Monday 20 July 2009

Keep moving forward

After releasing H0MER, which was great fun making in one day, I'm moving back onto larger projects. I want to work in more depth and narrative as well as some real level design into my current projects. I have about 6 projects lurking around in my head at the moment, only 2 of which I see myself seriously working on in the near future. But have no fear, this should simply mean that my final products are of far higher quality than previous efforts.
I was on holiday last week too, so I couldn't do much more than design anyway, although I certainly did a lot of that. I noticed that a great many of my ideas are oriented largely around exploration, so I really ought to get around to actually releasing one based on that.
Oh, on that note, Harry Bones is going well. I'm really impressing myself with how much better of a coder I am now than a year ago.

Anyway, have a list of names of games I'm either working on or designing at the moment, most of which you'll probably never hear of again.
Harry Bones and the Dusty Dungeon
MADeleine
World Of Wonders
Stranded Astronaut
Abandoned
Cosmiccer Trigger Bomber
Dead Star

Thursday 9 July 2009

Game in a day: HOMER

New game time people, made this one in a single day, started in free time at work, then finished it when I got home. I quite like it, and it helped me learn a few little graphical effects and some very basic AI. I also realised that even in abstract games, some small narrative does go a long way, so maybe I'll include more in future.

Anyway, it's called HOMER, seeing as all the weapons in the game home in on their targets.
Move with arrow keys.
Fire with X.
Use C to create a reflective sheild for a moment
The key to success is utilising the reflective sheild. If you deflect an attack it will be ready to use again alost immediately, but if you're too early you'll have to wait a moment to use it again, and if you're too late you'll be damaged.

The reflective sheild is an idea I was working on in a previous project, but it works much better how I've done it here.

http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/88400

I think I managed to get through this in one day because after reading all the articles in this week's Escapist about indie gaming I was really psyched up. It was fun to do, and I can see why lots of indie developers enjoy the rapid prototyping process.

PS Also, what the hell is going on with my font on here, something is seriously wonky with the text editor methinks.