enough to open Golden Sun's levels in an external program. More on that when I decide how far I want to go with it.


Now, last but certainly not least, there's one demo to be released now, and another very soon. The Zelda Bomberman demo is coming very soon, there are only a few more relatively minor changes to make before it's ready. The demo that is being released right now, isn't really a game, it's more of a 'tech demo' so pay no mind to the graphics being used in it right now. If you've been paying attention you're aware that I just happened to have them lying around.

Check it out - Flash Version 9 required.

I've been learning flash, and developing a tile based game engine for it. Okay, so it's just a walking demo so far, but it's a cross-platform compatible walking demo embedded into a web page. It demonstrates a tile-based game engine with multiple layers that has good movement & collisions running at a respectable frame-rate (? tell me what you get) in Flash. I find this exciting.


-Atrius


Did you know that... - 29/02/08
Avatar...carthorse is an anagram of orchestra? Well, it is. And you can find many more wonderful anagrams, and even cheat at Countdown (British program, you Americans) with my fabulous new Anagram finder.

In other news, the demo for Zelda Bomberman Online should be out soon. It'll include all the basic gameplay and fundamental items, plus some of the special items. While there's no match-making yet, the online mode is fully playable with up to four people when connecting by IP.

I also just wrote a new song, called Flashback.mid. Enjoy.

- mitxela


New Game - 08/02/08
AvatarJust a quick arcade game today, our personal remake of Tetris. Not much different to the original, but with an online highscore table, so you can finally prove how good you are at it to us. Plus it comes with a choice of six different background tunes, and the most awesome sound effects known to man. Play Now!

In other news, you can now collect items in our Bomberman Online game. Still a while to go, but very nearly ready for a demo. Stay tuned in.

- mitxela


What's new, boy? - 28/01/08
AvatarIt might be my imagination, but music sounds a thousand times better when played on a Nintendo MP3 player:


Work on Zelda Bomberman Online has been going on. The basic gameplay's just about done - and the online mode fully works. The AI isn't perfect yet, and there are no items or pickups yet, but it's definitely off to a steady start. Check out the screenshots on the side.

If you're hoping for a one-player game to get finished, the next will be Jam, I'm sure of it. It's so nearly finished, I just need to find the time. Work hasn't stopped on the 3D game or Just Beginning either, but we're gonna concentrate on Bomberman for now.

Tune in after the break for, as always, new articles, songs, graphics, and more.

- mitxela


Happy New Year - 31/12/07
AvatarI know that much of the world has not reached midnight yet, but that hour is gradually approaching for those places that still haven't entered the new year yet. So why not say it now? Happy New Year everyone! xD

As far as I know of, we have no releases for New Years. However, if any do come up, I'm sure a staff member will upload them and edit this update, or something.

2007's just about over. Now let's look forward to another great year in 2008. Happy New Year, KG.

- Solarz


Merry Christmas - 24/12/07
AvatarUnfortunately, we forgot to do anything Christmas themed this year, except this exclusive Kousou Tree:



Probably the most interesting program I've made recently is my 3D Linear Equation Plotter. It's like a graph, but in 3D. Pretty cool, huh? I may release it after I've finished ironing out bugs and stuff, although I doubt many people will have a practical use for it.

Anyway, enjoy your holidays, and sorry we didn't get a Christmas Game together in time.

- mitxela


Happy Halloween - 31/10/07
AvatarToday I bring a load of new examples. First of all, the 3D game tutorial. I figured that I'll never finish the last step so I may as well release it now - it's a first person shooter controlled by the mouse, which is much better than the Mark Overmars tutorial.

Second, the engine from Zelda: The Twin Swords. A cancelled fangame based on Atrius' avatar, where link wields two swords at once, does some cool spins and stuff.

Third, a new series of examples has arrived: I've written two tutorials on Javascript, covering how to hide content dynamically, how to control popups and using alerts.

All of these can be found on the examples page.

Last but not least, to promote Kousou's new game server, I installed one of my old Zelda MMOs. There's not much to do except walk around and talk to people, but the server will be online 24 hours a day. You can play that here.

Enjoy Halloween.

- mitxela


My feet are cold - 22/10/07
AvatarSince I never really gave an info on my mysterious work-in-progress called Jam, I uploaded ten new songs today, most of which are from that very game. Have a listen to them here.

On top of that, I uploaded an old engine of mine called Angry Bob. It's a bit messy since it wasn't meant to be an example, plus I removed a few things leaving it a bit bare. However, it's still an awesome platform-shooter engine, which you can download here.

We're working on more games for the arcade, plus I've got a lot more examples up my sleeve. Also, if I get round to it, we might finally be moving servers on Saturday, so expect some brief downtime.

- mitxela


And that's the Hattrick! - 17/10/07
AvatarThree years since it all began. It's come bloody quickly, eh?

Chin up old bean, there's always next year.

- emkay


RETURN OF THE ARCADE - 23/09/07
AvatarIt's back - the legendary games of the past are alive again, with better graphics, better gameplay and fewer glitches!

Zelda: Space Invaders is completely remade, with an almost challenging level of difficulty. Enjoy the animations that fit together, and bad guys that were actually from the same game!

Fizzy returns in untouched form, simply updated to fit the new highscore table system. We also wiped the highscores to give new players a chance, so if you're a Fizzy veteran you'd better start clicking to get back on top.

Asteroids is a new game showing off Atrius' latest example: Bezier curves and anti-aliased lines in Game Maker. Shoot your way through vector-drawn asteroids for as long as you can to get the highscore.

Soon to come: Anaconda.

Enjoy.

~ mit


JZ Demo Released - 05/09/07
AvatarNever thought the day would come, eh? Well, it has. The JZ demo is out. You can download it right here:

Windows XP Version: Download (6.07 mb Zipped).
Windows Vista Version: Download (6.50 mb Zipped).


Press F1 to open the settings menu, F4 to go straight to graphics settings, and F3 for controls (supports joypads).

There's two endings, to get the good ending you need to complete the entire thing in one go without dying. Also, pie for everyone who works out how the get the compass.

See more here.

Enjoy!

- mit


Doritos 3Ds - 17/08/07
AvatarI'm sure you're all wondering about that 3D game we mentioned in the last announcement on the forums. No? Too bad, cause that's what I'm here to talk about.

As you may know by now, our 3D game is well underway. We've made a lot of great progress so far producing an engine that pushes our possibilities for 3D games in Game Maker to a whole new level. To give you a small idea of what the engine is like so far here are a few screen shots.



Were still working on the art style for the game, so all of the graphics in those shots are placeholders.

Character animation is probably one of the most complex parts of the engine. We wanted something that would allow us to adapt the speed of the game to the users frame-rate, and still animate as smoothly as possible. Not stopping there, we've also allowed it to transition between animations in real-time to add to the smoothness of character movement.

Here is a look at the character animating program, and for the fun of it I've loaded a geometry dump from a scene of OoT into it just because I can.


As for the story of the game, it's sort of a comedic mystery game where you'll play the part of a young man searching for treasure in a deceased relatives mansion. You'll have to perform all sorts of crazy tasks to assist your relatives in finding the treasure.


In other news, to be less confused about the title of this news article read the latest chapter of the K-Team.

-Atrius


New stuff new stuff new stuff - 26/02/07
AvatarWell, no. There's nothing new. But there will be in a moment - why, you ask? Because that homework project I overambitiously aimed at in a showy-offy fashion has just been finished! Yes - the days, weeks, months I've spent on it weren't for nothing.

That means I'll have substantially more time to work on stuff here. I'll also be uploading some pictures of the project, as it's quite interesting (and WAY beyond GCSE level).

So in the near future, you can be expecting:
- A rearrangement of the layout (probably something like this)
- The articles section being majorly rewritten
- The online highscore tables all being fixed, including Fizzy (yay!) plus a few new arcade games
- The JZ demo. It'll be done by Z3, and hopefully so will Jam. For those who don't know yet, Z3 will be on the 18th of May (so we've got plenty of time to perfect)

And if that wasn't enough to tickle yer toes, we'll be showering you all with the usual doseage of backgrounds, examples, sprites and articles. Turn your heads, and look forward!

- mit


New MIDI - 22/02/07
AvatarHey all. I uploaded another new MIDI, "In The Light Of The Dark"... although this one is ALSO unfinished >_< But only somewhat, but then I can add more to make it longer and better... Meh. Anyway, it's on the Music page, go check it out.

Atrius' Bezier curve example is awesome as ever, it even can draw anti-aliased lines. Except you can't get your hands on it yet, Atrius is writing an arcade game using the vector graphics he's made. Look out for that in the next few days.

Also mit made a Lego MP3 player, which can be seen here.

- Solarrain4


Another update - 19/02/07
AvatarHey guys, it's me again. Just a couple of things I wanted to mention tonight before I go off to bed...

1) I uploaded a new midi. It's unfinished, but you can get it here.

2) A major thing going on in the forum: There's been several members lurking around the forum advertising inappropriate material. Mit's deleted several of them, as far as I know, but there always there, so keep your eyes peeled and tell me or any other staff member if you find anything like that.

Just wanted to get that out of the way. Good night...

-Solarrain4


Argh - 10/02/07
AvatarSorry about that - nothing new really as both me and emkay caught Bird 'Flu. Well, some kind of 'flu anyway.

So... in store today are four new midis (although they're kinda unfinished) and a few more backgrounds. Plus, Atrius made a bezier-curve example in GameMaker which he'll be uploading soon.

And yes, Google ads are at the bottom. But I need to move them to somewhere more logical, because almost no one's clicking them :(

- mit


Small Update - 04/02/07
AvatarI just wanted to do a quick update. I just uploaded two new midis. They're not two entirely different songs, but they're updates to one that I already had there, "Eve Of Sorrow," as the original was kind of... eh...

Well, anyway. The differences are that in V2, the instruments were changed to sound better. In V3, the instruments are the same as in V2, except there's a rhythm part added. I hope you like 'em.

Also, mit made a new example (the ledge jumping) and some more backgrounds.

That's it for now. See ya next time...

- Solarrain4


New News - 02/02/07
AvatarI'm proud to pronounce the arival of the amazing Zoru / ZoraFan89 to our staff team. He'll be updating us with info on his fan game, The Phoenix Blade, making a webcomic of some sorts, and hopefully uploading some delicious sprites.

There's a few new items up here and there, but what I'm working on right now is finalizing the user-content-submition-thingy. It just needs a few more security additions, and then we'll see a lot more content, a lot more often.

Until then, keep holding on for that JZ demo...

- mit


New Content Update - 28/01/07
AvatarOkay, so since the launch of Project Q (The new layout for anyone who hasn't caught on yet) there have been a few new things uploaded to the site.

-Articles-
What Gameplay Means - Mit's take on the importance of control in video games, a must read for novice game developers.
A review of the album Kingwood by Millencolin - A music review by Solarrain4.
Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis Review - A review of the remake for GBA by Solarrain4.
The K-Team - The beginning to what looks to be a very interesting story written by Emkay.

In the sprites section you can find my complete graphics dump of LA (thanks Mit for putting it up there)
There are also a few new backgrounds, you can see those below under 'latest backgrounds' or in the backgrounds section.
The list of new examples is a little bit bare right now, so why not make a request?

LoZ: Just Beginning is coming along decently, because of a few things going on in my life right now the demo will be delayed a bit, my fault entirely. The demo will contain a single dungeon, which is pretty much entirely playable right now. Most of whats left to do on the demo involves cutscenes, and engine tweaks to make it feel a tad more professional.

Well... That's all for this update, hope to talk to you on the forums.
-Atrius


Welcome to Project Q - 19/01/07
AvatarYeah, I decided to launch the site early. There isn't that much new content, but everyone can look around and find things to maker better.
The JZ game demo isn't finished. The boss, typical us, is overly complicated (having three phases) and still needs perfecting. Also I'll be writing a couple more custom songs for it to add to the speciality.

Expect a release date of sometime next week.

So now what we need is content! Please, suggest an example to be made, a resource to be ripped, or a review to be writ. We need your support!


Better than ever - 17/01/07
AvatarAlright, this is an update of substantially longer length to attempt to flesh out the portal page. Hopefully with an update like this it should look somewhat more balanced. Either that, or completely crap.


OMFG - 15/01/07
AvatarProject Q teh 1337


Back-breaking news - 13/01/07
AvatarThis is a test update, astonishingly, testing the news system. Roger? Roger. Roger? Bogger. What? I think we're getting a bad signal. You're breaking up! Sparrow to Eagle. Come in Eagle. Eagle, Please respond. Oes noes.

© Kousou Games 2007 lowfi version
Page created in 0.013 seconds.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Valid CSS Powered by PHP