No News is Good News... Right?

Hi all! How has life been treating you in the approximately seven days intervening between my last blog post? My week has been pretty relaxing, actually. Since my last #1GAM game, Plitka, was released a bit earlier in the month, I have actually had a few days to not think about making a game for the first time in several weeks. Weird.

Consequently, this week I don't have too much to report in the realm of game development. I committed myself to a weekly blog post, though, so here is: this week's post!

 

Hur hur

But seriously folks, how about an anecdote of advice you might be able to make some use of?

I learned something over the course of the release of my last two games, Plitka (available here and here) and Cargo (available here). Even though I feel like both of these games are superior in virtually every way to my first game, Torso Ninja (available here), neither of my two most recent games have achieved anywhere near the number of plays as my first game. Mostly, I think this is attributable to the more eye-grabbing title ("Torso Ninja" is kinda worth a double take). It just goes to show, even little, free games need some level of marketing in order to be played by any real audience.

I leave you now with a bit of information on my upcoming #1GAM game for March. Though it is currently still in a conceptual state, my plan is to make it a browser based game (I believe more people will be inclined to play it if they don't have to download it). Stay tuned for more info!

Later!

Plitka Released!

Hellooooooooo, Internet! You may have noticed that I was a bit late with this week's dev blog, but that's just because development on my current game is already complete! Today, I'm excited to announce the release of my third #1GAM game, Plitka! You can play it for yourself on Game Jolt, as well as on Itch.io!

Game Jolt link: http://gamejolt.com/games/plitka/127947
Itch.io link: https://hellamagellan.itch.io/plitka

Plitka is a puzzling parade of color and strategy! In this game, you, the player, must manipulate your way through waves of plitkas (colorful, gem-like tiles) that fall from the sky and fill up your game board! Move the plitkas left, right, up, and down, and try to match four or more horizontally or vertically to clear them and score points! The plitkas will keep coming, slowly at first, but much faster as time goes on! Survive as long as possible and go for the high score!

This was an interesting game for me to make, and I put a LOT more effort into the resources (music and graphics, primarily) than I usually do. Plitka is a pretty simple and straightforward game, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out, both functionally and aesthetically. :) I made use of a font called Kremlin by Vic Fieger.

That about does it! :) I would love to hear any and all comments you all have regarding Plitka, my other games, or anything else, really. If you play Plitka, I hope you have some fun with it!

See you around!

Dev Blog #6: Plitka Powers

Hey, everyone! I'm back again, this time with a little bit of information regarding my upcoming #1GAM game, Plitka! I've completed most of the necessary artwork and implemented a lot of the basic gameplay already, so look for a release much sooner in the month than my previous #1GAM offerings.

There are five different colors of plitka available (blue, red, green, cyan, and yellow). You must match up four blocks of identical colors, either horizontally or vertically, to clear them, thus earning points and keeping you in the game. Here are a few select screenshots from the in-progress version:

Plitkas fall from the sky, and you manipulate them with your
highlight arrow.

 

You use the highlight arrow to move the plitkas left and right.
A second arrow for moving them up and down will be in the final version.

As you can see, it can get out of hand...

Plitka is actually based on a game that I made when I was younger (also called Plitka), with
much simpler gameplay. That game was one of the first I ever completed to the point of it being genuinely "playable." Unfortunately, the original Plitka was lost when my old laptop gave up the ghost. This new version is something of a tribute to that earlier idea of mine.

The rest of the game should come together pretty quickly. Keep a look out for the release!

See you next time!

Dev Blog #5: Announcing Plitka!

Hi everyone! This has been a pretty busy week for me, but I did manage to find time to squeeze in a bit of game dev, and I'm pleased to announce the fruit of my efforts and my third #1GAM game, Plitka!

Current logo of Plitka!

Plitka (плитка, roughly Russian for 'tile') is planned as a straightforward puzzle game in the vein of Tetris. Individual tiles (called plitkas) fall from the sky, in groups or alone. You, the player, will control them by moving them up, down, left, and right as they fall, trying to match up four or more when they "settle" at the bottom and become immovable. If four or more are matched, they are cleared and disappear. As time goes on, the rate of plitka spawns and the speed of falling increases. You score points for clears, and the game ends whenever the game board overfills at the top.


I'm making this game in Python, using the Pygame API. Some basic progress has been made already, and, hopefully, next week will be less busy and I can make some serious progress. The main design goals I have for Plitka are to be A.) smaller and easier to make than my previous game, Cargo, and B.) smoother to control than either of my previous games.

That about does it for this week folks! As always, any comments are welcome. See you later!

Cargo Released!

What's up everybody? You ready for some high-speed highway traffic-dodging action? Then look no further, because Cargo is officially out now!! After taking nearly the whole month, I've finally finished it. You can play it on Game Jolt here: http://gamejolt.com/games/cargo/122511

Cargo is an arcade-style driving game where you play as a trucker out to make it rich on the long-haul circuit! You control an 18-wheeler cargo truck barreling down a highway congested with traffic and patrolled by watchful police cars. Your mission is to reach the end of your journey as quickly as possible, collecting pickups and dodging other vehicles along the way. At the end of each day you can use your hard-earned money to buy upgrades for 
your rig. Your ultimate goal is to save up $1,000,000 and retire to a trucker's life of luxury!

This is far and away the most extensive game I've ever completed. Many hours were sunk into Cargo over the last few weeks. Here's hoping you enjoy playing it as much as I've enjoyed making it! :)

As always, if anyone out there plays the game and likes it, please leave a comment, because I would love to here from you!

Onward and upward!

Dev Blog #4: Doin' Time

Howdy howdy howdy! Time for another exciting developer blog from yours truly! This has been a pretty cool week for Cargo, as I've finally implemented what I knew from the start would be the trickiest core feature: Police chases! That's right, now you can lead the cops on an exciting chase down the highway! And that's not even the only thing I've accomplished this week...

The first batch of screenshots I'm sharing is an overview of the saving and loading screens. Cargo uses a simple save file system. You have three save files to choose from:

The save menu, accessible from the end-of-day menu.

And the load menu, accessible from the main menu.

Incidentally, this is the aforementioned main menu, in
all its huge-titled glory.

The next few shots show some details about police cars and their behavior. It took a lot of fine-tuning to get the cop cars to perform at the level I wanted them to. Probably no other feature in the game took more time to get up and running, hence the punny title of this week's blog.

Here we see a police car, relaxing in its natural habitat. Notice
the "legality" icon at the top-center of the screen.

You'll never take me alive!!!

Or, you know, maybe you will...

I've made a lot more progress as well, but that's about all I want to reveal at the moment. Not much stands in the way of this game being rolled out, aside from some assets (the game still woefully lacks music and sound) and final touches. The next dev blog is due in a week, and I may or may not already have the game released before then!

I'm gonna take an aside here and actually talk about this blog for a moment, since these thoughts have been on my mind and have no doubt influenced my development process (see, I'm still on topic!). I started this blog as part of my New Year's resolution to become a "real" game developer, since I reasoned that if someone out there read about my games and was expecting me to actually complete them, it would give me more incentive and focus. It is still quite early on in the year, but I'm pleased to say that my plan has worked well thus far. I've been a coder for a while, and I've made little (usually unfinished) games for five years now. I can honestly say that I've learned and grown more as a developer in the last two months than I ever have before.

This blog and my other social media outlets have taken me out of my comfort zone. I'm actually a very introverted person, but my ultimate dream is to be a game designer, indie or otherwise, professional or otherwise. I'll probably never become a hotshot developer, but I can at least say now that I'm a "real" developer: I have a game out there that you can play, and another on the way. I'm not in it looking to make a fortune, but I do want to be the best game developer I can be. Making games makes me happy, and part of making games is trying to get people to actually play them. You have to talk and be visible as well as code, draw, and write, no matter who you are, and I've realized that over the last few months.

I also realize that I'm rambling a bit. :) All I'm trying to say is, if you're a potential game developer, don't hide in your shell like I did for half a decade. Make something! Put it out there! Make something else! Talk about it! And do it because you love it!

So long! See you next week, or maybe before!!

Dev Blog #3: A Lack of Productivity

Hello everyone, I'm back again for my weekly developer blog! This week I don't have very much to report. Progress on the Cargo has slowed somewhat, thanks in large part to the Spring semester beginning for me this past week. Classes eat up a lot of my time, and what's more, I actually have a job on-campus, which leaves me with still fewer free hours.

But enough with the excuses! Since you're here reading this, you must be chomping at the bit to hear more about Cargo, right? Of course you are! So let me get right into it!

As I said, limited progress has been made this week. One of the main successes I've had is implementing the upgrade screen. It currently is missing much of it's text, but at least it is displaying.

I find the rich purple hue to be nice and relaxing after a long
day of barreling down the highway.

Most of the text is not there yet.

The other main thing to show is the fact that cars now leave behind a wreckage sprite when they've been crashed. This comes as part of a large series of tweaks to car behavior. The random traffic you encounter on the road should seem significantly more intelligent than before, especially in the thru-lane.

 

A grizzly scene...

That about does it for the progress I've made this week. I've been kinda slacking, I know, but the good news is that next week should allow me quite a bit more time to get things done with the game. Hopefully by the next dev blog, I've have the police cars (an integral feature) implemented!

Fare thee well, for now!