City Block 1.1 and Holiday Sale!

City Block 1.1 has just been released! All existing purchasers on Indievania will be able to download the update for free. If you haven't bought the game, then go buy it now! At least download the demo.

Anyway here's what's changed in City Block 1.1:

• Added the ability to take out a loan. Right click on the door of a Bank to manage your loans.
• Added a new building: Schools.
• Added a new citizen type: Kids.
• Added a news ticker on the main menu screen that displays all the latest information straight from me.
• Fixed several bugs.
• Polished up the game a little.

Also, to celebrate the holidays, City Block and Invasion Breaker are now on sale! You can get City Block for just $1.99, while Invasion Breaker will run you only $0.49! Get 'em while they're cheap!

Regarding IndieCity, I submitted City Block to their approval process a while back. They require two testers to approve the game, in the event of one approval and one disapproval, a third tester is needed to break the tie. This is exactly what happened with City Block, with one tester failing the game, and another passing it. I haven't heard anything from them since November 30th; the third tester is nowhere to be found.

City Block Trailer

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Invasion Breaker Trailer

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Building Recognition In City Block

One of the first challenges early in the development of City Block was making the game recognize when the player had constructed a building, as opposed to just a random pile of blocks. I wanted to make the building detector a flexible as possible; I didn't want to force the player to use a specific blueprint for their buildings. In order to achieve this, I opted to make the door of any given building its base. Each building has only one door, and the door stores data about the building, including the number of people in the building and what social class they are. It also handles all spawning and despawning for that building. For example, in a police station, the door will keep track of the number of officers and prisoners in the station. It will also detect if their are any criminals on the loose. If there are, and the building contains enough officers, the door will spawn an officer and subtract one from its count of officers. When the officer returns, the door will destroy that instance of the officer and add one to its count.

But doors do not make a building, you'll also need walls. The walls of a police station are concrete. A building's door must be completely surrounded by that building's wall material in order to register.

For some buildings, such as houses, a door surrounded by walls is enough. For others, however, you'll need some additional blocks. The police station, for example, requires at least one antenna in the structure.

Add any other required blocks, and now you've got a building! It'll likely be a small building, though. However, any blocks connected to the building's door are considered part of that building. Expand the building by adding more of its wall material in any direction.  For example, both of these are valid expansions:

This building recognition system does allow for some odd structures, such as the two above, but player freedom was a major consideration while developing City Block. I wanted to allow the player to build their city any way they wished, and this building recognition system satisfied that demand. I am quite happy with how it turned out. Those of you who have the game, hopefully this sheds some light on its inner workings. And those of you who don't, what are you waiting for?! Get it now!

City Block - Super Mega Awesome Surprise Early Release

Well, City Block was released a few days ago, and even I did not know about it. Indievania, one of the distribution sites I use, mistakenly released the game three weeks early. The other site I'm releasing City Block on, IndieCity, has not yet released it. I have decided to embrace this early release, and will not be removing the game until its intended release date. Go get it now on Indievania, and it's coming soon to IndieCity!

City Block Release Date!

I have decided that my new game, City Block, will be released for Windows on December 12, 2012, at a price of $4.99! It will be released on two different indie game distribution websites, Indievania, which I have used before for Invasion Breaker, and IndieCity. The IndieCity version of City Block will be integrated with IndieCity's achievements API, and achievements you earn in the game will appear on your IndieCity profile. As Indievania has no online achievements API, copies of the game purchased via Indievania will be limited to local achievements. The game will not support Windows XP initially (for a detailed reason why, see here), but will likely gain Windows XP support within a few weeks. I have greatly enjoyed working on this game for the past eight months, and I hope you'll enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it!

City Block Progress Update

Back in May, I announced City Block, my latest major project. However, I have not released that much information about it since then, so here's a progress update:

First of all, I have almost completed the game. I sent out the first release candidate to a few friends who have agreed to beta test the game last week, and I hope to have the second release candidate out by the end of this week. I was able to finish the game this quickly thanks to my decision to develop it in Game Maker Studio, a rapid development tool that handles most of the back end stuff, such as graphics rendering and keyboard/mouse input, automatically. It is an incredibly full featured and easy to use game engine. I highly recommend it. That said, it does have a few problems. Some of the graphics functions cause games created with it to crash on Windows XP. Unfortunately, City Block uses some of these functions, and there is nothing I can do to fix Game Maker Studio. I have to wait until YoYo Games, the developer behind Game Maker Studio, fixes these issues. Therefore, City Block will be launching without support for Windows XP. If the issues with Game Maker Studio are ever fixed, then I will release an updated build of City Block that adds Windows XP support. Until then, City Block will not run on Windows XP.

Despite the Windows XP issue, I still plan to launch City Block soon, hopefully by the end of this month. The game is nearly feature complete. I have one or two more things to add and a bit of polishing to do, then Release Candidate 2 is off to the beta testers. I'll fix the problems they find, if any, and then it's time for release. Until then, here's the trailer:

City Block trailer and Invasion Breaker price reduction

I have released the official trailer for my new game, City Block! I expect to have City Block out within a few months. Have a look:

In other news, Invasion Breaker's price has permanently been reduced to $0.99! Buy it now!

City Block web page is live

The web page for my new game, City Block, has gone online. You can visit it here. I am making progress on the game, and I hope to release it later this year, probably within the next month or two.

Two of my games are now playable on the web!

I have uploaded two of my older games, Deflect and Simple Space Shooter, to the web so they can be played in any HTML5 capable browser. Visit my games page to play them!

Deflect:

Simple Space Shooter:

About the lack of posts...

Sorry for the lack of posts on this blog. I've been busy working on my next game, City Block. I do tweet about the development of City Block quite a bit, though, so visit my Twitter profile to keep track of my progress.

Minor 8-Bit Agent Update

8-Bit Agent has been updated to the latest version of the GMechanism API. Download 8-Bit Agent now!

Hundreds of Indie Games, including Invasion Breaker, are on sale until June 1st

Because We May is a massive sale event where hundreds of indie games are on sale until June 1st! Invasion Breaker is one of them, so get it half off until June 1st! What are you waiting for, buy it now!

A game made in two hours!

Well, I just finished up my entry for Klik of the Month Klub #59, a monthly event where participants must make a game in two hours or less. My entry is Simple Space Shooter, a frantic dual stick shooter where the goal is to kill all enemies and get the highest possible score. Check it out now!

I did attempt to record a screencast of the game being made, but my screen recorder spazzed out and ruined the footage. I guess it wasn't designed to run for two hours at a time.

Introducing City Block

Shortly after Invasion Breaker launched, I began work on my next project. This game, titled City Block, is a 2D block building/city management game, where you must build everything your city needs to be prosperous. No release date has been determined, but I'm expecting a development cycle of at least four more months, probably longer. City Block is being developed in Game Maker: HTML5, but I will probably upgrade to Game Maker: Studio when it comes out. City Block will be available on Windows, with other platforms under consideration. Here are some early screenshots:

Invasion Breaker on TI Graphing Calculators!

During the development of Invasion Breaker, one of my friends suggested to me that I release the game on Texas Instruments graphing calculators, which everyone in my school has. I initially ignored this idea, because I wanted to focus on the PC/Mac versions of the game, but, after it launched, I though about this idea a bit more, and decided to try it. I've spend the last two days learning TI-BASIC, and during that time, I have managed to make a functional prototype of Invasion Breaker with it. The variant of TI-BASIC that I'm using runs on TI-83 and TI-84 series calculators. When it's done (probably in a few days), the calculator version of Invasion Breaker will be free to all purchasers of the PC/Mac versions.

Have a look at the prototype:

EDIT (6/24/2012): This project is pretty much cancelled. I lost the motivation to finish it. Maybe it'll see a release someday.

8- Bit Agent: Bugfixes

Before moving on to another project, I've decided to fix some bugs in my freeware game 8-Bit Agent. Download the update now.

Invasion Breaker is out!

My new game, Invasion Breaker, is out on Indievania! It is on sale for $0.99 until Tuesday, when it will go to its normal price of $1.99. So what are you waiting for, buy it now!

Invasion Breaker Launch Issue

My new game Invasion Breaker was supposed to launch today on Indievania, but it seems that the Indievania moderators have not yet approved it. I have not received any word from them on this, so my guess is that they just haven't gotten around to it yet, so I'll keep an eye on my account to see what's going on. Until then, here's the trailer:

Invasion Breaker Webpage and Release Date!

The Invasion Breaker webpage is live, and the game will be released on April 5, 2012 for $1.99 on Indievania!

Invasion Breaker - Official Trailer!

Here is the official trailer for my next game, Invasion Breaker, due for release sometime in April!

Invasion Breaker - Official Announcement!

I first teased this project a while ago, but now it's time for the official reveal of Invasion Breaker, an arcade style game featuring retro graphics and frantic gameplay! This will be my first commercial project, primarily to test the waters of commercial game sale. I am not yet entirely sure of the business model, however, but the game will be fairly inexpensive (likely somewhere in the $1-$5 range). It will be releasing for Windows and Mac OS X sometime in April or May. Have a look at some screenshots below:

DONKEY.BAS - iOS Review

The world's first PC game is now on iOS, but does it hold up today?

Gameplay: The "Time Waster" type of game is very popular on mobile devices today, and DONKEY.BAS falls squarely into that category. The goal of the game is to avoid smashing your car into a donkey for as long as possible. You have two lanes to switch between, and the donkey will appear in one of them every few seconds. If you hit the donkey, you lose a life. Once you lose all five lives, the game is over. Your car will move closer to the top of the screen every time you miss the donkey, and when you get to the top, you score a point and move back to the bottom of the screen. The more points you have, the faster the game goes. It is a "get a high score" kind of game, and it does feature Game Center leaderboards to compare your high score with that of other players. The gameplay can get frustrating at times, but overall, it's decent.

Controls: All you do in DONKEY.BAS is switch the lane that your car is in. This is done by tapping the screen. It's clean, it's simple, and it works.

Graphics: About as retro as retro gets, DONKEY.BAS features a three color palette complete with big, blocky pixels forming one color sprites. It's somewhere between a Coleco Telstar Arcade and an Atari 2600 in terms of graphical technology. It's not great by any stretch, but it gets the job done.

Sounds: DONKEY.BAS had a pounding orchestral score, but only if you're playing one through your iPhone's Music app. Otherwise, the only in-game sounds are simple beeps every time you switch lanes, and a short series of beeps that plays when you lose. It's primitive, just like the graphics, but hey, this game is from 1981, after all.

Conclusion: DONKEY.BAS is an OK game if you're sitting in a waiting room or on a bus trying to pass some time. It's also a must have for anyone into retro gaming. There are better games for $0.99, but I still recommend giving this one a try.

Final Rating: 7.0/10

Info
Publisher: Microsoft (MS-DOS), XVision (iOS)
Developer: Bill Gates & Neil Konzen (MS-DOS), XVision (iOS)
Release Date: 1981 (MS-DOS), 2012 (iOS)
Platforms: iOS (reviewed), MS-DOS
Price (as of 3/3/2012): $0.99

I've joined the SOPA Blackout

I have just added my website to the SOPA Blackout. Stop SOPA at http://sopablackout.org/!

Flower Warfare - iOS Review

The hit YouTube video gets a video game adaptation. Does the psychedelic awesomeness carry over?

Gameplay: Flower Warfare is an "Endless Runner" type game. You’re constantly running to the right trying to go as far as possible, while having to avoid hazards such as enemies and bottomless pits. The gameplay is simple, but addictive, much like many good iOS games. It’s nothing amazing, and nothing that hasn’t been done before, but that doesn’t stop it from being a fun time waster. Going back to try and increase your score or distance is fun, and the Game Center leaderboards and achievements make it even more worthwhile.

Controls: Tap the left side of the screen to shoot, tap the right side to jump. Tapping the top of the screen, where the HUD is located, will pause the game. This system works fine, but I would prefer to have the jump and shoot controls switched. The game should have an option to switch them.

Graphics: From a purely technical perspective, the graphics in this game look decent, but are unimpressive. The models are low poly, the textures get blocky at times, the environments are small, and many of the objects are 2D billboards rather than true 3D models. It does run at a fairly fluid framerate on a 4th generation iPod touch, but has some stuttering and aliasing issues on a 3rd generation model. However, from a stylistic perspective, the graphics are excellent. The game goes with an ultra stylized, cartoony take, spoofing hippies frequently, much like the video. It switches environments every so often, and each looks completely different. Overall, good graphics.

Sounds: Both the in game and menu music are decent, but forgettable. However, the game will disable them if you play your own music instead, which is what I recommend. The sound effects are nothing special, but are good nonetheless. They fit with the game’s cartoony visual style quite well. The game also features voice clips from the video, and they fit in well with the action as well.

Conclusion: Turing an over the top, action-comedy YouTube video into an iPhone game can’t possibly be easy, so the developer opted to keep only the characters and basic scenario from the video. The gameplay and settings barely resemble anything seen in the video. This seems to be the best option, and the result is a game that wouldn’t stand out from the crowd without the YouTube video’s name on it, but it’s a fun and addictive time waster nevertheless. Overall, a pretty good game, but nothing special.

Final Rating: 7.5/10

Info
Publisher: Thruster
Developer: Thruster
Release Date: December 21, 2011
Platform: iOS
Price (as of 1/3/2012): $0.99