Crusades Prototype

A prototype for an educational strategy game covering the period of the Crusades was presented by Russell to The Learning Company and Mindscape in 1999. It was received favorably by The Learning Company, but their games subsidiary Mindscape felt that the market was more receptive to fantasy games and suggested the inclusion of magic, declining the historical approach. Soon after this prototype Russell began pursing his undergraduate, and then graduate degree, and Lowke Media (then Mocaz) ceased to operate on any significant scale.

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

Posted here is the tactical portion of the Crusades prototype. This prototype became key in Russell's thesis project for his Master's in IT, which involves a more detailed online version in Flash 8.

1998

Early Internet Action Game

A very early Shockwave Frogger game, done at a time when bandwidth was low and playing an action game over the Internet from a browser was almost unheard of.

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

Jewels of the Oracle

Russell programed and helped design twenty-four puzzles for the hit CD-ROM game Jewels of the Oracle which was released by DISCUS in March of 1995. Jewels of the Oracle won international recognition with Best of Show at MacWorld Expo San Francisco 1995, and Product of the Year CD-ROM Professional Magazine.

These puzzle games are now over twelve years old. They have been converted from Director version 4.1 to Director/Shockwave version 10.0. and posted here for your enjoyment. Unfortunately not all the puzzles survived the conversion process, and are not fully featured as originally intended as they are not running from their CD-ROM shell. To make the puzzles generally more accessible I’ve been slowly rewriting them (from scratch) using Flash 7 (AS2), the most accessible rich Internet environment possible. Once I finish rewriting a puzzle I take it down from here and post it in its Flash form under the Projects tab.

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

Move the blue ball through the cubic maze to the yellow shape on the same side of the maze as the starting position.

1995

‘Walk’ (move) the calipers across the tiles from the starting position in the upper left-hand corner of the board to the ending position in the lower right-hand corner of the board.
[Under construction/repair]

1995

Assemble the five shapes into a square.

1995

Move the spheres so that each column contains only spheres of the same color. To move the spheres, drag them from the column they start in to the stone gears below it and click on a gear (it can be, but doesn't have to be, the gear the sphere is in, depending on the direction you want to move the sphere). The gear will turn, and if there is no other sphere blocking the way, it will pass off the sphere it is holding to the next gear.

1995

Complete the sequence of nine tiles (for which three are already in place) by selecting those that fill positions three through eight at the top of the board from the 36 available in the pool below.

1995

Arrange the 24 shapes in the frame such that they cover the entire red portion of the board.

1995

Slide the tiles so that each one is placed over its matching pattern engraved on the stone frame holding them.

1995

Move the water from tank to tank until the total amount in the group of tanks on the left wall, middle wall, and right wall is the same.

1995

Match the twelve items two by two through identifying a common characteristic for each pair.

1995

Arrange the nine tiles in their frame such that the painted horse halves on them create horses of a solid color (e.g. yellow head, yellow tail; blue head, blue tail).

995

Slide the mixed-up tiles to their proper places so that a complete picture appears.

1995

Assemble the pictures in the squares that are revealed briefly when you click on them into a single, larger picture.

1995

Arrange the 20 bricks in the 20 spaces on the board such that each number created horizontally and vertically is evenly divisible by seven.

1995

Place the tokens on the wheels such that no two tokens pass by each other when the gears are moving. To release the tokens, pull the levers on the left wall one at a time. To place the tokens, turn the wooden platform to the wheel you wish to place the token on and drag the token onto the platform. To turn a wheel to allow for the placement of another token on the same wheel, or to see how the gears move, throw the lever on the right hand side of the machine.

1995

Arrange the ten tiles in their frame such that the symbols along the edges of each tile match up with those on the edge of each tile that touches them.

1995

Eliminate all but one of the spheres on the board. When you ‘jump’ a sphere over another, the one jumped over will be removed from the board automatically.
[Under construction/repair]

1995

Use the beetle to push all of the pebbles into the hole at the bottom center of the puzzle board.

1995

Credits for Jewels of the Oracle.

1995

Jewels of the Oracle Prototypes

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

One of the original puzzles used to pitch and get funding for Jewels of the Oracle. This puzzle was to become ‘2. Hall of the Nightsky’ in the final product. [There is a bug with this puzzle where if you click drag on one of the corner gears the whole gear often disappears. This bug appears to have been introduced when upgrading to the latest version of Shockwave and certainly didn’t occur in the original.]

1994

Zookazoo

From November 2007 to November 2008 Russell worked full time as a senior Flash Actionscript 3 (AS3) programmer for KD Learning on their ZooKazoo social networking environment for kids. ZooKazoo was managed in Palo Alto, with programmers in Seattle, and a main office in Burbank, Los Angeles, where the bulk of the animation was created. Zookazoo stopped developing as of December 5th 2008 after failing to secure further funding, falling prey to the stock market crash. Zookazoo was taken offline entirely at the end of May 2009.

One of Russell’s tasks at Zookazoo was to integrate various games being developed in Hong Kong, India and Seattle into the Zookazoo site with a common interface/API, and a system to award ‘Kazoobits’ for gameplay. To establish an example methodology to do this he developed a very simple ‘Simon Says’ game that was used as a sample template for outside developers to start with. Later, he also developed a sample ‘Dodo Drop’ multiplayer game which, like ‘Simon Says’, was intended as a starting template for outside developers to build games, ‘Dodo Drop’ being an action multiplayer example, while the earlier ‘Simon Says’ a single player example.

Like many of the Zookazoo games, ‘Simon Says’ was graphically reskinned for different environments. There was a Jungaloo version, called ‘Bang a Bongo’ and a Hiphopolis version, called ‘Scratch n’ Match’.

Feb 2008

PBS Games

Russell Lowke DBA Mocaz, subcontracting under 360kid, programmed two online interactive games for the PBS web site in their ‘Dragon Tails’ section. These games were received very favorably by PBS, and the site as a whole was nominated for an award by the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council (MIMC) in the category of General Education. These games are an interesting mix of Flash assets running in Director. At that time Flash scripting wasn't mature enough to make even a kid's maze game so Director was used for the programming.

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

Navigate a dragon character around a maze to collect items in a certain order.

2000

Educational Games

These educational game prototypes were developed for Brilliant Interactive Ideas (BII) in Sydney Australia. They where designed for flexibility between graphics and code, being specifically created so that graphics could easily be substituted, and the games reused in different guises over a suite of different CD-ROMs. Four separate CD-ROM titles were originally envisioned. BII were acquired by Sega Australia in 1997 and changed their focus from traditional children's CD-ROM products to online three-dimensional Multipath Movies. Their educational CD-ROM suite was dropped due to increased marketplace competition, and these games never saw publication.

These games are not in their CD-ROM Shell so the ‘Menu’ and ‘Help’ buttons do not work. ‘Help’ instructions were never written for these games, but most of them are fairly intuitive, with the exception of Mancala, for which I have included instructions.

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

Object of Game: Each player attempts to collect as many birds as possible before one of the players clears his or her side of birds.
The Board and Trees: Each player has a side of the board (top and bottom). The four trees nearest each player belong to them and their mancala tree is the tree on their right.
How to play: Players alternate turns. In his or her turn each player selects a tree of birds from one tree on their side of the board. The birds sow themselves around the trees around the board, including that players mancala tree—but not the opponents mancala tree. Example: If there are 4 birds in a selected tree one bird will be placed in each of th next 4 trees.
If the last bird lands in the players own mancala, that player goes again.
If the last bird lands in a empty tree on the players own side, he captures all the birds in the tree from the opponents tree directly opposite that tree.
How to Win: The game is over when a player has no more birds in play on the board. The winner is the player with the greatest total of birds in their mancala + any remaining birds on their side of the board.

1997

Casino Games

These casino games were developed as part of the Megamall Lifestyle Browser, a Home Shopping/Internet Hybrid CD-ROM for Mac & Windows, produced for Interactive Digital Options, Sydney Australia.

Adobe Full Shockwave Player required.

[Description coming when I finally get around to writing it. Try it for yourself.]

1996

Click drag your chips onto the Roulette matt to place your bets, when you are satisfied with your choices press the ‘Spin’ box to commence the roulette wheel spinning.

1996

Experimental Movies

Experimental movies made by Russell while living in Boston and working on his undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Disparate characters interweave their small tales of love and loss against a familiar background of drinks and smoke. Cherry features music from the Dresden Dolls and Ad Frank.
Produced and Directed by Russell Lowke; Written by John Cotter.
Click here for a Director's Statement and Movie Synopsis
Official Selection TARTAN ROAD Film Festival 2006

Oct 2005

20:03

The Bon Savants’ performance of Why This Could Never Work Between Us at the PAN9 September 16th 2005 Show. See their website at: http://www.bonsavants.com/

May 17th 2006

3:53

The Dresden Dolls’ performance of Missed Me with Andy on violin at the PAN9 2005 October 8th Benefit. See their website at: http://www.dresdendolls.com/

Oct 8th 2005

5:03

The Dresden Dolls’ performance of The Last Day of Our Acquaintance at the PAN9 October 8th 2005 Benefit. See their website at: http://www.dresdendolls.com/

Oct 8th 2005

5:47

Fluttr Effect’s performance of Hollywood Is Porn at the PAN9 October 8th 2005 Benefit. See their website at: http://www.fluttreffect.com/

Oct 8th 2005

5:29

Lifestyle's performance of Everyone's in love with you at the Abbey Lounge on May 23rd 2006. See their website at: http://www.lifestyleland.com/

May 23rd 2006

4:32

Ad Frank at the PAN9 September 24th 2005 "Better Living Through Cynicism show. See Ad’s website at: http://www.adfrank.com/

Jan 2nd 2006

6:58

The Sideshow Players with Molly Crabapple at the PAN9 October 8th 2005 Benefit. Molly's website is at: http://www.mollycrabapple.com/

Oct 8th 2005

4:40

Catullus’ own luck in love rubs off on one of his admirers. Produced for Introduction to Video 295-2 with Amy Sharp, a course at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. This project was the first time I’d ever really used a video camera.

Mar 16th 2003

8:53

Computer Science Class Work

Graduate and undergraduate computer science class work done by Russell Lowke while at Harvard University Extension. Please note, Summer School classes (those prefixed with an ‘S-’ instead of an ‘E-’) are not archived online by Harvard, and so do not have a live link to information on the class.

I’ve locked some of the archives as I doubt the instructors would appreciate my solutions (correct or otherwise) being accessible on the web.

Communication Protocols and Internet Architectures with Len Evenchik

[C++ and OpenGL, TCL] Advanced Computer Graphics with Hanspeter Pfister

[C++ and OpenGL] Introduction to Computer Graphics with Hanspeter Pfister

Object-Oriented Programming in C++ with Kenneth Basye.

My final project for this class was an Asteroids game for Windows (source here) written using OpenGL. I later expanded upon the game and converted it to Flash to make it accessible on the web.

[C++ and Java] Algorithms and Data Structures with Michael Mitzenmacher

[Maya 3D modeling] Advanced Topics in Visual Effects with Adrian Mendoza

Design Patterns and Java with William Robinson

Java for Distributed Computing with Charles Sawyer

Advanced Website Development Using XML with David Heitmeyer

Intensive Introduction to Computer Science Using C++ with Henry Leitner

UNIX Systems Programming with Bruce Molay

Introduction to C, UNIX, CGI Programming with Bruce Molay

[Java] Data Structures with Jeff Parker

Introduction to Computer Science Using Java I & II with Henry Leitner

Essays

Essays written by Russell Lowke as an undergraduate at Harvard University Extension.

Antique Game

This strategic Macintosh computer game was developed between 1988 to 1991 as a hobby. It was produced and designed by Russell Lowke, programmed in Pascal by Arthur Street, and originally marketed in the U.S. through Soft Stream International. Later, Galactic Frontiers became an established Mac shareware title, and was included on the Best of Inside Mac Games 1993 to 1996.

Here’s the credits screen for Galactic Frontiers.

1991