(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.
(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.
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.
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.
My latest game, Recursion, is now up for sponsorship bidding on Flash Game License with an editor rating of 8/10!
Click here to see it now! (requires a sponsor account or mid-level developer account)
“Stranded on an uncharted planet, our hero’s only hope is to wrap his mind around the way this new world works. What’s left is right, what’s up is down, and even the plant life seems to grow in any which way it can. Can you help him find his way through 30 levels and fight his long lost love?”
Recursion is a 16 bit puzzle platformer built in the Game Boy Advance resolution of 240×160. It features 30 levels of mind-bending platformer action and takes advantage of a mechanic seen in very early arcade games – when you exit the screen in one direction, you emerge from the other.
Recursion was developed by myself during a 72 Hour Game Jam that I created to challenge myself. After the jam period was up, I contracted Andy Brown (ANOTHERsoft) and Daniel Davis (an0va / David vs Goliath) to help me finish it. Andy provided 28 of the 30 levels and I’m very happy with his work. He also created levels for my previous game, Range Man. Daniel also did a fantastic job, providing the game with 2 original tracks and all the sound effects it needed. Daniel was also the sound designer on both Melee Man and Range Man.
As of this post, Recursion has just entered bidding, so it’s hard to say what I’ll end up getting from it. Wish me luck!
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!
As I briefly mentioned yesterday, Range Man, a quirky little spin-off of Melee Man, is now in active viral distribution. I uploaded it to both Playtomic and Flash Game Distribution channels, and to a few of our favorite games portals – details below!
Zethama
Before I share some of the other links, I’d first like to give a shout-out to the game’s sponsor, Rob from Zethama.com. Without working closely with Rob, this game would not even exist, and for that, I owe a debt of gratitude. Thanks Rob, and I hope the game performs well for you. For those of you who have not yet checked out his website, I encourage you to do so. He’s still a bit new to the scene, but his website has a lot of great games available to play free of charge.
Play Range Man on Zethama: World of Games
Kongregate
Range Man is also available on Kongregate! As with the previous game, I plan to upload it to Kongregate Arcade for mobile at some point as well. Stay tuned for more on that.
Play Range Man on Kongregate – votes greatly appreciated!
Newgrounds
Range Man is, of course, also available on Newgrounds, should you prefer playing there more. It’s the first time I’ve launched a game on their new platform, so it was quite different uploading and getting the game to work on their site. If you come across any problems or anything I could have done better, please let me know!
Play Range Man on Newgrounds – votes greatly appreciated here as well!
MeleeMan.com
Of course, being the spin-off that it is, Range Man will have its own special spot on the Official Melee Man Website. It would appear that I never got around to updating the site with a news area, better presentation media, or a distribution package, so I’ll be adding that this time as well. You can expect this update to roll out by tomorrow! The new website is live now!
Distribution Feeds
As I mentioned earlier, Range Man is available in my two favorite distribution feeds. Here are the links to their pages:
Range Man on Playtomic
Range Man on Flash Game Distribution
Feel free to grab the game and upload it to your personal website, blog, or games portal. You’re free to post it anywhere and everywhere that you can, and I appreciate the help getting the word out!
Android Marketplace??
I know that I mentioned in the Melee Man Viral Launch announcement post that I’d have it and Jetpack Jerome on the Android Marketplace shortly. I apologize for the unintended deception, but I found that the games just don’t run reliably enough on this platform in their current state. What I do plan to do, however, is rewrite the games in a more optimized fashion and possibly bundle the 3 of them into one single application. Being the retro games that they are, the file sizes are relatively small, making it easy to offer them in this manner.
Other Thoughts
I uploaded the game to my Products page and my experimental portal, Ninja Dart, as well. I’m considering the possibility of making a PC installable version of the 3-game bundle too, so let me know in the comments if that’s something you’d be interested in. I hope you enjoy the game, and please let me know what you think of it. Thanks!
Play Range Man on this blog
Play Range Man on Ninja Dart
The Community Forums are now clear of spam as well – well, clear of everything really, haha.
Here’s another group of updates on what I’ve been up to lately:
Shatter Blocks 2
The sequel to my most-played game, Shatter Blocks, is well under way. I’ll post more about it in a development preview later, but for now, screenshots!
Community Forums
The forums fell victim to a massive spambot infestation not long ago, so I had to purge them. I’ve installed some new security plugins and so far there hasn’t been a single spambot account, so here’s hoping.
If you had already registered, you’ll have to do so again. I apologize for this, but I didn’t have the time to sort through 3000 accounts to find the handful that were legitimate. As always, you can find the forums by clicking on the Community tab above, or going to www.thevillageblacksmith.net/community/
Melee Man
The result of a GameBoy-esque mockup I drew in 20 minutes became a complete game just days later! Melee Man is currently up for sponsorship bidding on Flash Game License. It’s a brutal retro platformer featuring the music of chiptune wizard, Daniel Davis as well as sounds and levels by David Carney of David vs Goliath! I plan to release it on Android and PC as well. Here are some screenshots:
You can view more screenshots on the official Melee Man website. Many thanks to Chevy Ray Johnston and Matt Thorson for developing the tools that made this game possible (FlashPunk and Ogmo Editor respectively)!
Another GameBoy-esque Game?
I had so much fun working on Melee Man that I’ve decided to mockup another!
I’m not sure when I’ll get around to developing this, as I still have Shatter Blocks 2 to finish, but I’m really looking forward to working on it!
Things are going to get very busy going into the holiday season. See you next time!
