Update on Repo Locations

It has been ages since I posted here. I am doing this to let anyone who happens upon this ancient blog know that the free software game repositories that I mention in older posts are now located here:

https://git.mortagarden.xyz/

I am moving away from GitHub, and I long ago moved away from Blogger. If you would like to see my current blog, it is here:

https://mortagarden.xyz/blog_index.html 

This will be the last post made here. I will leave this blog up for a while yet, however. 

Source Code Releases!

Hello once again everyone! I'm back for one more quick update, because I found the time to make those changes to some of my #1GAM games the I mentioned in my previous post. Specifically, I wanted to release all the games I made as free/open source software! Today I'm pleased to announce that I manged to update all the games that it was possible to do that on!

The games that I released as free software are my December 2015 #1GAM game Torso Ninja, my February 2016 #1GAM game Plitka, my March 2016 #1GAM game Keyro: Arena Lockdown, and my May 2016 #1GAM game Torso Ninja II! All those links will lead to GiHub repos that contain the source of the games. Grab copies for yourselves if you'd like!

On a secondary note, I want to discuss the reasons why I didn't release certain ones of my #1GAM games as free software. Here are the reasons by game as follows:

1. Cargo: January 2016 #1GAM game - This game was made with the Construct Classic engine, and though that engine is technically free software, I was not able to release Cargo as free software because I unfortunately lost all the data files in a hard drive crash this past summer.

2. SKRMSH: April 2016 #1GAM game - This game is already released into the public domain, and the source is already available here on my blog. The source code is in the format of an image file of course :)

3. Star Fall: June 2016 #1GAM game - Star Fall survived my hard drive crash, but the images included in the game were not made by me. I decided against releasing this game as free software for this reason.

4. RUNNERMAN: July 2016 #1GAM game - This game also did not survive my hard drive crash.

5. Chroma Road: August 2016 #1GAM game - This game was also lost to the hard drive crash. I probably am most disappointed by losing this one :(

6. Tic-Tac-25: September 2016 #1GAM game - This game was lost to the hard drive crash as well.

7. Annotated Rock Paper Scissors: October 2016 #1GAM game - This game is also already available in source code format. Check out this post for a download!

9. Corridor: November 2016 #1GAM game - This game is made with RPG Maker VX Ace, so I am not at liberty to release it as free software.

As you can see, most of these games were lost to a hard disk crash. This was actually a major impetus for my release of these games in source code format (along with my personal opinion that it is the right thing to do). Backup your data kids!

So that's about it! See you when I see you!

Surprise Update

Wow! Has it really been nearly a year since I last posted here? Time sure flies! Though I doubt very seriously that anyone still checks this blog, I thought it was time for a little update on how things have been going for me these past few many months :) So here it is: a summary of my life's events for the past 11-or-so months!

This about sums it up, to be honest.

Those of you who read my last blog post probably saw where I mentioned that I was going to have a go at being a professional indie game developer at the start of this year. Well, unfortunately, that prospect fell through. I worked hard for several months to develop a game, and though I made much progress, it simply wasn't meant to be. I came to the realization that I could probably earn more money working a minimum wage job than what I could expect to see from the sales of my game. Coupled with the grueling schedule sapping all the enjoyment out of the game dev experience, and this was enough to dissuade me from becoming too invested in indie development as a solo career. I had a lot of fun with the #1GAM challenge, but fun was sorely lacking from the experience of making my commercial game. With no fun on the horizon, I looked to economics, and was disappointed by what I found. I thought I had prepared myself for the reality of being a game dev, the long, thankless hours, the lack of monetary rewards, the isolation, but I was wrong. I failed utterly. To all the legit solo indie devs out there, you all are better than me :)


Right around the time I abandoned my indie game dev ideas, I decided to try another goofy dream I've had for years: being a YouTuber! I never really took the prospect of making YouTube videos for a living seriously, but I decided to try it anyway. Unfortunately, literally days after I started my channel, YouTube decided to create an extremely steep barrier to entry for newcomers hoping to earn a living on their platform. I continued to make videos for fun for a while, and I really did enjoy it, but that too eventually fell through.


However, it was around the time that I was forced to accept that I would never be a Game Grump that an amazing opportunity sort of fell into my lap: a chance to go and work at a startup, right here in my own backyard, that was on the cutting edge of emergent technology. Specifically, I would be working on blockchain technology and related concepts, such as cryptocurrency trading and distributed databasing. I was excited to say the least! That's how I became associated with Procryptix, a software development house that is focused on blockchain tech. Its a wild new distributed world out there, and we at Procryptix are blazing the trail of the future, one block at a time!


It has been a crazy year for me, but I have not stopped being passionate about game development, even if my career is taking me in a different direction. Recently, I have been looking back on my #1GAM games. That's what led me to revisit this blog and make this post, to give any potential readers an update on what has been going on with me. I still hope to make and release games (as a hobby) in the future. Suffice it to say, I may be dormant in this area, but I am not dead :)


So there you have it! I don't know when or if I will update this blog again. There are some changes I would like to make to some of the games I released last year. Maybe at some point I'll get around to that.


Until next time! Good luck with whatever may come your way!

Corridor - Part I Released!

Hey everyone! Wow, it's already been a month since I last posted here, huh? So sorry for the delay! School has switched into high-gear (as it tends to do near finals) and, as such, I've let my blogging slide... But that's really not a very good excuse, huh? :V

Anyway, I'm back now with some exciting news! Though I may have been lax with my blogging, I've decidedly not been lax with my game dev work! I'm here to present you with the culmination of my development efforts over the past month: my twelfth and final #1GAM game, Corridor - Part I!

The title screen!

Here is the link to the MediaFire download!

As is perhaps obvious from the image, Corridor is an RPG Maker game (made with RPG Maker VX Ace, specifically). In this game, you play as a mercenary who has been hired to venture into a dangerous labyrinth to rescue a group of kidnapped children. You are accompanied by an official from the village who hired you, who is hoping that negotiation is still an option. But things aren't always what they seem, and this grim cavern might just hold more secrets than you can handle...

I sort of hashed this game together through trial and error, and learned a lot about RPG Maker on the PC in the process. When I was younger, I used to make games on the PS2's RPG Maker 3. In fact, that program was in large part what inspired me to be a game developer in the first place, so returning to RPG Maker (even this new version) was a special experience for me.

Corridor is made with only the default resources that come packaged with RPG Maker VX Ace. I used the built-in character editor to make the portraits. The game is quite short, and mostly narrative. Also, as the title implies, it is only the first part of a series of games that I hope to work on in the future. RPG Maker is a lot of fun, so I definitely want to return to it later :)

Hooray for #1GAM!!

Also, as I said, this is my final #1GAM game! WHOOOHOOO!!! :D 

I've officially made 12 games in the past year, all of different kinds. I learned so much that I can hardly believe it. I'm so very glad that I took this challenge! I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to McFunkyPants, the architect of the #1GAM challenge. If it wasn't for what he does to keep the ball rolling, I probably never would have completed even one single game, let alone 12! Thanks so much also to all the people who play my games, and especially leave comments and ratings! You all are what keeps me going!

Now, in the upcoming months, I'm going to be getting to work on my ultimate dream: creating a commercial (read: sell-for-money) game. I'm in the late planning stages for what this game will be. I can reveal that it will probably be pretty small (and have an appropriately small price tag), as well as that I hope to have it out sometime around the middle of next year. Things can change though, so please don't think of that date as set in stone or anything!

In the next little while, I will probably continue to post erratically on this blog. I hope to have my own website online in a few months, so I will probably shift this to being a more personal blog where I can post my thoughts on games and maybe the odd tutorial or two. My final semester of Junior College ends in about a week and a half, and after that, my attempt at making a career of being a game developer begins! Wish me luck :)

See you all later on!
 

Annotated Rock Paper Scissors Released!

Hey everyone! Long time no see! I'm here on this fine Halloween night to announce the release of my 11th #1GAM game! This time its a game I made a while ago, a simple implementation of Rock Paper Scissors! But that's not all...

The (non-transparent) title image!

I decided to rehash this older game (which I made about a year ago, but never released) and to release it in source code form. I also went through and heavily commented the code, so that any up-and-coming pygame developer should be able to learn at least a little something from it :) I didn't edit my code much, so some of it is still quite sloppy. Nevertheless, I feel that it is a pretty good representation of what I cobble together each month, and I hope it is useful to someone :)

Here's a MediaFire link to the source code (in zip format): http://www.mediafire.com/file/ppq8u4ia6ex6rsp/Annotated_Rock_Paper_Scissors.zip 

The game was made with Python 2.7 and pygame 1.9. Check it out if you have the time!

That's all for today folks. See you when I see you!

Here's the Plan

Hey, folks! I'm here to give a brief update on my #1GAM endeavors here lately. I'm currently in the process of developing a game, but I'm not quite ready to officially announce it just yet. Instead, I figured I'd let the curious in on my plan for this month.

I actually want to release a different game for this month than the one I'm currently developing, because this one will take a bit of time to get finished. So, later on this month, my plan is to release a very small game that I finished about a year ago (before I started #1GAM) but that I never released. This game was made in about two days, and is quite small. My intention is to go back over the source, comment it heavily, and then release it here along with a tutorial that explains how to create it from scratch. I figure that will make this simple game at least a bit more interesting :)

The game that I'm making right now, then, will be my twelfth and final #1GAM game, and is set to be released in November. I'm going to try to get it out around Thanksgiving.

That's about all I had to say today. School has stepped up a bit, so I may slow down somewhat on my blog updates until this semester is over. I've also been pretty much dead on Twitter. Unfortunately that will probably continue until the end of the semester as well.

 See you later!

Vacation

Hey folks, I'm gonna keep this brief because there's really not much to say on the gamedev front. I'm just making this post to let everyone know that I'll be out on vacation over the weekend. We're going to the Smokey Mountains! I'm pretty excited :)

I'll have an announcement regarding this month's #1GAM game (hint: I plan to make it in RPG Maker). I think you'll be excited to hear what I have planned :)

See you when I return!

Tic-Tac-25 Released!

Hello hello! I've returned to the blog after a short hiatus to bring you my tenth (TENTH D:) #1GAM game, Tic-Tac-25! That's right, after untold delays caused by yours truly, I've finally got this game out! Check it out!

The slightly-blown-up logo!

This game is an Itch.io exclusive! Play it here: https://hellamagellan.itch.io/tic-tac-25

Tic-Tac-25 is an expanded version of the classic game Tic-Tac-Toe (or Noughts & Crosses) that features a 5X5 board, but still only takes 3-in-a-row to win! It allows for four players (the shapes X, O, Square, and Triangle), with all non-human players being controlled by a very simple AI. It works in both desktop and mobile browsers (though you may have issues with certain browsers/screen sizes).

This game was mostly meant as an experiment for me to learn how to make an HTML5 game using HaeFlixel. I learned a lot, but I still have some ways to go.

If anyone reading tries the game, let me know what you think in the comments here, or on itch.io. Particularly, if you have any problems displaying or running the game, I'd like to know the details, along with your device and browser info. This information will help me improve the quality of cross-platform web games I make in the future :)

Thanks for reading and playing! See you again!

Still Here!

Hey! I'm super late this time, but here's my super short blog post for this week! Nothing even worth reading about, really :P

I've been busy with things like school and work lately, and I've also been slacking in my gamedev work, so it has taken me a while to get around to this post. I still gotta put out this week's post though! This isn't a dev blog simply because there has been no major visible change to my next #1GAM game, Tic-Tac-25, since last week. I have implemented winning and losing conditions, though, and done some work on getting it working for mobile platforms!

To close out, I have a cool recommendation for my readers who would like to get started with HaxeFlixel: The book Discover HaxeFlixel by Leonardo Cavaletti. I got the ebook when I contributed to the recent HaxeFlixel IndieGoGo fundraiser, and it is very informative! Highly recommended.

A very good book!

 That about does it for this week! Next week I'll have yet more to show!

Dev Blog #21: Announcing Tic-Tac-25!

Hey! Erik here, back again to bring you an announcement! My #1GAM game for September has been chosen! Let me introduce you all to: Tic-Tac-25!

That's a lot!

Tic-Tac-25 is a simple re-imagining of Tic-Tac-Toe (Noughts and Crosses, to some) as a four-player game on a 25X25 board. Each player takes a turn putting their symbol in one of the empty squares. The first player to line up three either up/down, across, or diagonally, wins.

The symbols available are X's, O's, Triangles, and Squares (wonder where I came up with those, huh? ;P ). The big takeaway with the rules is that 3-in-a-row (not the 5-in-a-row that the board size might suggest) is needed to win. This keeps the game highly tactical, and helps minimize stalemates.

Tic-Tac-25 is a very simple game, and for good reason. I will be experimenting a lot with how I create this game. Primarily, my goal is to make it an HTML5 browser game that is also playable on mobile, and to implement up to 4-player local multiplayer. Wish me luck! :)

That about does it. I'll leave you with a few more screens, as a preview:

See you in a week, Internet!

Another Week, Another Post!

Hello, folks! I realize I'm a day late with this blog post, but this has been a pretty slow week for game dev for me, so I don't have too much to say here. I still gotta keep that once-a-week-at-least streak alive though, so here's some words! Fresh, tasty words.... D:<

Anyway, enough of that. Since the release of my last #1GAM game, Chroma Road, I've been focusing mostly on brainstorming ideas for my next project. I have decided to challenge myself for the remainder of my #1GAM experience and disallow any further "twitch" (reflex-based) games. I have made far too many of these, I realize, and I am becoming a poorer and poorer judge of the difficulty of my own games. As such, all my #1GAM games from this month on will not be reflex-based! Whoopee! :D

As for this month's game in particular, I have a few personal goals. The first is that I want to make another browser-based game. I haven't done this since March with Keyro: Arena Lockdown (which I was roundly unsatisfied with), and, what with the ease of developing for the Flash or HTML5 targets in HaxeFlixel, I have no excuse not to. Being browser-based definitely has an effect on the number of players a game gets (so many more people become engaged when the game automatically loads up for them). Secondly, I hope to find some way to incorporate scalable vector graphics (SVGs) into the game with HaxeFlixel. As best I understand, this could potentially be done with OpenFL, which HaxeFlixel is built upon, but it will take some digging. I have recently become interested in vector art, and the scalability of it seems very enticing, hence my desire to incorporate it into my games. If anyone out there has some info that could help me out (or stop me from barking up the wrong tree, if need be), I would be greatly appreciative :)

My next game will be technically experimental for me, so my intention is to keep it simple. One other thing I want this game to support is local multiplayer. I have a few ideas, and some should be ready for sharing come next week!

That about does it. See you in seven days, or thereabout! :D

Chroma Road Released!

Hey hey hey! I'm back today, and super excited to announce the release of my ninth #1GAM game, Chroma Road! Thats right, after all this time, you can finally play it! :D

The title screen

​
Play it on Gamejolt: http://gamejolt.com/games/chroma-road/184631
or Itch.io: https://hellamagellan.itch.io/chroma-road

Welcome to Chroma Road, where speed and reflexes are king, and color coordination is the name of the game! Chroma Road is a tough-as-nails, fast-paced color-puzzle/endless-runner hybrid where you must match colors with gates in order to proceed. Use the Z, X, and C keys to change to any primary color (red, green, and blue), and combine them to form secondary colors! Think fast and stay sharp as you pass through the gates, gaining score and staying alive along the way. Keep going to get a high score and ace the best time!

Chroma Road is a major first for me: Its my first game made using the HaxeFlixel framework. This is pretty important, since this is going to be my development methodology going forward. I'll even use HaxeFlixel to develop commercial games pretty soon, hopefully (more on that o come, though).
 
Anyhow, I've made 9 games so far! Woohoo! This has been a crazy year of development, but I'm on track to finish the #1GAM challenge in November. Here's hoping!

If you play Chroma Road and enjoy it (or not), please let me know here in the comments on the respective game pages. I love me some feedback! :D

See you all next time!

Dev Blog #20: Short Update on Chroma Road

Hey, y'all! I don't have too much time to whip this post up, so I'm gonna just leave you with a few of my recent screens and a short commentary. Chroma Road is coming along swimmingly thus far! Check out these images :)

Here's the first screen. Notice the UI enhancements at the top,
particularly the timer.

The number in the top left is a score counter. You gain 1 point
for getting through a gate.

When you die, this is what you see. The screen keeps scrolling, by the way.

As I said, so far, so good. The music I'm making for the game is nearing completion, and as soon as I finish the main menu (a feature I am notorious for leaving til the last minute), only polish will remain! I'm aiming for August 30th as a release date, currently.

See you later everyone!!!

A Quick Retrospective on Tips & Tricks Magazine

Hey everyone! I'm here for a quick post for the week, and I decided that I would take this as an opportunity to bring some attention to a subject that isn't talked about too much anymore: physical-copy video game magazines. Specifically, I wanted to talk about Tips & Tricks Magazine, which is in my opinion the greatest gaming publication of all time. This isn't meant to be a long or in-depth feature about Tips & Tricks, but rather just a moment for me to give some props to a bygone era of gaming journalism, as well as perhaps introduce some of my readers to T&T if they've never seen it before. :)

A sample Tips & Tricks cover, showcasing some awesome games.

Tips & Tricks was a magazine that ran between 1993 and 2007. Unlike most gaming-related publications, Tips & Tricks didn't produce reviews or anything like that. Their main focus was on providing readers with gameplay help and lots of cheat codes. The magazine was famous for its cheats, which were featured in huge, alphabetized lists in the back of each issue. They also had huge features and walkthroughs at the front of the magazine that provided plenty of assistance to those that might purchase the games they covered.

T&T had something special, though, and it wasn't just the cheat codes. Where as most gaming magazines even then functioned as hype-and-review machines or specialized newspapers, T&T was always about playing the games you already had :) It had an interesting perspective and was an invaluable tool in the pre-Game FAQs era. Tips & Tricks also had numerous columns throughout the magazine that focused on specific gaming communities (Halo, Final Fantasy) or on peripheral aspects of video games (such as Japanese imports or game collecting). In short, Tips & Tricks was the ultimate hobbyist video game publication, and was, for me personally, an amazingly enriching lifeline into the broader gaming community, especially before the internet got into full swing.

A selection from my own Tips & Tricks collection. I had lots more as
a kid, but I'm slowly building back up :)

 
But, alas, all good things must come to an end. Like many magazines, Tips & Tricks wasn't able to handle the oncoming of digital media very well. The aforementioned Game FAQs site largely made their walkthroughs pointless, and it wasn't long before huge catalogues of cheat codes sprang up around the internet as well. In 2007, T&T made the switch from a monthly magazine to a quarterly (then semi-annually) "Codebook," or simple collection of cheat codes. Even this was not enough to save them, however. The Codebooks themselves ceased publication in 2011, and just like that Tips & Tricks passed with the wind into the realm of history.

Nowadays, Tips & Tricks doesn't get much remembrance. There is an excellent in-depth history of the publication on GameLosers.net, which features interviews with several staff members. There are also a few scans of some early issues available from the Internet Archive. Chris Bieniek, Editor-In-Chief of T&T and the mastermind behind much of the magazine's greatness, runs a site called Video Game Ephemera, where he showcases some of the items in his jaw-droppingly huge collection of gaming paraphernalia (he also gave a really cool interview to Atari HQ many years ago where he talked about his early career and gave some insight into T&T's predecessors and founding. Worth a read!). And... that's pretty much it! Like much print media before the internet era, it isn't new, so it isn't tended to.  

Tips & Tricks magazine is something of a relic at this point, but its pages still brim with a wealth of information for anyone courageous enough to brave a paper-cut :) It was a huge part of my childhood, and in many ways, I wish that it or something like it were still around. I have yet to find a game-playing-focused publication either physically or digitally that truly recaptures the sense of pure hobbyist enjoyment that T&T had. Maybe that doesn't exist anymore, but in this era of rampant clickbait, multi-year-long hype that ends in bitter disappointment, acidic reviews, and constant gamer infighting, the peaceable world of Tips & Tricks, where games are just about having some fun, is something I personally can't help but long for.

Whew! :) That's about all I have to say this week. I promise next week will be more on topic of my usual fare, such my upcoming game Chroma Road. See you then!

Dev Blog #19: Chroma Road Progress Report

Aloha! How is everyone today? I'm pretty good, myself. In case anyone missed it on my twitter (or, I should say, since you probably missed it) I'll mention here that I've decided that my weekly blog posts will come on Mondays from now on, instead of over the weekend like before. That's when I've been getting around to it lately, anyway :P

Anyway, hello again, and welcome to the 19th edition of my dev blog posts! This week I have some fun and exciting news regarding my upcoming #1GAM game, Chroma Road! What's more, I have screenshots! Whoopee! Read on :)

First and foremost, I have running, lane switching, and color changing all implemented in the game. Chroma Road is a 3-lane endless runner/color puzzle game, so these are the main things the player can do. Here's a sampling:

The background scrolls by, and the player runs forward automatically.

Press Z, X, or C to change color, and try to correspond them to the gates.

You can activate more than one color at a time to turn to a secondary color!

 
So far so good with the game! The scrolling gates are just images for now, but in the final game they'll be obstacles that are impassable unless you are the correct color. Also soon to be added: a timer, a score tracker, incremental difficulty, and improved graphics :)

Also, I've been using this game as an excuse to learn to use the HaxeFlixel framework. It has been going well so far. HaxeFlixel has a bit of a different approach to what I am accustomed to with game development APIs, in that its approach is sort of to have everything packaged and available if you choose to use it. HaxeFlixel has a learning curve, especially if you haven't got any experience with Flash ActionScript, but it is well worth the effort of learning. I'm hoping to be able to contribute somewhat to the project in the future, once my Haxe chops have improved.

Quick screen of my IDE, FlashDevelop. Check out that sick color coordination :0

(By the way, if you want to support HaxeFlixel, they currently have an IndieGoGo campaign going on right now. Support them if you can!)

That should do for today :) Hopefully I've given you something to look forward to when my game comes out later this month! See you soon!

Dev Blog #18: Announcing Chroma Road!

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the first dev blog here in over a month! I'm a day late today (yet again), but that's partly because I was waiting for the first day of August so I could announce my next #1GAM game! :D This month's game is called Chroma Road! Read about it below! :)

Current logo for Chroma Road! The pink will be transparent in the game.

Chroma Road is an endless runner/color puzzle game that features multiple lanes you can run in. You control a player character that has the power to change primary colors, which allows you to navigate through colored gates that block your path. The game will be very fast, and the puzzles get harder and harder as time goes on!

I'm making this game in Haxe, using HaxeFlixel. I am really enjoying using these tools so far, and I think that HaxeFlixel is going to become my go-to game development instrument.

I'll have more to discuss about Chroma Road in the coming weeks :) Until next time everyone! Peace out!

Some Links for Everyone!

Hello hello! Sorry I'm a day late! Not much has been happening in the realm of game design for me this week, so I wanted to use this week's post to give back some knowledge to you folks! Unfortunately, the article I was going to write is not done just yet, so I decided I would post some links to articles that have helped me out a lot instead! Hopefully these links can help you all out too :)

I'm gonna sort these links into a few categories. In keeping with the theme of the blog, all links will focus on game development in some fashion, particularly indie development. Several of these links go to articles on Gamasutra.com, which you probably should bookmark, if you haven't already. It's the premier source of information for game developers of all stripes.

Game Design

Mark Overmars' 'Designing Good Games' - This paper was written by Mark Overmars, who was the original creator of the Game Maker software. In it, he discusses good practices for designing games. It's particularly interesting for its strict definition of what a 'video game' actually is (Sim City would not be a game, by its standards, for instance). This was one of the first pieces I ever read about game design, so its near and dear to my heart :)

Jon Jones's gamepitches.com site - This is a great resource for finding GDDs and other design assets from game studios throughout history. The site has tons of reference material for your own design work (especially if you are being formal about it). Check out the early design document for Grand Theft Auto (at the time called Race n' Chase), for instance. I highly recommend this site.

Assets

Jason Yu's 'An Examination of Leitmotifs and Their Use to Shape Narrative in UNDERTALE' - The asset section pretty much exists just for these articles :) This is an excellent 2-part series about the construction of the soundtrack of Undertale, written from the perspective of a classically trained musician (but related through language that anyone can understand). I personally started looking at my own crappy little music pieces through a whole new lens after I read these articles. I think anybody who makes their own game music will benefit from what Yu has to say here.

Programming

Pete Shinners' Line by Line Chimp Example - I've already mentioned this on the blog, but it bears notice here, as well. This is the ultimate one-stop crash-course in Pygame by the creator of Pygame himself, Pete Shinners. It assumes a basic knowledge of Python. If you want to get involved in making games with Pygame (which I wholeheartedly recommend), this is the starting point.

Lars Doucet's 'Flash is Dead, Long Live OpenFL!' - Haxe is one of the most interesting programming languages available right now, and this article by the creator of Defender's Quest offers a great, enthusiastic look at the advantages and disadvantages of using it. It is mainly written for those who have been developing in Flash, but even if you've never written a line of Action Script (I sure haven't), this article has a great deal of good info. Read it, and then get to making great cross-platform games with haxe! :)

The Games Business

David Galindo's 'How Much Do Indie PC Devs Make, Anyways?' series - This frank look at making it in the indie games business, presented by David Galindo of Cook, Serve, Delicious! fame, offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at indie financing. The author honestly looks at his successes and failures during his quest to make it in the business. Highly recommended. Should be required reading for those who want to be independent game developers.

Tanya X. Short's 'The Secret to Scrappiness' - This is a great article that is equal parts inspiration and sound advice. Its all about finding your own way to survive in the games ecosystem. Short talks about the ways she had to get creative in order to carve out a place for her company in a world of low discoverability and information overload. Read the whole article, it is definitely worth it.

Independent Developer Resources

J. Kyle Pittman's 'Booth Hacks' series - In this series, J. Kyle Pittman covers an under-discussed detail of marketing your game that is crucial to indie devs - setting up a booth at conventions. This is a very specific set of articles, but they're just what someone like me (who has never even been to a con and who fears the idea of running a booth there with passionate fervor) probably needs to read. Check it out!

Jeff Vogel's entire blog -  I honestly probably don't need to direct my readers to Vogel's work, but I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention the godfather of all indie devs, on the off chance that you haven't heard of him :) Just about every article on there is loaded with wisdom, even if some are outdated by this point. I recommend just browsing through the archives and reading what jumps out at you. Jeff Vogel has produced a lot of content, so there's surely something there that will help you.


There ya go! A few quality links from across the web that I've come into contact with in my time :) There are lots more articles that I've read that have helped me, but that I didn't include for one reason or other (almost always that I forgot the name and couldn't find it :/ ). I hope you all get something out of these links!

See you later!

Still Kickin'

Hey all, just checking in to let you all know that I'm still at it. I have been pretty busy with a few things related to game development (namely, learning a new programming language), but all in all not much has changed. This is just gonna be a quick post to let you all know I'm still around :)

I have been making plans lately for the future of my game development endeavors. One thing that I definitely want to do over the course of next year (my first year post-college) is to try and get a game out of commercial quality that I can sell for money. I have actually been developing a GDD, but all details are unfortunately bound for the future. Just have to wait and see what I come up with!

That about does it. One more thing, I finally broke down and got a Facebook page! Here it is! I friend pretty much everybody, but its also completely barren for the time being :)

So long for now! See you all next week!!

One Hour Game Jam Complete, RUNNERMAN Released!

Hi, hello, how are ya? Well, I guess I'm doing fine. By the way, I completed the One Hour Game Jam today! Yep, that's right, I made a game from (pretty much) scratch in exactly an hour (I was racing the clock at the end!) and it is now playable online! Check it out below :)

 

Its beautiful! No, wait, the other one. Hideous.

This is RUNNERMAN, a very VERY simple and bare-bones game that I made using python and pygame today between 3:00 PM and 4:00 PM. You can download and play it here. You start running by pressing the Right Cursor button, and jump while running by pressing the Up Cursor Button. The goal is simply to jump high. There's not much to it :P

The One Hour Game Jam was a lot of fun, but it was very challenging. It was my first game jam ever, so there's that as well! I liked it though, and even though I'm not exactly in love with what I was able to produce, I would definitely do it again! Next time, though, I'll use something that allows me to produce results faster. PICO-8 in particular looks interesting, and several One Hour Game Jam participants use it. Maybe I should give it a shot too :)

This game will serve as my #1GAM entry for July, and I'll get around to putting it on the site in a little bit.

That about does it for this week! If you play this bad boy, let me know how much you hate it in the comments! :D

So long!

Games on the Menu #2

Hello hello everyone! I'm back again, but I don't really have too much to say regarding game development. I'll have a bit about that at the bottom of the article, but first, I thought this would be a great chance to talk again about the games I'm currently playing! I did this once before back in April, and I'm playing some different stuff now, so I figured I should update you all :)

As I said back then, I'm no professional reviewer, and I've kinda decided that I'm not really so much reviewing these games as I am trying to describe what I like about them and why you, the reader, might want to check them out. After all, I'm not going to play games I don't like for long periods of time, and these are all games I play regularly, which means that any "review" I might do would be pretty pointless since there's no chance of me saying the game is bad :P

Anyway, that aside, let's move on!

THE CROOKED MAN

FREE HUGS!

The Crooked Man is a horror/exploration game by Japanese indie developer Uri, who created it using the WOLF RPG Editor (which is kind of like RPG Maker). I love RPG Maker horror games (Ao Oni being far and away my favorite), so I had been meaning to try this out for a long time. I finally got around to playing it the other day, and it's pretty cool! I won't spoil anything, but safe to say, if you are into horror games, check it out. It's not really SUPER scary, but it's pretty compelling and interesting, and the monster is creepy. I'd probably have already beaten it by this point, but I keep forgetting to save for an hour or better at a time, and then dying, thus losing lots of progress. Always remember to save, kids!

COBRA TRIANGLE

Now all that's missing is David Wise's awesome soundtrack!

Not too long ago, I busted out my NES for the first time in over a year, and had a look through the games I had to play. I had several that I had never actually tried (I had been given several cartridges a while ago, and wasn't playing the NES at the time). One that caught my eye was this early Rare title, Cobra Triangle. I gave it a shot, and I'm glad I did! Cobra Triangle is an isometric action game with shooting/racing elements. You pilot a speed boat through various levels and try to accomplish different tasks while watching the clock and attempting to avoid damage. It's very fun, and each of the levels is unique and well-designed. It is also SOOOO HARD. This game will whoop your rear end every time you try to play it, and then some :) It's very good though, and as long are you aren't put off by the difficulty in other classic games (Cobra Triangle is hard, but not the hardest on the NES and definitely not the hardest ever), give it play or two. I consider it to be an underrated title, along with some of my other NES favorites like Section Z and Legend of Kage.

BASTION

Did I mention I'm behind the curve? Yeah, well, I am.

Bastion is an action adventure game by Supergiant that was released way back in 2011 for Xbox Live Arcade. I remember seeing it there, back in the days of 360 yore, but I never tried it (I was too busy trying all those atrocious Minecraft knock-offs that were in the Indie Game section of Xbox Live). I finally got this game a few weeks ago on Steam, and I like it so far. The game looks beautiful, of course, and it makes for an engaging dungeon-crawler-esque game. I like the customization and upgrade options. It's a pretty good game all around.


So, that will about do it for this week's games :) But before I go...


So, here's my plan for #1GAM this month: I want to take part in a game jam! :D I've never actually done one before, but after having gotten some practice under my belt, I feel compelled to finally give jamming a chance. I want to take part in the LudumDare, but that isn't until the end of next month, so I've decided that instead I'll go for the One Hour Game Jam! 


For those unfamiliar, the One Hour Game Jam is, just like its name implies, a game jam that lasts for exactly one hour, held every Saturday. At the start of the hour, a theme is announced, and the participants must turn in a complete (though almost certainly microscopically small) game after just 60 minute. This is a pretty extreme challenge to undertake, but I have a decent backlog of code that I can shape to fit any game I'm making. I observed the action this past week, and I'm looking forward to participating myself, either this coming Saturday or the next. Stay tuned!


Well, that should about do it for today. See you around! Remember to save your games!!