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!

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!

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!