Box Life on Steam Greenlight

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Steam Greenlight is a new service, where players can vote for games they wish to see on Steam platform.

So, a bit unexpectedly for myself, I decided to put Box Life there. I was planning to submit other game, but said game is still too early in development, and seeing how many games that are submitted are far from perfect I thought, what the hell, why not, and went for it.

I’m planning to add more content if game will be accepted and make it more lengthy and interesting experience.

If you enjoyed the game, you can vote for it here (requires steam account with at least one game on it)

 

Fog and Thunder – afterthoughts

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So, I have finished and released a game I’ve started about a year ago. Because finishing projects is cool.
After release I have posted it on kongregate and newgrounds, but game fell flat on those portals. And that made me a bit sad. But then I have tweeted to freeindiegam.es editors about my game, and got mention there, and posted about it on /r/IndieGaming/ – got quite a few players, and good deal of feedback. I’ve updated game with fixes and balancing tweaks after. Game have been mentioned on other blogs and sites. So, it’s important not to rely on one place to getting your game out.

So, year ago, when I started this game, it was a bit more ambitious, there were all sorts of ideas, and it was unfocused. Now recently when I got back to it, I cut away everything I could, focused on light mechanic and player’s fragility, made simple goals for levels, and here is the result. I even cut away crafting mechanics which I were quite proud of coding – by placing coins on a ground in a 3×3 grid, and it would work no matter in which order thy were put.

I think I will return to this game some time later and expand it a bit, adding some depth, making it more exciting, adding something to find, probably.

It is possible that I will announce new project soon, stay tuned, subscribe to rss, follow me on twitter.

tequibo

 

Fog and Thunder – early build

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This is one of my old projects that I decided to finish. So, Ive been working in it past month. I started working on it year ago, and since I haven’t blogged too much, you will find entries about it few posts ago.
It’s a roguelike, where things are affected by light, and you are on a quest to find something cool to fill an emptiness inside.

Play!

Post-mortem: Box Life

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At may 8th I’ve released improved version of my Ludum Dare entry, which I carelessly titled as “box life”. This post is about what happened later, and what I’ve learned. Game did surprisingly well – I did not expect this. It has higher than average rating on kongregate(around 3.75) almost 40 000 “game plays” at the moment, which are, in fact, views. Game was mentioned by freeindiegame.es, indiegames.com, indiegamemag.com.   What I think I got right:

  • Look and feel. Game looks and feels nice. Sound, textures, animations are all right.
  • Options – like pause and menu on escape, inverse and sensitivity options for mouse, versions for download.
  • Level design – Those moments when player sees something, and want to get there, but needs some power to do it, than she finds that power gets back, and hooray! Well, this is what makes metroidvania, even a small one.
  • Secrets. People really liked finding them. I’ve actually added them because I really enjoyed finding them in Legend of Grimrock. Or, in some older release too, in Portal 2, I liked to find all that Ratman’s graffiti.

What could be improved. Mostly because I wanted to release the game, and move on to next project. Based on feedback and my thoughts.

  • In abstract environment is hard to say, if something is a decoration, or have a purpose. Orange blocks and sculpture with balls and lines were confusing to players. They were initially added as decorations and some landmarks, because initial LD entry environment was too bland and alike.
  • Reward for finding all secrets may be disappointing for some. It’s just an little illustration I drew.
  • Story of some sort.

I’ve learned a lot from this little project. I don’t know what else to say. Thanks!

P.S. Unity is an awesome tool for making games.

Release: Box Life

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I’ve completed super enhanced version of my ludum Dare entry! Hooray!


Play in browser

Download: PC, Mac, Update: Linux

 

Support on kongregate

List of changes:

  • Reworked level design
  • Visual tweaks
  • Objects to collect and assemble
  • Fixed bugs
  • More sounds
  • Animations
  • Small reward for those who found more than 4 secrets
  • Mouse sensitivity, volume, fullscreen, mouse inverse options.
  • Cool thingy that you can see on a screenshot below

Thanks to everyone who left feedback to my entry. And Ludum Dare is awesome.

Update:

If you want to see full game with more levels on Steam vote for it on Steam Greenlight

Weekly pictures: first issue

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I’ve started to draw a picture every day.
I’m gonna bunch of them here weekly, and I post them on my tumblr daily. This is the plan anyway.

Update on my new project

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First of all here is another glitchy screenshot:

I have decided not to use flixel, since I had some performance issues, so now it’s just me, AS 3.0 and some small libraries, like gTween. And it lets much easier to work with animation, without any 3rd party tools. Two of my last games haven’t got love in this aspect mostly because I was to lazy to use create animation and convert it to spritesheets. And because I’m pretty pretty good at animation (and graphics) overall feel of the game will be better. not to brag, I’m terrible at programming, at least I think so. And to be honest, I think I’m OK in animation and graphics, but people says I’m good.

I have made some progress, and I think I may have found interesting mechanic, that serves well to purpose of the game.

And here is a screenshot from current version.

New game is what I am working on

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Here is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna write a blog post! About new game I’m making. And I’m gonna do it just for fun, and not gonna think if this is interesting to anybody, or not.
So, here is the PICTURE.

That picture does not, in fact represent how game is gonna look, or even how it is looking right now. It’s just a glitchy effect I liked.
The game is about dungeon, exploration, and danger! Mainly about exploration and searching and finding.
It is based on this prototype, I’m building it in Flixel now, instead of pure AS 3.0, because I don’t really want to write collision checks and all that gibberish nonsense that real programmers usually do. Because I’m only one guy and there is a lots of work to do.
That is my main concern – game I want to make can be too big to complete it in reasonable time. So, I’m gonna keep it simple, and probably present it unfinished, and continue to work on it and improve.
And here is some characters.

Egg and Ghost and me (postmortem)

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I wanted to make a game. I needed to make a game. And I have made it! Here is the story of how it was.

Development
I think I have managed to create fun and interesting core mechanics. There is some interesting enemies, managing egg and platforms is cool, and I really like bosses I have designed.

 

 

Here is an Iron. He came from idea, that sometimes you just need to move the egg to save it. At first, a have made him immune to bullets, but then I just gave him more hp, so sometimes he can be killed with certain power-ups.

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