John Halpart's Mad Corner

Gamedev

Open world exploration and puzzle game with elements of platforming, wrapped in an arcade flight sim. Includes:

clouds;
stereo audio;
an spaceship;
exploration;
a bit of combat;
a bit of platforming.
puzzles you will hate me for.

IndieDB (demo available)
Project's Twatter (just to announce big updates or dev logs: I don’t live tweet my life)

Rapidly prototyped demo/toolkit for an Outrun-inspired arcade racing game. Utilizes its own intentionally simple and extremely arcade-y imitation of physics. Includes:

Fully functioning and easily modifiable player car controller with scripting for tire smoke, skid marks, lights and corresponding emission textures swapping, gear shift, speed&gear-dependent engine noise, wheels’ animations (the last bit sounds ridiculously minor, but since MEFU doesn’t utilize Unity’s physics, a simple wheel collision approach does not make them spin “automatically”, so it requires one extra system);
System for “biome”-dependent semi-procedural generation of roadside objects so you don’t have to place them all manually AND — the most important part — you can edit the course however you want whenever you want without having to correct the environment every time (unless the changes are so drastic the terrain itself needs to be adjusted, of course). On that note–
The road is created by a path creation tool, so it is super easy to make a course, and even easier to edit it;
NPC cars that spawn at random points on the first half of the course (so most of them don’t complete the course before the player catches up, rendering themselves useless in the scene) with randomized fixed speed assigned to each. Needless to say, they perfectly follow the road (or rather, the path that creates the road) with slight offset to put them into either the right or the left lane. Said offset can be easily corrected if the width of the road is changed.

Main (and pretty much only) technical limitation: my rapidly prototyped “emulated” physics work only in two dimensions (x and z) and in reality the wheels do not recognize collision with the road. Therefore, the road needs to be perfectly flat in order for everything to appear working correctly (the road cannot go up/down or tilt). I’m not sure this can be cured without starting utilizing actual wheel collision, i.e. actual physics, which would mean reworking the entire controller.

MEFU DEMO

Arcade flight sim (a bit of a cross between Star Fox and Ace Combat) with a hub-based light RPG element (not unlike Persona or Freedom Wars). Was designed for a small passionate team that had to cancel their studio opening plans due to the real-life Apocalypse Stone adventure of 2020. Remotely working on the project part-time for the next five to ten years, without a budget, was decided against. In addition to GDD there is also a small POC demo I made in Unity.

PANGEA THUNDER STUFF

Also cancelled by 2020. Classic Biohazard-like interconnected world design (kids these days would call it metroidvania-ish, or possibly Souls-inspired) with a horror shooter-y gameplay and camera totally not stolen from Killer7. I’ve also made an alternative “character action-y” gameplay suggestion with heavily dumbed down story and artistic sides of the initially planned experience.
TRANSSOLAR STUFF

I started working on the AZ’s game and world design doc in 2014, wanting to make a game that looked like Persona 3 Portable, had style and atmosphere of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers and/or SMT4, and played like a turn-based Hotline Miami. The GDD reached 200k+ characters when I decided to make a simplified dungeon crawler out of it first, to test the gameplay system I’ve spent so much time designing. Welp, long story short: life got in the way. But I still had the concept and the story, and eventually decided to make at least something with it. At some point I started writing/organizing the story in HTML to make it easier for myself to see all possible branches. This is not a thing, btw: I am most definitely not working on a text-only CYO adventure game. I am, however, strangely proud of how this small thing came together.
ACROSS ZERO "DEMO"
(download the folder and run the .html file)

A 2D turn-based dungeon crawler RPG I tried to put together using the already existing gameplay systems of the original Across Zero. Didn’t get to finish it mostly due to having scared myself shitless with my own artwork.
last (and only) cringe update video I don't recommend watching

MEMORYLIST

Looking for great games to play? Maybe even new to gaming and don’t know what’s good? Or maybe you think you know everything about gaming after playing a few modern sandboxes, Sony movies, and free-to-download services? I once made a compulsory “reading” list of as much goodness as I could remember that is actually worth your time. You might find it useful.
MEMORYLIST

NBSI

The most impeccable, mature guide to self-studying languages for people who value their time.
As well as a bit of a roast of the dogmatic juvenile redtube polyglot culture kickstarted by AJATT. Very much updatable.
Used to only be my Objectively Good for You Patreon, but the up-to-date version is only available as a standalone website.

SOTA MMC

genius behind stealing the idea from Roger Linn, designer, tester

SotA MMC is a DIY fretboard-style USB-MIDI controller. Made out of 12 Adafruit NeoTrellis RGB Driver PCBs, Teensy 3.2 development board, and a 3D-printed enclosure (technically doesn’t require it to fully function). Powered by original, easily customizable firmware written by the amazing Rabit.

8×24 matrix of 192 backlit RGB keys.
Class compliant USB-MIDI interface. Tested on PC, Mac, and iOS.
MIDI note and clock input (clock makes the red menu button pulsate in tempo).
Reactive — to both input and output — highlighting of individual keys/notes.
Customizable highlights layout (tonic, frets, “normal” keys).
Three fixed velocity modes: 127, 100, and 75.
4-button (2 steps in each direction) pitch wheel emulation (disable-able).
Adjustable brightness.
Adjustable scale of the board: one semitone or octave at a time.

Cost of materials: ~$200. In terms of making a commercial version, there were talks about it but the idea was put on indefinite hold around when 2020 happened.

https://github.com/state-of-the-art/matrix-midi-controller
https://www.state-of-the-art.io/projects/matrix-midi-controller

Services

Superb Music Composering & Producering

Songwriting and ghostwriting available.
Full-service audio production.
Just composing / arranging / recording with no post production available.
No source hostage-keeping.

Dangerous Audio Production & Sound Design

Audio engineering of anything and everything.
Sound design for games and video-based media.
Mixing and mastering with no questions asked.
Clean-up and restoration.

Nothing Short of Brilliant Game Design & Dev

Only fun allowed: don’t do walking simulators.
Unity enthusiast, but if needed will pretend that dealing with UE is totally worth it for your project.

Highly Professional Translation & Localization

Russian <–> English <–> Japanese
Available as lead for big projects such as localizations of games, movies, shows, books/novels, etc. Can represent your product or service on a weird and hostile foreign market.

Very Charming & Friendly Interpreting

Russian <–> English
Consecutive is strongly recommended.
Simultaneous is possible.
Fully equipped for online gigs.
Limited Japanese support available.

Dramatically Life-Changing Tutoring & Counseling

Language acquisition support and guidance.
Private Lessons for Learners of English, Russian, and Japanese.
Music production and sound synthesis tutoring.
Game design, level design, narrative design, general gamedev consulting.

Music