Casual Game Blogs

Jay Is Games: Analogue: A Hate Story

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:40:50 +0000

Platform: Download (Mac, Linux, Windows) — After thousands of years, the Mugunghwa, sent into space to establish the first interstellar colony, has been found floating dead. You're sent after it to discover what happened to its crew with the help of two very different AIs, but the truth is vastly more complicated than you might think, and nowhere near black and white. In Christine Love's debut commercial visual novel release, take part in a captivating, clever, and emotional story that deals with love, politics, forgiveness... and hate. Tagged as: clove, demo, download, game, ifiction, indie, ischankler, macwinlinux, mystery, narrative, raide, rating-o, scifi, visualnovel

Jay Is Games: Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:00:01 +0000

Platform: Download (Windows) — The three modes of play make the game attractive to a wide variety of hybrid enthusiasts, the story is intriguing, the gameplay amusing, the visuals stunning, and the overall experience is one that freaks out and delights in equal measure. Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini proudly carries the series banner forward and provides great entertainment at a reasonable price. Give it a try and prepare to be both entertained and enlightened. Tagged as: adventure, affiliate, demo, download, game, hiddenobject, midnightmysteries, rating-y, windows

Jay Is Games: Weekend Download

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:00:24 +0000

Platform: Download (Mac, Linux, Windows) — Games featured this week: Invert; Hack, Slash, Loot; Dungeon Chaos — A little bit of looting, a little bit of inverting, and a whole lot of shooting in this edition of Weekend Download. In fact, if you tried to take Weekend Download through an airport security gate, you'd probably find yourself on the receiving in of some nasty stares and/or unusual search techniques. Tagged as: blog, download, free, macwinlinux, weekenddownload

Jay Is Games: The Scale of the Universe 2

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Similar in concept to the Total Perspective Vortex, from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Scale of the Universe 2 isn't really a game, but it'll still blow your mind. You start at human scale and can scroll all the way down to theoretical concepts like strings or all the way up to the potential size of the universe. That's pretty big, and you have to scroll for a long, long, long time time to get back to human scale from there. It's kind of terrifying, honestly. Try not to think about it too much. Tagged as: browser, chuang, flash, free, game, htwins, macwinlinux, mhuang, rating-g, scaleoftheuniverse, webtoy

Jay Is Games: Porcupine Pop

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Feed some peckish porcupines in pursuit of the perfect Philly "sammich". Strap a porcupine into the slingshot and aim, clearing a stage of balloons using as few rodents as possible. Each color balloon affects your prickly pal's trajectory differently and you'll have to contend with air currents and pesky clouds to boot. Plus, you'll get to brush up on your geography as the porcupines bounce their way across America on their quest to the City of Sammich-y Love. Tagged as: action, browser, ducknextdoor, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, physics, puzzle, rating-g

Jay Is Games: ChatChat

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — ChatChat is an online multiplayer game by Terry Cavanagh, creator of VVVVVV. It's a highly intricate simulation involving deep-level behavioral algorithms and calculus-based — wait, no it isn't! It's about being a kitty! The wildest dream of every internet human has come true in this simple little game, giving you full permission to nap, purr, meow, and catch mice to your furry heart's content. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, mmo, multiplayer, rating-o, simulation, tcavanagh

Jay Is Games: Adynatopia

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Imagine a dimension not only of sight, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are imagination. This should help put you in the right state of mind before you venture into Louis (T)'s unique puzzle platformer, where you control a black pawn in 4-dimensional space. Your goal in each of the 14 levels is to touch the grey checkpoints through what looks like some impossible jumping. This game will blow your mind! Or possibly just blow it up. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, louist, macwinlinux, platform, puzzle, rating-g, unique

Jay Is Games: Link Dump Friday

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Ponies? Wrestlers? Word magic? Check, check, check, and then some! Link Dump Friday has some very cool news this week about some upcoming games, as well as and interview with recent Game of the Year 2011 winners Ironhide Games! Tagged as: blog, interview, linkdump, news, preview

GameDevBlog: You can't not look at it!

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:55:13 +0000

I fairly regularly check the Chrome Web Store to see how high sixty second shooter is in the listings. This is the first time I've seen it like this:

In the large size! Just last weekend, with help from Cathy on the design, I redid my logo art. Looks like it's paid off - there must be an actual human at Google who judges whether these tiles are worthy.

Also, following advice from Lars Doucet (and cribbing extensively from his press release of Defender's Quest) recently did a press release on gamespress.com, a place where anyone can do a free press release about their game. It almost immediately got duplicated on Gamasutra and some other sites, and I saw an immediate spike in website activity and installs. Before that, I'd been cold-calling various game websites and been getting mostly ignored, so. This is something.

Jay Is Games: Mission in Space: The Lost Colony

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Mission in Space: The Lost Colony is an extremely customizable turn-based strategy game with an easy-to-use interface and variety of challenges that will please players of any skill level. Plus it has a valuable lesson about the dangers of ventilation ducts. Spoiler alert: they contain aliens. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, rating-y, scifi, space, stormalligator, strategy, turnbased, upgrades

Game Producer: New game art arrived

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:11:26 +0000

I’ve been working on my Infected card game. It’s a physical cooperative card game for 1-4 players.

Some new character art arrived, and now I’ve got pretty much all the art I need. I’ve ordered bunch of decks again from Artscow and waiting them to get shipped to my place.

Here’s art, created by Anton Brand (really recommend him if you are into this sort of artistic style).

Each of the character has hitpoints (top left) which determine how many wounds they can take before things get nasty (they won’t die though). Each character also has unique once per game ability, which they can use in tough situations. Last but not least, each character has item skill – which means they can benefit slightly more of those items during the course of the game.

Here’s the Veteran:

And here’s the Redneck.

When the new deck of cards arrive, I shall finalize balancing & testing the game… and then we get one step closer to finish line.

Jay Is Games: JanJan Escape

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Is it a lucid dream by someone highly feverish? Is it a new escape game from Detarou? Well, why the heck can't it be both? It's JanJan Escape, and, as is standard for the genre, there are puzzles to solve and a room you must get out of. Not standard for the genre, of course, is the bed full of spaghetti, the leering koala man, the salaryman-swatting plant creature, and the pot-headed duo in the wrestling onesies. Of course, they're pretty standard for Detarou, as all the hair-pulling but logical puzzles. Tagged as: browser, detarou, escape, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-y, surreal

Jay Is Games: You Are Games: Letters In Boxes #28

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Usually, you'd be greeted to each Letters in Boxes challenge with a warm smile and an equally warm chocolate chip cookie. This week, however, we're telling you to get lost! We've got another batch of homegrown puzzles for you to tackle, all themed around mazes. In each grid, you'll find a way in and a way out, but how to get from one to the other is left for you to figure out. Tagged as: community, contest, lettersinboxes, puzzle, rating-g, riddle, youaregames

GBGames: Linux Game Publishing CEO Steps Down

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:30:39 +0000

Yesterday, I woke up to an email saying that Michael Simms is stepping down after 10 years of running Linux Game Publishing and Tux Games.

Wow, 10 years! That’s a lot of enthusiasm and work, and unfortunately it takes its toll:

It took me some months to notice what was going on, and even longer to accept that my burnout was going to kill LGP unless I did something about it. The lack of drive slowed down production of new titles, shipping, customer service, everything that I either handled or had a big part in helping with, was all being compromised.

…

But I didn’t want to let the company die. Of course not, I have invested too much time, money, blood sweat and tears into LGP to just say ‘That is it, bye’. And so I sat down and had a long think about how to save it.

Clive Crous will take the reins at LGP and Tux Games. Good luck, Clive, and good luck with your future endeavors, Michael!

Linux Game Publishing CEO Steps Down is a post from: GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Jay Is Games: Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4 is all about re-imagining the Guitar Hero experience for your home PC. It improves over its predecessors with amusing presentation and a host of new options and features. You can play every song in two difficulty levels, garner achievements for epic thrashing or embarrassing failure, and battle egregious enemy bosses like the diabolical Puppet or the innocent Pizza Guy through the shear power of Rock. Or you can just put on your headphones and sneak a quick jam in a break in your day. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, guitarhero, macwinlinux, music, rating-g, rhythm, secondimpact, skill

GameDevBlog: Really Cool Game - The Fourth Wall

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:04:44 +0000

Just stumbled on this yesterday - it was a free game pick of the week on an indie blog, but I forget which one. http://thefourthwallgame.com/

It's really clever. I wish I could erase my memory so I could play it again for the first time.

And it turns out, coincidentally, that Logan Feith, one of the guys who made it, is in my class at DigiPen. What are the odds?

Jay Is Games: Burrito Bison Revenge

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Will those darn Gummi Bears ever learn? When you steal the wallet of the angry minotaur that's already crushed your comrades once before, there's going to be a reckoning. It's Burrito Bison Revenge, an action launch game from Juicy Beast. It feels a bit more like "Burrito Bison 1.5" rather than "2", but it's still a very fun way to pass the time. Tagged as: action, browser, flash, free, game, juicybeast, launch, macwinlinux, rating-y, upgrades

Jay Is Games: Cave Puzzles: a Gift

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Would you go to the ends of the earth, through bat-infested caverns, crossing fiery pits of lava and crawl like a spider to get your significant other a gift? Of course you would—because it's fun! So flex those finger muscles over the [WASD] or arrow keys because each level is another test of dexterity and ingenuity in the courtship gauntlet. The funky tuba tunes and art that brings to mind The Flintstones is especially enjoyable, worth a either a quick dabble or dogged determination to the end. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, games, highdifficulty, macwin, ovorontsov, platform, puzzle, rating-g

GBGames: Is Asking Customers to Pre-order a Bad Thing?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:30:09 +0000

A month ago, there was a post on Reddit asking what people thought about indie developers asking for money up front.

Some people are fine if they get a good quality playable build for pre-ordering, but no one seemed to be happy with the idea of funding basic engine development. It seems the general consensus is that people are getting tired of the so-called “fad” of funding a game before it is finished with no guarantee that they will see a payoff.

Minecraft‘s wild success through pre-orders aside, it’s not really a new funding tactic at all. Lots of indie developers have tried to ask for money before their games are finished, and some have seen more success than others.

The Indie Game Development Survival Guide by David Michael mentions how Samu Games started selling Artifact when it was in the beta testing stage, complete with perks for early customers. And this was in 1999.

Today, sites such as KickStarter and 8-bit Funding have enabled a number of high-profile projects to get funding from fans. Of course, a lot of projects don’t get funded and therefore don’t become high-profile.

So if you don’t have a big name to leverage like Notch or Andy Schatz or Derek Yu, are you doomed to obscurity?

No, but obviously an existing name brand helps. Otherwise, success at crowdfunding requires hard work to get your name out there. In other words, marketing. And you have to be able to demonstrate you can deliver the goods.

I started taking pre-orders for Stop That Hero! late last year, and I’ll admit feeling a bit anxious about it at the time. I didn’t have the game in a playable state yet, and here I was asking people for money in anticipation of the initial release.

While I didn’t get many pre-orders, it was definitely a nice feeling to see people actually spending some money on my game. It showed some interest, and it gave me a productivity boost to know I had existing customers to satisfy.

Now, when it comes to how I marketed the Stop That Hero! pre-order, I’m sure I did a lot of things wrong. Perhaps I should have had more videos of game play as I continued work. Maybe I should have been posting more screenshots. I could have chosen to prioritize work on certain features in the hopes that they would excite players more than the features I did work on. And maybe I wasn’t very assertive with asking for pre-orders in the first place.

At the time, I was struggling to get the alpha build across the finish line, but I kept getting good feedback from playtesters. Since the game was good enough to provide some enjoyment to players, it meant it was good enough to ask for players to pay for that enjoyment.

Now, of course some people weren’t happy with the idea of paying up front for a game they couldn’t see. And it’s hard to blame them. Since many game projects don’t get finished, it’s asking a lot to essentially gamble the cost of a pre-order on an unknown. Especially when indie developers don’t necessarily have the offsite backup solutions of larger studios when disaster strikes. See the Project Zomboid burglary for an example. All of their code was gone when someone stole two laptops, so it was a huge setback for the developers who had to rely on outdated backups to continue.

And it didn’t sit well with some of their customers, judging by the Reddit thread. It seems this experience turned some people off of pre-orders and paying for early builds in general.

All that said, it seems that making pre-orders work requires regular, quality content. Basically, if you stop talking to your customers and prospects, they’ll stop caring.

But if all you do is talk and never produce anything, no one is going to stick around. Whether you’re taking pre-orders or pledges, you have to be able to show that you can deliver results.

If you can do both, then pre-orders are worthwhile. Otherwise, you’re wasting your customers’ time as well as your own.

Is Asking Customers to Pre-order a Bad Thing? is a post from: GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Jay Is Games: Escape from the Haunted Room

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — As the title suggests, the room you're to escape from is haunted, although it is haunted with a Japanese ghost, which means not jump scares, screams, and buckets of blood, but rather quiet glimpses as you explore each area of the tiny apartment searching for a way out. Escape from the Haunted Room is an atmospheric little escape game with amusing puzzles. It's not very long, but it contains enough chills to be worth the effort. Enjoy trying to escape the room with the good ending. Tagged as: browser, escape, flash, free, game, japanese, macwinlinux, mygames888, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g

Jay Is Games: Best of 2011 Results!

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:01:48 +0000

Each year our "Best of" the year awards eclipse all years to have come before, and 2011 was an excellent year for excellent games. Just take a look at all the creative wonders that have earned the title of "Best of 2011" and see for yourself! You are sure to find many games worthy of your time among the Top 5 presented for each category, including an all-new Game of the Year award we're introducing for the first time this year. These games represent the very best of all the games we covered in 2011, and we thank you kindly for participating with us by voting for your favorites! Tagged as: bestof, blog, update

Game Producer: I fell in love with Fallout

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:59:32 +0000

It’s been almost a decade since I’ve played any RPG video game. During the last ten years, I stories in games haven’t perhaps been my main focus. Especially in the recent years, I’ve concentrated my gaming around multiplayer games with shorter playing times.

I finished Fallout 1 week or two ago, and one thing particular was how the choices I made in the game were represented in the end. In the game, there was certain action (see how I don’t spoil game plot.. even when the game was made 1998, ahem) that affected certain community. I could have chose a difficult path and helped the community, but I took a shortcut. I thought “whadda hell, I can’t be arsed to help ‘em” and chose the quicker option.

In the end of the game, I had won something major, but this community didn’t do so well. Thanks to my actions (or lack of them).

I don’t know why I didn’t complete the game decade ago, but I must say that the game was fun still today. It was damn hard at times, but fun too. I actually didn’t want so much combat, as I was more interested in character dialogue, sub-stories, main story and decisions that affect the game. I liked how the game didn’t hold my hand telling me “now I must go to speak to man there (let’s mark that in your map) and maybe he will tell you about secret X”. Oh noes, I had to figure out what I needed to do.

Few times it was bit irritating to wander around, few times I needed to get save files from past to get pass certain stuff… but all in all, I actually eventually learned to like it, even though I whined about lack of auto-save earlier (in Fallout 2).

Eventually, I learned to like these things that game didn’t have:

No auto-save (I learned to save intelligently, and it didn’t cut immersion)
No achievements (thank god)
No hand-holding (for a long time, finding some ammo felt like a true achievement even when game didn’t tell me “Achievement!! You found goddamn ammo! Here’s a badge for you!! Aren’t you one happy camper now!?”. No, finding the ammo was achievement. I didn’t need game to tell me that. I felt intelligent for figuring out stuff.)
No one straight path to victory: instead, I could choose what to do, and actions affected the whole outcome of the game and story. Really nice, really nice.

And it cost just $5.99 which was a steal.

Amazing that a game that was made about 14 years ago still beats many modern games. Easily.

Jay Is Games: The Fisherman's Wrath

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — If you've ever considered that walking around dressed like a tree, or fish or bear or stoneman, and talking in a computer-simulated voice is one of your life's aspirations, well here's your chance. Your fancy-dress fantasies can be finally fulfilled in The Fisherman's Wrath, an unusual kind of adventure game by BigDino. It's tricky trying to define what kind of game this is because it involves a little bit of battle, a little bit of avoidance, quite a bit of exploration and a lot of dressing up...in awesome disguises. Tagged as: adventure, browser, enalpria, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, puzzle, rating-g

Jay Is Games: Pick and Dig 3

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — If the hero of Pick and Dig 3 could jump and actually bothered to use the mace on his back, there'd be no challenge to the puzzles in this platformer, and therefore no fun. The levels in this game are nonlinear, and unlock based on how many you've completed and your own ability to maneuver around the level select screen, so if you get stuck on one level, you can always try some others to get coins to upgrade. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, platform, puzzle, rating-g

Jay Is Games: The Vault

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Games featured this week: Spin the Black Circle; Totem Destroyer; Fantastic Contraption — BEHOLD THE POWER OF PHYSICS, BESTOWED UPON US BY THE GODS. Or, in this case, by three very different but equally talented developers. This week's installment of the Vault takes a look at (you guessed it) physics and the many ways it can challenge, delight, and torment us. Tagged as: blog, browser, thevault

Jay Is Games: Blockoomz

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Having a rough day? Has life got you stressed? Well, here at JIG, we know that nothing relieves tension quite like a good old fashioned physics puzzler chock full of explosions. Detonate bomb blocks by clicking on them, clearing them all from the stage while taking care not to blast any stars away. Complete a stage in as few clicks as possible for a bonus. Relax, put your feet up, and blowup something cute for a while. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, keybol, macwinlinux, physics, puzzle, rating-g, tumbledown

Jay Is Games: Color

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Platform: Javascript/HTML5 — Color has you test the accuracy of your perception of color as you learn about key concepts in the theory of color and design. Simply move your cursor about the large color wheel and click when you have matched the color of the timer inside, before time runs out. Later levels have you matching multiple colors at once, giving you the opportunity to learn about complementary, analogous, ternary, and quaternary colors, all in the context of the game. Tagged as: browser, color, educational, free, game, html5, javascript, macwinlinux, methodofaction, mmackay, puzzle, rating-g, unique

Jay Is Games: Monkey GO Happy Marathon 2

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:45:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Robin Vencel proves he is master of the charming and cute little point-and-click puzzle game with another installment of the popular Monkey GO Happy series. All new puzzles in this edition of Marathon will have you pointing and clicking to turn those adorable little monkey frowns upside down as quick as you can. Tagged as: browser, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, minigames, monkeygohappy, pencilkids, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g, rvencel

Jay Is Games: Order Up!! To Go

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:30:24 +0000

Platform: Mobile (iOS) — Slice, grate, carve and fry your way to the top of the culinary food chain with the wave of a finger in this time management-heavy cooking sim app that's so addictive, it has to contain MSG. Once you know the basics, there's an easy pick-up-and-play style that will compel you to sneak a few days' work in between classes, during lunch breaks, before bed, whenever. Tagged as: chillingo, cooking, game, ios, ipad, iphone, itunes, mobile, rating-g, timemanagement

Jay Is Games: Clouds and Sheep

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:00:13 +0000

Platform: Mobile (Android) — The cute and captivating sandbox meets simulation game Clouds & Sheep is going to be the number one reason you can't keep a full charge on your Android device. Combining elements from games like Tiny Tower, Pocket God, Virtual Villagers, and more, you are put in charge of a pasture of lovely little sheep, your only goal being to make them happy and make them multiply. To do that, you'll take control of the weather, utilize dozens of items, and complete challenges that range from zapping things with lightning to rolling sheep into rocks! Tagged as: android, free, game, handygames, mobile, rating-g, sandbox, simulation

Jay Is Games: Mobile Monday

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:00:19 +0000

Platform: Mobile (Android) — Games featured this week: Twist n' Catch; Monkey Kick Off; Cosmonauts; Where's My Water? — Hey there Android device owners! Ready for some more excuses to use your phone for things other than making prank calls to the pizza place down the street? Thought so. These games will both entertain you and help you drain your battery. Since, you know, a full battery is just so annoying! Tagged as: android, blog, mobile, mobile-monday

GameDevBlog: Tournament 1/29

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:59:17 +0000

There's a new sheriff in town, joseph7099! Congratulations!

Jay Is Games: Hydra Castle Labyrinth

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:00:34 +0000

Originally released in mid-2011 by indie game creator E. Hashimoto (Buster), Hydra Castle Labyrinth is an old school-styled platform adventure that was previously only available in Japanese. A brave soul recently translated the game to English, and now the cute metroidvania title is available for a much wider audience to enjoy. And enjoy it ye shall! Tagged as: action, adventure, buster, ehashimoto, free, game, indie, metroidvania, platform, rating-y, retro, windows

Jay Is Games: Otherworld: Spring of Shadows

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:15:12 +0000

Platform: Download (Mac, Windows) — The fairytales you heard when you were young, the ones you thought stuffed with nonsense and meant only as cautionary allegories to frighten children into behaving properly, are not so far from the truth. So, as curious as Alice in Wonderland, you peek behind the veneer, following clues left by Fiona, a little girl trapped in another dimension, and become caught up in Otherworld: Spring of Shadows, a sumptuously-detailed fantasy adventurehybrid from Boomzap. Tagged as: adventure, affiliate, boomzap, collectorsedition, demo, download, fantasy, game, hiddenobject, hybrid, macwin, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-y, surreal

Jay Is Games: Weekend Download

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:00:21 +0000

Platform: Download (Windows) — Games featured this week: The Cat that Got the Milk; The Fourth Wall; Backworlds — How do you feel about... TACTICAL MISDIRECTION?!!! *flashing lights* That's good. Glad to know it. Now, how do you feel about a game semi-sorta doing that with its title? And what if that title involves felines? Tagged as: blog, download, free, weekenddownload, windows

Jay Is Games: The Several Journeys of Reemus: Chapter 4

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — The kingdom is in peril! Too bad you're too wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape to do anything about it. Reemus and Liam's quest to save the land hits a massive speed-bump when they discover they can't proceed until they're able to produce a whole lot of paperwork and a sample... but fortunately all that can be acquired in a manner both our heroes are very accustomed to. Namely, solving bizarre problems, combating strange beasts, and deciphering strange puzzles! The latest installment in the wildly popular point-and-click adventure series has finally arrived! Tagged as: adventure, browser, clickshake, episodic, flash, free, game, jziebarth, macwinlinux, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-o, reemus, scastro, zeebarf

Jay Is Games: The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — The Kingdom of Fredicus is a place that loves its heroes. Unfortunately, Reemus, exterminator extraordinaire and overshadowed brother to the local dragon slayer, is having trouble convincing that populace that he deserves a little undying adulation. Sure, later in life he'll have Several Journeys to prove his bravery against invading death slugs. Right now, though, it's early in his adventure gaming career, and even after his first minimal-property-damaging bug slaying, he's have trouble getting people listen to the glorifying ballads written by his faithful bear companion, Liam. So a-questing he goes, in search of glory, gratitude, and, most importantly, a soft bed. It's The Ballads of Reemus: When the Bed Bites, the first premium downloadable adventure game in the popular series, produced by the newly minted Click Shake Games! And while the anticipation may have driven us all a little buggy, it was totally worth it. Tagged as: adventure, browser, clickshake, demo, download, fantasy, flash, game, jziebarth, macwinlinux, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-o, reemus, scastro, zeebarf

Jay Is Games: Nightfall Mysteries: Black Heart

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:30:18 +0000

Platform: Download (Mac, Windows) — Viggo and Christine thought they had escaped the evil that had almost destroyed them and left their lives in ruins before they found each other. One evening, Viggo is abducted by a mysterious figure, and Christine turns to you for help in finding him. The trail leads you to dark and mysterious Blackhill Manor... and now that you've arrived, it's quite clear someone doesn't ever want you to leave. Will you survive the Black Widow of Black Hill? Another installment in the wonderful hidden-object adventure Nightfall Mysteries series. Tagged as: adventure, affiliate, demo, download, game, hiddenobject, horror, macwin, mystery, nightfallmysteries, rating-o, vaststudios

Jay Is Games: Subtle Energy 2

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:30:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — A puzzle game in which you direct streams of colored particles from lotus flowers to colored chakras, achieving totally zen-eriffic enlightenment on the way. It's quick, and perhaps a little easy, but it sure is relaxing to watch colored pixels flow across the screen. Ahhh...colored pixels. Tagged as: browser, color, flash, free, game, gpavel, lmihail, macwinlinux, puzzle, rating-g, zen

Casual Gamer Chick: Worms Crazy Golf iOS On Sale for $0.99

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:30:36 +0000

The iOS version of Worms Crazy Golf is currently price slashed to a bargain 99 cents. The game is a mixture of classic 2D Worms and minature golf featuring some bizarre power-ups.

Worms Crazy Golf features many levels and objects from the Worms universe such as the sheep, old woman, mole, magnets, mines and crazy chain reactions making an appearance. The game has three surreal 18-hole golf courses (four in the iPad version), with a diverse range of skill-based challenge modes as well. Each level has increasingly puzzling hole design and an array of obstacles; from castles that teleport your ball, cannons that shoot it across the landscape and even obstructive comedy bats. The game requires skillful shot execution and clever use of special powers such as the parachute ball, or the ability to slow time down will see you hit par and progress to the next hole. On the iPhone version, the fourth course (‘The Carnival Course’) is available as an In-App purchase.

The game can be purchased on the iTunes Store or directly from here.

GameDevBlog: Test Driven Development, Several Years Later - or, I'm a Big Liar

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:48:53 +0000

Martin's comment on an old post reminded me that I really ought to come clean. I said in that post that I was going to stick with TDD despite its unclear benefits. I didn't. Our Bejeweled Blitz: Live contract came along, and the other programers weren't into TDD - I put some tests on a few bits here and there but that was pretty much it.

So I was pretty much broken, and with sixty second shooter I didn't even bother. I just wanted to get that game done as fast as possible and was willing to do a half assed job. (BTW, I slaughtered a sacred cow there: it's generally true in our industry that polish is king and that a great, late game will do better than a game that's on time but not-fully-baked. But Farmville shows it's at least possible to ship a half-baked game and make it better afterwards.)

With both those games, by the way, I'm pretty pleased with the non-bugginess. It's hard to really tell with sixty second shooter since I didn't hire a QA team or anything, but one interesting way to tell your game doesn't have a lot of bugs is if everybody is reporting the same ones. It's a much smaller game than Schizoid or Bejeweled Blitz, but the bugs-per-capita seem great.

What I chalk that up to is not TDD but being a better programmer. Maybe not quite as sharp (Guys my age start losing their edge at chess, etc, and having kids and cats wake you up in the middle of the night almost every night doesn't help) but I'm almost religiously not cacheing state in my code these days and there's just a lot less room for bugs to creep in.

GBGames: My Offsite Backup Solutions

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:30:27 +0000

To go along with my last post on indie maintenance and disaster plans, I’d like to mention how I currently back up my important data.

Local Backups

I have two active computers. My main development machine is my currently dying laptop. My desktop has a backup of my laptop’s data. Using rsync and SSH, I can transfer files between devices easily, which was really helpful when I needed to replace the desktop in 2010. I simply rsynced files to my laptop, then rsynced them back to the new desktop. As my laptop has been failing recently, I’ve been using any lucidity on its part as an opportunity to rsync files to my desktop in anticipation of the laptop dying at any moment.

I also have a 1TB hard drive connected to the router, which means any computers on my network could make use of it. Unfortunately, it has to be formatted as NTFS and requires the use of Samba, which means it isn’t a perfect solution, and it also means that I use it way less than I should.

So there’s data redundancy within my computer network. If one machine or drive fails, the important data is also available on the other, and I could always find a way to make better use of my 1TB drive so that losing both computers wouldn’t be a catastrophic data loss.

But what happens if I get robbed and lose all of this equipment? Or if a fire breaks out? Or some other disaster that takes out all of the data since it is all in the same office?

Remote Solutions

Since my main project, Stop That Hero!, uses git for version control, I paid for a Micro account on GitHub, which gives me 5 private repositories and the ability to add one collaborator for just $7/month. So if I lose everything, at least I can continue to work on the project once I get a new computer.

What about other data?

While I have a DropBox account, I only have limited space available (although signing up for your own account with that link gives us each 250MB extra). DropBox offers tiered pricing plans and a team/business plan, but I can’t justify the expense at this time. I’ve been using DropBox for private data backups and as a way to quickly provide a link to a file. I know a few Flash game developers have used DropBox to put up their game for FlashGameLicense.com.

An alternative to DropBox is SpiderOak. It offers way more space than DropBox, and if you choose to pay for more space, you get more than double the capacity for the same price. Plus, data encryption works both ways, when sending or receiving. According to the SpiderOak site, they claim to be a “zero knowledge” backup provider:

This means that we do not know anything about the data that you store on SpiderOak — not even your folder or filenames. On the server we only see sequentially numbered containers of encrypted data.

Now, this encryption means that it takes a lot longer to backup files. Since you get so much more space (2GB to start, and we each get a free GB if you use the link above), backing up a few GBs of data can take a good part of your day when you start out. Plus, unlike DropBox, you aren’t tied to the DropBox folder. You can configure whatever folders and files you want to backup, and you can still share files publicly. You can configure SpiderOak to automatically back up changes at a schedule you set, and it will keep track of previous versions of files for you, too.

I’ve been fairly happy with SpiderOak so far. The only issue I ran into was related to how it was backing up my Projects folder while I was working on it. I rebuilt my project, and apparently SpiderOak was in the middle of processing the folder my project lives in, and it choked. It was probably because a file like Game.o was deleted and replaced, and it didn’t know how to handle it mid-processing. I managed to get it unstuck, but it took a support email and a perusal of the support forums to find out how. To prevent problems in the future, explicitly tell it not to backup the folder where your project build lives.

So these are some free solutions with paid options that allow you to sync multiple computers and share with friends. What if you’re looking for something more cost efficient as well as private? I have a friend who pays for a dedicated remote solution. Carbonite is $59/year for one computer, which implies that you can’t use it to sync multiple computers or share files with friends, but it’s another option available to you. Mozy is an alternative, and it’s basic plan is $5.99/month for 50GB with options to pay a little extra to sync multiple computers. There’s also a Mozy Pro set of plans for servers as well as desktops that charge per gigabyte on top of a flat fee.

What does your backup plan look like?

My Offsite Backup Solutions is a post from: GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Jay Is Games: Back to the Cubeture: Era 2

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — No one sent Edible Castle the memo that sequels are supposed to be derivative and rushed. Instead, not only does new point-and-click adventure Back to the Cubeture: Era 2 feature the same excellent voice-acting, cheeky humor, and quirky art as its predecessor, but it's five times as long and offers a much more non-linear experience. This is pure silly fun, so box yourself into your seat and enjoy it. Tagged as: adventure, browser, ediblecastle, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, minigames, parody, pointandclick, rating-o, reflex

Jay Is Games: Link Dump Friday

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:00:47 +0000

Well, we've got some good news and some bad news. The opposite of the non-good news first: so many promising games hiding just below the horizon! Also, so many cool things going on for gamers to enjoy! The not-opposite of the non-good news: mobile companies are still ripping off small indie dev by stealing their ideas. Chocolate and cookies can't made the sadness that news brings us go away. But... it can help! Tagged as: blog, linkdump, news

GameDevBlog: Glow+blur+fullscreen

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:11:35 +0000

If your machine can handle it, if it doesn't take your framerate too low, I highly recommend turning Glow+Blur on (in the Options) and playing fullscreen (press F11 in Windows) because it's awesome.

Though it turns out that up until today it didn't work.

I discovered this crash bug by myself, accidentally - when you have glow & blur on, and you resize the window, it would crash. Apparently that bug has been in there since the beginning of time, which means probably nobody was playing with Glow+Blur *and* fullscreen.

I thought it might be some kind of OpenGL fragmentation - maybe reallocating the buffers for the different sized window was using up memory. But no, it was me being stupid: I was deleting the same texture pointers twice.

Jay Is Games: Find the Escape Men 25: In Mr. EM's Room

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and, in this spoof of one of the most popular escape-the-room designers to ever grace JIG's pages, No. 1 Game is very good at copying the trademark features that we love so much—photo-realistic graphics, fun-to-solve logical puzzles and even a happy coin ending! Of course, they throw in their own trademark: ten green escape men which you must find before exiting. It's not only a lot of fun to be part of the parody, you'll be left with an increased appreciation for the original's artistry and a temptation to replay the classics which inspired the clone. Tagged as: browser, escape, flash, free, game, macwinlinux, no1game, pointandclick, puzzle, rating-g

Jay Is Games: Color Pic-a-Pix Light

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Need a dash of rainbow splashed across your logic puzzles? Conceptis delivers a cacophony of colorful curiosities with Color Pic-a-Pix Light, the latest addition in their Conceptis Light series. You might be familiar with Pic-a-Pix puzzles from their previous black-and-white edition, but this new batch adds the twist of color, meaning the logic gets more twisted, and the solutions more dazzling! Tagged as: browser, conceptis, conceptislight, flash, free, game, logic, macwinlinux, picross, puzzle, rating-g

GBGames: Indie Maintenance and Disaster Plans

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:29:08 +0000

My Dell Precision M90, which has been running like a champ for more than half a decade despite my cats’ attempts to get their fur clogged in its fans, is finally dying. I’ve been seeing graphical glitches for some time, but I’ve been able to continue working, and the glitches eventually go away. Except when they don’t. And recently, the machine won’t boot correctly.

The culprit seems to be a failing video card, which is way too expensive to replace. It’s frustrating since doing so would probably give this machine another few years of life.

I’ve been very happy with this machine, but it’s been slowly getting worse, and I realized that I had no plans for replacing it. So I’ve been either putting off the research so I can do the work I need to do, or I’ve been desperately trying to get the machine back up and running so I can continue to do that work, all the while knowing that I am going to need to spend some time (and money) on finding a replacement.

A large company probably has plans for this sort of thing, with IT departments bringing in spare equipment or ordering replacements. In fact, some companies have entire disaster preparedness plans in place. Replacing equipment quickly to ensure business continuity is just a part of such plans.

Since I purchased this laptop through Dell Small Business, I was able to get next-day on-site tech support that I only needed to take advantage of once towards the end of the extended warranty last year, and I was also able to replace the A/C adapter quickly after the cats chewed through the old cord a few years ago. Even knowing that the warranty was expiring, I didn’t really think through how I would continue to work without the laptop, which I should have realized was as inevitable as a hard drive dying.

And now that I think about it, perhaps the cats should worry about a replacement plan as well…

As an indie or solo entrepreneur, what do you do it? How prepared are you for equipment failure? Do you only start to worry about it the day your computer fails to boot, or do you anticipate the day your development equipment needs maintenance and replacement? Or do you constantly replace your machines with the latest and greatest and so don’t need to worry about longevity?

Indie Maintenance and Disaster Plans is a post from: GBGames - Thoughts on Indie Game Development

Game Producer: How to deal with Evil Pirate companies that clone your game

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:15:42 +0000

Sometimes you encounter bit shitty situation where:

You have done something great
and then some evil corporation clones your stuff.

Well, there’s few different ways to handle this:

You can wee on their tent, and make superior PR move that gets picked everywhere around the net. (Recommended)
You can whine how there’s evil corporations and that your stuff shouldn’t be copied.
You can concentrate on building success that doesn’t depend on stuff that can be cloned. Match-3 games can be cloned. Tower sim can be cloned. RPGs with deep storyline is harder to clone.
You can make shitty game that doesn’t sell anything. These are rarely cloned too.
You can ignore em. (Pretty good plan)
You can think what’s important, why you are making games. Profit? Passion?
You can make gross zombie games. Big studios rarely clone those. (Hah!)

Now, regarding the “game mechanics can be cloned”. I think this is pretty good thing. Sure, ripping off somebody’s game mechanics and then cloning pretty much the whole game with different graphics is bit shitty move… but that’s how it needs to be.

Businesswise, it’s pretty profitable to be second in the market. Clone hit games, and make some changes. But that’s something hundred zillion other corporations are doing. Zynga isn’t only one cloning their way to success. If cloning was the way to go, then how come there aren’t as successful other cloners?

And this also makes one really ponder why you are making games? Are you making games that you can profit? Or are you making games mechanics & games… that are spread all over the world? Doesn’t it make one happy that by creating something cool that everybody wants to clone… something cool that others can benefit from? Isn’t that a pretty darn sweet thing?

Or, is it so that you were doing this stuff for profit? In that case, jump to one of those clone factories and see how happy things are there.

Or do you just “want fair fight”? Well, time to wake up. This is a really open market world where best offering (not necessarily best product) wins the profits. If you do game that can be cloned by a big studio, then you knew what you were against when you first started. Or did you really think that after you make your smash hit, nobody would be interested in getting the money too?

“But this kills innovation”
Tough luck. And yes, for some genres at least. At one point Match-3 games were selling like pancakes. They were hot stuff (not sure how they do nowadays). Now, is the innovation in match-3 games killed? I suppose. There’s every now and then one new different match-3 game but I feel the market is pretty saturated.

So, if you do some popular gaming thing that can be cloned, of course you can except that there won’t be innovation.

We can cry and bite our legs off, but that doesn’t change anything. If we are worried about cloning, then we should do stuff that’s hard to clone.

We know that there’s cloners waiting for the next hit game. That’s perfectly fine. I mean, creating a clone isn’t going to guarantee success. It’s risky. Not all cloners are profitable. It takes heaps of effort too, and is not “easy way” to go.

There’s people doing games for passion, and not getting money. That’s perfectly fine too. Whining about “but rules should favor me as [insert random reason here]” is not going to cut it. If you don’t like the rules, you can go play somewhere else.

So… who’s evil?
I think it’s quite natural to think that Zynga is “evil” or “doing wrong” when they clone a game. They are a company who want to make profit. They have business strategy that is targeted to maximizing profit. They might steal an idea or two, but so does everybody else. They might clone stuff they can clone, but so is everybody else. Zynga is just doing things better than many other corporations.

I’m not saying Zynga is less evil than me (slightly richer though). They simply seem to have different values from me. I try steal every game idea I can, but I try add something unique, something of my own in the creation. I want to do something I like doing, and something I like to experience. If somebody was to clone that stuff and make profits, that’s pretty cool. Next time they need ideas, they know where to find me.

I feel that the chaps at nimblebit chose the right way to deal with Zynga’s copy & “we wanna buy you” offer. They turned this into a PR thing which favors them. Zynga can clone the game, but they cannot clone the fact that nimblebit has the “small good guys against big evil corporation” edge that can make an interesting story. Nimblebit managed to create a cool story out of the situation, and I’m pretty sure they benefit from this.

That’s the name of the game.

P.S. And if Zynga is successful, do you really think that other big players won’t notice it and challenge them? This zoo is filled with predators who are ready to attack each other as well.

Jay Is Games: Coloraze

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Platform: Flash — Centered on the mechanic of changing your color to interact with different objects, Coloraze, a puzzle platformer by Colin Brown, is a simple concept done well. It's one of those works where a string of gameplay elements are introduced in the beginning, then paid off in the long run with a string puzzles that force them to interact in interesting way. Each individual level won't take too much time to play, but with a good ninety included, plus a solid number of levels made by the community using Coloraze's solid level editor, you won't be running out of game any time soon. Tagged as: browser, cbrown, color, flash, free, game, leveleditor, macwinlinux, platform, puzzle, simpleidea