Website Update and New WordPress Theme


As obviously noted on the front page, I’ve been restructuring this website to appear more like one would expect a creative portfolio to look like. Originally, the redesign was in preparation for Game Developers Conference (GDC), but while the event has been postponed, I still believed a redesign was well worth the effort.

Like most sites, this site is powered by WordPress, and originally used Twenty Seventeen as the theme. Alas, Twenty Seventeen isn’t made for creative portfolios, so working with it in the past was a bit frustrating. This year, I’ve committed to developing my own theme, Game Dev Portfolio (based off of Underscore), to create a reactive website more closely aligned with what’s expected from a creative portfolio. In addition, I’ve also developed my own plugin, the Rèsumè Block, to create the timeline seen in the Rèsumè page. Both are open-sourced on Github under GPL, version 2. Feel free to use it for your own purposes!

While I could probably make a couple more enhancements to the theme, I believe the current theme and plugin has enough features to be considered stable. That said, if there are any recommendations on content to add to this website, I’m definitely interested in hearing about it. Let me know on the respective Github repo! Happy blogging!

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The Struggle of Moving


Compared to last week where a new Patreon page has been announced, this week wasn’t very eventful for Omiya Games. To be honest, I didn’t realize I had a lot more stuff left to do since I moved from Maryland to New York last week. Much of my time has been filling all the necessary forms and payments to complete the move. While the significantly cheaper rent makes the move worth it, I honestly didn’t expect the moving process to take this long. It seems a lot of things just creep up on you when you head to a new state.

Rather than leaving everyone with a simple Patreon reminder, I figured I’d post a small tease about what my next #OneGameAMonth is going to be. As those of you who have participated in Global Game Jam with me know, I have an unusual method for brainstorming a game idea. After the optional theme was announced (The Fair), I spent 30 minutes doing a quick brain-dump of a single-sentence description of a game. Usually, most of these game ideas suck, but every once in a while, I hit some really good ideas. From there, I choose one of these ideas, and start developing on them.

Anyways, for this month, I came up with the list below. A reminder that anything posted in this blog is my opinion, and not of the opinion of the company:

  • The moving mall game idea, Fair version
  • A Rude Goldberg (I think) circus show where using limited resources, you attempt to score as high as possible.
  • The fair maid, fair person, etc.
  • Attempting to level a game with rules to make it as fair as possible to all the players
  • A light illumination game, narrative driven, and with more lights, the clearer the picture becomes.
  • Fireworks show, maybe a puzzle game?
  • Music game, being a conductor in a band, and catching bad players.
  • Reddit meme face fair, attempt to appease the crowd
  • Wario WAre esque game where you have a limited number of quaters, and participate in randomly generated super-short games.
  • Merry Go Round controlling device, make experimental creatures
  • Psychonauts meat circus
  • Handing out tickets job minigame
  • Gun hauling fair game of epic proportions
  • A “fair” rhyming game, like Hair
  • A balloon popping game
  • a balloon catching game
  • a bouncing game about catching mid-air stuff
  • A bouncing game about doing air tricks like snowboarding
  • an arm wrestling game while playing chess on a rollercoaster
  • A game about collecting tickets people dropped to earn prizes
  • Water slide park
  • Don’t die on the waterslide minigame.
  • Color matching game.
  • Painting game.
  • Making extremely dull place more interesting through coloration
  • Guide the flying circus to the wonderful summer locations
  • A Windowsill like game of a fair. You progress by winning the fair’s minigame, but the rules on each minigame are obscure.
  • A game about building a molehill
  • A game about ants
  • A game about ants creating a fair
  • A game about a fair haircut
  • You know it’s a fair when it’s in your head!
  • A rhythimg greeting game, where you hand out balloons to the beat
  • A game about herding lost children in a fair
  • A fun house
  • A room filled with mirrors and mirages. Part of the game is figuring out how to navigate it.
  • The snail fair
  • Human sorting game, based on fair theme. Toss people in the line to their favored ride in a super-quick drag-&-Drop fashion
  • Angry Birds vs Angry Cans
  • Skateboard through the fair
  • Walkig through the degenerating, rotten, old fair to discover new horror
  • A sun rise, sun set simulation to piss off people going to a fair
  • Upside down fair
  • Security camera game about reporting bad guys in a fair.
  • Spin the cup ride barfing simulator
  • The space fair
  • X wing fighter that needs to make money through inventing minigames
  • Cotton candy simulator
  • Face painting simulator
  • Ride of nowhere isle
  • Making a game where the rules are a unfair as possible
  • Creating as many words as possible from the words “The Fair”
  • Pictionary guessing game.
  • The Ninja fair: finding the fair itself, before it’s too late
  • Space fair anti-gravity minigame simulation. I’m sure they’ll work just fine without it.
  • Getting the best picture of the fair, graded by hilarity value
  • Fair inception: a minigame inside a minigame inside a minigame inside a ride
  • Super ride customization, where water and fire are real!
  • Earthquake simulation
  • Beware the clowns traveling joke horror game
  • The Ride of justice
  • A game where you build a rollercoaster track in real-time to avoid obstacles, see Wallace and Gromit’s close shave. Bit like Snake
  • Fire works creation simulation
  • Fire works launch simulation
  • Hotdog eating contest

So which game idea am I working on now? Well, I can give you one more hint. I generally code-name my projects based on an artist’s last name that I think most closely resembles that idea. Part of it is intended to inspire me to think like the artist does: creatively. Anyway, this project’s code-name is Prototype: Lichtenstein. Figured it out already?

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