Alright! It’s been a month since I set some insane goals for myself. Let’s see what I’ve been up to.
Tag Archives: Game Jam
2GAM – January Update #1
Well here we are, nearly half way through the first month of the new year. As I mentioned in my last post, I foolishly entered the One Game A Month challenge (1GAM) twice, so I thought it might be a good time to shed some light on what I’ve been up to. I’ve been working on way more than 2 games this month so far, but here are the two that I plan to submit for my “2GAM” entries:
“Indie Goodbye” Day 4
(This post is a few days late. Holidays are very sneaky things and suddenly there’s no time to write!)
The last day of Indie Goodbye, Day 4, was probably the busiest of them all. At this point I still didn’t have any menus or UI in place, and there was no way to restart the game if you died, so there was quite a bit left before the game was user-friendly enough to release.
“Indie Goodbye” Day 3
(This post is about 2 days late. I went into hyper overdrive around the end and didn’t want to waste precious cycles trying to get a forum post out in time. Nonetheless, this post shall still exist!)
Day 3 of development of my Indie Goodbye game was an interesting one. I started the day by working on the title screen logo. Adding a title screen goes a long way to making your project feel more like a real game, which gets pumped back into your motivation center through a process called “science”, or so they say.
“Indie Goodbye” Day 2
Today didn’t go exactly as I’d hoped, but it was still fantastic.
I had forgotten that I had already made plans to do some Christmas shopping today, so, after a few hours of shopping and a Chinese buffet-induced coma, there wasn’t as much time to write code as I would have liked. That said, I’m still rather pleased with what I did manage to do in the short time I had left.
“Indie Goodbye” Day 1
This is a quick peek into how my Indie Goodbye game progressed over the course of Day 1. I decided to use the default EGA Color Palette this time for an added challenge, instead of the 4-color monochrome Game Boy look I’ve gotten used to.
Ludum Dare 25 Weekend
Ahoy! Long time no see. I’m not very good at updating this blog but I hope to change that starting now. Usually I just post to my Google+ stream and call it a day, but starting from this post I’d like to try to post at least once a week.
Halloween Battle 2012 – A 48-Hour Game Jam
It’s been far too long since I’ve updated this blog. I’ve been working on quite a few things lately, but haven’t had anything concrete to show until recently.
Mid-Month Mayhem Game Jam – May 2012
I just wanted to quickly announce that Mid-Month Mayhem is back and this time our friends at Playtomic were kind enough to sponsor the event with participation prizes valued at over $100!
Official Post
It’s time for Mid-Month Mayhem to return!
Instead of being a weekend jam like Final Friday, I’d like for this one to be a week long, starting on the middle Monday of the month, and ending the following Monday.
The rules are simple. Post a reply to this thread to enter. I will select a theme and announce it on Monday, May 14th. You may use this theme if you want, or you can ignore it. You can also choose to work on or finish an existing game, if you don’t feel like starting a new one. The important thing is to come together and enjoy working on games as a community. By Monday, May 21, you should reply to this thread showing off the work you’ve done, and I also highly recommend sharing a screenshot for #ScreenshotSaturday as well. Feel free to collaborate with one another or work alone. Anything goes as long as you have fun making stuff.
Those who DO decide to follow the game jam’s theme and submit a finished or near-finished game by Monday, May 21, will enjoy free premium account status on Playtomic until the end of 2012 (Over $100 Value!).
We will be hanging out in Tiny Chat during the jam, so feel free to drop by and hang out, whether you’re jamming or not.
Please see the official thread to sign up. Thanks and happy jamming!
Gem Jam Adventure Released
Gem Jam Adventure, a game I worked on with Endo Earth Game Studio, is now out and available to the public for free! More about the game and where to play below.
About the Game
Gem Jam Adventure is the result of “Mid-Month Mayhem” Game Jam 3 which I hosted back in August 2011 in the Flash Game License community (I worked on another game during this jam that I’ll discuss at a later time). The game underwent a plethora of changes and adjustments over the last several months before it became what it is today. In this section I’ll talk more about how it got started and where we took it from there. If you are just looking to try the game, feel free to skip to the bottom of this post where I’ve provided play links.
Since the theme of the game jam was “Money/Coins/Gold/Gems/Treasure” naturally we decided to go with the addictive simplicity of a match-3 puzzle game. We looked to several popular casual games for inspiration, including the beloved Bejeweled franchise by PopCap Games. Our hope was to at least capture a small part of what makes these games such a huge part of so many players’ gaming lives – even those who don’t even consider themselves gamers.
I didn’t play as active a role in this game as I usually do with my projects – this time I only served as director and supplementary artist. The bulk of the game was designed and programmed by my good friend, Daniel Munoz, owner of Endo Earth Game Studio. He had been having trouble getting his game, Disruptor, released, so I decided to help him out by collaborating on this match-3.
We made a lot of headway into the game during the game jam, but shortly afterwards, the project fell by the way side. We worked on the game here and there over the course of a few months but it was by no means a high priority. To be honest, I wasn’t sure the game would even be released at all, having been shelved for so long.
Much to my surprise, after disappearing for a good while, Daniel resurfaced with a finished game, ready to go up for sale on Flash Game License. We put the game up for bid, and there it stayed for about a month or so until we finally ended up accepting an offer from Mindjolt. The game didn’t end up getting as much as we had hoped, but we still have the potential for non-exclusive sales to help drive the revenue up.
Where to Play
Due to the nature of our agreement with Mindjolt, this particular game will not see a viral distribution launch. Instead, it is available to play directly on Mindjolt’s website as well as via their Facebook application. I’ve also listed it here in my Products page and on my experimental AV Arcade portal, Ninja Dart. Have your pick:
Play on Mindjolt
Play on Facebook
Play on this Blog
Play on Ninja Dart
Other Thoughts
As I promised in my previous post, the new Melee/Range Man website is now live. If you have time, I’d really appreciate it if you would check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!
