Platform: Flash — You know what's cool? Beatboxing. You know what's cooler? When you get to conduct a squad of digital human beatboxers right in your browser. So Far So Good serves up a simple but slick and stylish webtoy where musical creativity is just a drag and drop away. Warning; may make you irresistibly cooler by association. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, interactiveart, linux, mac, music, rating-g, sofarsogood, webtoy, windows

Platform: Unity — Is your trigger-finger ready for a challenge? Then load up the beautiful but deadly Ludum Dare competition entry Kumiho. Pilot a ship with the ability to teleport against hordes of semi-organic monstrosities transformed by a vengeful Goddess. With striking visuals and simple but high-difficulty gameplay, it's a lovely little diversion if your reflexes are up to the task. Tagged as: action, arcade, botogames, browser, bullethell, cneofotisou, fjutte, free, game, highdifficulty, ludumdare, mac, rating-g, shooter, unity, windows

Games featured this week: Tex Murphy - Project Fedora; Drunken Robot Pornography; McPixel; Dreadline; The Adventures of Shuggy; Farm Fortress; MacGuffin's Curse — Time-travelling monsters? Towering robot centerfolds? Post-apocalyptic P.I.s? Game developers are a crazy bunch, and that's exactly the way we love them! This week's Link Dump Friday features a whole mess of exciting upcoming titles, as well as a BEAST of a giveaway, and two opposing views on the concept of games using free-to-play models. Tagged as: blog, linkdump, news, previews

sixty second shooter is totally going to be in the upcoming #BecauseWeMay promotion.

BecauseWeMay.com.

So they've chosen to use Unity to power Wasteland 2. Their announcement actually has a sort of defensive air about it - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/posts/228226 - like they're expecting people to complain. Me, I think Unity is the obvious choice - if I was on the project it would be my first choice too.

But for a somewhat ineffable reason: happy workers are more productive. Working with Unity is such a pleasure it makes me happy just to use it. I get to code in C#, for one thing. And if I want to know how to do something I don't know how to do, usually a quick google search such as "Unity environment maps" gets me the answer I'm looking for and bam! I can make it happen. And it's not lacking in power - I've done tests where I've had hundreds of flocking AI's running at 60.

Platform: Mac — There's nothing ordinary about this adventure hybrid from Artifex Mundi, creators of Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek. Sure you get the familiar tale of undead pirated cursed by stolen gold, but you also get an amazingly ambitious production. You can finish the entire game without playing a single hidden object scene if you wish, just opt for mahjong, instead (or do both!) Gorgeous scenes, well designed puzzles and expert story-telling are just a few features that make Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart an experience not to be missed. Tagged as: adventure, affiliate, artifexmundi, casual, collectorsedition, demo, download, game, hiddenobject, hybrid, mac, mahjong, puzzle, rating-y, windows

Platform: Flash — Aimed more at kids than adults but equally enjoyable by both for its charm, this sweet little adventure platformer tells the story of a teddy bear who gets lost and strikes out to find a way back home to the little girl who dropped him. Light on challenge but big on style and cuteness, it's just the right size for new gamers to try on, and just the right tone for old gamers to relax with. Tagged as: adventure, browser, flash, free, game, gsmith, jimp, kidoriented, macwinlinux, platform, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g

Getting ready for some soccer action? The real soccer fun starts June 8th 2012, but for those that can’t wait, and for those that prefer to play on their own instead of watching someone else play, we prepared Soccer Cup Solitaire. Now you can play it online!

It loads fast and is easy to play. Pick to similar cards to take them off the table (for example King of Hearts and King of Diamonds). Collect points to score goals. And lead your team to winning the match!

Play Soccer Cup Solitaire online now

We have also high quality version available for PC, Mac and Linux. You can read more about Soccer Cup Solitaire on our website. High quality version features great rock music and sport commentators.

Platform: iOS, Android, Flash — In FazeCat's everything-but-the-kitchen sink defense game, Paladog, Critterland has been invaded by zombies, witches, skeletons, and just about every evil little thing you can imagine, including television sets! It's up to you to fight them off, but are you dog enough to take them on over a whopping 120 levels, including special mini-games. Paladog is a big, cuddly, newspaper-fetching machine, that brings back the Sunday paper, but slobbers all over the funnies... and you love it anyway. Tagged as: android, browser, defense, fazecat, flash, free, game, ios, iphone, linux, mac, magic, mobile, rating-y, strategy, upgrades, windows, zombies

Platform: Flash — Like your mini-golfing streamlined and mellow? This slick physics puzzle by Jayc Santos might be the offer. Serving up creative bumpers and boosters you place yourself, and your average golfing traps like water and mines, it's a mellow experience you'll definitely want to take a swing at. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, golf, jsantos, linux, mac, physics, puttbase, puzzle, rating-g, skill, windows

Platform: Flash — Ever since Pac-Man first escaped off the right side of the screen to magically appear on the left, players have had a certain thing for games that skew traditional notions of spatiality. The Village Blacksmith offers another wonderful take on this kind of teleportation in Recursion, a cool little retro puzzle platformer. The series of single screen levels progresses nicely, even if the jumps require a bit too much precision. Still, Recursion worth playing over and over again. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, linux, mac, pixelart, platform, puzzle, rating-g, retro, simpleidea, thevillageblacksmith, windows

Platform: Flash — A bite-sized escape puzzler from Dghgbakufu that drops you in the middle of a cross-shaped five-room dungeon and dares you to solve its puzzles and escape to the surface. Bakufu shies away from the complicated clichés like using screwdrivers to pry open panels and finding power cords to plug in computers. All the keys and doors are symbol-coded, and there's no pixel-hunting, either; what little challenge this developer's games contain lies in deciphering the simple yet clever little clues to open the safes, which is fine for someone wanting a quick and easy escape but not so much for a challenge-seeker. Tagged as: browser, dghgbakufu, escape, flash, free, game, japanese, linux, mac, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g, windows

Platform: Flash — In the mood for some good, old-fashioned, retro arcade fun, without the need of a roll of quarters? Brandon Williamson's Forget-Me-Not, which was originally a popular mobile game, is now ported over to your browser! It takes the classic concept of Pac-Man, and adds a shooter to it. Quickly addictive, and perfectly frustrating, Forget-Me-Not is old-school fun at its finest. Tagged as: arcade, browser, bwilliamson, flash, free, game, highdifficulty, linux, mac, mobile, rating-g, retro, shooter, windows

Platform: Flash — Having a mellow spell and want a game that won't zap your brain? Conjure up a bit of amusement in this charming little puzzle platform game by Aizat Haibulin. Using your sparkly wand, strategically place dummies to overcome the obstacles and baddies standing between you and the magic door. Don't let the name fool you: nothing overly complicated or intricate here. It's just the right amount of cute design and mild challenge to suit your fancy. Tagged as: ahaibulin, browser, flash, free, game, kidfriendly, linux, mac, platform, puzzle, rating-y, windows

In Habitually Living on Purpose, I mentioned how I am focusing on habits this year in an attempt to live according to my Life on Purpose statement: My Life on Purpose is a joyful life of freedom, continuous learning, encouraged and supported creativity, insatiable curiosity, and prolific creation, driven by passion and a desire for excellence, powered by a healthy body and soul.

Last time, I wrote about working on habits to help me work on the “powered by a healthy body” aspect of my purpose statement. Today, I’ll focus on the “continuous learning” part.

I once read that you should commit to learning at least one new thing each day. I decided to make it a real habit.

Now, each day we learn all sorts of trivia and minutia, and we live in a fascinating world where we could learn a hundred things a day about how an antenna works or how dogs evolved to recognize the gaze of humans while wolves haven’t or that animals can grieve.

But that seems too easy. I could just click links posted on Twitter all day, but I’m not really learning anything useful, am I? Not unless I become a TV repairman or an animal whisperer.

It didn’t quite work out for me.

These bits of trivia and data are cool, and they probably help me with being creative in ways I don’t see yet, but I’m more interested in learning something personally useful. Learning when chess was invented doesn’t count, but learning how to do the Alekhine’s Defense in a chess game would.

On February 29th, I started writing “Yesterday’s lesson” posts on my Google+ account. That first post was about human proportions, since I was getting back into doodling.

And somehow, without fail, I have posted a new lesson each day. Sometimes the lessons are based on my work learning JavaScript through the Codecademy. Sometimes the lessons come from books I’m reading. Sometimes they come from observations I’ve made during game development.

So it is safe to say that I’ve instilled this habit of posting what I have learned from the previous day. What’s interesting is that the habit isn’t directly related to learning. It’s merely reporting, which is less about learning and more about accountability. So shouldn’t I have a habit that gets me to specifically learn something new as well?

I thought I needed to do so at first. I would try to set aside an hour to learn JavaScript each day, for instance. I basically blocked out some learning time, but on days when I had to drastically change my schedule due to an emergency or one-off errands that were urgent, what then?

What I found was that as nice as the blocked off time was, I didn’t really need it as much. Because I know I’ll be writing a “Yesterday’s lesson” the next day, I find myself motivated to make an effort to find something to learn if I haven’t done so in the normal course of the day. There were a few days where I couldn’t easily remember what I had learned the previous day, but I made myself write a post anyway, which sometimes meant searching through my browser history to jog my memory. You could argue that I must not have really learned it, but there’s a difference between learning a lesson and being able to recall the learning. B-) Still, apparently the pain of sitting there unsure of what to post seems to have gotten me to subconsciously seek out specific things to write about for the next day.

If I need to do research for some work I’m doing, I realized that I already had something to report. For instance, I learned how to create custom star badge for an ad I was making for ISVCon. This past weekend I had my bachelor party, and I realized that I didn’t spend part of the day reading or working, yet I learned that Jameson and serrano peppers are not a fun combination for your mouth.

Sometimes I’d stay up a little later reading before going to sleep. Reporting what I learned the next morning then becomes a review, which helps me remember the salient points instead of mindlessly consuming content. Recently in lieu of watching old episodes of “Star Trek” on Netflix during lunch, I find myself listening to audiobooks such as The E-Myth Revisited, and I recently found a very similar lesson about how vital the right metrics are for a business between it and The Lean Startup.

So it is interesting that unlike exercising, in which the habit is directly related to the benefit, in this case, the habit I formed was indirectly encouraging me to continuously learn. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have anything to report, and even though no one else is really expecting me to do so, I would feel like I was letting someone down if I missed a day. Well, in reality, I would be letting myself down. I’m just being more public with my self-accountability.

There are ways I’d like to improve this habit. For now, it feels too haphazard, as if the learning isn’t focused enough. One day I learn something code-related, and the next I learn something about business, but there’s no connection between the two. If I really wanted to learn Italian, for instance, I’d dedicate time every day to it. I wouldn’t space it out over the course of a year.

Recently I read Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit, and now I’m reading Hugh MacLeod’s Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. When I’m finished with that book, I would like to follow it up with another book on creativity. Or a documentary on creativity. Or something related to the same subject until I feel I’ve sprinted enough with it before exploring a different subject.

In any case, I’m pleased with this habit so far. In pursuing continuous learning, I now feel like I more easily recognize the opportunity for a lesson when it appears. And who knows? Maybe I’ll finally figure out how to be a Cat Whisperer one day.

Living on Purpose: Continuous Learning is a post from: GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Earlier, I drew this as a joke (and shared in twitter)… but it’s not funny.

It’s so easy to get into mindset of doing “just one more change”, “just one more thing”. And that prevents game from getting done. The last playtests I did, made me think that I need to change one card. Gameplay already worked just fine, but somehow I didn’t like how the one card worked, so decided to change it.

That’s it, I say to myself. But this small change means I gotta go through more testing to ensure things are balanced.

I’m already proud of what I’ve done, and even though I keep getting more ideas for more items, more specialties and more everything… I decided to do folder called “expansion” and put the ideas on that folder. When I get new ideas, I know where they go.

That way I feel that my ideas are waiting there, not gone in vain – but also that I get sensible progress.

And, finally I can start say that this card game of mine – it’s near the finish line. I have bunch of tasks on my list. Cannot wait to get them done.

What about you – are you feature creep? Where do you draw the line between “polishing” and “creep”?

Games featured this week: Phit; Robot Unicorn Attack; BowMaster Prelude; Craziest; Kavalmaja — Everyone knows games can be hard to put down, but some titles are trickier than most to pull yourself away from. From magical robotic equine action to fiendishly simple block puzzles and even medieval archer madness, here's a collection of some of the most addictive little games around that can keep you up into the wee hours. Tagged as: blog, browser, thevault

Platform: iOS — Explore deeply layered fantasy landscapes, encounter boss battles and intriguing characters, discover treasure chests and secret coves, upgrade armor and weapons, level up and and everything else you'd want to find in an epic RPG platforming adventure. The on screen controls make your journey all the more enjoyable for a classic gaming feel. Any nostalgic cravings you had for your favorite games of old will be satisfied as you are the hero and your quest is great. Keep that sword handy and your magic prepped; who knows what danger lurks beyond those gates? You'll soon find out! Tagged as: action, adventure, game, ios, ipad, iphone, mobile, platform, rating-y, rpg, touchfoo

Platform: iOS, Android — A Long Way Home is an arcade physics puzzle game from Jonathan Mulcahy. Stranded 100 light years from Earth, you play an astronaut whose only companion is a wrist-mounted computer who offers bits of advice. Using a sharp eye and impeccable timing, trot around asteroids and planets and jump from their surface across the screen, the goal being to collect dark matter so you can open successive worm holes that get you closer to home. Along the way, you'll encounter exploding asteroids, comets, teleporting dark matter, and more. Not exactly a leisurely walk in space. Tagged as: android, arcade, game, ios, ipad, iphone, jmulcahy, kindle, nook, rating-g, space, tablet

Platform: iOS, Android — Oh no! The king of the realm needs you to save the princess from the evil clutches of the Dark Knight! Go figure, right? Wind-up Knight is a mobile run and jump adventure very similar to Canabalt HD except you get a fancy sword and armor to fight enemies while dodging traps to make your way to the princess. Convenient items in adventuring, yes, but it won't save you when the Dark Knight starts getting really serious about stopping you. A knight's mettle will never be more tested and neither shall your timing skills as pits, enemies, and environmental dangers stand in your way. Tagged as: action, adventure, android, arcade, game, highdifficulty, ios, ipad, iphone, jumpandrun, kindle, mobile, platform, rating-y, robotinvaders, simpleidea, skill, tablet, timing

Platform: iOS — Everybody wants to rule the world, and zombies are no exception. In Brainsss, a wild sort of mobile game by Lonely Few, you get to help the zombies start their plot for world domination. Part strategy, part action, part brains, you must lead and grow your zombie horde to complete the goal for each level. Humans just don't get it. Life is so much simpler if all you need are brainsss. Tagged as: action, game, ios, ipad, iphone, lonelyfew, mobile, rating-y, strategy, tablet, zombies

Platform: iOS, Android — Looking for a logic puzzle game that is tested and designed with cognitive physiology research AND is still fun to play? The boys over at Handy Games in Germany bring you infeCCt, a nice casual undertaking that gets you covering tiles with vines. The game will bend your mind to its limits with tons of impressively designed levels, extra obstacles and tiles for an added challenge, and online scoring system to compare your problem solving skills with others. Tagged as: android, askulteti, demo, game, handygames, ios, ipad, iphone, kindle, logic, mobile, nook, puzzle, rating-g, simpleidea, tablet

Platform: iPad, Android — FlipPix Art is a series of picross logic puzzles created by GabySoft for mobile markets, including Android tablets, iPad, and NOOK Color/Tablet. The games are designed for ease of use while on the go, employing a rather unusual control mechanism that, surprisingly, makes mobile picross easier and less error-prone. On top of that, each of the games in the series features a different visual theme along with a large number of puzzles, making it one of the best ways to get a picross fix while on the go. Tagged as: android, gabysoft, game, ios, ipad, kindle, logic, mobile, nook, picross, puzzle, rating-g, tablet

Platform: iOS, Android — Though it's a scary (if distant) thought in real life, being stranded on an island where you have to fight for survival isn't high on anyone's to-do list. Place it in a casual game, though, and we're tripping over ourselves to start the download. Sahmon Games' simulation series The Island: Castaway has been perplexing players for a few years now with its superb blend of quest-based item hunting and character managing, spawning The Island: Castaway 2 not long after the original was released. Now there's the mobile version of The Island: Castaway, and it manages to bring every pixel of entertainment from its PC cousins to the portable touch screen. Be prepared for the addiction to begin all over again! Tagged as: adventure, android, demo, game, ios, ipad, iphone, islandcastaway, kindle, mobile, nook, rating-y, rpg, sahmongames, simulation, tablet

Platform: iOS, Android — When a vast series of subterranean pipes appears beneath Bikini Bottom, it's SpongeBob and crew to the rescue!... sort of! After a blinding flash of light, all our sea-dwelling swashbucklers have turned to marbles, and they need your help drawing paths to safety and helping them to manipulate switches and other machinery. Who's behind this fiendish development? Play this gorgeous mobile physics puzzler and find out! Tagged as: achievements, android, demo, game, gildedskull, ios, ipad, iphone, mobile, nickleodeon, nook, physics, pinball, puzzle, rating-g, tablet

Games featured this week: Machinarium; Amazing Alex; Death Worm; Off the Leash — Dogs and worms dominate the latest edition of Mobile Monday, an entirely unintended coincidence, we assure you! To balance out the slight "ew" factor, have a taste of a cute robot and a new game from the creators of Angry Birds. That should balance things out nicely! Tagged as: blog, mobile, mobile-monday, news, previews



Platform: Flash — In the mood for cracking some codes and breaking open a few boxes but short on time? This escape-the-room game from Tateita is just the right size for a quick fix. A sparse, five-walled room and several locks are all that stand between you and the open door. While its brevity might disappoint, Box 19's puzzles are sure to please. Tagged as: browser, escape, flash, free, game, japanese, linux, mac, puzzle, rating-g, tateita, windows

Platform: Mac — It's been said that people create because they're not satisfied with the way things are; they feel that the world needs more of 'them'. Well, if Dark Scavenger is any indication of what Psydra Games 'is', then I am eager to have more! In the team's darkly-humored point-and-click adventure game, you are an alien who has to forage through a planet looking for a source of energy to power your failing ship. With combat and mystery at every turn, this game will have you humorously pointing and clicking your way through the storyline. Tagged as: adventure, demo, download, game, indie, mac, pointandclick, psydragames, rating-o, retro, windows

Platform: Flash — Natural disasters are at your fingertips in this simple but clever little physics puzzle from Anton Koshechkin. Unleash hurricanes, comets, bees, and more in order to destroy eggs housed in protective structures. It's weird, funny, and just the right dose of egg carnage to see you through the day. Tagged as: akoshechkin, browser, flash, free, game, linux, mac, physics, puzzle, rating-y, windows

Platform: Mac, Unity — Across the universe, no matter the time period or location, delivering the mail is a rough job. Take the poor sap in charge of the space-based mail delivery station Meteor Mail, for example. (It's you, by the way.) That lonely technician has to fire packages from one end, then tweak the exact position of gravity orbs to thread each delivery through worm holes, asteroids, roving pirates, and other obstacles. But, if it were easy, we wouldn't have the delightfully challenging puzzle game that is Meteor Mail, so from adversity comes entertainment! Tagged as: demo, download, game, indie, mac, puzzle, rating-g, space, squirreltechenterprises, unity, windows

Platform: Windows — Alan Wake is a bestselling author who hasn't written a word in two years. The pressure from his fans and agent are getting to him, and a quiet vacation in the sleepy mountain town of Bright Falls should be just what he needs to relax... right up until he wakes up confused and disoriented in the woods late at night, attacked by living shadows. With his wife missing and nobody willing to believe him, Alan must unravel the mysteries of the town and his own haunted psyche in this frightening, atmospheric action adventure from Remedy. Tagged as: action, adventure, affiliate, download, game, gog, horror, mystery, rating-o, remedy, windows

Platform: Windows — Miley's got dreams of being a comedic superstar, and the first step is to follow in the footsteps of Cherry Tree High's greatest and start a comedy club. The only problem is the student council insists she needs a minimum of three more members, and she only has a month to find them! Are her ambitions on the rocks, or can she hunt down and convince a bunch of unlikely recruits to join her? A gorgeous, energetic, and light-hearted game that blends adventure with visual novel and simulation elements. Tagged as: 773, adventure, capcom, download, game, humor, indie, narrative, nyumedia, rating-y, visualnovel, windows

Platform: Windows — If you grew up in an age where dithering was a a common graphical trick to get around color limitations and were excited when CGA was succeeded by EGA which gave way to VGA, just seeing a screenshot of You Have to Win the Game will turn you mad with nostalgia. The exploration platformer from Pirate Hearts shares a lot of design elements with Terry Cavanagh's VVVVVV, Lyle in Cube Sector, and Celestial Mechanica, though its main trick is emulating the computing environment of a decades-old PC. But even if you don't get excited by 16-color CRT monitors, You Have to Win the Game is a thoroughly enjoyable ride! Tagged as: action, download, exploration, free, game, indie, kpittman, piratehearts, platform, rating-g, retro, windows

Platform: Windows — Become a mare of action in this crazy but colourful homage to the classic bullet-hell shooter series. Playing as Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash, blast your way through fields of bizarre enemies, mini-bosses, and more with frantic action you'll need to be at least 20% cooler than most to pull off. This free download might be simple, but it's an excellent source of shooter gameplay to make you feel like a boss and get your heart pounding. Tagged as: action, arcade, bullethell, download, free, game, giest118, highdifficulty, indie, mylittlepony, rating-g, shooter, windows

Platform: Windows — And Then There Were None... an old English detective book that has been adapted for the stage, silver screen, and radio has given inspiration to an indie platformer game. As you quest through the blanketing snow and eerie white noise, the game follows a man known only as Hughes as he tries to defend himself from a roaming serial killer. Tensions rise and fear sets in as danger lurks around every corner, tunnel, and platform. Your only glimmer of solace is the voice emanating from a radio, leading you along and aiding you in your struggle until... it's too late. Tagged as: adventure, digitalsynthesis, download, free, game, gamemaker, indie, platform, rating-o, saintheiser, windows

Platform: Mac — Of all of the creepy fairy tales we tell our kids — and there are some supremely creepy ones indeed — one that stands out is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, in which a town that doesn't like to pay its debts ends up losing all of its children to a dude who charms rats with music. This haunting tale seems ready made to become both a childhood nightmare and a casual adventure hybrid, so it's just as well that Blue Tea Games has taken up the challenge with Fabled Legends: The Dark Piper, a hidden object finding adventure that features lots and lots of rats, both in vermin and human form. Rats, why'd it have to be rats? Tagged as: adventure, affiliate, blueteagames, casual, collectorsedition, demo, download, game, hiddenobject, hybrid, mac, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-y, windows

Platform: iOS, Flash — Up for a challenge? In BlockHopper, an innovative puzzle platformer from GreenPixel, you control an adorable little robot named Bit across 35 different levels and landscapes to ultimate victory. But here's the twist: this isn't just some run-of-the mill, jump over static platforms to victory kind of game. Instead, you control the placement of platforms in the form of many different and ingenious blocks, each with their own separate logic and mechanics. This game features some cute graphic and a great soundtrack by Starship Amazing, but don't kid yourself, this game is hard. VERY HARD. To win, you'll have to think outside the block. Tagged as: achievements, browser, flash, free, game, greenpixel, ios, iphone, leveleditor, linux, mac, mobile, platform, puzzle, rating-y, scifi, unique, windows

Arizona Rose: humble antique collector, or treasure-hunter extraordinaire? While shopping for exotic antiques, Arizona stumbles across some old maps, which turn out to hold the key to Blackbeard’s lost treasures! But the treasures’ locations are concealed by a clever code, and Arizona needs your help to crack it.

Download Arizona Rose and the Pirates’ Riddles for PC
Download Arizona Rose and the Pirates’ Riddles for Mac OSX

Join Arizona on her epic treasure-hunting quest, with over 200 levels of picross to solve and numerous treasures to discover. Along the way, you’ll also collect powerful items to help you and encounter hidden object scenes and other exciting mini-games. You can also show off your puzzle-solving prowess by collecting all 15 achievements!

Whether you’re a picross fanatic or a first-time solver, Arizona Rose and the Pirates’ Riddles will keep you coming back for more. There’s always one more puzzle to solve, one more cave or shipwreck to explore, and one more treasure to take home at the end!

Addictive game play
Over 200 levels
15 awards to unlock
5 power ups
Clever mini games and hidden object scenes!

Platform: Flash — Help Johnny through a level filled with hazards by buying upgrades for.... everything! From run speed to the game timer to double jumping, it's in the store. Collect coins, buy upgrades, and repeat until you're strong enough to take on the final boss. Simple but engaging, Johnny Upgrade is a little treat for platforming fans, or anyone who really likes upgrades. Tagged as: action, adventure, arcade, browser, flash, free, game, gameshot, linux, mac, platform, rating-y, upgrades, windows

Platform: iOS, Flash — Use physics to maneuver around obstacles in your quest to collect stars in this stylish platform game. Without a 'jump' ability, you're going to have to use all the physics-based tricks you can to stay off the deadly spikes below. Blip is a fun, playable, and completely fresh take on the genre. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, ios, iphone, linux, mac, mobile, physics, platform, puzzle, rating-g, squarebeargames, windows

Platform: Flash — Fly through a beautiful forest as Pixle, a mysterious multi form Shade. Along the way, collect power-ups and evolve into bigger, faster forms, while staying clear of shadow tunnels. Pixle is a short game with a beautiful sense of style and easy to learn gameplay. Tagged as: action, arcade, browser, flash, flying, free, game, linux, mac, onebutton, rating-g, stellaro, windows

Games featured this week: My Little Investigations; Fallen London; Defender's Quest; Cursed Treasure 2; The Journey Down — Ponies? Check. Conspiracies? Check. Backstabbing? Check. Contest? Ohhhh yeah. This week's Link Dump Friday brings you a chance to win a copy of a celebrated tower-defense RPG, spotlights some exciting upcoming indie and browser releases, and gives you the chance to interrogate a fashionista. Tagged as: blog, linkdump, news, previews

Platform: Flash — Jonathan Whiting is here with another wonderfully vague Ludum Dare entry, arcade puzzler, Niña Nueve. Taking place in a nine-by-nine room (or does it?), Niña Nueve leaves it to the player to determine its mechanics, even as they grow ever more complex. Niña Nueve is a short game that will be run through pretty quickly. Still, it is a heck of a ride. Tagged as: arcade, browser, flash, free, jwhiting, linux, ludumdare, mac, pixelart, puzzle, rating-g, retro, topdown, windows

Platform: Flash — With modern and sharp looking graphics, Cube Mayhem brings isometric puzzle gaming to anyone looking for quick yet demanding casual experience. The cube will rock and roll along the map and follow the programmed sequence of action tiles you place in its way. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, isometric, kgu, linux, logic, mac, programming, puzzle, rating-g, tilebased, windows

Now you can play Avalon Legends Solitaire directly in your browser. This is our first self-made online game, so feel free to tell us how to improve our game. Of course, if you like online version, you’re very welcomed to download High Quality version for your PC or Mac.

To play Avalon Legends Solitaire Online go to this link:
http://www.anawiki.com/flash/avalon-legends-online.html

Have fun!

Platform: iOS, Javascript/HTML5 — The classic first-person shooter credited with jump-starting the genre on PC gets a re-release in HTML5! As Captain B.J., blast your way through three different missions and all the original levels of over-the-top retro action. It's cheesy, it's violent, and back in its day it was more than a little controversial, but Id Software's iconic title is responsible for siring many of the games you play today and is still as fun as ever. Tagged as: action, bethesda, browser, firstperson, free, game, html5, idsoftware, ios, ipad, iphone, linux, mac, mobile, rating-o, retro, shooter, tablet, windows

Platform: Flash — Given a choice between one or the other, is it better to have stronger personal relationships or longer life? This is part of Mihail's dilemma; he has an illness that presents him with limited options, both day and night. Play this interactive art/experimental game using arrows to move and [space] to interact; play more than once to see the full scoop of conversations and each of the two endings. What does it all mean? Well, that's up to you. The important things in life are always a matter of perspective. Tagged as: adventure, browser, digitaldreams, experimental, flash, game, interactiveart, linux, mac, narrative, rating-g, windows

In Habitually Living on Purpose, I mentioned how I am focusing on habits this year in an attempt to live according to my Life on Purpose statement: My Life on Purpose is a joyful life of freedom, continuous learning, encouraged and supported creativity, insatiable curiosity, and prolific creation, driven by passion and a desire for excellence, powered by a healthy body and soul.

Even though it is near the end of the statement, I’ll start with the “powered by a healthy body” part.

As a game developer, I find I sit at my computer a lot. In fact, most of my waking day is spent sitting in front of the computer. When I had a day job, I had the option of walking to work, or at least getting up to walk to lunch or go to a meeting. I once took a pedometer and found that in a given day, I easily maintained about 5,000 steps without trying too hard. I got a bicycle and used it to travel to and from work so I could get some extra exercise in.

When I went full-time indie back in the summer of 2010, however, I obviously had a much shorter commute to get to work. My office is about 20 seconds from my bedroom, and rush hour turns it into a 30 second commute, usually because there is a cat pile-up in the doorway. I didn’t have to go anywhere for meetings, and lunch was also half a minute away at most since the kitchen was nearby. One day late last year I decided to pull out the old pedometer to find out how many steps I took in an average day, and I was barely hitting 2,000. And I haven’t used my bicycle since I haven’t needed to.

Now, I knew I should change things. Even before the Internet blew up last year about how dangerous sitting is, I had read about the health problems you can get for being too sedentary. And yet, I never did anything sustainable to fix my situation. Joining a gym was too expensive for my indie budget, and I felt like any moment not spent working was wasted time. So I sat and worked.

Impact of an Unhealthy Body

I wrote about an experience I had with a pulled back muscle in The Perils of the Sedentary Indie. Shortly before I was scheduled to go to GDC in 2011, I was visiting family in Chicago. I have a niece, and while playing with her, I felt a small twinge in my back. At first, it was ignorable. I stretched my arms over my head, but in the end, it just got worse and worse until I couldn’t move my arms, legs, or head without feeling a lot of pain. My weekend family visit turned into a physically painful week-long bed-ridden stay. It hurt to sit for more than a few moments, so I stood, and when I couldn’t do that, all I could do was lie down. And that entire week, I wasn’t able to play with my niece as much as I wanted to. In fact, when I tried to stand up, I guess I looked so awkward and in so much pain that it frightened her to see me like that.

A couple of months later, I was going to help my fiancée’s sister move out of her college apartment after graduation, and my back started acting up again. Right when I’m supposed to help carry heavy things, I was the most useless. It wasn’t as bad as that week with my family, so I could still walk and carry some things, but I felt terrible that I couldn’t be more help.

I was also getting sick more frequently than I could recall. I would get one-day colds, fevers, and stuffy heads, the kinds of sickness that suck the motivation to work right out of you. When you’re working at a day job with benefits, they pay you to stay home and get better, but when you’re on your own, each day you don’t work is another day further from your goals.

My Body as the Vehicle for Everything Else in My LIfe

Now, I’ve read a lot about the benefits of keeping your body in shape. Besides avoiding injuries and sickness, being more physically capable, and looking great in jeans, exercise also helps your brain. You think more clearly. You’re more creative. You feel more positive, which helps with motivation. So why wasn’t I taking care of myself?

Frankly, your health just isn’t that urgent…until it is. When you’re bed-ridden due to an injury or a germ, you can’t help but realize that if you had taken the time to take better care of yourself, you wouldn’t be in this mess. I imagine that the same could be said for people who have suffered heart attacks or other major setbacks. For years, you feel “fine enough” until you suddenly feel horrible.

Still, knowing that you should take care of yourself when you’re capable of doing so isn’t enough. We’d all be exercising regularly and eating right if that were the case.

For me, what changed was when I sat down and came up with my Life on Purpose statement. There was a lot I wanted to be and do, but I needed my body to be healthy. After all, it’s the vehicle of my life. A broken down car without any gas in it isn’t going to get you to where you want to go very fast. I can be the most creative person in the world, but if I’m sick or unable to sit down at my desk without being in a world of pain, I couldn’t channel that creativity into game development.

Habits for the Body

I’ve been doing yoga three days a week, although I wasn’t always consistent. Still, since I started doing yoga, I’ve yet to pull my back muscles. Even when I could feel a pain in my hip (probably from sitting too long), a session of yoga helps tremendously.

Earlier this year, I decided that to start, I would walk every day. I found that a path near the cemetery is about a mile, so I walk two miles by the end of the return trip. In January, I took a walk a total of five days, which was not a great start. But in February I did 13 days. In March I did 15. Both are still a far cry from walking every day.

In April I did 19. I was surprised because I felt I was doing very well last month. I checked, and I found that the only days I missed in April were a few days at the beginning of the month and weekends. So while I wasn’t walking every day like I wanted, I was walking five days a week consistently before the end of the month. It was progress.

So far this month, I have missed one day of walking, which was last Saturday. Weekends require more discipline because weekends have a lot less structure than my regular weekdays do. It can be hard to plan a walk when I don’t know what is happening. My goal for May is to make sure I don’t miss any more days.

Ok, so my habit isn’t quite perfect. I’m not walking every single day like I said I was going to. But it is still my goal, and progress towards that goal is still beneficial. I have probably walked more in the last few months than I have in the year prior.

I’ve even taken up running. A friend told me about the Couch to 5k program, and while I don’t have a strong desire to run in a 5k, it did sound like a good plan to follow to get back into shape. Walking is nice and all, but running will get my heart beating faster and get me ready for the days I have to keep up with my nieces (they love to run around in circles).

I installed the RunKeeper app on my phone, programmed in the first couple of weeks of the plan, and off I went. It’s like having a digital coach telling you when to switch intervals, so now along with walking on Tuesday and Thursday, I run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Since starting at the beginning of April, I haven’t missed a day of running yet.

So between yoga and regular walking and running, my body is healthier than it has been in a long time. I’ve lost a bit of weight, feel and look stronger, and no longer worry as much about getting hurt just from picking up my nieces or playing games with them.

Starting

Looking back, I’m glad I started these habits. At the beginning of the year, I was an amateur yoga practitioner. Today, I’m a walker and a runner, too. Today, I have months of progress behind me. When I started, I was struggling with a lot of issues, such as finances and work, as well as worrying about my health. I realized that no matter how good or bad things get, or how much I can’t control, I can dedicate time to those things that I can control.

And no matter what my goals are, no matter how my purpose might change, I was going to need my body. And I can control how much exercise I get. I can control what I allow myself to eat. I can control the time I spend on maintaining a body that will help me achieve my goals.

By creating regular exercise habits, I make it inevitable that I’ll have a body capable of powering the rest of my life on purpose.

Living on Purpose: Powered By a Healthy Body is a post from: GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Platform: Flash — The third installment in Mibix's physics-based puzzle shooter game with a faceless assailant and rather useful handgun. Bounce your shots off anything you see to take out your enemies with environmental objects or good old fashion lead. WIth loads of interactive objects to use in your mission, twenty extra levels outside the main 50, and smoother graphics from its predecessors, you have plenty of reasons to play one of the best puzzle shooter games this side of the internet. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, linux, mac, mibix, physics, puzzle, rating-o, shooter, skill, windows