Matt Hammill

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:54:20 +0000

This is our game from last weekend’s Toronto Global Game Jam, which was an awesomely intense few days. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a 2-player co-op mini platformer within a pink Death Star which is under attack. Players need to run back and forth between ship control rooms to fight off hordes of space baddies. We just barely got this one playable before the TGGJ deadline, so we still have a bunch of balancing work to do before it’s ready for release. It’s hilarious how quickly players will find flaws in your game and then exploit them for sweet points.

I worked on this with Jamie (art) and Adam (code), the same team as on Shuriken Skies. Ryan Henwood from Blue did the music and sound.

Caving

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:41:26 +0000

Roughing out some new Gesundheit! stuff. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but gosh do I love EraserX’s brushes. Also I recently read Journey to the Centre of the Earth, can you tell?

Community Bank Spot 2

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:11:41 +0000

Here’s a commercial I directed early this year at Guru. It’s a sequel to the first Community Bank spot, except this time we’ve skipped ahead a few years to find Mr. Pig with a family of his own. I worked with the same team as before, with Angela Kim on bgs and 2D characters, and Ryan Fairley on 3D animation. Those guys are so good. It was like a little reunion tour.

Community Bank #2 “Loans” from Matt Hammill on Vimeo.

Gesundheit! in HHHD

admin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:54:39 +0000

I’m participating in a game art show at the Gamercamp Casual Gala this Friday at CSI Annex, and there are going to be a few one-of-a-kind prints of super duper jumbo hi-res Gesundheit! screenshots for sale (as well as work by other local artists and game people), with proceeds going to the Hospital for Sick Children. Should be fun, and I’m still giddy about those hi-res images…

(A nerdy aside: So where did these super hi-res screenshots come from, as the iPad screen is just a measly 1024 x 768? Well, way back in the heady days of early 2011, we all thought the iPad 2 would be packing a “retina” display, i.e. double the resolution it currently has. Couple this with the fact that at the time we were still experimenting with different zoom-in levels for the game, and so we really had no idea what size sprites we’d need. When time came to start doing final assets, I decided to play it safe and make sprites so freaking enormous that they’d work in any situation–they ended up being something like 5 times what we needed. So of course we shrunk down the sprites for the game, but since then the original assets have been lying around in wait of just such an event as this art show. Also, in the future when everyone streams their iPads to like 4k megaplex film projectors, we’ll be all set!)

Anyway, here’s a sample of what I’m talking about (there will be different pics at the show). Clicky-click to enlarge.

Monster Surprise

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:36:14 +0000

My second birthday eCard for JibJab, and again, lots of fun to do–got to indulge my inner Rampage fan on this one. I wanted to force myself to try a different style, and ended up going with a paper cutout-type look. I made a rule where I had to use the lasso tool for drawing the parts, in order to force some awkwardness into the shapes.

Canadian Game Talent Awards

admin — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:57:16 +0000

Apparently I’m a nominee for Animator of the Year for Gesundheit! at the Canadian Game Talent Awards! Exciting times. Here are the finalists; there’s a bunch of crazy talent from large and small games alike.

Also been doing a big push lately with my TOJam team to finish up our ninja skydiving party game Shuriken Skies (formerly known as, ahem, Terminal Ninjocity). Our latest playtest session with some friends who were seeing it cold went really well. Fresh first impressions are always helpful (and often humbling).

Gesundheit! on IGN’s top 25

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:18:45 +0000

This is nuts. Gesundheit! made IGN’s top 25 iOS games list, coming in at number 23, which is a nice prime number and reminds me of Jim Carrey. I’m super happy to be listed alongside such company as World of Goo, Bumpy Road, Osmos, Cut the Rope and more. Check out the whole list.

Gesundheit! Soundtrack EP out now!

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:25:29 +0000

I’ve never released an album before, so I’m a little giddy about this — the Gesundheit! Soundtrack EP is available now, containing all the tunes from the game! The 11-track album is available through Bandcamp, where you can listen for free or purchase the album for $4 in a variety of formats (MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc.), and it comes with some desktop wallpaper goodness. Check it out here!

Gesundheit! Soundtrack EP by Matt Hammill

Gesundheit! Soundtrack EP

admin — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:13:19 +0000

The Gesundheit! Soundtrack EP is out! Get it now!

Gesundheit! Soundtrack EP by Matt Hammill

This project was something different for me — it’s my first music release, containing all the tunes from the game Gesundheit!. The 11-track album is available for $4 via Bandcamp, comes in a variety of formats (MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc), and includes some juicy album art wallpaper goodness.

The music was recorded largely in my folks’ basement from 2007 to 2011 (thanks mom and dad), and it was a lot of fun amassing and playing with a pile of thrift store instruments. Big thanks to Marc Finch for encouraging me to actually record.

Gesundheit! Wallpaper

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:43:15 +0000

Can’t believe it’s already been a month since Gesundheit! launched on iPhone/iPad! I put together a desktop wallpaper for the occasion:

It’s available in 1920 x 1080 and 1920 x 1200.

Also really happy that the game’s been getting some great reactions from players and review sites, including 9.5/10 from IGN, 5/5 from TouchArcade, 4.5/5 from TouchGen, 4.5/5 from 148Apps, 8/10 from Eurogamer, and App of the Day on Kotaku. Never ever dreamed all that could happen when I was starting to sketch little sneezy pigs all those years ago!