Submission page doesn’t seem to be working for me at the moment. I’ll try again shortly.

my escape
controls: arrow keys and spacebar
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5333420/myEscape.html

I spent friday night and most of saturday apartment hunting, so I made my game in just over 24 hours.
I’ve definitely got some stuff to clean up, including letting you replay the game without refreshing the page

play it here!

I’ve never made a game with any sort of dialogue choices, so I didn’t know how to approach this.
Most dialogue-heavy games allow the player as much time as they want to make a decision; I wanted to make my game real-time, in the sense that conversations had to be responded to one way or another. After a bit of mulling over the theme for a week or two, I hit on the idea that’s represented in the game.

I kind of missed the mark from my initial intent. I initially wanted to give the game a lot more depth (I had 5 or so more screens planned with interesting decisions), with part of the goal being to illustrate the impact that having different companions colors the choices available to you. I also never came up with an ending that I really liked, so I pretty much just avoided one altogether.

With full-time job and a fully-booked weekend, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to finish. I ended up putting a few hours in after work for a week, and then doing some touch ups and all of the art in one sitting. This game was definitely made in the least amount of time of all my games; maybe 15-18 hours total.

I’m very happy with the art style I ended up with. I deem it minimalist-by-necessity; I did it all Monday morning starting at 12:30am, with having to go to work the next day. I’ll probably use it in future ld’s, where I don’t want to focus on art much.

Check it out here!

Thanks to all the positive feedback from everyone who played p.i.g!
I’ve used a lot of suggestions to improve the game.

The enhanced version includes:

-original music from the composer for ‘endeavor’
-3 new unlockable levels with a new mechanic
-level select screen to replay levels
-enhance portal funneling feature to make portalling easier
-bugfixes!

Go play it, and have fun!

Finished!

Play p.i.g here!

Upside down!

I’ve been thinking in portals the last few weeks, so I made a puzzle platformer with portals.
The portals are like tunnels: you shoot one end, and another appears at the other side.

Once again, my project grew as I worked on it. I told myself I’d make a very short demo of the portal mechanic, since I graduate in a week and have final projects to attend to. But I was having too much fun with it, and I had to implement all of my ideas!

I decided to up the resolution from my usual 320×240 (and then zoomed x2) to 640×480. I adjusted my art style to something a bit cleaner, and I’m happy with the result.

I’ve always struggled with level design, particularly puzzle design, so I took this as a challenge to improve my skills. Hopefully the results are enjoyable!

Instead of writing REAL reports, write an EPIC REPORT!
My Mini-LD 24 entry, EPIC REPORT, is about putting together reports in just a few minutes by collecting letters that fly across the screen. My goal was to make a stunningly boring activity into an exciting action game. The game currently features 4 reports and 16 achievements.

Check it out here!

The space report

Hey everyone!

Since this is a mini with loose rules, I’ve decided to pretty much ignore them altogether! The only limitation it’s following is “one button only” (the mouse), but it follows my own theme of “making something totally boring into an interesting game.” I’m also spreading the work out over this week, but finishing in less than 48 hours of work time.

My game is about writing a final report on a subject in just a few minutes. It’s my first action/arcade game for a while- the gameplay involves catching falling letters to bring them to the paper. If you miss letters, the words on the report will be misspelled. If the player collects enough letters and powerups while avoiding typos, they’ll get a good grade!
Each report has a topic, which determines the environment and the way the letters appear and move.

Here’s a screenshot of the report “The Internet”:

I’ve always wanted to make a game using the “groundhog’s day” concept, similar to Majora’s Mask, Level Up!, and Pikmin to some extent. I have a love-hate relationship with time-pressure games, but it’s so rewarding to finally understand what’s going on in the game’s world and figure out how to manipulate it.

I had a lot of fun making this one. It doesn’t necessarily have the greatest gameplay, but it’s really the story and level design that counts in this type of game. Since the theme was discovery, I decided to make it purely about information seeking- each time you try, you should learn something new that’ll help you the next time. I tried something different this time and planned out the entire game beforehand, complete with a map and a rough description of the natural progression of the game. I felt that this really helped, since I had time to come up with a ton of ideas, and then once I started coding I just followed what I had already laid out.

This was my 3rd 48hr design competition, and I still fell into the trap of planning more than I could ever finish in that time. I had hoped to get this done after the first 24 hrs so I could have more time to study for my finals, but after the first day it was apparent that it wasn’t going to happen. I actually didn’t even have a working build until an hour before submission.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have someone else play your game after the first day, or whenever it’s playable. For me, it was a sort of sanity check- it really helped to have a fresh set of ideas tell me what was broken, and what just didn’t make sense.

Play it here!

Also, check out my Timelapse!

It’s taking more time than I had imagined, but I seem to be approaching the end.
Still no title for the game, but the gameplay is 95% done. Then it’s time for art and detail!

I’ve worked in a bit of xenoarchaeology and have some interesting subplots near the end of the game… now I just have to make sure everything leading up to it is engaging enough to keep people playing.

Perhaps it was misguided to participate in this compo, seeing as this is finals week, but I’m sure I can find the time!

I’m making a game I’ve wanted to make for a while. It’s a Majora’s Mask/Level Up! style game, where you replay the same set of events over and over, trying to figure out what’s going on, and ultimately how to resolve the conflict.

Instead of my usual code-and-go attitude, I decided to try to plan out the entire world and plot before I even wrote a single line of code. Hopefully it pays off!

As usual, I’m saving graphics for last, so I won’t be sharing any screenshots until it actually looks interesting =P

Hey everyone!

I’d just like to share that my October Challenge entry, endeavor, is finally out!
Play it here!

See you all for LD19!

-Zillix

Well, I certainly didn’t make the in October deadline, but I’m proud to announce that Endeavor has gotten a primary sponsorship from Newgrounds!

This was my first game put up for sponsorship, and it was a great experience. I got some great advice about Flash Game License from this site, including HybridMind’s suggestion to email sponsors directly, linking them to the FGL page. That’s how I got my Newgrounds bid, which was for twice as much as the highest bid before I sent any emails!

Since finalizing the sponsorship, I’ve gotten to work with the Newgrounds API, and have enjoyed integrating 12 medals into the game.

Endeavor will be released December 1st, exactly 2 months from the beginning of the challenge =D

My game, Endeavor, has been getting some great feedback and is nearly done!

I’m holding off on releasing it to give it some extra polish. The game will be free to play, though I’m not yet sure what site it will be published on.

I’m glad to have participated in the challenge, even though I won’t be submitting it on time, and haven’t earned anything *yet*! I will post here when it is finished and released.

Congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge!

Endeavor is a game about a dwarf trying to recover an ancient secret. Or maybe it’s about exploring and collecting treasure. Or maybe it’s about collecting powerups. Or maybe it’s just about killing things.

With multiple endings, quests, interactive npcs and ambient critters, it’s shaping up to be my most involving game yet. It features multiple original musical tracks, over 8 upgrades, an improved control scheme, and several secret areas.

It’s scheduled to be done by the end of the month and will be published for free on Kongregate.

If anyone’s interested in helping me with some beta testing, send me an email at zillix7@yahoo.com

I didn’t want to tackle a brand-new game this month, so I decided to make a sequel for my Mini-LD game, Summit. I’ve been working on it pretty consistently this month, but hadn’t gotten around to posting anything about it.

Summit accomplished its goal: to make the player experience the fear of falling. But that was a stressful and often frustrating experience, so the game didn’t have much widespread appeal. With the sequel, I’m using the same engine to create an entirely different game. It’s something of a mix between Shadow of the Colossus and the Robot Wants series, having an emphasis on exploring, with a series of unique powerups allowing for further progression.

The game features a variety of regions, each with a unique atmosphere, level design and characters to interact with.

It is in its final stages of development now, and I’m working to finish up the artwork and details by the end of the month!

Check the submission page here

I have a huge fear of heights. As mundane as that is, it carries over into my gaming- if I run a character too close to an edge, especially in 3D, my stomach drops. My goal was to recreate that feeling for everybody else, as best as I could.

I got my inspiration from a BBC Planet Earth episode, where I saw a mountain goat living its normal life on the sheer cliff of a mountain, and I thought about how frightening that would be for me.

I actually made the game last weekend, but I took some time to have a friend who had shown some interest at my last LD to write some music for me.

This was my second flixel game, so I was able to progress faster and spend more time on more interesting stuff, like gameplay and art.

Enjoy!

With so many entries this time around, I know that I won’t be able to play every game, and I’ll probably be missing out on some really cool ones. I know that after the voting, I can look through the results to find the best rated ones, but this doesn’t apply to jam entries, and it’d be nice to get exposed to the compo ones while I can still express my opinion through voting.

Some great games have gotten some good press already, but I know there has to be more out there! What are some “hidden gems” that you’ve found? Games that we shouldn’t miss? Games with great stories and moods, technical beauties, or ones that excel in categories that don’t really align with any of the voting categories? Share them here!

I’ve taken a few days of a break, and now I’m ready to come back and write a post-mortem!

Play illumynate here

This was my first LD, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I’ve only ever finished and released one game before, so I was pretty worried about what I would get done in 2 days.

My goals, before the competition:
-I wanted to make a game that I would want to play
-I wanted to make a game that I would enjoy making
-I wanted to finish a game
I’m happy to announce that I was able to achieve all 3 of those!

The preparation

I decided I would enter the competition about 4 days before it started. I knew for certain that there was no way that I would be able to design a game engine as well as a game in the time allotted, so I really wanted to try to learn a framework that would do some of the engine stuff for me, namely flixel, since I have a soft spot for pixelly games. Getting flixel + flashdevelop installed and working, as well as going through the tutorials, were unquestionably the best uses of my pre-compo time. I also learned how to use some accessory programs, like sfxr, Mappy, and GraphicsGale, which I would end up using. By the time the theme was announced, I was comfortable with using these tools the way I would need to during the competition.

The idea

I’ll admit, some of the idea of my came was conceived before the theme was announced. I had two ideas for games, each which could be tweaked to accommodate several themes. My first idea was a tower defense game where the player couldn’t place turrets; they had to control a little guy with a gun, and use the impact of the shots to push the creeps into tiles that would convert them into towers (enemies as weapons), and pushing more creeps into the same tile would slightly change the turret depending on the type of the creep (evolution). My second idea was a cave crawler, where the player had two weapons- a flashlight and a gun, fighting trolls, which would encompass darkness, claustrophobia, hidden depths, and anachronism.

Basically, the theme was announced, and I realized that I really didn’t want to make the tower defense game. The cave game sounded much more atmospheric and interesting, so I went with that. I threw away the gun from the design, and put in different types of enemies who reacted differently, that the player had to use as tools.
The story of the game was one of the last things I came up with. What would be at the end of the cave? A damsel in distress? A rare artifact? Nothing? Once I decided to use notes as a storytelling technique, however, the current idea (and ending) just jumped into my head, and I liked it.

Making the Game

The actual creation of the game went pretty smoothly. I created the player, the fog/flashlight, then the enemies, and by the end of the 24hrs I had pretty much every class I would need finished. The second day was designated to finishing the details- the story, the level design, and the art. I got plenty of sleep each night, (5-7 hours), but I made up for it by taking very few breaks- even at meals I had a notebook with me, doodling and scribbling ideas. The only notable break was when I went out with my family to the Renaissance Festival, which did a brilliant job of clearing my mind.

I spent a lot of time on optimization, which ended up being overkill, since the .swf ran ~2.5x as fast once ran it outside of flashdevelop.

As the time counted down, I still had a ways to go. Eventually I only had 5 hours to finish everything up, and it wasn’t very polished. It wasn’t until 2 hours from the deadline that I had someone else test my game, which was a terrible mistake- I learned I had to fix a ton of bugs, make a bunch of tweaks, and clarify a lot of the gameplay, with not much time to do it.

I didn’t spend much time evaluating the gameplay. In all honesty, before I submitted my game, no one had even played it from beginning to end. As a result, I wasn’t sure if the game was any fun. I’m still not sure of that. But whatever, it was a great experience making it.
I plan on tuning gameplay a bit based off of feedback, fixing some bugs, and adding sound/music, after which I’ll release a final version of it somewhere!

What I learned

-I can make a game in 48 hours
-Have someone else playtest for bugs as early as possible
-Frameworks help a lot
-Autotiling is awesome
-Breaks and sleep are important
-Test early and often to fine-tune gameplay

Thanks to everyone who played my game, especially to those who gave me feedback in the comments!

I’m finally starting to add some graphics to my game that aren’t colored rectangles. Gameplay is coming along… we’ll see how it turns out!

Hey, I’m Alex!

This is gonna be my first LD- I’ve heard about it but never before considered doing it… and I probably wouldn’t have entered this time if I hadn’t been recently thinking about how I don’t finish games often enough.

I’m gonna be using FlashDevelop, Flixel (+ Mappy), sfxr, GraphicsGale, and Paint.NET, none of which I had used before two days ago.  But hey, I have the most fun when I’m learning something new!  I do have previous experience with AS3, but only with the Flash IDE.

I plan on spending a lot of time upfront planning out my gameplay as much as I can.  My only goal is to make a game that I want to make, and to have fun doing it!