Courtesy of Critical Distance, Gamasutra presents the best 99 free games of 2009.

http://www.gamasutra.com/…/The_99_Best_Free_Games_Of_2009

Numerous Ludum Dare entries and regulars make up a respectable share of the list, which is something we’re always proud to see. Check it out.

Phew. Voting is a lot of work . Downloading everything, unpack them into folders that include the author name (makes things easier afterwords),  fixing broken entries, maybe even installing extra stuff, playing the game, thinking up fair votes and commenting.

Playing the game

I feel you have to give the game a chance. Even if it looks really boring in the beginning. Sometimes it turns out to be really boring, but I feel more often it stuff can grow on you if you open your mind, try to ignore any irritating bits and concentrate on the mood the developer try to create. I found myself really trying to finish several games (and succeeding) and steering a little grey dot over a paintbrush map for at least 10 minutes (and enjoying it) .

Voting

Voting is hard. You want to be fair (naturally). After I’ve played about 5+ entries I get a feel for what I consider a music 3.. or a humor 4. I can only decide on ratings by comparing the games.  Is this how everyone does it?

Commeting

Getting positive feedback and comments is probably the most fun, and could be a big part of the motivation to make a game for LD.  Since I enjoy it so much I feel I should write something (sometimes more, sometimes less) to 99% of  the entries I try. I doesn’t need to be much work commenting, just say what’s on your mind and focus on what’s good in the game, or how something could be made even better. If you “force” yourself to comment on every game you get good at it after a while

Hello fellow survivors (or survivors-so-far, where applicable) of various holidays, yule-tide celebrations, mid-winter feasts, and zombie infestations.

Since LD16 I have done some additional work on my entry, “Ruins”. (And thanks to everyone who’s commented on the entry!) A lot of what I’ve done has been technical and a bit behind-the-scenes, but I wanted to share a very short (3 room) demo I’ve put together of both a new mechanic for the player and several smaller features of the engine.

If you’d like to give it a try, you can find it here:

http://www.thewasabiproject.com/flash-games/play/ruins-demo-1220/

(This is more of a tech demo than a “game” — you can “win” by completing all three rooms, but there aren’t any gems to collect or any leaderboards to deal with.)

And here’s a couple of quick screenshots:

From a gameplay point of view, the interesting change in this demo is the addition of a brief (about 6 seconds) period of time after dying during which you can exist as a spirit. During this spirit existence you can still interact with objects like levers and switches, but you are immune to damage and cannot attack. If you’ve created a “Patch of Life” before dying, and you reach it as a spirit before your 6 second time limit expires, you will be restored to life.

(more…)

ok, I’m a whole compo behind, but here’s an update for my LD15 entry (Caverns). For that compo I hacked the game out in two 4h sessions, so it was missing a couple of vital elements: sound, and the ability to shoot physhaxey bullets at the attacking circles. There’s also a little bonus tune when you finish the game (thanks to Flash Module Player). Hope you enjoy it!

Also, I should have posted this earlier but the organizers of Sense of Wonder Night (TGS) have uploaded the presentations on youtube. You can see my one on Swarm Racer (LD08) here

I plugged LD in the Q&A section, but they cut that part ):

Replying to comments posted on 5 Colors: Pandora.

TenjouUtena says …

Hard to figure out. Some hint about what keys to press would have been appreciated. Also I kept getting some sort of bug while playing through the game, and it did eventually make it unplayable. Kind of a fun little puzzler / indie style game.

Thanks for pointing out the potential for confusion Tenjou… I updated the readme and added hints and a walkthrough, which should help. As far as the bug, I think I know what it was (getting stuck on the purple room?), and I think I fixed it.

sdnitrasm_cero says …

Weird puzzle logics, I love it

Got to the part with the gradient colors near the dor but got stuck there and didn’t finish the game. I should play it again when you release the walkthrough
(and I think I found a glitch, the first time I entered through the door it sent me down for some reason).

Released the walkthrough, and I think I fixed that glitch.

C418 says …

The puzzles were sometimes a bit too confusing for me. But I think this is a good game. The visuals remind me of Small Worlds. A bit.

Small Worlds was definitely one of the inspirations I had for going super low-res, though my style ended up being sufficiently different to satisfy my need for “originality” .

Sos says …

Astonishing, but I’m too dumb to beat it…

Hope the walkthrough helps

Frimkron says …

I finished it! *bows* . Unique and intriguing, if a little frustrating in places – I was glad of the hints included in the readme.

Thanks for the compliments Frimkron!

ippa says …

cool, ultra retro gfx, odd, good combo

Thanks ippa!

Risko says …

This is the best game i have seen in this competition so far in every aspect (except audio) — the idea is great and greatly done, the graphics are absolutely great — mainly the buildings (great combination with that green background) and it was really fun to play (except the buggy part — see below). And naturaly good audio would make it even better, but i just listend to Coil and it fit the game very well

some criticism, though — the loading screen is awful (mainly in comparation with the beautiful graphics in game. And i’m not sure, if i have overseen some kind of switch, but if not, than you have some strange bug there — i had the whole part from 3:20-4:00 in video + the house in 2:00 white(on every try), so i was trying to find some other keys on keyboard to get colors in, or some new strategy to cope this white level, but after 10 minutes of trying to get through this invisible level i was so frustrated, that i watched the video and played just 2 of the colors and let the other to for some other time.

Thanks for the praise Risko! Yeah, the loading screen is pretty terrible… Game Maker default, which I should have taken 10 seconds to change . Regarding the crazy “invisible” bug that you ran into, I posted about that a little while back. Anyway, it’s fixed now .

philomory says …

A “game about colors, and their consequences.” Absolutely brilliant. This absolutely embodies exploration, like towlr but good.

This game needs only three things to make it absolutely perfect: first, it *cries out* for some sort of ambient soundtrack. Second, I’d have liked it if at the end, after Blue, you made your way back to the Color Room for some final room before the credits. Third, motion could have been smoother. Sometimes it looked a little jerky when you moved around. Those three things aside, this game is still pretty much 5 stars all around (I dinged one graphic point for the jerky motion rendering).

I liked this game so much that, when I accidentally quit the game by hitting escape trying to pause when I got a phone call near the very end, I played it all the way through again just to finish.

EDIT (Beware of spoilers): I have to come back and note, after watching my girlfriend play this game, and watching the video walkthrough… there are a LOT of bugs in this game. In town area, for instance, several of the buildings present in the video walkthough manifested only as invisible walls when we played it. We also occasionally got stuck in walls, and in the last room, where you’re supposed to go through the ceiling, neither of us ever figured that out, but we didn’t have to because if you just exit the room and enter again, it puts you in the top half with the colors.

I’m not going to subtract any points from the score I gave, because these things honestly didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the game… at the time I thought they were intentional, and took them in stride. None-the-less, it does make me wish there was a ‘technical’ category to vote in.

Thank you very much for the compliments philomory! You ran into the same bug that Risko did (a product of a non-dedicated video card), which is now fixed . I do hope to add a soundtrack to the game, and maybe some sound effects.  I’m a bit puzzled about your comment regarding “jerky motion,” as it seems fairly smooth to me, but maybe we just have different standards. In any case, the resolution would probably have to be bumped up to make the motion any smoother than it is… something to think about.

Maple says …

This is pretty awesome.i like the transform thingy XD and the puzzles were kinda hard for me.

Thanks Maple! Sorry if the puzzles are too hard

SonnyBone says …

This game is deceptively deep. I had no idea what was going on at first, but EXPLORATION brought me knowledge. Great use of theme!

Thanks SonnyBone, for the encouragement, and for understanding my use of theme!

dertom says …

Yeah,…good job! Keep on rocking…

Thanks dertom!

Hempuli says …

The idea was nice, but it was slightly too buggy to be enjoyable; I got stuck several times and pressing N teleported me weirdly around.

Hm… sorry to hear that your experience wasn’t enjoyable Hempuli . Could you maybe provide a bit more detail regarding what bugs you were running into? I think I have fixed all critical bugs in the game, meaning that you should no longer get stuck in such a way that you can no longer continue.  Pressing “N” should just take you to the next level, which is what it seems to do for me… I wasn’t able to reproduce any “weird teleporation.”  Perhaps if you explain the problem a bit more I’ll be able to fix it.

gimblll says …

Nice complete game with a good idea supporting it. The controls were a bit too “fiddly” for my taste though. I didn’t have the patience to continue after I would’ve had to start backtracking the levels. (Thanks for the youtube footage so I could actually see it played through!)

Hm… could you explain what you mean by “fiddly” controls gimblll? Are you referring to moving around with the arrow keys? Or transforming? Or jumping? The controls don’t really seem to give me much trouble, so I’m a bit uncertain what you mean here.

sinoth says …

Thank you for this beautiful entry. I may be a bit biased because I had Sigur Ros – Takk going in the background The slight spin in flying mode is perfect. My favorite entry so far.. if only it had some audio!

Ah, Sigur Ros! Yes! I’ve tried playing with Takk in the background myself, and it seems to fit pretty well — though I’m not sure about the first track. Anyway, thank you very much for the encouragement!

Thank you again to everyone who has played the game, and especially those who have provided feedback! Much appreciated! I hope I can be as helpful when it comes to your entries!

Some answers for Finding Her’s comments

C418 says …I like how the story gets explained through those little boxes

Thanks

I wanted to try how that worked on a game.

SonnyBone says …I just wish I knew what the heck happened at the end.

Check the “memory” icons on the bottom to figure it out

Wiering says …The first time I played I had no idea that you could press Space, since it only saidarrows move.

Yes, I should make every character have a “SPACE” when you move over them.

I thought that doing that just on the grandpa at the start would be enough.

matrin says …Hard to understand the story.

Even though the icons are not that descriptive (have to work on those), I think that the best way to understand it is through imagination.

philomory says …it might be interesting to add some platforming elements, to give the player a challenge as they uncover the story. Just a thought.

I think platforming, with gravity, would be annoying. Flying around hides the fact that the map is quite big 300×300 tiles (9600×9600 pixels!!)

But it could definetly profit from some sort of puzzle elements/mechanics

Cosr says …This was great. I like how the story is really left to the player to figure out, though I admit I’m a little lost on it. I guess I rushed through it to fast without thinking. I’ll definitely sit down with it again sometime and try to find all it has to offer. The protagonist manages to be quite expressive.

Thanks!

Jordan Magnuson says …Nice work. I really like the idea here, though it was a bit hard to figure out exactly what was going on story-wise (even though your little icons are great)… It would be nice to maybe have some indication if someone has new information to offer. I think spicing up the environment a bit wouldn’t hurt, though that’s not a criticism, as I’m well aware of the constraints that 48 hours create . I liked the visuals, and your soundtrack was nice too. Oh, and so far I’ve played through to one ending. Definitely interested to see where this goes!

Thanks! I need to work on the information thing, I never actually did this indication-with-icons thing so it’s good to have so much feedback

About debris and stuff, it was planned but, as you say, didn’t quite make it in the 2-day limit.

Sos says …I am a nice person You have to pay attention to follow the story, but the story is great

Thanks man!

increpare says …I don’t think I really understood the story at all, if there was a story to be understood. As an experience, I think once I got over resenting you for the amount of backtracking that seemed to be required, I enjoyed it. There were several good moments of tension in it, for me.

There was a story to be understood, but it highly depends on imagination. There’s a premise (“Finding her”, lol), but the story is just whatever you make out of it. If you managed to feel tension then, at least subconciously, you felt the story.

The fun thing is that the story is actually not about the character as in most games, but about his society. It kind of mimics several aspects of the human being (later on, it get’s really harsh). If someone doesn’t feel anything at all after going through the game, he/she’s not living in the real world or not paying attention.

Yeah and sorry about the backtracking, I need to figure out a way to give hints.

Hempuli says …This was really interesting! The distances could be a bit shorter, because there isn’t anyway anything interesting in moving around in a mostly-empty world

It could, but I like it the way it is. It ended up being like a methaphor: We only care about what surrounds us, even with the big world we live in.

Risko says …Great game (as expected ) — i like the most music, graphics and story (in this order). Have found just one ending, but i didn’t really notice it. Maybe some music, small animation, or some other remarkable thing would make it a bit stronger. But it was still highly valuable time, i think i will play it again, mainly for listening to the main theme music. And the small creatures are very cute (also easy to expect after your last LD game )

I agree there should be an ending animation (and a different one when you get the “happy” ending). I’m really glad you liked it. Even though I’m not a devoted musician and the notes are not in tempo, I felt great while recording that

2 things that could have been better: Maybe i didn’t understand the story well enought, but i had problem to find out whom to ask to get some clue to go further, doing this a bit cleaner would let me think that i’m the one playing, not just following the order you wanted me to follow.

Yes, as I answered to some questions before, I completly agree this has to be worked out.

Second thing is that you have maybe forgotten to include something like FlxG.followBounds…i didn’t like to see beyond the tiles on the borders of the map.

This was on purpose. You’re on a cave, but the cave is not the universe

TenjouUtena says …Fun, atmospheric. I couldn’t bring myself to finish. I was slightly annoyed at finding out you had to repeatedly ask people about new tokens. Other then that, very fun.

The asking system isn’t it’s strength, I agree… but that’s sort of what the game’s about. I guess not everybody will like it.

Now I have a question for you!

How do you think controlling the player with a mouse would feel like?

Clicking somewhere would move the character in that direction and clicking on a character would start the conversation.

Thanks for your interest and best regards to you all.

I had some connectivity issues at first, but my router is cooperating now. I invite you to check out CollabRL: the multiplayer dungeon! The concept is simple — you can move around, and you can drop letters for others to see. Updates to the map happen in real time.

The map started out as a complete void, but slowly the explorers left goodies and now it is pretty interesting

You can grab the bugfix version (and the freshly compiled Linux version!) at the entry page.

A screenshot of the initial area:

More screenshots after the break.

(more…)

I posted a little while back about a fixing some bugs in 5 Colors. Codexus was (appropriately) worried that I was fixing non-critical bugs, so I clarified that the bugs I fixed were indeed critical: I haven’t made any additions to my game, or fixed any bugs that were not game-stopping.

However, I do have some questions regarding the rules as they apply to bug fixes, because the LD rules wiki is not entirely clear.

On the one hand it says: “After the deadline, we do allow bugfixes. You’re allowed to fix any bugs that stop a player from playing or finishing your game,” which suggests that non-critical bug fixes are not allowed.

But it then goes on to state: “New content however is outside the scope of what’s considered a bugfix,” which would suggest that bug fixes are allowed, as long as you are not adding new content to the game.

So my question is, what is the LD policy/consensus when it comes to non-critical bug fixes? This seems to be a fairly laid-back community, which I really appreciate, but at the same time, it’s clear from peoples’ posts that everyone wants to “play fair,” so a clarification of rules seems like it would be good.

Personally I don’t see why people should not be encouraged to fix bugs, as bugs really aren’t part of the design of a game, which seems to be what LD is about (and even if bugs are fixed quickly, they will still effect some people, and hurt the game)–but others may feel differently. If bug fixes other than critical are not allowed, I think that a “technical” category should be added for judging the games.

Something to consider is that it may be a bit tricky to distinguish between “critical” and “noncritical” bugs at times: what if you have a bug that doesn’t make the game completely unplayable, but which makes it really frustrating all the way through?

Perhaps this is something to vote on?

Ok, more than a week after the compo finally ended, here my short summary what went fine and what was a fail (again?)

Good:

- After about one year experience with jMonkeyEngine and blender the comparison between ld13 and ld16 is really a progress.

- clear gameplay (platformer game – 3 buttons to use)

- added music. actually I’m quite happy about that smooth music. Wasn’t that difficult to create

- added soundfx (thx drpetter )

- webstartable java game. (most of the people was able to start it)

- timelapse

- created quite extendable platformer-framework for jME and blender

Cons:

- created quite extendable platformer-framework for jME and blender (although this might be good for the future it was not good for the compo! I hadn’t enough time to really show its capabilities)

- christmas-party the day before + 2h earlier starttime

- webstartable-game: not everyone was able to start it

- too less gameplay  (4h more time and……. )

Ok, even I’m not happy about the low-level gameplay I’m quite satisfied with the overall-experience. Next time I will for sure not start with jME from scratch again. It’s time to concentrate on gameplay!

Ok,…here my timelapse (3:30min)

http://thomas.trocha.com/misc/timelapse_ld16/ld16.htm

LD-Preview

One last think: To the people that are not able to start my game: Plz post me your configuration (OS, Browser and if possible installed Java-Version) THX…

From a comment on bashplore’s page:
“dertom says … Hehe,…a game in bash. That is really hardcore ”.
YYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS It is, but it adds a lot more fun!

What went right:

- bash it’s good, i like its feeling
- bash can do stuff for you
- save/load it’s super-easy
- bash teach you tricks, a lot of tricks! :p
- bash is great for roguelike
- bash give you sound for free!!! [got no time to add some, sorry]

What went wrong:

- bash rendering it’s slow
- bash doesn’t have data structure
- bash syntax it’s a pain
- bash it’s a iper-pain for non-roguelike game
- I was not so good at bash to write a game

Final thought:

- if you want to use bash for a roguelike game, that’s fine but you have to prepare some good utility function BEFORE the 48H.
- if you want to make games other than roguelike, then DON’T USE BASH, NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT BASH!!!!
- if you want to have a great fun makeing a game, just use the strangest programming/scripting language, that’s worth the effort.
- never forget to add graphics using color in the terminal
What next time?

I’ve already some very very sick yet fun idea in mind and i’m already coding something. Keep an eye on samel’s perversion 8)
c-ya next time!

Taking advantage of the “bug fixes are allowed after submission” clause, I’ve fixed a few more bugs in 5 Colors, having to do with collision detection. I don’t think you can get stuck in walls anymore. If anyone still has any bug trouble with the game, I’d really appreciate knowing. Thanks!

Clarification:  the collision bugs I fixed were critical, because people were getting stuck in the walls and not being able to continue the game. I did not tweak the collision detection at all in so far as it effects normal movement or anything: the game plays just as it did before, it is not “smoother” or anything like that–you just don’t get stuck in walls now.

You can download the new build from the game’s entry page.

Better late than never!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScV5QMFUB6U

Topsy Turvy post-mortem

What went right:

* The concept. I’ve had the idea in my head for a while, and I’m very glad that I used the competition as an excuse to make it rather than forcing myself to think of a game idea inspired by the theme. And the game ended up pretty much how I imagined, so that’s good too.
* Inkscape as level editor. AS3 has some rather lovely XML-parsing abilities, so reading the SVG file was surprisingly simple. It’s very much hard-coded to the specific output that (my copy of?) Inkscape generates, but it should be fairly easy to fix if it ever stops working.
* Abstract graphics. I am not an artist, so I decided to save time and just draw everything out of lines. I think the results fit the game fairly well, even if they’re not actually good.

What went wrong:

* The goal. I added the collectables to provide an incentive to get to the more difficult areas and also as extra landmarks for getting your bearings. Unfortunately, with time running out and no win conditions implemented, I made the decision that you would win if you could collect all of them. In hindsight, I should probably have added a level exit instead.
* Difficulty. The game is ridiculously hard. I knew I wanted to have some areas which would be tricky to get to, as a challenge, but when the goal became “collect everything”, those areas suddenly became non-optional.
* First day motivation. I wanted to have all the basic game mechanics done by the halfway point, but I was just procrastinating like crazy. I’d come to the conclusion that it just wasn’t technically interesting enough to hold my attention, but then on Sunday morning I added death and respawning. Suddenly my game idea was in front of me and I could start constructing devious routes through the level, and I spent the rest of the day excited by it.
* The name. It actually changed name twice between starting and submitting, and I’m still not really happy. Currently thinking about maybe renaming it “Jump-Zap-Flip”.

Lessons learnt:

* Get death/respawn implemented earlier in future
* Think of a win condition as part of the design process
* Don’t make ridiculously hard challenges required to complete the game

Ok, I’m not going to spend any more time on this project, but a few things were really bugging about the game and it only took about 15 minutes to fix it.

What this new version fixes is:

* Win screen will not be skipped when you win the game

* You can hold the space down to fire – makes it much easier!

* Each time you kill a misfit, now your rate of fire will increase slightly

* The bullets rotate as they are fired

* And I shrunk Santa a little bit making it easier to maneuver him around the screen

In all, I think these fixes make it a more enjoyable, easier game. Now it is much more solvable and I think more fun too. You now have a fighting chance against those misfits!

I’ve tested the game on Windows 7 and Windows Vista and it works fine. I think it requires either DirectX7 or DirectX9, not sure which. If you are having problems, it may be your graphic card. I am using some huge bitmaps that may be causing some problems with some graphic cards when they are loaded as textures. Maybe try a beefier machine.

Anyway, here is the Windows version:

http://www.bitjets.com/MassacreV2.zip

I won’t post a fixed version for the Mac, unless there is some sort of demand.

Take care!

What went well:

• Obviously I got good game idea
• Physics turned out well
• Game mechanic was fun
• Interface turned out to be simple, not buggy, etc. For 12h spent it is weird

What well wrong:

• Failed to make more complex graphics because most I tried made it lag fast
• Made mistake of making game time constrained. Should have been some ind of resource constrained. Thing is that most fun is aiming probe well and exploring planet or even few in one show. Time constraint rather made you shot a lot of average shots instead of aiming really carefully which is bad.
• Probably 1/3 of time spend was spent on things that did not work… Would have been good to spend it more on polishing core mechanics and game aims.
• I added only a mouse-wheel based zoom. That was a mistake as Mac users have problems in Flash with that (tough I head Flash player release on 9 December 2009 should have fixed that, can’t confirm)  Also users playing on notebook without mouse had problems too…

What now:

• Well firstly I think I will make one more version of it removing time limit and adding some “probes per planet” limit. Should make it more fun. May be I will try adding a little bit more graphical things.
• As for large game based on idea I think I will but it on hold. Needs a lot of content and thinkering on technical sides of it(there are some). Exploring idea for enemies and war, AI, etc. I have some other game ideas that have less of such complications so for time being I will not make it in to a full game. In time being I welcome anyone to try and make their versions of the idea Just bother to send me a note/mail. Would like to see it  and play it
• Need to add alternative to mouse zooming.

Longer version of how it went

Day 1.  Well woke up and read the theme. Started brainstorming for ideas and (more…)

Here’s the source for This is Infinity:

http://cactusquid.com/games/expfps.gmk

It’s been updated since I posted my entry, I didn’t know sources were a requirement for the competition. And I can’t figure out how to update the entry info or how to post a comment on the game… Pff.

So yeah… the only thing I added after the compo was this whacky easter egg.

If you’re not into artsy games you’ll probably enjoy it, try it here:

http://www.2bam.com/magic/FindingHerV051.swf

When it finally loads, type “duke”

Cheers!

Some people notified me of a pretty bad bug in Cat Planet where you can fall through the floor and get stuck and have to restart the game. I didn’t completely fix it because I couldn’t replicate the glitch no matter how hard I tried and I don’t know what causes it, but I added a cheap workaround that makes it possible to continue playing if this happens. More details on the entry page.

sfernald sank his teeth into the game engine for my LD#16 entry – the light in the end of the tunnel and the results came out swinging!

He’s used the game engine better then then me, making some winding, fun, hard to beat, acid-filled caves.

Check it out:

Source:  http://www.bitjets.com/thelight2.zip
Win32 exe:  http://ippa.se/games/the_light_2.exe

Maybe I’ll make a sequel too since the original game was so tiny. Actually I already started hacking on it. Some ideas/goals:

• The collision detection wasn’t perfect (for example you couldn’t jump while running into an obstacle)
• I’m thinking level-building from One big image instead of several small, but there’s quite some things to work out before that’s possible.
• More interaction with the world, could be levels to pull, buttons to push, doors, modification of terrain or living enemies, not just acid pools/drops.  Preferable additions that don’t complicate the level building to much, now it’s basically drawing a new image and creating one class — liberating easy.

since people might be wondering

the “music” should be best appreciated as textural rather than melodic

falling off is the end

the fact that there’s no gameplay is intentional

the only part I didn’t finish is windows on downtown skyscrapers

the game does have meanings but none of them are related to each other

I get a kick out of the love/hate reviews

everything was drawn with a mouse