Here is a list of the things I made last year.

Wave Trip

The last of the channel 4 music games. I think I finally turned a corner on how to make arcade game with this one. It might be my first game with screen shake and score multipliers. Also user generated content. I think this might be the last phone / tablet exclusive game I make for a while.

Proteus Mac Port##

I love this game. I am still working on the port a little bit. I encourage everyone to play this game.

A daily journal for Jan & Feb

Started out as a fun a day project, then tried to extend it to a fun a year project, but fell off after the second month. Was really enjoyable while I was doing it, but I am not sure if it helped me with my output at all, or my mental health. I should probably revisit, and keep metrics as I do it to see. I wish I had more copies of it to hand out, but xeroxing things is really expensive.

In D

This was a cover of in c, set in a dungeon. It was shown at bit of alright 2013, and I think it went over pretty ok. It is certainly the most content I have ever produced for a game in the shortest time; ~40 unique rooms in under 7 days. I should have learned a lesson from this, but I think I might have forgotten it for the whole year. I don’t know if any documentation of this project exists, and I don’t have a currently available version for distribution.

A small rogue & T@XI

I have now made this part of a roguelike around 10 times (including some attempts that were so unfinished that I didn’t include them on this list). I am starting to learn that starting from a formalist definiton of a game and filling it out is not a way for me to finish something. I lose interest in it way too quickly. I feel kinda bad for the guy that did a video review of T@XI.

Options

I made a game for Morgan’s degree show, to be played with physical bits. I think it went alright. I am certainly learning to design for time scales. Before I made the physical version, I made a twine version to test out all the various bits and get some copy down on the page.

Sokobomb

I am not sure if there was any strong reason to make this other than the fact that I was trying to get a game done every month, and it was a funny name. If it wasn’t so buggy it would be pretty fun. I think it might be inspired by PYRO II, but I can’t remember if that inspiration was conscious or not. Not alot of people have played it.

Laser Lock

Was attempting to make a game that had some of the feeling of O by smestorp. I discussed some solutions to the issues with this game with him, but was never really drawn back to it, potentially due to the fact that it was tough to test on my own. There are a few more words about it here. It looks super cool, but I don’t have a screen shot of it.

Gentlemen

This game just kept on going. It should have been obvious during the development that this was a pc first game, due to the fact that we kept testing it with xbox controllers. We released first on android and ipad, and then ported to ouya and pc. I think it is pretty good, but I also think that it is lacking a bit in depth of its mechanics. I wish I had put in a single player mode more than anything else, because it could have helped me tune the high level input and find new ways to explore those systems. I also wish that I had played more streetfighter before making this game, so I could have included some of the systems from that. The rolling design phase on this game was really fun though, I got to keep tuning stuff for months, and it ended up at a far better place than it started.

Arcade Jam

An amazing experience, and something that drove the Roflpillar project, and also somewhat drove the creation of TBGV. I think the post that I did about it is probably more worth reading.

High Rise Hovercraft

Made for the chainjam, a collection of 4 player party games. I also built a cabinet to play the games on, which ended up being reused for showing gentlemen. The core thing that I was exploring here was blocking. It is pretty fun to play, but doesn’t have a bunch of depth. I am pretty sure it is pretty similar to a minigame from a ps2 party game collection.

IKON_COLONIZE

My first experience in making online multiplayer. Attempted to make a three player version of dota. There were a bunch of learning experiences here. I wish I had prototyped this as a card game with simultaneous moves, and I think I might go back to that. You can play it, if you can find 2 other people.

Roflpillar

Probably the best thing I made last year, and you will probably never get a chance to play it. Really incredibly proud of this thing.

A two player game which you control by rolling around on the floor. It is themed as a caterpillar simulator. Nomimated for Amaze 2014 Human Human Computer award, and shown in the 2014 alt.ctrl.gdc exhibit. Also shown in london, nottingham, and edinburgh.

More information, including news articles

I have been thinking about this genre connection for a while, apparently way too long, because there are a bunch that are out or coming out real soon. I am using a pretty open definition of roguelike here, so if it has randomized levels, or perma death, then it qualifies. Basically it just needs one or two of the high value factors from "the Berlin Interpretation":http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation to make it here. People only accepting ADOM need not apply. Now, a list: "Paranautical Activity":http://codeavarice.com/ currently available "Rogue Shooter":http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=170551729 "Fancy Skulls":http://www.fancyskulls.com/ alpha available "Heavy Bullets":http://www.heavybullets.com/ pre-alpha available "Tower of Guns":http://www.towerofguns.com/ available "Eldritch":http://www.eldritchgame.com/ available "Discoverie":http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=45 7dfps version, available "Receiver":http://www.wolfire.com/receiver available "Sir, You Are Being Hunted":http://www.big-robot.com/tag/sir-you-are-being-hunted/ available "Taquito Tower":http://www.freeindiegam.es/2013/08/taquito-tower-magdev/ available "Dead Squared":http://www.indiedb.com/games/dead-squared alpha available "Hellgate London":http://hellgate.t3fun.com/home/home.aspx available since 2007, now f2p "Moraff's World":http://emptysqua.re/blog/moraffs-world/ available, eye of the beholder style. It seems like moraff made a number of games in this style. "Disco Fear":http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=33179.0 not yet available, not sure of that name. "Illuminascii":http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=89 7dfps version, "ongoing development":http://depressingdrawers.tumblr.com/ "Boarding Party":http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=228 7dfps version "Delver":http://www.delvergame.com/ available "Death Smashers":http://7dfps.com/?action=games&id=289 7dfps version, seems to be "in onging dev":www.broforcegame.com/DeathSmashers/ "The Aurora Wager":http://7drl.org/2013/03/17/the-aurora-wage-success/ 7dfps version "Bob's Dragon Hunt":http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/bobs-dragon-hunt/screenshots/gameShotId,182640/ available "7DRL":http://games.nagademo.com/games/11/ 7dfps version, available "procedural FPS":http://www.mapcore.org/topic/14396-procedural-fps/page-24 this project seems to have stalled "spire":http://hitboxteam.com/mystery-and-mastery not yet available "oblige":http://oblige.sourceforge.net/ random map generator, supports doom, hexen, others "3098":http://3089game.wordpress.com/ futuristic outdoor shooter with tons of features "EtRD":http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=EtRD stylized graphics, crafting I am going to try to livestream plays through some of these. I suspect that I am missing a bunch from the 7dfps this year, so will need to dig through those more. Also if you know of any others, let me know, so that I can play those as well.

This last weekend I participated in an arcade jam sponsored by the "VMGS":http://www.vmgs.com/ and organized by "David Hayward":https://twitter.com/nachimir. The intent of the arcade jam was to build a number of custom gaming boxes that would be shown in a popup arcade space. Some of the games ended up being custom built, and some of them ended up being custom controllers for existing games. The one that "got the most press":http://kotaku.com/a-piano-that-plays-doom-1338284919 was Doom Piano, a piano modded to play doom, along with a custom mod of the doom source code by "Sos Sosowski":http://sos.gd/. The mod enabled the piano's keys to be held longer in the game and to add permadeath to make it better for showing in a space. A pretty impressive, and altogether massive arcade machine. The projects that I worked on more closely were the RGBriefcase, an audio only puzzle game built into an old suitcase, and GTA HI FIVE, a video game to be played with two gametraks. The RGBriefcase was the project that had the most people touching it, David Hayward built the physical bits of it, "Joon":http://joon.be/ prototyped the first levels, I coded those first levels and wired the case, "George":http://nottheinternet.com/ coded a two more levels, and came up with the idea for the final puzzle. The two interesting bits were making a puzzle game, which I have never done before, and making an audio only, screenless game which is something that I am surprised I have never done before. I learned a bunch about doing audio on arduino as well, which has got me kicking around a few future ideas (anyone want a box that only chops up amen breaks? I want to make it). The GTA HI FIVE was also pretty great, but gripped by problems from the start. Me and Joon made this one, and restarted it about 7 times, the final restart was at 7 in the morning the day the arcade opened at 10. Unfortunately all this starting and restarting meant that some things were lost along the way, and we weren't able to polish this one perfectly. I am not sure exactly what the take away lessons from this are other than never use complicated physics when simple physics will do. Overall, the experience has got me thinking more about the context in which to place my games, and how to do the initial publicity, and the value of actually interacting with game players in person. Talking with "Simon of One Life Remains":http://www.oneliferemains.com/ in particular had me thinking more about how I want our games to exist in the world, and how to get there. Finally, I am going to be building an arcade box to play the games for the "upcoming Chain Jam":http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/chainjam/. If you want to make a four player game, and have it played on a cool arcade machine somewhere in Scotland, then just make something. If you are in Scotland, and just want to hang out and make games for this jam, that would be amazing as well! I think I will be opening the Lucky Frame office that weekend so that people can come by, hang out, and make games.

!https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43672/blog_static/software/2013_games_ikon_colonize.png(wave trip)! MIKRO LOMA / #7DRTS / 3 COLONISTS PER SHIP // DESTROY THE CORE AND BE THE LEADER TO OWN THE DROP SHIP. "Play on Kongregate":http://www.kongregate.com/games/jonbro/ikon-colonize