A Multiplayer Flash Prototype
Hey, it's about time to show some progress on another prototype I've been working on. With the success of my Nickelodean sponsored Flash game (400,000 plays now), I thought I might try one more Flash game. This one, provided it is technically feasible, will probably end up getting self-sponsored, sponsors generally aren't keen on games that only support multiplayer. Here's what the client looks like now. I haven't removed any debug stuff, some people like to see that. It looks very messy:
Isometric Map Tools
Tools! Everyone loves Tool programming. Except me, perhaps, I'm actually much more interested in making games and tool manufacturing, although being incredibly necessary to many games completion, always feels just one step removed to me. That touch of abstraction bothers me, so I usually just race through, get to the point where I can generate content efficiently, and not care a jot about the unpolished/hacky nature of the tools created.
Here's an isometric map editor that I've been working on for a while, unpolished and hacky! It supports the generation of a collision graph, not just of solid obstacle tiles, but more usefully edges of tiles. Don't know why I've never bothered to add that to my previous grid games, it can really make maps feel bigger.
A Week of Prototyping
I've spent most of this week just playing with ideas for my next game, implementing mechanics and seeing if they're fun to play. I've also been trying to sell that other Flash game of mine, but licensing means I get to be secretive about exciting developments, and I take any opportunity I can to be irritatingly mysterious.
So here's a few things I've been working on:
Animated Cranktrain Logo
After finishing my game last week, I've spent most of this week benefiting from work that other people have done. My good friend Josh Hailes put in a good few hours and animated the Cranktrain logo. It's awesome.
At times I just sit down and let it loop. If you're in the need of a game studio ident/intro then definitely give Josh an email, his rates are very indie friendly.
'Stars Aren't Worth This' is finished
I finished off Stars Aren't Worth This this week. The game has 40 levels, which sounds quite good, I reckon. The final levels I had to design where the last levels of the game, and I started to feel fairly guilty about the amount of pain I was going to subject my players to.
Then I played Super Meat Boy for the first time.
Screenshot Saturday - Another Flash Game
I'm busy finishing my third Flash game of the year right now. I'm in that last 10% stretch! Just making levels. Why did I decide to make so many levels, that's a good question.
Miasma Story Music
Hey there. So Miasma Story has been released and is currently getting played between 10 and 15 thousand times a day which is pretty cool. I made the game almost entirely on my own, I did all the programming and the graphics you see in the game, but there is one aspect of the development that I definitely couldn't manage, and that is music. I am not musically talented in really any way, so I'm quite glad that Mathias Kærlev agreed to compose a few tracks for the game. He has uploaded them to his Soundcloud page, and I really think you'd enjoy listening to them.
Two New Games Released!
It's funny how it worked out, but the two games I've been blogging about for the last few months were both released within a week of one another. They've both done pretty well out in the cold, harsh internet, lots of plays and so on. I'd probably like to do a post-mortem of each of them a bit later on, with sales/advertising stats and some of the things I've learnt about flash game development. In any case, you can play them with these handy links below:
'Oh No, Cowboy Vampires' - Screenshot Saturday
I have completed my second game of the summer! Whereas my first game was an hour long tactical RPG, this game was a much smaller project. If you look back at my last screenshot saturday contribution, I said "I decided to work on something much smaller, something I could finish in just two weeks". Hahahah. Oh, how naive. 'Oh No, Cowboy Vampires' took me four weeks to complete, screenshots below:
A Return to Screenshot Saturday
Oh hello! I've been absent from the game developer ritual of posting screenshots on Saturday for the last few weeks. My excuse is good! I was in the final throes of Miasma Story's development. Any second spent writing a blog post would have seemed like wasted time when success was so close.