"Just posted a new version of the game on kongregate":http://www.kongregate.com/games/jonbro/ikon-colonize with a few fixes. My desire to make a dotalike for this competition rose out of the fact that I really enjoy dota but am unable to get my coworkers to play it with me. I wanted to make something that is similar to dota that matches the sort of games that we play and enjoy at the office, in the hope that would get them interested in the real thing. I was also interested in exploring what makes dota fun for me, and if I can find that fun thing in a week. "I have written previously about what I liked about dota":http://jonbro.tk/blog/2013/03/03/DOTA2.html, and strangely enough, I don't think I included much of those things in the game that I made this week. What I did manage to include was a somewhat grindy game that tips over into an endstate with a surprising speed, and has some of the micro work that goes into a dota match. There isn't as much teamwork in this game, because it turns out that organizing alliances is something that doesn't just happen in a quick match. I suspect that alliances are a thing that can happen when you actually have time to think out the whole issue. This is also the second multiplayer game that I have made in a row, and I think I am starting to close in on what would make a successful one. The first game we just finished is local only, but only requires two players to play. I solved the local only with this one, but added a new wrinkle, which is that you need exactly 3 players. It is a bit frustrating that social pressures force you towards certain types of games, but I suppose I could work on making this something that would support 2-x number of players. Potentially by adding teams, or by having more players at once. The other direction that I could build this game in is to add more abilities for each player. Making the dash a triggerable state with a cooldown made it feel a ton more like dota, and I think that adding a set of ultimates for each player would add a really nice last ditch phase to the game where everyone is triggering ultimates, or saving them to exactly the right time. I am not sure if adding the tech tree / store system to this game would be a good idea or not, but having different builds for the players is something that would be interesting. Basically adding complexity to create depth. I hope you manage to find two other players and get a game of it in.

I just made this small game for "one game a month":http://onegameamonth.com called laser lock. It was mostly made on trains, but had a little bit of actual office coding stuck in there for good measure. Partially inspired by "this blog post by smestorp":http://mightyvision.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/overlapping-input-competitive.html, I decided to expand on the one mechanic that is a shared control input thing in "our new big game":http://luckyframe.co.uk/gentlemen that we are working on at lucky frame. The first thing I did was think "what is the most simplest form to express this idea in", and promptly forgot what was cool about the idea. No matter, I pressed on, and came up with this laser reflecting action game for two players. While there were some interesting things that came out of making this, in the end, it was more the aesthetic and sound that was interesting. I would like to revisit the original idea, which was more about just pressing buttons at the correct time, where half the time the button is correct for you and half the time it is correct for the other player. The issue I think this game illustrates is that even the smallest amount of complexity and distance from a clear solution to a problem can quickly multiply and become impossible to manage. Here is the "android apk download for laser lock":https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43672/blog_static/software/laserLock.apk. Only tested on nexus 7, but should work on most recent android tablets.

Single screen local multiplayer game. Released on (nearly) every platform. Marks Lucky Frame’s official switch to Unity.

More information and purchase links

I feel like writing a blog post about my experience at GDC this year is necessary to my recovery from it, something so that I can continue to get work done and restart all of my hanging projects. The speed at which GDC proceeds has left me with mostly glimpses, so that is what I am going to relay here. An exhaustive minute to minute experience probably wouldn't be that useful anyways. Before GDC even started proper I heard a rape joke. It wasn't even a joke, just someone using rape as an adjective in a way that was intended to get a shock laugh (I think this is a common rape joke structure). I learned later that this was someone whose work I had been pretty into, which is a bit frustrating. This wasn't the only instance of this kind of thing happening at the conference, just the first one that I heard. I didn't call him out on this, maybe I should have, but I let it slide. This thing was counterbalanced by all the bits of the conference that seemed focused on making stuff better for marginalized people and non commercial interests. Yann pointed out the difficulty with holding both the 5 story posters for battlefield 4 and the talk about "free indie games":http://www.freeindiegam.es in your mind at once. Like GDC was using all of the indie game stuff to validate all of the other more commercial / problematic work that was going on. "Lost Levels":http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/04/05/gdc-lost-levels/ was one of the amazing bits on the non-commercial end of the scale, it provided a great section of passionate people talking about issues that couldn't necessarily exist within the main structure of GDC. I was totally impressed by the organizers of that thing, along with all the speaker that I managed to see. I was sliding into a low blood sugar haze during the event, but what I was present for was really amazing and I appreciated it. I am looking forward to more of this type of thing if I end up going to GDC again. It felt like a really important thing that should be part of every corporate focused gaming event. The lack of a projector was also brilliant, and forced people to rely on words, which was something that could get lost during the more visually focused main conference. The few talks that I made it to were also pretty great, the aforementioned free indie games talk, and the rants session and parts of the experimental gameplay workshop. The rants session in particular, and Anna Anthropy's reading / remix of "Romero's Wives":http://nightmaremode.net/2012/11/romeros-wives-23746/ was completely amazing. It summed up so much that is wrong with the culture that surrounds making games, and was completely crushing in person. We were lucky enough to have a ton of people with us and helping this time, particularly Yann and Kristina that did the thankless work of running the booth while I sat around on the lawn. I should also mention that the most important part was as it always is, meeting new people and catching up with old friends. I don't want to leave anyone out though, so I am just going to leave everyone out. The game of the week was by far an unreleased two player competitive game by "Harry Lee":http://harry-lee.com/. Hopefully he will post it in some playable form at some point. It reminded me that simple could be amazing, and that there is room for academic thoughts about psychology and bluffing within high speed games. Also "my sister made her first video game that week":http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/jonbro/3220524, in a competition with "Sos":http://sos.gd/ over who could make the most terrible game.

I just completed the third chunk of One Game a Month, more or less. This one is "a game called T@XY":https://t.co/7bZdbHucOT, and it was done as part of the 7 day rogue like challenge. I have not put either this game or "the one that I did for the last game a month":https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43672/asmallrogue/asmallrogue.html on my website, or anywhere other than the wilds of twitter, due to the fact that I am not that proud of them. They have both been little games that while they had the core loop in them, didn't seem to rise to the level of being interesting. I fear that my larger game projects are making me forget how to accomplish jam games, and also making my expectations for my own games rise past the point where I can accomplish them as an individual (due to the fact that I am working with a team every day). I think I am also losing sight of why to do jam games, which is to explore and prototype. If 1 in 5 jam games is alright, that is probably an ok record. While I was working on this one, I was also felt like I should have been working on this larger project, one which is on its "3rd iteration without a public release":http://jonbro.tk/blog/2009/08/07/visionary_artists_festival.html. I think this time through I might actually have the drive to finish it though. One of the issues is that the core of that project is so big, it is hard to hold it all in your mind at once. I currently have about a third of the core in on this current iteration, but I am hoping to be able to focus my free time on it after getting back from GDC, and maybe get a playable / usable version of it out for the next GAM. "Martin vs Monty": probably will take us into the 5th month unfortunatly, but that one is also coming along nicely, it is to the point where I don't feel at all bad showing it to people. Simulateously to all that, I am continuing to do Fun a Day for the entire year. I have yet to print the zine for month two, but I am putting up the "photos from month three on the web as I go along":http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonbro/sets/72157632921463712/with/8558512554/. Going to the states while attempting to continue making lego scupts is going to be interesting, and difficult I imagine. I don't yet know what I am going to do in month 4 for that, but I am leaning towards something that I can actually accomplish on the train this time around.